hey dear craftster friends,
i'll be going to Chicago and Toronto in May and i would really love some suggestions of good places to buy material.  fabric, shrinky dinks, jewellery stuff, a bit of it all!  thrift stores are also down in my list!  what are the places i must see before i leave??

so my boyfriend and i are joining forces and we want to start selling our products.  its pretty easy to get our stuff sold here in Brasilia (where we live in Brazil, capital city), but the public is very restricted.  we want to go GLOBAL.  what would you suggest?  what about getting people to know you, where/how to advertise?  we will get a website going soon (as soon as we have time), but at the moment he´s the only one who has a blog and is selling by it. - http://www.mello413.blogger.com.br/  any suggestions would be great!!

my boyfriend is well know for his extremely intricate stencil work.  he was hired by a big brazilian band to paint the scenery and the stencil work was more than 6m tall.  he was also asked to be part of a german book on stickers and posters.  i'm really proud of him, and have been learning LOADS from him too!
check out some of his work here -  http://www.mello413.blogger.com.br/
there's also some stuff he did for a fashion show.
for those who know http://www.woostercollective.com/ check out for "mello" and you'll be able to see his work on homeless people here in brazil (he has his stencils on the blog but not the work).

i was browsing the anthropologie site and saw this -
http://www.anthropologie.com/jump.jsp?itemID=12489&itemType=PRODUCT&iSubCat=266&iMainCat=11

wow...  but how the hell does it work?  it looks like it has 2 collars...  can anyone enlighten me?

[THE INGREDIENTS]

this is a diary of trial and error with resin.  here i've dropped down all the process and my conclusions (and questions).  i've always wanted to mess with resin, make some jewelry and other things, so i bought some the other day and with very little information and a lot of courage, decided to give it a go.  here's how it went->

THE INGREDIENTS

the material (from left to right) - mold, polyester resins, catalyst, chop stick to stir, tiny spoon + tweezers to pick and drop material, measurer, dropper, glass to mix materials, and tray to avoid a mess.


the decorative stuff - beads, image, felt (attention - tiny stars missing on photo)



THE PROCESS - work in a well ventilated area because resin is very toxic

first, i glued the image and left it to dry while i started with the other stuff.

i measured 12 ml on the measurer (started using the dropper so i wouldnt spill but resin is thicker than i imagined.  good trial and error.  i DONT recommend even bothering with it.  my bottle has a nozzle that stretches, so not even funnel was needed).  the instruction recommended 0,5 - 2,5% of catalyst.  that would come up to 0,3ml!!  so, i just poured everything in the glass and mixed about 4 drops.

i noticed that if i stirred too fast i started getting bubbles, so be patient!  all of process was done OVER THE TRAY!  resin is really gooey and doesnt come off things easily, so dont risk ruining your nice table or carpet.

i poured the mix into the mold.  this mold is for chocolates and i wasnt too sure if was gonna melt or anything, but it was fine!  i got the image and with the chopstick i poked it to the bottom.


then i added the beads with the tiny spoon.  i poured them in the corner and the ones that moved astray i replaced with the chopstick.

i added the stars about 15 mins later and the catalyst had already started hardening!  result - the stars werent embedded in the liquid and when i tried poking them in i messed the surface a bit.  maybe i added too many drops.

i waited for a little less than 24 hours because i was too anxious.  it was DARN hard to remove from the mold!  the possibilities - maybe too much catalyst makes it stick to the mold (because i've seen people use ice-cube trays and not have problems), OR the mold REALLY isnt appropriate, OR i need some of this product that helps the product pop out from the mold.  another thing, i dont recomend using felt and glue because the glue will become evident on the back (not a BIG problem, it all depends how much of a perfectionist you are)

the final result -
  the stars are on the top layer, then the beads, then the image

and it resting on my altar, together with found humming bird feathers and firefly wings, pictures of loved ones, my coins, paper crane, and symbols.


if you'd like some more info, check out this thread->http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=35779.0

does anyone know how to order using amazon japan?  the site is in japanese and i cant understand a thing...

i'm looking for cute craft japanese books.  bags, plush, and interesting stuff.  if anyone knows where else i could find them apart from ebay i would greatly apreciate it.

i`ve been wanting to learn how to do those lovely stitchings, but really dont know how to start!  some people have given me fantastic sites like  http://www.needlecrafter.com/ but it doesnt help much when you dont know the names of the basic stitches.  (the site is in english and i could only get the names for the basic stuff in portuguese... i`m from brazil..)
could any kind heart give me a list of the most common stitches so i could have a starting point

[1-)]

i've seen loads of these around and i love them to bits.  my boyfriend is an awesome illustrator and i would love to make him one of these wallets with one of his designs as a surprise "for-no-reason" gift.  now, i've got 2 questions ->

1-) how do they make these fantastic prints on to the vinyl?
2-) the clear vinyl part is stitched with a conventional sewing machine and normal thread?  does it rip easily?

http://poketo.com/wallets.htm - this site has some amazing examples of what i'm talkin about.  any help will be great!

i know it doesnt look too springy/summery...  but its fall down here in brazil!  even tho our winters are pretty darn warm, but i need an excuse anyway!  this is an old piece i made about 7 years ago and wanted to sure with y'all.  hope you like it.  ::

 

i know it doesnt look too springy/summery...  but its winter down here in brazil!  even tho our winters are pretty darn warm, but i need an excuse anyway!  this is an old piece i made about 7 years ago and wanted to sure with y'all.  hope you like it.  ::