suBringas Designs

The Sketchbook Project 2011

2010-08-15T23:37:00.003-10:00

I've been wanting to join The Sketchbook Project put on by the Arthouse Coop but wasn't sure if I'd have the funds. My wonderful craft world Craftster.com put on a scholarship drawing sponsored by the Arthouse Coop and although I wasn't one of the 3 winners, an anonymous Craftster member became my Fairy Sketchbook Godmother and gifted me a book! So I've picked up a book, and forked over $20 for digitizing (since it's a good chance I may not make any of the tour stops - yes my book will go on tour!) and joined the Sketchbook-Along here.

I've decided this is a great way to 1)spark my journaling and sketchbooking again, 2)work off the energy of some awesome artists in the Sketchbook-Along, and 3)solve the problem of not crafting during the school semester. I didn't want to take on any major projects what with work bumping up to a possible 40 hours a week from my usual 20, and with me taking the dreaded Anatomy and Physiology class AND lab this semester.

My theme that I chose is "If you lived here..." So the plan (so that I wouldn't have anxiety and stress about this sketchbook thing) is to sit down every night (if I'm not exhausted) and sketch a little, or glue a bit of something down and journal a little blurb about one thing that was interesting that day. Just whip out a double page spread and be done with it, call it a night. Then I can always go back to it. Or not. It'll be like a running train of thought, kinda like I used to do daily on FaceBook, until I run out of pages.

Speaking of pages, I hear everyone talking about how the pages are thin, so I'm planning on gluing 2 pages together as I go along. I just bought a whole bunch of glue sticks that were on sale for back-to-school, so I think I'm prepared. I think I'll do pen/ink drawings with color pencil or pastel crayon accents, and the blurb for the day in black ink. That should make it a little less intimidating.

This is really exciting for me, to have an artistic outlet to balance home, work and school, and also to have it go on tour across the continental US and reside permanently in New York! Wow! They have it worked out that each book has a barcode and you can see how many people pick up your book to browse through. I also chose to digitize it so I can share it with friends and family, since New York is so far away. I'm also gifting a sketchbook to my nephew who I started on sketchbooks when he was little. We used to glue leaves and draw with crayons in them. I hope he will fill his sketchbook with wonderful things and send it back in time to join the tour.

You should think about joining in too! It doesn't matter if you can draw or not - a lot of people just glue in pictures and write, and some write and draw nothing at all. In one of the books that really struck me as too cool the artist simply made cut-0uts on every page. It was beautiful! At the very least, visit The Sketchbook Project to see what others have done, and be inspired!

Thanks for visiting! Aloha, ~Su

4am, work work work

2010-09-04T04:54:00.005-10:00

<- gratuitous Dorothy tail shot Up early today, eking out some craft time. Here's a shoppe update, and a sneak peek! Just sold the Ipu Heke earrings, and as I sorted out my remaining large pearls, decided to set aside pairs for future work. I ended up with a bunch of unmatched pearls, so I decided that they would become the matching Ipu Heke necklace. That's right, just like that! HA! ....must be too early, I'm a little punchy this morning. Oops sorry folks.

Here are the earrings, mailed out on Friday morn. Thanks Kristen!

And the poor unmatched pearl given glory as a Pendant, and a shot of the set:

Enjoy! Aloha,
~Su

Little bit of everything!

2010-09-06T21:47:00.005-10:00

<-a nightclub wedding, sans children Labor Day Weekend started early for us - I started work earlier than usual so I was home before the sun set on Friday. Did a lot and did nothing; it was wonderful! We also got another Lost: Season 6 disc from Netflix! Here's a quick pictorial of what I did. Enjoy! Aloha, Su

<-earring marathon <-beach break! <-poppet #2 revisited, ready for jointing <-eyes for poppet #2!

The Sketchbook Project begins...

2010-09-05T09:46:00.001-10:00

I've been nervous about this project - I've always had a rough time getting my ideas and thoughts from my mind's eye to the page or whatever medium I'm working in. *Sigh* this time is no different.

I tried to start early, even before the book came.... so I started with some storyboarding, which I promptly lost. So I started with some more storyboarding, which I finally worked out the beginnings of what can only mean I will need to be removing pages or gluing many together because each spread seems like it will be a lot of work! Especially considering the holidays, the extra work I've picked up and the holidays around the corner. My deadline is January 15th I believe.

Well anyway, here is my efforts towards my first page spread. This was inspired by a peacock we saw, wandering around like just another chicken, over at the rec center one day when we were waiting to pick up Grandma.

Enjoy!
~Su

The Eyes Have It!

2010-08-04T08:59:00.004-10:00

I've been having fun making eyes for my Poppets... Here are the eyes that I've made. Minor swap spoilers in here... so I guess if you need something to keep you going while you wait for your package to arrive, you are welcome to take a peek.

If anyone's interested in a tutorial, let me know!

Top of pic below are what the eyes look like before I sand and repaint them. They come 3 pairs to a package. Below them are (left) purple and silver dots painted onto clear round-pupil or "animal" eyes, and (right) light green with burgundy and green dots and yellow lines. All of these were sent to a swap partner whose favorite color is purple.

Close-up on light green eyes:

Aqua blue with blue and gold dots. On the right is before, on the left is after I painted in some black lines with acrylic paint. These eyes were custom made for a sea demi-goddess poppet that my swap partner hasn't received yet. Look for that post in the near future.

This pair of eyes is a shimmery light tan with dark brown lines. I really liked how these came out but the finished head didn't match the doll that I was making so I scrapped it for the project. I didn't have the heart to pry the eyes out and reuse them.

And that was just July!

Aloha!
~Su

It's been a month...

2010-07-31T10:22:00.006-10:00

... and life's been one big distraction! Between family happenings, keeping up with the day-to-day stuff, covering shifts for a sick co-worker and trying to craft sometime after the midnite hour or early in the morning. Been doing a little bit of everything. Here's a quick pic recap of the month:

WARNING: SWAP SPOILERS - that means YOU! LOL!

Making more gift boxes:

and 7am Farmer's Open Market in the rain

Sewing, sewing sewing...

four dresses and a monkey

And some custom ordered jewelry, which I hope will make a few people very happy!

Mother of pearl Tree of Life pendant, before... and after!

And that's just the short version. I'll post more about some eyes and more swaps!
TTFN folks!

Mother's Day Sale

2010-04-21T22:34:00.004-10:00

25% OFF and FREE SHIPPING!

Now thru May 10th...

Yes, I know Mother's Day is May 9th, but this is for all the belated peoples!

Shop HERE

Princess Dress - literally!

2010-04-21T22:11:00.008-10:00

My daughter loves her new princess dress!

We were in Fabric Mart in Kaneohe a few weeks ago and I picked up a yard of purple glittery fabric with the Disney Princesses on it. I thought I'd make something for her to wear.

I finally got around to it a few days ago. I started with an old onesie (her top hasn't grown too much) and cut it off just below the waist. Originally in my mommy state of mind (mommy-brain = non-functioning) I sewed the fabric on upside-down. I told my husband about it and he laughed and said when she looks down at herself, they're not upside-down. Yeah, yeah. So I had to rip the seam and start over. She didn't want to take it off at first. We won't discuss how I finally got it off her. Anyway, here's my first try with the upside-down princesses:

After getting that right, I trimmed the bottom with ribbon I had hoarded away from one of her birthday gifts back in January. I think I was a magpie in my former life - always collecting "pretties" and "shinies" and stashing them in my nest. Here she is outside in the final product, which she refused to take off:

{pic here}

She finally fell asleep on my back. Don't believe me? Here you go:

{pic here}

{this moment}

2010-09-03T08:36:00.000-10:00

Playing along with y'all... Have a great weekend!

From FiveGreenAcres:

"Playing along with SouleMama this week:

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see."

Calypso's Eyes - a Pic-tutorial

2010-08-16T00:05:00.009-10:00

My latest poppet, inspired by Calypso of The Pirates of the Carribbean, really had some great eyes. I love to paint eyes with nailpolish. Nowadays there are so many great choices. Here's a short pictorial on how her eyes came about.

First, I went thru the entire box of nailpolish, and did up some samples on a sheet of clear plastic.
<--shades of blue
<--golds for accents

Prep your eye. If you like, buy clear ones. If you found a heck-load of spray-painted ones for super cheap like I did, sand those buggers off! Here I am using an emery board for shaping nails. I've also used a rotary tool with a sanding disc attached.

You can lay down a translucent layer of color first if you like. For Calypso's, I put down a teal blue. Forgot to take a pic, too excited.

With a toothpick, I add details like dots and lines. Note how the dots look tiny from the back but much larger from the front. I put down varying sizes of gold and teal green dots.

Then it seemed lacking so I put in black lines with acrylic paint. I like how they are a tad bit subtle because they are the last layer. I usually do gold lines as the first layer so they stand out more. Notice that although the black is fairly thick on the edge, it shows up as only lines from the front. Somehow the edge gets lost. The third pic below shows the two teals I used, the background more bluish, the dots more greenish.

love how it turned out. looks very oceany here, and different depending on the light:

This was how she may have looked with brown hair or blue. I ended up using the blue with streaks of the brown and an additional third wool variegated yarn with pinks and purples in it. BTW if you're wondering how I do the eye/hair/skin test, the eye is stuck into the hole of the head meant for the neck. I then drape a bunch of the yarn over to see how everything will go together.

And that folks is how Calypso got her hair and eyes.
Thanks for visiting!
Aloha, ~Su

Converse All Stars for Babies

2010-06-29T20:53:00.006-10:00

I had two friends and two baby showers in a row. I decided to crochet some booties, but regular booties just wouldn't do. My first baby shower was for a boy, and I thought regular booties were just too girly. I eventually ended up putting them on the top tier of a 3-tier diaper cake, which I forgot to take a picture of. I did the first pair in blue.

The second shower for a baby girl was the following weekend. I had the perfect pink yarn to make a second pair. I also made a matching hat because someone else was making a diaper cake.

Aloha!
~Su

PS. Thanks to Teresa for the awesome pattern/tute which you can find at her blog on crochet-mania.blogspot.com. I tell you, I'm not that good at following patterns but hers are darn good! She also has a video tute on YouTube, along with tutes for tons of other things. It's just as good as if Teresa were sitting next to you, so check it out!

Poppet Swap Goodies!

2010-06-29T21:23:00.004-10:00

And the other reason for swapping.... RECEIVING!

My partner was the bestesest! She sent me The Mad Hatter!! He is so awesome! You just gotta see him:

Here is his link on Craftster...

And the swap link.

Poppet #3 - Poppet In Blue

2010-06-28T20:19:00.001-10:00

For SunflowerSmiles, my most awesome swap partner, for the Mini Poppet Swap #2.
I give you Poppet In Blue:

She is crafted from some beautiful wrinkled-looking fuzzy knit fabric that I found in my scrap fabric pile that I got for free on Craigslist. I love Craigslist. Better yet, I love FREE!!!

Her eyes are revamped: I got them from Floradec in the discount section. I sanded them (because I didn't like the original greenish-yellow color) and hand-painted them with a beautiful new color. There are actually four different colors in dots, lines and general color.

Her hair is acrylic worsted weight in blue combined with eyelash yarn. I gave her a braid, some beads and some feathers. Originally I imagined her with either a full head of feathers or a headdress, but I couldn't make it work the way I wanted it to :( so, waa.

Her outfit slowly evolved. I started with the thrift store tie for the top and the skirt was going to be made of the light blue sheer curtain material. I hand-formed some "eyes" for the back of the corset to run red ribbon thru to lace it shut in back. For the skirt, the sheer was way to sheer, so I layered it with black tulle. Many layers. For fun I added some peacock feather fringe on the top layer and stitched the top edge many times.

When I first started she was so beautiful nekkid and hairless with the giant glistening eyes, like one of those beautiful but strange hairless cats, or Sinead O'Connor. Here she is being kidnapped while I work on her outfit.

More pics:

And here is her very own post on Craftster:

Aloha!
~Su

Garden Update 2

2010-06-18T12:55:00.000-10:00

Still a few mature leaves left on some of them, so here was the next day's bok choy dish - chicken filipino style soup, with bok choy, patis and ginger. Yum!

Now we have to wait a few weeks so the plants can mature. Also, I put in more seeds and replanted the seedlings to keep the cycle going. I need more planting containers!

Aloha,
~Su

Garden update

2010-06-17T12:41:00.003-10:00

The bok choi survived while we were away...

so I cooked it up with some garlic, ground beef and oyster sauce... served over rice!

Mini Poppet Swap

2010-06-12T14:11:00.005-10:00

This year I was finally able to join the Mini Poppet Swap on Craftster. For those of you unfamiliar with Craftster, I've been hanging out there since 2007, finding a channel for fostering my creative self. Poppets can be found here and you can join the fun by sending a pm to ghilie and giving her your email address so she can send you the pattern. The wonderful thing about Craftster.com is that you can find others who share whatever creative thing that is your passion, and there is advice and patterns abound!

Anyway, the last day to sign up for the Mini Poppet Swap was May 12th and we had until June 14th to send your completed Poppet to it's new home. I figured that was lotsa time, even with our little 10 day vacation I could still be home with a week to finish up any loose ends. I sent in my application and got a partner assigned the next day - my awesome swap partner SunflowerSmiles and I have had tons of great talks about poppeting and life. averyg and amigurl55 (co-organizers) have been doing a marvelous job of keeping us on track, checking in at least once a week and fostering fun discussions.

Unfortunately SunflowerSmiles got very sick early on but rallied like a pro after much medication and needed rest, which btw is hard to do with a family running around, and actually finished a day before me. Her package should be arriving Monday.

And why did I take so long? Well, after much stalking and visioning and stalking some more I was ready to go. (We look at things like Craftster profile pages and wists, or in my case the Etsy favorites page and profile since I don't have a wist. You can also stalk a person's blog, which I hope she won't look here since I'm posting this before she receives. Um, well, I may wait on posting pics before she receives :) )

Then it was time to shop. I shopped online. I shopped here. I shopped there. I couldn't find exactly the right thing so I got a couple different "maybe could work" things. I actually found eyes! But hated the color, so had to sand and repaint them. I love them!!! I actually finished the entire body, complete with custom painted eyes, eyelids and eyelashes. Just needed to choose hair, clothes and accessories.

After many dreams and many sketches, I just couldn't get the feathers to work into the mix the way I wanted. I did however receive some online shopping goodies and threw together a matched set of jewelry for new mommy and poppet. I'll elaborate later. Well, by the time we were packed and leaving I had a pocket full of eyes to sand, a crocheted cap to start a wig and some yarn colors in a bag, and a sketchbook with dreams. Seriously in the 10 days we were gone, all I did was sand an eye or two. And dream more.

By the time we got home whatever bug we had caught went from one child to the next to me and my dear husby. He got the least of it thank goodness, because someone had to deal with the sick grouch I had become. The being sick came first and it wiped us clean. I spent the first day hurling, the second day waiting for the doctor and the third day comatose in bed. Grrrrr! sucks to have craft itch when there's nothing you can do about it.

With the time counter running down I was finally able to do hair one day, and the outfit top and skirt took two days. That was four days of 10 minutes here and there, and four days of waking up at 4am and crafting for a couple hours. That seriously took more time that it took to cut, sew, stuff and joint the actual doll (MAYBE 5 hours). The eyes took almost an hour, not including drying time - I used 4 different colors of nail polish and a toothpick. I still wish I could get a finer line. Maybe a fine brush or a stencil?

Anyway, she is done, done, done, so I sent her off into the world in a box full of other supply and yummy goodies for SunflowerSmiles to enjoy. I hope she likes my new poppet, and I am so excited for who will arrive on Monday!! For those of you that are curious, here is a teaser:

I will be good and wait till SunflowerSmiles receives before posting pics of my progress.

Till then, aloha!
~su

New Templates!

2010-06-12T14:08:00.002-10:00

Oh so much fun, now I feel like I'm in a tropical bamboo rain forest, just like here in Hawai`i!

Aloha!
~Suz

Spring Gift Boxes for Etsy

2010-04-21T09:38:00.005-10:00

Yay! New gift boxes! These babies are repurposed round cardboard boxes that I stripped, primed with gesso and the lid with scrapbook paper. I finally found a use for the paper! Thank goodness for round paper cutters. The first pic is a closeup, sealed with gold wrapping ribbon. The second pic is an order that I sent out last week. You can see my business card, the free polishing pad, the earrings and the tissue paper that I wrap them in before closing the lid.

This is my 2nd generation gift box. These were stripped, primed with gesso and decoupaged with pretty patterned tissue paper.
If I can make enough, I'm thinking of putting these up for sale too. They're cute and you can reuse them as a trinket box or to give another gift away! What do you think?

Aloha, ~Su

CRASH! and The Tax Man Cometh

2010-02-06T17:32:00.004-10:00

Sorry folks, I know it's been a long time but my iBook finally died. Apparently the logic board wasn't meant to last more than 6 years. Sadly I cannot justify a thousand dollars to get another Mac. *sniff*

The good news is that PC netbooks are the much better now - portable, small, and still powerful. Actually ANY netbook would blow away my old G4 that didn't even have a gigabyte, a gigahurtz, or a giga-anything. It will definitely be an upgrade for me, and with all the Google apps out there I don't think I'll be missing my iCal or my .mac account for that matter. I am dreaming of this ASUS here which is the next step up from what a friend of mine bought recently which has the N270 processor.

After today's visit with out tax guy, I am even happier to find the necessary funds to get a netbook, soup it up and get back to my online word of this blog, my etsy shop and millions of other neglected hobbies.

Stay tuned!

Aloha, ~Su

Easter Dessert

2010-04-17T23:17:00.004-10:00

Homemade blueberry topping and mini cupcake-sized cheesecakes with chocolate cookie crusts:

New Stuffs!

2010-04-17T23:22:00.008-10:00

Coming soon in my
Etsy shop:
suBringas.etsy.com

Left:
Ipu heke (double gourd): 10mm grey oval freshwater pearls and 4mm dark peacock grey freshwater pearls with silver "lei".

Above:
Blue glass daggers casually wrapped with sterling silver. I'm still working on the story ;) .

BTW I did some sewing, and made gift boxes for my Etsy purchases. I'll be posting about those soon!

Aloha, ~Su

Snowflakes in the window...

2009-12-05T10:17:00.005-10:00

Quick pics: some shots of our front window - not very good because of the glare. Well actually more like an almost-mirror-like reflection. I tried to do an arch to frame our Christmas tree when the blinds are up, and I used white copier paper and light blue translucent paper. I pretty much winged it, so some of the first ones are square.

Here are some close-ups. Some are folded so there are 6 prongs, some are 8. I put the tape on the holes and not on the outer edges so they would look like they were floating.

Hope this inspires you to do something crafty for your Christmas decorations!

Aloha, ~Su

And in line with the snowflakes...

2009-12-04T23:44:00.002-10:00

My newest blog I'm following had this tutorial on snowflake garlands. I want to make tiny ones to put on the tree! You can make them too by going here to download the pdf. Thank you Holly!

Still Christmas Decorating!

2009-12-04T23:13:00.002-10:00

December came and we immediately went and got a tree - 5 feet for $19.99! This is a far cry from past years of searching around last minute for ANYONE who was selling a tree. A big thank you to Koolau Farmers in Kaneohe for having a great tree guy who gave suggestions and held up every tree I asked! We were the only ones there, I love it!

And so the decorating began. We got plastic "glass" ball ornaments at the dollar store at Windward Mall. All their Christmas goodies were 20% off. We were especially glad they were plastic because of the kids - Baby #2 just turned 1 and loves to grab everything and shove it in her mouth.

I guess I was influenced by the white paper ghosts I put in the window for Halloween back in October... Or maybe it was this month's cover of RealSimple which sported a big glittery snowflake? I am such a sucker for this magazine.... So I cut a whole bunch of snowflakes and Baby #1 helped me tape them up to frame the tree. Turned out cute. I'll try and get a pic up later.

We also bought a little poinsettia plant for $5 while getting the tree, and when I got it home I thought, gee, it's so little and I only have one. So sad for me!

Anyway, in my browsing I found this pattern for a poinsettia pinwheel!

So I'm thinking I'll do a bunch of them and stick them into the potted plants out front to liven up the yard. I'm thinking of picking up some red craft foam so they'll withstand the wind and rain. Thanks so much to Heather Bailey for the great tutorial. Her blog is a great place if you're feeling crafty, or just wanting to live vicariously through her craftiness!

Aloha! ~Su

SALE EXTENDED!

2009-07-07T14:07:00.004-10:00

Extended 4th of July sale!

FREE SHIPPING and 10% OFF until July 10th Midnite, Hawaii time.

Please type "4th" in the NOTES section when purchasing and your discount will be refunded through Paypal.

Newest listings:

Blue Ceramic Basket Weave and Czech Glass Drop Earrings,
Summer Day Hoop Earrings - Wire Wrapped Glass and Sterling Silver,
and Wire Wrapped Blue Swarovski Crystals and Gold Filled Hoops.

Aloha!
~Su