(Inside A Black Apple)

Do You Know The Button Man?

We are getting so, so excited for Renegade SF! We just got word that The Black Apple will be next-door-neighbors to both these pals and on the other side, Etsy...so, good neighbors all around. And we've booked our hotel + we're importing some excellent help. It's going to be a great weekend! I haven't done a craft show in over a year, so I'm nerding out about this one big time.

As much as I love the expansive nature of the internet, and having an online store, the chance to have a little "real-life" shop for two days is really thrilling. This is probably why I've been dreaming about display stuff for weeks! Here's a little sign/display that I schemed up to house pinback buttons:

I made it from a piece of ephemera (I think it was a man-in-the-moon game box graphic) and I took all of the original text out and filled it with places for buttons. He's a little scary, but (I think) mostly neat.

I'm planning to have tons of stuff that is either one-of-a-kind, or is brand new and will make its debut at the fair. I've been cutting + sewing all this weekend, for the fair and for Oddfellow's. So far, this will be the new/one-of-a-kind things we'll have in San Francisco (in addition to the prints + paper goods you know and love): Dolls, Zipper Pouches, Brand-new Large Sketchbooks in TWO cover designs, Fancy Wearables (ie: lovely jewelry), Totes, New Button Packs, etc.

We hope that you'll come out to visit us - I'm looking forward to meeting lots of Californians.

Happy Monday & See you soon!

Dolls Under Glass

Here's a peek at the framed paper doll pieces that will be for sale in the shop tomorrow (Monday) afternoon!

All sold! Thanks so much.

Shadowbox with Provisions for a Young Lady      Approximate 11" x 11" x 3" framed

Invisible Bandit       Approximately 8"x10" framed

Jaunty Outfit      Approximately 8" x 10" framed

Two Dresses         Approximately 10" x 8" framed

Three Young Ladies         Approximately 11" x 15" x 3" framed

I'm wrapping up a nice quiet weekend, typing away whilst listening to the happy sounds of nerd-boys playing nerd-games in the other room. In just a moment, I'm going to bake them some pizzas!

See you soon!

Ornamental

I wanted to share a peek at the two kinds of ornaments I will have for the Christmas/Holiday update on Friday!

The Fir-girl Ornaments  (Edition size of 12)

These woodland sweet-peas are crafted of wool felt, paper, string, and mini-print. They measure approximately 3.5" tall, not including the hanging string.

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Little Snow-Queen Ornaments  (Edition size of 15)

These glittering girls are crafted of  hand-painted wood, paper, string, a generous dusting of coarse glitter and mini-print. They measure approximately 3.25" tall, not including the hanging string.

They will be individually packaged up sweetly in a glassine envelope, and sealed with a festive sticker.

I hope you that you like them!

And thanks for all the fun chatter around my last post...I can't tell you how happy it makes me that there are so many unashamed Stevie/'Mac appreciators out there. Those comments were some of the sweetest and funnies ones ever.

A Tiny for A Tiny

There are three things that I know about the middle Chicken-little (Delia).
One: She is the human I know that is mostly likely to secretly be a fairy.
Two: She loves dolls.
Three: She loves tiny things.

So when her birthday rolled around last week, I knew what was in order. A tiny doll. You might remember last month that I made a sketch/artsy themed birthday present for her elder sis...it's amazing how different children's personalities are even right at the beginning of their lives. Those two are so special and quirky and such individuals already.

Right, but back to the tiny doll.
This photo is about to scale (the doll is probably around 5"-6" inches tall):

I made her with a little nightie on, and then a removable dress, capelet, hat, and scarf. I thought about tiny, 1/2" felt removable shoes, but then I thought about all those literally tens of chewed-on Barbie shoes that went missing during my stint as a little girl. So painted-on, it was!




I had a little bakery box (which I think was intended for cookie-giving), and she fit very sweetly inside...almost like a doll from the store.

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She's really like a teeny shrunken Sophie doll (I redrafted the pattern rather than shrink the existing one, especially because I wanted her to have a shorter torso). Her new owner seems to be a big fan, as I watched her walking around clutching her and fussing with her tiny clothes and such. Hooray!

Sorry if this post is a little crazy, I am having a bad post-election-anxiety migraine/cold right now, and I'm a little whacked from the medicine that is, quite seriously, the only thing allowing me to look at the bright glare of the computer screen without sunglasses.

Little Gifts for a Little Scribbler

Hello!

I made some presents for the birthday of a little artiste that I know (the eldest of the Chicken littles, Ms. Sadie) and they really delighted me, so I thought I would post a few photos here. I've given her a sketchbook before (which she filled with brilliant and hilarious stories and pictures), but I wanted to make the new one a little special, so I personalized the cover of one of the regular Black Apple sketchbooks.

I think it was a big hit! I also made her a little monogrammed pencil pouch for all the precious gel pens (those things are so big with the kids, it seems) that I picked up for her.

That Shinzi Katoh fabric is so dear to me, I could only cut into it for such a rad little girl.

I also made this book, which I labeled "Sadie's Boxes (for telling stories)" that I was really flipping out over. It's filled with various pages of different blank comic panel layouts:

I just scanned in some of the fabric that I lined her pouch with, labeled it, and then printed it out full bleed. Even though I don't think Sadie's comics are told with boxes thus far, I thought it might be fun to play around with (and I know those little boxes can be a pain to draw!). I double stitched through it all with my new(ish) and far more powerful sewing machine to bind it up, and then added some decorative tape I had around, and stitched over that for the last time.

I love making presents.

Wee House-Pouch Prettiness

Hello applet pals!

It has been a very pleasant day around the dollhouse, and I wanted to stop in for a second to write to you about a good little new product I photographed today. They'll be in the next update, and they're the first official product that has been made with my custom Black Apple fabric!

I actually made these Wee House pouches before the move, they've just been waiting patiently to have their pictures taken and be shared.

They're lined in a seafoam polka-dot cotton, and there are 5 assorted zipper colors.

 

Each is tagged with my cool grandma labels, and has a satiny little seam-binding zipper pull. Like I said, I made these over a month ago, before the move, and I gave myself a wonky reject one. It has now been holding my drawing pens (which usually go with me wherever I go) for all this time and I just love it. Every time I pull it out, it makes me happy. I hope I'm not talking them up too much, but seriously.
I love these little pouches.
So, update...soon. These will be a part of it.

And speaking of wee houses, I am hoping to share photos of my new studio tomorrow. Excitement!
I tried to be more judicious and thoughtful with this studio (it's also about 1/2 the size of my old one, so it needed to be carefully laid out). I'm very psyched to photograph it (if the light is willing). I took a lot of inspiration from this book (which is know is a fave in blogland). I'm not sure if it shows or not, though...it may just seem very Emily-ish. Either way is fine with me, of course.
Back tomorrow!

Wool + Marshmallows

Well, my yesterday went mostly as planned. Most importantly, I got to make the two things I wanted to make...the wool bag and the 'mallows, and I'm very happy with the end result of each.

Bag (with delicate, spider-webby vintage lace trim), which even the kitten likes:

Cold-toes curing homemade Marshmallows (Martha-mallows?) mentioned in yesterday's post:

They really were a snap. They are very, very tasty...but I wasn't really sold til' they started to melt in my cocoa. It's when the melting starts to go down that these homemade ones really, really blow regular store-bought away.

S'mores for dessert tonight. For certain.

Fort Apple

Have I mentioned that the Dollhouse has a basement?
I think I did. Maybe not...but it does, and I have been/still am inordinately excited about it. I've never lived in a house with a basement before, and I love the idea of a place where your unsightly but necessary possessions can be stored. Love. Especially for the business, because otherwise we have a ton of huge Uline boxes in my studio and that's not so pretty.

So, when Ryan and Lucy (former inhabitants) were showing us the place, I got all starry-eyed when we got to the basement. I immediately imagined a "Shipping/Packaging Fort" in one of the corners, and so when we moved in (especially because getting the shop back up and running was the first priority) I made it happen.
Before, it looked something like this (an opposite corner of the basement):

Yikes.

Then, using some cheapy tapestry-things from Urban Outfitters (they were an extra $10 off the day I went in, so I was extra-lucky) I made walls and a canopy. The rugs and lamps are also super cheapy and are from Ikea. It's completed by the enormous faux apple given to me by the lovely Vanessa (see it, over there in the left corner on the white drawers?). All of our shipping supplies and such are out of the frame, but they're all handy.

I am a life-long lover of blanket-forts, so it feels like the coziest place imaginable to me.

I made the little bunting yesterday while I was waiting for Josiah to be ready to commence to packing up the tons of orders we're knee-deep in from the sale.

Fort Apple is being inaugurated with a vengeance this week!

Happy Monday!

I've Got Red

I just got some yardage back from the Spoon'sters (thank you Kim + Stephen!), and I'm a very happy lady indeed.
Reds! Real reds! I erred on the side of pinkishness (adding more magenta, technically speaking) when making my adjustments from the swatches. Remember this post from a few weeks back? The whole red-debacle might just be an Emily-problem, but at any rate I think I've found an Emily-solution.

Check out those wee houses! I think a "woot" is in order.
Woot?
Woot.

Yesterday Day

I did quite a few small tasks yesterday, one of the least-small being washing and ironing the heap of custom fat-quarters of fabric that came over the weekend. There are, um, a lot of designs to show. Remember this?

I think today I'll just show you the ones I'm maybe most excited about...these harlequin-vintage-y diamond patterns:

These is my little "Night Magic" pattern in two colorways.

aaaand the real-life realizations of the one I blogged about last time when I was nerding out:

These really take the cake for me.
The Spoonflower folks are really doing a cool thing, and I'm grateful they dreamed up their service.  My only real frustration as a user is that, like with the last prints, there were some major color-shifts. As a former photo-person who color balanced many a color print herself, I notice that stuff (and I totally understand that there are always color shifts when printing). Luckily, it seems with my images to mostly be isolated to the reds, which are the biggest chameleons. They keep wanting to go orange! Bright orange. I think with a bit of trial and error and swatching  on the user's end it can be sorted out just fine, though.

Another small task from yesterday? Designing new Black Apple shipping labels with our future address on them:

My other project for the day (this was actually late in the evening) was sewing up a Tom-Waits-night (this Saturday!) capelet, which I'll hopefully get to photograph soon. So many little projects here and there...and the big project of MOVING looming!

I hope your week is going nicely, and I'll be back soon with more fabric designs and more to share!