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Ropita para unos simpaticos amigos

En estos días de vacaciones he terminado una ropita en patchwork . LLevaba bastante tiempo detrás de conseguir un rato y cortar y coser los bloques de log cabin.
El resultado es un chaleco reversible y un vestidito , ambos con su puntilla para que queden más animados.


Aquí véis cómo quedó por detrás. El diseño, patrón y composición son originales míos. No están copiados de ningún sitio.


....Y por fin estos dos amiguitos , osito y conejita que harán compañía a mi amiga invisible... que ya los tiene en sus manos y sé lo mucho que le han gustado.¡ GRACIAS DE NUEVO POR TU AMISTAD !

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Como renovar una mesa sin morir en el intento


Hace varios años que tengo una mesa metálica, típica de oficina , que por su dimensiones me venía genial como mesa de trabajo y que , además, se ajustaba al sitio que tenía de mi habitación de costura. La dichosa mesa es fea ,pero fea fea, no va ni a tiros con el aire de la habitación y le tenía el ojo echado hacía tiempo para darle un cambio.
El verano es el mejor momento para estas cosas ... y que yo recuerde en todos he hecho siempre algo de restauración o cambio de look.
Me pareció interesante mostraros cómo fue cambiando ,por si alguna se anima a hacer algo parecido.

Primero pinté con rodillo todo el exterior . La pintura escogida es de Bruger , y que sirve para hierro y madera , en el color Carrara. Apenas huele y se limpia con agua . Seca rápidamente.
Tenía que haberle dado una imprimación primero en blanco . Eso me hubiera evitado tener que darle más manos para tapar el color original .
Luego corté a medida guata de algodón , de la de patchwork, para que diera algo de cuerpo pero sin que quedase muy abultado. Con cinta de doble cara ancha, coloqué tiras el en borde y también en el centro, para que la guata quedase sujeta. Extendí de un extremo a otro, apretando a la vez para que la guata quedara sujeta.




A continuación algo de papel de scrap , pintura acrílica y unos sellos en silicona para estampar.
Estos clear stamps son de Fancy Pants y vienen un montón en una hoja de 30 cmx 30cm. Es conveniente tener el bloque de metacrilato que hace juego . La pintura es de Making Memories en color burdeos.

¿ ......Qué ya quieres ver el resultado?
Aquí te presento mi mesa, con cierto aire shabby chic .
Corté tela de patch en crudo con unas florecitas ( a una señorita le tiene que sonar esta telita ) . Luego cosí a máquina unos bolitas de pasamanería en los extremos
Lo dejé tipo tapete para quitarlo cuando quisiese y poder lavarlo, en vez de dejar toda la tela fija.
En los tiradores de los cajones pegué botones con cinta de doble cara y los papeles que hay sobre ellos están recortados con tijeras de picos para hacer el efecto de tela. También pegados con cinta de doble cara.
Luego, la plancha de corte encima .
¡¡¡¡ ME ENCANTA!!!



Unos detalles.....







¡Ah! ¿ Que ahora quereis ver los cajones y lo que hay dentro ?........













.......¡¡¡¡TACHAN!!!....


Pintados por dentro en la misma pintura . El superior para las cosas menudas dentro de una cestita de mimbre. Debajo mis telas " estrella", separadas en dos bolsas que hice a juego con el tapete de la base de la mesa. En una las telas sin adorno, y en la otra más estrecha las que tienen bordados y lentejuelas. ¡GRACIAS MAMÁ por estas preciosidades ! Son pefectas para crazy patchwork, bolsos o para aplicar en lo último que estoy haciendo . Una pista, mira mi album de flickr.

Este tipo de mesa lleva un armazón en hierro para colocar las carpetas colgantes. ...... A esto tenía que sacarle provecho. Por eso colgué de aquí las bolsas con cintas hechas de la misma tela y anudadas. Como el frontal de la más estrecha no tiene dónde sujetar las cintas, coloqué de nuevo cinta de doble cara ancha para sujetar la tela a la cara interior del cajón.


Las costuras las hice de tal manera que puedera hacerlas las bolsas reversbles. Quedaba feo que al abrir el cajón se vieran los bordes de las costuras en el interior , aunque le hubiese pasado un zig zag a la máquina.

En fin , que estoy super contenta de este cambio. Todo es proponérselo . Un poco de imaginación y harás que las cosas que te rodean te hagan más feliz. Así de sencillo. No le des tantas vueltas y ponte a ello ¡ PORQUE TÚ TAMBIÉN PUEDES !
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Bon Voyage!

Hope you all have a great holiday weekend no matter where you are going or how you get there!

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Slim Aarons' Wonderful Life

I'm sure most everyone has seen the Slim Aarons photo of CZ Guest pictured above but how many of you know the story about the man behind the camera. I posted this photo about a month ago along with a recent photo from H&G that reminded me of the Slim Aarons photo and wondered if the photographer has meant it to look like an Aaron's photo or if it was just a coincidence.

Well, shortly after I ran that post, I got a comment from none other than Slim Aarons' daughter, Mary Aarons! How amazing! She mentioned that magazines like to refer it it as "paying homage". Aren't they nice? I asked Mary to email me and not only did she email me but she invited me to the upcoming retrospective in New York being organized by Hearst Magazines and Getty Images. She also agreed to a little interview!

All the biography and background information about your father starts with him joining the army at 18 (my dad was born in 1916 and enlisted in 1939. I have his honorable discharge paperwork...and after looking at it recently realized that the dates mean he was 23 (not 18) when he enlisted.) and becoming the official photographer for the US Military Academy at West Point and then a combat photographer. None of this could have happened overnight but yet no story has told how he learned to take photographs. I feel like at that time, photography wasn't as easy to learn or as inexpensive as it is today with digital cameras. I'm curious if you know the rest of the story and how he learned photography.
My father did not enjoy talking about his early years. He considered the army to be his education and after a pretty sad childhood it was the beginning of the good years for him! Only recently I've learned from an elderly relative that when he was a young boy living in the NYC area he used to go to Broadway and wait outside stage doors to take pix of actors and actresses. He would apparently send them the pix and ask for autographs which they'd send back. I'm not sure if this is totally true...but it's family lore. I know his first camera was a "Brownie"...sort of the precursor to the "Kodak Instamatic". I will send you the link to an interview that explains a bit more. I do know that while serving in the Army's press corps he had the opportunity to meet and work with many of the men and women who would go on to become famous photographers and journalists. His years in the Army were his education in photography and his entree to a world beyond NY and New England.


Do you know if any of his war photos have survived or are ever exhibited? I always thought they'd make a wonderful book to benefit Veterans.
Yank Magazine archives and other military archives. Many of them have appeared in various books about the War. Check out the Life Magazine dated 9/21/42 if you'd like to see a very funny article in which my Dad was used as the "model" in a story regarding American servicemen in Britain!


I know he was asked to cover the Korean war and declined. That's news to me! I don't blame him. Then he and his friend Bill Mauldin drove out to Hollywood where he started photographing celebrities. The Kings of Hollywood photo of Clark Gable, Van Helfin, Gary Cooper, and James Stewart taken at Romanoff's in Beverly Hills on New Year's Eve 1957 is probably one of his most famous photos and is said to be the one that really put him on the map. It's so appropriate that it's on the invitation to the retrospective. I've heard that perhaps the men were enjoying a joke at your father's expense. Did he ever explain what they were laughing about or how he came to take that photo?
My Dad had a bit part in a movie starring Sophia Loren and Clark Gable called It Started in Naples which IMDB says was released in 1960. It must have been shot a few years prior. My dad and Clark Gable were in a scene together at the very very end of the movie. My dad's role was one notch up from "extra" and he plays a loud mouthed American. He was telling the "Kings" of Hollywood the story about the many many "takes" that were necessary. And in fact they ended up dubbing my dad's voice! What a great story!

I think the best story is how he was asked by Leland Hayward to take photos of apartment buildings in which he thought a writer for Life magazine might live. He took a few shots downtown, midtown and uptown in wide angle, normal and telephoto. He said you could see into one of the apartments that just happened to have been his in the telephoto shot and Alfred Hitchcock liked them and decided to change the character Jimmy Stewart plays in Rear Window from a writer to a photojournalist and based the set on your father's apartment. Do you ever watch the movie and get a kick out that?
The Leland Hayward part is news to me, although I know he was a friend/colleague. I've seen the movie many times (I love Hitchcock!) and indeed the furniture/layout in Jimmy Stewart's apt is very much like the furniture in my parents' early apt (I have some pix.) How fabulous! There is also a video on the web that was taken of Slim Aarons after Getty aquired the rights to his photos discussing this story.

Your father shot for Life, Town and Country and Holiday and Travel & Leisure and Venture and a few stories for other magazines here and there, and seemed to travel the globe quite a lot. Did you and your mother ever travel with him? Did you ever get to meet the beautiful people and celebrities he documented?
We both traveled with him a lot...my mom before I was born...the both of us with him a few times, and me several times while in boarding school and college. My mom met lots of exciting people including Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Bette Davis, Henry Fonda and the list goes on. She has some fun stories (putting sunscreen or after tan lotion on Henry Fonda, a holiday dinner with Bette Davis, the offer of a car to borrow from Marilyn Monroe etc.) I was given a bottle of perfume by Roman Polanski and Robert Evans while in Rome when I was a young teen on a story with my dad. I helped the Princess of Lichtenstein (sp?) pick out a dress to wear for a shoot (when my dad rejected her first choice), I met Richard Nixon at Le Cirque one Christmas-time lunch when he came by to say hello to my Dad who he had met years prior. Joan Fontaine recommended Elizabeth Arden skincare lotions and potions to me when we ran into her (a former girlfriend of my father's) in Vienna while we were there working on a story the weekend of my 21st birthday. I spent one summer doing captions for him in Greece while doing a story on shipping magnates (lots of tough tough names to spell!)...and more!

The most striking thing about your father's photographs is that they are relaxed and informal. There was no stylist or makeup artist. He prided himself in that! It would infuriate him if someone went to the hairdresser in anticipation of being shot. He wanted natural, unfussy, unposed etc. --and in homes...casual clothes...not formal ones (back to the princess in Lichtenstein mentioned above!) He only (not true) used the natural light (he used cameras with flash/strobes sometimes but not elaborate lighting...I'm not up on my precise camera/lighting terms but he used simple handheld equipment as necessary.) and shot his subjects in their own environments, not a studio or in front of a set. True. I swear everyone in his photos looks more beautiful than models and celebrities shot today and airbrushed to death. Do you ever notice that too? Do you think he ever noticed it? Certainly! Certainly! Photographers and art directors working today often pay "homage" to his work through "imitation" as you've noted! As a child he used to take me to museums to look at the work of the masters...i.e. Mona Lisa etc. "It's all in the eyes", he would say. He learned about lighting, poses , expression, settings etc. from these great paintings.

I'm sure so many people are thankful that the association with Getty Images has resulted to the release of Once Upon a Time in 2003 and A Place in the Sun in 2005 and now Poolside with Slim Aarons due out in November 2007. Do you know if there will be more books down the line?
There likely will be but I don't know any details.

What do you think about A Wonderful Life becoming such a collector's item and selling for thousands of dollars? Was your father aware it was selling for so much?
He loved to have people update him on the going price at Amazon/Alibris etc. He was extremely flattered and amazed!!! He had a few friends with books and he loved to compare "selling prices" with them!

I know this upcoming retrospective must be somewhat bittersweet for you since your father is not here to celebrate with you but it must give you some comfort to know that he really did live a long and wonderful life.
My dad lived a wonderful life and in fact those were his final words to us a few days before he died. About six months before he died Smithsonian magazine did a story on him and he was amazed...to him that meant he'd become an American legend and he was so proud and excited by that. He was very humble and not boastful but for a young "Huck Finn" type kid he knew he'd done pretty darn well! My family and I are looking forward to the retrospective. There are so many pictures no one's seen for years and years and years...and it will be great seeing them again! The folks at Hearst have worked really hard digging into the archives so that the show will feature lots of these seldom seen pix.

I want to thank Mary Aarons for taking the time to give us the real story behind some of her father's most famous photographs and clearing up a few of the inaccuracies. It's such a treat to hear her wonderful stories and get a glimpse of the man behind the wonderful photographs who really did lead a wonderful life!
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Habitually Chic Hotel: JK Place

I have travel on the brain this week. I think it's because I wish I was going somewhere exotic for Labor Day weekend instead of Pennsylvania, which is where I am actually going. I was also originally going to tell you about another hotel in Florence but it's small and actually very reasonably priced and I don't want it too be all booked up before I make a reservation so I'll tell you about that one some other time. Right now, I am going to sing the interior design praises of the JK Place Hotel in Piazza Santa Maria Novella, in the heart of Florence that is a quiet refuge in the middle of a tourist storm. Isn't it beautiful? But then again, what's not beautiful in Florence.

I love their website where they describe themselves as "Exquisitely masculine, British hints, rarefied décor, an understated display, calm and luxurious. There are only 20 rooms. It is immediately clear that this place could never be ordinary, as the sounds of the city fade away and a slower, more thoughtful rhythm prevails."

Ahhh...Firenze...don't you just wish you were there right now? Sigh.


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Interesante , interesante

De nuevo , cual rana Gustavo de Barrio Sésamo, os cuento las últimas cosas interesantes que he ido encontrando en la red .
Primero , quería hablaros justo de un blog que Heather en Illinois , ha creado para tenernos al tanto de las noticias de labores .Independent Needlework News.
Por cierto, mira por donde aquí me he enterado de por qué no me llega mi suscripción de Bibs&Bobs de los hilos de Needle Necessities.
Siguiendo con las labores , un par de enlaces, Pink Chalk Studio donde Nancy Mack os dará , de forma gratuíta en uno de sus tutoriales, intrucciones para hacer esta bolsa portabotella , que nos vendrá tan bien para los calores que aún quedan del verano.

SouleMama me parece una alegre y divertida manera de enfocar los trabajos de labores , incluso con nuestros niños. Amanda Soule, una joven mamá de tres criaturas , ha escrito el libro The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connectionscomo recurso para disfrutar de esos momentos que estamos con nuestros chiquillos , de una manera divertida y creativa.Aunque estará a la venta en la primavera del año que viene.
No dejes de echar un vistazo al resto de su sitio.


Nos vamos de compras en la web Fabrics and frills. Aquí nos ofrecen los tintes Ozecraft australianos utilizados para tintar , con cierto aire antiguo y elegante, puntillas y aplicaciones que incluso ellos mismos venden ya tintados o en blanco para tintar.


Trims & Embellishmentsparece el sito ideal para comprar todos aquellos adornos para hacer bolsos con aire vintage o decorar nuestro crazy patchwork.Tienen incluso un club mensual ( Trim and Treasure Club ) para recibir en casa cada mes, mediante una suscripción , un paquete variado de cintas,puntillas de organdí ...Este será el envio para septiembre y encontrarás más información en sus novedades


En ninguna de las dos tiendas he hecho compra, no puedo orientaros , pero la verdad es que me tientan bastante.

Como ya sabéis que me gusta tener cada cosa en su sitio, nada como disfrutar en dos albunes de flickr, uno dedicado a habitaciones de manualidades y labores llamado Craft Rooms y otro para tener las cosas en su sitio. La verdad es que flickr ha ido ganando puntos en cuanto a albunes de grupos se refiere. Siempre hay alguien que quiere compartir una foto y tiene un lugar para colgarla. Además como recurso para buscar fotos de algo que te interesa también es muy válido.

Por último quería dejaros este blog de Kim - ScrapToMyLu. Creative Blogs recoge ideas creativas de otros blogs. Desde decoración, pasando por patchwork, manualidades, costura , scrapbooking...... ¡ qué bien tener un sitio así ! , sobre todo por ser la creatividad un herramienta que llevo siempre a cuestas .
Ya tenenis para pasar otro ratito.
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To the Manor Born

I've wanted to travel to Kenya ever since I first saw the movie Out of Africa so I've been saving magazine articles and tear sheets for a very long time. Most relate to safaris and fabulous 5 star accommodations since staying in a tent is not my idea of a vacation but a very special hotel in Nairobi has been catching my eye lately.

Giraffe Manor was built in 1932 by a Scottish lord and was modeled on a Scottish hunting lodge. In 1974, the grandson of a Scots Earl, Jock Leslie Melville and his American wife Betty bought the Manor as their home and soon after moved two highly endangered Rothschild giraffe onto the estate where their future generations have thrived and live today.

"Jock and Betty founded the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW). The Giraffe Centre (AFEW Kenya) was built on the property so that Kenyan school children could learn conservation/ecology and feed giraffe eyeball to eyeball! Visitors touring Nairobi have a chance to visit and pay an entrance to the Giraffe Centre. Profits go to various projects in Kenya. Betty's son Rick has led AFEW USA and AFEW Kenya since 1983."

When Jock died in 1984, Betty returned to the USA and opened her house, now called The Giraffe Manor, to visitors where it is run by Rick and his wife Bryony.

Isn't this the most fabulous place ever?! Ok, I'll admit it's slightly scary to have giraffes poking their heads into the window even if they are cute, just take a look at some of the other photos on their website, but I love any place that has a mission and a purpose. Plus, it's actually not that expensive! But that only matters if you can actually secure a reservation. Apparently, Giraffe Manor is as popular with the tourists as it is with the giraffes!


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J'adore J.Crew!

I was in love with the J.Crew catalog last month because it was shot in my old neighborhood of Beacon Hill in Boston but this time they are Paris. Now I'm really impressed! Tres chic J.Crew!
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