Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Oh the joys...

...of a fresh new website!!
You might have thought I was lazying around the past few days? Well, maybe you didn't think that...but if you know me you'd realize I was probably up to something :o)

This morning I replaced old with new...www.devonindustry.com is fully updated (well, there's a wee bit of content still missing - but I'll get there!). It may be less picture heavy but definitely more clean and navigable - and super cute I might add! I amazed myself by whipping it out yesterday...till about 1am last night - yep, now I'm pretty tired, but a good tired like an 'accomplished tired'. And I have to give credit to some lovely, fabulous, and oh so helpful folks on the Etsy forums who helped me figure out how to add my Etsy shop to my website. It's there now - you can see it! It's a really cool feature.

So now I can get back on my feet...or back to my sewing machine rather! I've got to scramble and pull together a bunch of goodies for Kaleid gallery drop off this week. I'll be joining up with the gallery again after a little break and will be doing the big holiday event in December. I also have a mural project tomorrow - a darling little nursery for a baby girl soon to arrive.

If you have a moment, would you please let me know what you think of the new site? Any ideas for making it better - or thoughts on what you'd like to see? I'm totally open to suggestions! :o)

Have a really lovely day! xo, Devon


ps: check out my little shop update...with more to come soon :o)

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Shop update Friday

Hello! I'll be having a little shop update this Friday about 2pm PST!
Owling babies and penguins and more wooly goodies - hope to see you then :o)


Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Kitty games

Sanguine's making me smile today :o) She must have had a great nap as she's got tons of kitty energy. Today she found my felting 'inbox' was empty - oh my, how fun! I looked over and saw a little black and white head popping out and wanting to play. Alas, not such a comfy place for a nap so off to her reclaimed kitty bed after exhausting herself.


I've got SO many new little owlings coming together!! Check back for more yummy pics, and check my shop soon too!

Have a great Tuesday! xo, devon

Monday, October 22, 2007

Where's the sun??


Maybe we tricked ourselves into losing the morning sun by getting up so early all those days last week. But wow, it is REALLY dark at 6:30! I thought for sure the glow would be out by then and we'd start having some 'wake up light' (I love a natural alarm clock), but nope, super dark and not very inspiring I have to say. It's terrible how tied to light I am - I really need to get over it. Actually in Germany it was dark till around 7:30am while we were there. Oh, and I suppose with daylight savings on the way (4th of Nov) things should lighten up a bit.

I actually am better suited now for the darkening of the days toward winter. Jared helped me change out the overhead light in my office/studio and it's TONS better now. I had a pretty half globe paper shade (ikea!) up on the ceiling that really glowed more than illuminated. Now I have a little spotlight track (more ikea! - 'as is' dept. $10!) that has 5 halogen lights that cheerfully light up all the important spots...computer/sewing desk, paper cutting/mail center, painting/sewing prep area. It's funny how I could go so long without fixing the lighting situation in here. I've probably had the track light for a year! So that along with my desk lamps and some accents, it feels really cozy in here :o)


I've got a new penguin boy in my shop today! His name is Mango and his fabrics/colors are really sweet. I was trying to finish him up on Friday but my mural sketches took the whole afternoon! I'll try to remember to post those as well - I'm happy with how they came out, and just need to hear back from my client. Oh, I also mentioned wanting so badly to get little plants for my 'plants on the brain' planters from clayflower at Etsy...I finally did on Saturday - yea!! They are too cute...I will be getting more little plant heads, if not for me then for some of my friends who love to garden too.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Benbo & Penny


Cute picture eh? This is Penny the cat who belongs to my friends Mona & David :o) Sitting next to Penny is Benbo the owling who they adopted from me at the last Bazaar Bizarre in San Mateo. I hope they're pals...sometimes Penny has jealousy issues - like with their Roomba vacuum.

Still haven't finished my mural sketches...spent a lot of yesterday trying to understand the nature of the Serengeti plains through photos of animals and landscapes. It's sometimes the pits trying to put together sketches to be honest. I'm just not the type to jump in and start drawing - it really takes me a TON of time! Until I'm convinced that what I'm drawing has some legitimacy to it, it just ain't happening. So...here's me crossing my fingers that the most gorgeous African landscape for a teeny powder room setting will come to life today. Fingers and toes...oh, and when it's completed I'll probably post it on my other journal site, Mural Studio blog for anyone to check out.

I just finished a fantastic new penguin this morning too! He's quite nice and has a boyish look to him, though would be appreciated by many I think :o) I sure like him...he just needs a name, and photos, and then I'll post him in the shop - maybe later today.

And if I finish all these things...I can run over to the nursery at Orchard and buy teeny plants for my 'plants on the brain' planter heads! It'll be a sweet reward.

Another early post...




Well, earlier than usual. We can't seem to wake up later than 5:30am these days...this morning it was 4:30 - ugh! But it's been fun to have the mornings together. I made biscuits and honey butter and we enjoyed them with strawberries and coffee. Sanguine our cat is has decided she prefers Phylo's mat in my office more than hers and the poor guy isn't brave enough to reclaim it so he's retreated to his big bed where he sleeps at night. I put his little mat up against the wall and now Sanguine is sulking around and meowing at me. Such drama with the animals today!

In less dramatic - but just as fuzzy and cute - shop news, I have 2 new little plushes up! Abby is a polka dotted mini owl with a corduroy back, and Lillian is a lap dog with a gorgeous Japanese fabric and my own handmade felt eye details. I'm going to try and get finished up with more plushes as soon as possible, but have to finish some mural sketches first. I'm finding it hard to focus - is it possible I had TOO much coffee this morning??

Off to collect research on the Serengeti plains, then draw my best lions, giraffes, hippos, wildebeasts, zebras, birds,...

Oh, and here are a couple more shots from Paris...the first one is in the Louvre Museum in the section of Napoleon's apartments - gaudy goodness!! The second is from a window in the Louvre looking out at the glass pyramids, right before the sun burst through and we got lovely blue skies.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Mmmm, did someone say chocolate?

I had to share some of these pics from the trip...this was the "Chocolate Company" - a chocolate shop in Aachen, Germany. A fabulous place!! We ate and drank and bought more chocolate than I could imagine - it was irresistible. We brought home tons of dark chocolate stirring sticks for making hot chocolate. At the shop I drank the raspberry, and can't wait to try the lemongrass and the cinnamon (both dark chocolate, of course...). Jared had an espresso and they brought us a little plate of treats - they were eaten very quickly!

Wish we had bottomless stomaches and could try EVERYTHING!


Dark chocolate with raspberry mixed into hot milk makes the most delicious hot chocolate!


And in shop news...I'm working on some new little guys and have will them up later today. A little lapdog and an owling - they look so cute together. I slipped the little gocco owl cards above into the packages I just shipped out. Hopefully they'll be a sweet surprise :o)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Tuesday morning...or is it Wednesday?

Hello!

It's about 11am PST here...and 9 hours later in Germany and France where we had just gotten used to the time difference. Needless to say, we are in slightly rare form. We had an amazing trip and just got back yesterday afternoon. Too many photos to share of course! But I'll keep posting them on my flickr (there are some there already that I had the chance to post during the week). Hope you enjoy...


Germany really is a neat place, and we loved Paris...the sites, the food, the wine, the people. It was so much to take in, and my French is a mix of maybe 9 words, but we enjoyed it immensely and can't wait to go back. We had our share of aggravations...but survived. We weren't fully prepared for every aspect of travel - had it been too long? More on those things later....I have SO much to catch up on. Packages of cozy plushes to mail, sketches to complete for mural projects, a pile of sewing and a shop update, and tons of domesticities that are calling my name:

...do the laundry...sweep the porch...clean the garden beds...clean everything, really :o) A fall clean up I suppose - time to accept that fall is here, summer is past. At least there's Halloween to look forward to!

See ya tomorrow...


Friday, October 5, 2007

Au Revoir...

photo by put puri from flickr

& Auf Wiedersehen!

photo by beyond the grave on flickr


Yep, we leave tomorrow for Germany and France! We picked up phrase books for both languages to help us out a bit. I'm feeling self conscious about sounding like an idiot speaking German. I feel a little better with French...it's phonetically more like Spanish which I'm more than familiar with. In fact, I'm afraid I'm going to bust out in Spanish without thinking about it...sigh, it's going to be embarrassing, but what can I do. I'm sure we're going to get the giggles more than once :o)

I'll keep posting on my flickr page...you'll be seeing the sites of Aachen, Cologne, and the Rhineland in Germany (as well as the Nurburgring where Jared will be racing a car - yes, I said that right...more when we get back). And photos of Paris...possibly Giverny as well. Why Giverny? That's where Monet's beautiful home and gardens are located. It's about an hour by train from Paris and I'm really looking forward to it.

Have a lovely week...

Grosses Bises!

Devon

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Iron & Wine and Millicent the Owling

I just had the most lovely of morning sewing sessions...

I subscribe to 'all songs considered' from NPR and today was treated with an Iron & Wine concert that was recorded live at the 9:30 club in D.C. Many folks know...I'm a nut for Iron & Wine (moniker for Sam Beam, the bearded and magical musician) so I was thrilled to get to listen to a concert. I have yet to get to go to a real live I&W concert...I'm sure it would be so much more amazing than listening to it over my laptop. But I really did enjoy it this morning and was super productive putting together my new owling friend, Millicent. You can find him in my shop today. I have a showcase going on that you can view as well.


It's pretty tough typing with a 50lb dog perched on my lap so I'll keep this short and sweet and close for now. Have a great Thursday!

ps- if anyone has any tips/ideas/thoughts etc. for travel in either Germany or France please let me know! We leave Saturday morning for Germany (through Jared's work) and are taking the week to see Paris and the Rhineland and little bits in between. Neither of us have been...can't wait!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Priscilla and friends

I just listed some new animal lovelies in my shop...including Priscilla the penguin. She has some truly great fabrics - one straight from Japan thanks to my parents. This is one of my absolute favorite patterns - overlapping arches, scallops...forget what it's called - oh, probably fishscales - that's what it is :o)

This is Percy the elephant plush...isn't she snazzy?? I love how she came together. She'd look great in someone's modern space with her pop of red and black & white - classic. She is available and in my shop!

And I just finished a little custom order that you can also check out. The trio includes Cosette the penguin, Cassie the lapdog, and Daphne the owling baby. They look really sweet together and I can picture them in her daughter's room - tucked into special spaces or grouped together. They're sturdy enough for some play (not rough play...) and hopefully they'll give and receive lots of love over the years.


Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Shower pretties


I helped throw a baby shower for a dear friend over the weekend and thought I would share some of the loveliness that it was :o)


I designed/made the invites which came out much cuter than I thought they would - I was super crunched for time and had to enact 'plan b' for them (scanning fabric rather than redesigning a toile pattern).



My friend Mel and I did the cooking...I roasted a ham (with honey glaze) and made a scrumptious dish of 'smashed sweet potatoes and apples'...supremely decadent with cream, brown sugar, butter, you know...all the good stuff. And I brought a cheese cake (from TJ's) with a raspberry sauce I made the night before. Mel made a fabulous seasonal salad with baby spinach, pears, dried cranberries, pecans, olive oil - mmmhh! She also whipped up the perfect punch and brought the goods for a cheese/grape/crackers tray.


There were just 12 guests so nice and cozy. Our expectant mom friend received tons of goodies. I put together a little treat for her of my 'oh so happy' elephant in a sweet little pink frame. If you haven't guessed by now, she is having a girl!


Yesterday I finished up Frieda the Penguin plush and listed her in the shop. This morning I found that she already has a new home! I'm so excited to send her off to her new family, along with Billie the baby owling. They're a good pair!

Today I'm working on a custom order...a penguin and lapdog to coordinate with my owling, Daphne. They are going to make the cutest Devon Industry plush trio. They can be seen later today in my shop. I will try to sneak a new penguin in there as well...and maybe a whale - we'll see.


And this was my view driving home from a mural meeting yesterday. It was such a beautiful fall morning...a bit cool and the sky full of fluffy clouds. Ahhhh....