Just a little sample of the custom orders I’ve been working on this last month or so- all wedding except for the bow tie/cummerbund set, which was a prom set for a preppy football player.

Lots more bow ties being added to the shop this week, and dozens more in progress. So, back to work for me!

xo!
elle!

I hate to announce that the summer is here in Florida. That means that I am hiding inside my house, blinds closed, fans on high power, wishing that I was somewhere else. I just keep saying to myself, “this is your last summer here Laura, enjoy it”, and I am trying to do just that. At least between the hours of 5 and 7am- since that seems to be the only time that it’s not miserable outside. I popped out to take some photos on the front porch for this post this morning, and was instantly sticky. ick. icky sticky. And without further whining- a show-and-tell of what I’ve recently made and thrifted.

I’ve been wanting a clipboard for the market and was having the hardest time finding a small one that was awesome and less than $15. This is so simple it’s ridiculous- just an old book cover cut down with an extra large clip. It’ll be used when someone needs to sign a credit card slip at the market. Garth tells me everytime he sees this that he used to have this book when he was a kid.

new screenprinted journals! I have so many blank covers and have been wanting to print something on them. I love this tiny phrase and love how these turned out. I am less thrilled about the hello my name is journals that I also printed.

The sisters in my relief society wanted to make sock monkeys, so I made one to see how it was done. He’s cute, but does not compare to Oliver, the real sock monkey.

And, tags for my bow ties! I’ve been waiting to make these until I purchased an embroidery machine, but that keeps getting pushed back because of clutches and other almost-emergencies, so I made do. As always, making do is so much more interesting than my first idea. These are screenprinted and just the first version, but I love the idea. They are preppy, colorful, and fun- all things I want to have associated with my brand.

And now the thrifted!

The ladies at the thrift store where I grabbed this dress were fawning over it when I brought it to the checkout. They were quick to point out that of the three of us standing there, I was the only one it would fit, so it should go home with me. I then moved Jack to my other hip to show off my 6 month baby belly and explain that it’d be at least a year until I fit a vintage size 8. Maybe longer. But oh lovely hawaiian thing, we’ll show ‘em all.

I am always on the lookout for ties- but rarely (have I ever?!) do I purchase a tie to keep as a tie. This one was too wonderful to turn into a bow tie (plus, I don’t think that the pattern would convert well). It’s a clip-on, which my husband won’t wear, but it came home with me and is now hanging out by my sewing desk, just to make me smile.

a quick trip inside a small thrift store on a rainy saturday (with sleeping Jack and sweet Garth waiting in the car) yielded the best find in months! This vintage board puzzle is missing one piece, but is otherwise looking awesome. I had to get it since it’s a boy named Jack. LOVE this. Plans to replace the missing piece are already in the works (probably just in time for Jack to lose a few more!)

Gazillions of bow ties are being produced in this little room and will be making their way into the shop this week and next. I want to have 100 listed before I take a break!

Until next time, stay sweet,
elle

The last few weeks before Halloween were crazy for me! I made 7 Moishe costumes- skipping meals, showers, and sleep to send each one out on time. Each one takes about 20 hours to complete. I made my first adult-sized Moishe and I made a set for 4 month-old twin boys. I took some photos before I sent them out and I just wanted to share these. One day I’d like to do more of the monsters from Where the Wild Things Are.

I had so much fun photographing myself wearing it- and it was one of those days where everything just works and the lighting is magical.

I finished the smallest ones for the twins in our nola hotel room and Mr Jack tried it on for me and coooperated for eactly three pictures before losing control. Luckily I got this shot.

So there you have it- the largest and smallest Moishe costumes that I created this season. I want now to start thinking about things to make for winter, but I know that I am already behind the game. I must plan better next year so that my Halloween making doesn’t overtake my Christmas making.

until I have something more interesting to say,
Laura. =)

It’s Moishe! I just recently learned that Maurice Sendak, during the adaptation of his book to opera, named the characters Tzippy, Moishe, Bruno, Emile, and Bernard- after relatives. I made my first Moishe costume last year and made more mistakes than I care to remember. This year the process was a wee bit easier on me and I think that the costume benifited from my experience. It still took about 20 hours- but with all of those tiny scales to cut out and sew in and the head and tail hair to hand root- I don’t know how to make it go quicker…

I am also making Sally dresses like a mad woman. I really enjoy the process- it’s lots of hours in front of my sewing machine- but I think that it’s just the way that Sally would have done it! This past weekend I made a dress for a three month old- it is by far the most adorable Sally dress I have ever made.

And finally, Mr Garth and Mr Jack and I need your help picking out our Halloween costumes! Garth and I each wrote a list of our top ten ideas and we narrowed down both lists until we each had only one left. To be fair we thought that we would have our friends and family decide. Here are the two choices:
one. Jack in the box antena ball dude (garth), hamburger (laura), order of fries (jack)
two. Peter Pan (garth), wendy or tinkerbell (laura), and Captain Hook (jack).
Leave me a comment or e-mail or tweet or text or esp and let me know what ya’ll think. We’ll be tallying the votes tonight and deciding. And if anyone needs costume ideas feel free to hit me up- we’ve got a list that’ll last us at least the next 15 years.

xoxo
elle

This is the chaos in which I made my little film. I sat myself down one Saturday night and pressed my shutter button hundreds of times until I had every frame. I filmed the whole thing too- so later today I should be also posting a video of the making. =)

I’ve been on youtube this week more than I’d like to admit- out of the 20 finalists, I am 8th on overall views, so that’s good- just need to crank it up a little to get into one of those top stops- it’s be rad if I could move on to the finals! If you’ve got an extra 53 seconds- would you mind heading over there and giving me a thumbs up today?
I also created a playlist of all of the HP entries made by Hawkers (Joshua, Julie, and me) so you can enjoy them all in one place. =)

Laura’s semi-finalist video
All Hawker family entries

Merci everyone!
Hopefully you’ll be seeing some of us in the finals!

xoxo
elle

Hi friends and neighbors-
I made a little stop motion video. I’ve been talking about it here for quite some time- and now it’s time for it’s grand debut! I made it to enter the HP You on You contest and waited to post it here until I knew if I was moving to the next round- and I am! I am a semi-finalist which means my video will be posted on the contest site this week along with 19 other vidoes. Youtube users can vote for their favorite videos all week and the top four move on to the finals. Please take a moment to head over there, watch some videos, and give me a thumbs up. You can vote once per day today through Sunday! There are some pretty rad prizes to be had. =)

The contest site is here. Click on “View and Vote” in the upper right hand corner. You’ll see all 20 semi-finalist videos for this week. My little video has a doll (wearing a teeny tiny handmade dress!) in front of a map. You can also access my video straight from its youtube page here. If you think it’s super duper, please give it a thumbs up! It’ll make my day.

All ya’ll really are the best!
xo
elle

For my now completed stop motion teeny tiny film I had to make a whole host of teeny tiny props. It took just about the same amount of time to make everything as it did to photograph the stop motion! I was so inspired by the movie Coraline. Everything in that movie was handmade- the flowers, the clothing, the food- and it was all done on a tiny scale. The sweaters were knit with tiny needles by artist Althea Crome and the hands were molded in miniature molds. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s out on DVD now and it’s stupendous!

I made a dress from vintage fabric and liquid stitch. The sleeves were the hardest part! And, I heart pleats and darts.

I also made a banner with my name, which I later animated with paper bluebirds.

This tiny tv dropped from the sky and played a video that I’d previously made from photographs (mad thanks to garth for printing & cutting out all of those tiny pictures!)

Mr. Cockroach traveled all over this pull-down map of the US that I made, complete with knoted pull cord.

I needed a teeny tiny cake and used some bottle caps covered in marshmallow fondant. The dots are paper punched holes and the candles are wires and string with a piece of masking tape that was colored with a marker.

Tiny books and photographs.

And, a teeny tiny painting.

I spent a grand total of $.50 and the better part of three days making this film. It’ll be posted Monday along with the big-ultra-exciting-announcement.

Stay true, friends. =)

elle

I haven’t been this excited about a project in a long time. I’ve been losing sleep over it for days (that spinning mind that won’t wind down) and you should have seen me tonight- I was just outta control with adjusting lights and getting Garth’s opinion on exposure and white balance and the background color.

I am making a stop-motion short film.

These are from the tests tonight, but they are so darn cute. I had decided on the color on the last one, but after looking at them on my computer I’m really digging the color on the first- do all ya’ll have an opinion? Please chime in! Leave me a comment with your vote or you can send me an e-mail at elle@xoelle.com. You’re totally the greatest peeps ever.

xoxo
elle

I’m going to show you how it’s done, but let me warn you- while this rug was super inexpensive to make with the resource of money- it was very costly in the resource of time. I have easily 60 hours invested into this rug, and many many more hours donated by family and friends. I love that I started it while I was pregnant and worked on it while Jack was a teeny tiny newborn. I love that my Mom and I sat with it on our lap, each hooking from one side to the other, meeting each other in the middle, while my overdue belly hindered my progress.

And now, this is how to make your very own latch hook rug.

Supplies:
Latch hook canvas
latch hook tool
old t-shirts
scissors or rotary cutting tool/mat
seam binding
masking tape
dye (optional)

All of these things should be available at your local craft store, with the exception of the old t-shirts. I found thrift stores that were doing bag sales and loaded my bags up with white t-shirts. I also asked my local freecyclers if they had any white t-shirts to spare. I was able to purchase all of the supplies, including shirts, for under $25.

On to the making! The first thing that you want to do is plan. Decide how large you would like your rug to be and what colors/designs you would like. I chose to just make it one all one color, battleship gray (much to the chagrin of my submariner husband!). Estimate how many shirts you’ll need because if you’re dyeing them, as I did, you’ll want to dye them all in one batch to get consistant color. I found that I needed 70 strips to fill one square (latch hook canvas is pre-printed with a grid), and that I could get approximately 250 strips for the average men’s t-shirt. Thus, I would need 2 shirts for every 7 squares. These numbers are a good starting point, but may need to be adjusted according to your design needs.
note: I chose to make this rug very thick. The 2 shirts for every 7 squares number is based on a very tight and very high piled rug. Super results can be achieved with less. I reccomend using half of this number if you’re making a larger rug, to save on time, and to reduce the bullk of the finished rug.

Once you’ve gathered all of your shirts, use a rotary cutting tool and mat (you can certainly use scissors but the results are less precise) to cut the shirts into 1 inch strips. It was easiest for me to fold the shirt in half, shoulder to shoulder and cut strips from the trunk of the shirt, up to the collar. It is important to make sure that the shirt is smooth and flat when cutting, or you’ll end up with uneven or jagged strips. All of these strips should then be cut into 4 inch segments. This cutting phase easily took me 20 hours (I was cutting up 51 shirts!).

Once you have all of the strips cut, it’s time to dye them if you’d like. I used Rit dye and just dumped them all into the washing machine.

Once your strips are all ready to go, tape the edges of the latch hook canvas with the masking tape so that they won’t pull apart while your latching.

Now you’re ready to hook! From the front of your rug, isolate a strand of the canvas with the latch hook tool. Make a loop with the t-shirt strip and place it on the end of the tool. Pull the latch hook tool down, through the canvas, pulling the t-shirt strip with it, leaving the strip halfway through the canvas. Slide the tool up to the remaining ends of the t-shirt strip and catch them. Pull them through the loop made by the t-shirt strip below the canvas.

I chose to do this with every other available space on my latch hook canvas, and it made a very lush, very high pile rug. You may want to space it out differently for a larger rug, or for a rug with less bulk.

Continue until you run out of strips, or complete the size that you’d like!

When you’re done, bind the edges by hand using seam binding.

Here’s my completed rug, you can see that it gets Jack’s approval!

good luck and happy hooking!

29 july 2010 edit: Thanks for all of your enthusiasm about this project! Please read the comments below as well as they contain some extra tips from people who have conquered this project! Carry on.

xo
elle

One layer of sweat from the battle reenactment in downtown Pensacola this morning, and another for visiting Pensacola Naval Air Station to check out a European car show (by accident) and a motorcycle safety fair. I also got a little crispy and red thanks to the Florida noon-day sun.

A little dabble of formula from feeding Jack, some chocolate from consumed cookies, and all kinds of germies from shopping at The Home Depot. On top of that I added sawdust from using my jigsaw on the front porch in an effort to make shelves, and a coat of bug spray since the little jerks were out in full force as the sun was setting.

…and then I dribbled melted popsicle on myself. And my clothes.

It was a good day. Jack is passed out on my lap…it’s his tactic for avoiding his bath.

xo
elle