Weekend Eye Candy - Undiscovered Talent

Christine over at Chocolate and Steel has this really great feature, where she highlights some of the great undiscovered talent on etsy. I really love this idea, so my Weekend Eye Candy this week features all undiscovered talent over at esty. These folks have created some really great work and are yet to have the sales they deserve.


These artisans can be found on etsy in the following shops;

1. LRP.Photo 2. Sterling Roots 3. Jen Kiaba Photography 4. Nap. Play. Bark. Love Barklee. 5. The Peppermint Forest 6. Unusual Birthday Cards 7. Karen Sam Norgard 8. Foursight Designs 9. Jane E. Roberti

Now I'm off to Such and Such and Chocolate and Steel for their weekend inspirations.

In the Beginning....

One of the known side effects of crafting is accumulation. But this happens slowly over time, so rarely do we see the evidence staring us in the face. But, this weekend, I had to open my old photobucket account and I found a picture of my original PMC workspace. This is from 2006 when I got my first packages of PMC.


That's how innocently it all began. And now...I have two worktables..


And several storage units for...well...stuff. This is my favorite cabinet, and the only piece of furniture in my workshop that I actually paid money for, everything else is street finds or hand me downs.

Thanks Boy's and Girl's Club of Venice.

And this one is my favorite table top storage piece, an old cigar box with drawers. Isn't it the sweetest thing you've ever seen?

Thank you Kate.

And that doesn't even begin to address the tools, tools and more tools I have accumulated during this short 3 going on 4 year period.


Aaaaand I have the closet you saw in my "Order Restored" blog from a monthish ago. Wow, where did it all come from? Don't get me wrong, I love my stuff and wouldn't change a thing. But seeing the humble beginnings this weekend, then looking at all that I have now, and thinking of all the stuff on my wish list...I was a little amazed.

Weekend Eye Candy Circus

I love handmade bath and body yummies. They are a great way to pamper myself without blowing my very tight budget. And, as you have read before, my budget calls the shots around here. So it's nice to find things that I can buy and really enjoy, guilt free.


You can find these amazing artisans on etsy, at the following shop locations;

1. JM Creative 2. Made1ine Bea Soap 3. RiffRaff 4. The Abbey James Co. 5. Heathen’s Hearth 6. Earthway Soap 7. In a Lather 8. Anderson Soap Company 9. Enchanting Soap Favors

I hope you have a great weekend. I'm off to Such and Such and Chocolate and Steel to check out their great eye candy.

A Bag is Born

Sewing is not my first language. I like to create my own patterns but I don’t think in fluent “sewing”. This means I have to construct things to realize that they totally don’t work. But I have a really hard time reading other peoples patterns: because I don’t think fluent sewing. It’s a vicious circle.

But for this project all I wanted to do was rework the pattern I created for a felted bag. I just wanted to simplify the bottom construction. That should be super simple, right? Well not if you don’t think “sewing”. So I got this little mess at first.

It turned out about 4 inches to short. Oops! The seams were crazy bulky and my elna didn’t want to sew through them. And my elna will sew through almost anything. I love that machine.

Once I got that mistake out of my system, the new pattern came together great.


And I want to share a fun pattern trick I use. I love good quality wrapping paper, but it’s expensive and I’m cheap. So to justify buying good wrapping papers I use the left over wrapping paper to make my patterns with. Win, win.

So here’s the new bag in all her glory. I’m really happy with how it turned out. And the construction is easier than the original pattern.

The burlap is all lined with the pink so you can see pink through out the bag. I like to have pockets on my bags; I’m a function first kind of girl. So each end has an outer pocket, for my keys and cell phone. And the inside liner has many little pockets for pens, ipod, notebooks, and much more.



I want to thank Maya over at Maya Made; her burlap buckets were a big influence on this fabric combination. I loved the look of her burlap and knew I wanted to add some to my summer bag. Thank you Maya.

And the winners are....Everyone!!!!

Thank you to everyone for your comments and proof reading. It was all really appreciated.

I only had 7 strangers and one friend enter to win so everyone is a winner! It's my blog I can change the rules, can't I? Soooo...Karen Gill, Auntrene, Sarah - thrifty minnesota mama, Sarah Crawford, Christin Banda, And Julie - jnkurrie You are all winners and I will email you so you can give me an address. And Pat Evans, I know you didn't feel lucky but, you are a winner also. Pat you didn't give me an email address, so please email me at hsb(at)paigelitfin(dot)com with your address. I will get the cozies in the mail as soon as possible.

edit***oops Karen Gill I need an email from you also to hsb(at)paigelitfin(dot)com***edit

I want this to be the first of many giveaways so check back often. Thank you, Paige

Summer Bag Fixings

I went to the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles last week and picked up some new summer prints. This set; burlap, linen floral, bright pink and cream cotton, is going to be my new summer bag. I'll let you know how it goes...

Weekend Eye Candy Circus

This weekend's eye candy is all about pottery. I love pottery. I use it all over my house for decor and storage. You can find these amazing artists on etsy:
1. Rebecca Humphrey Designs 2. Brookhouse Pottery 3. Judi Tavill 4. Mary Judy 5. Unmasked 6. Creative with Clay 7. Kind Kiln Pottery 8. House of Harriet 9. Jim Joe

I hope you have a creative weekend. I'm off to check out what Lora and Christine have for Weekend Eye Candy.

Green Giveaway

I'm having my first giveaway to celebrate two very cool things. One, I have successfully blogged for one month, ya!! Two, I put my first 5 items in my etsy shop today.

One of the things that really drew me to the craft blog community was the generosity. Ideas, inspiration, tutorials and, can you image, giveaways of beautiful items. Just given freely and with love. Who are these amazing people? So I'm super excited to have my first giveaway. To give a little something back to the community that has given me so much.


Here is what you can win. I make these fun to-go coffee cup sleeves, a pretty and green alternative to the cardboard sleeves. I whip them up as gifts for friends and family. They seem to like them, I hope you do too.

I have 6 to give away. So 6 lucky winners. And yes I know one is totally different from the rest. I had some left over felt and felted flowers from a bag I made a friend, and I thought, why not?


The rules of the road for this giveaway are simple, but you can really rack up points here. You get one point if you just check out my etsy shop and leave a comment. Good, bad, or ugly, I welcome all input. You can get another point if you blog about my giveaway, but make sure and comment to let me know you blogged. And last you can get a point by helping this Dyslexic out with her proof reading. (Dyslexics of the world "untie"). If you are the first to spot a spelling error on my etsy site, comment about it, and I will give you another point. One spelling error per person. That way my mistakes can really spread the love.

The sleeves have buttons and elastic in the back, so they adjust to fit all cup sizes.

The giveaway is over next Tuesday the 12th. I will announce the winners on Wednesday the 13th.

Thank you all so much for your support during this first month of my new adventure, Paige

Weekend Eye Candy Circus

I really need to make myself a summer bag. I love my felted tote bag buuuut I've been carrying it for a year and it's not very summery. To give me a little extra push this weekend's eye candy is all about the fabulous bag. Enjoy.


The amazing artisans that made these bags can be found on etsy in the following shops:
1. York Town Road 2. Kinies 3. Cotton and Cloud 4. Bag Lady Mamma 5. Designs maya*made 6. Handbags by Daphne 7. Rainbow Swirlz 8. Pook & Thy 9. {AO3} Designs

I'm off to see the fantastic Weekend Eye Candy at Such and Such and Chocolate and Steel. Have a great weekend.

Flat Tharan goes home to Minnesota

A couple of months ago I got a Flat Tharan in the mail. And I had a great time with him. I'm a little late in blogging about him, I mailed him off a week ago, but it was such fun I wanted to share.

I took him all over the city and we got some great shots. These guys were so nice. They let me take a bunch of pictures and "Jack" even made me check to make sure the images were in focus before he let me walk away.

Hollywood and Highland

Santa Monica Carousel

I wanted to add a little treat bag for each of Tharan's classmates with a couple of California items. I remember how cool you felt as a kid when you were the one giving out the treats to your class. Each bag was stamped with a sun and palm tree on the front, a cool palm symbol on the back, and tied with a little yarn bow.

Inside each bag were two caramel treats and three sea shells wrapped in foil and tied with curly ribbon. The caramel's were from Beth at Have it Confections in Glendale CA. Beth made me a kid friendly special order of Heavenly Vanilla and Belgian Chocolate.


I feel I have to give a big thank you to etsy here. I really wanted the treats to be made locally (in the LA area). I never would have found a local candy maker without etsy. And the kids would have ended up with See's Candies, which are made in Culver City, but you can buy at any mall in the country.

I ordered an ibook filled with all the shots I took. If you are a mac person and have never ordered an ibook through iphoto I highly recommend them. They are extremely professional looking and it's really easy to do the book's lay-out in iphoto.


I packed up Flat Tharan, some other goodies for my nephew, the treats for his class, the book and sent them off to Minnesota. I hope it goes over well, I haven't heard yet.

Photo Weekend

Thank you so much everyone for all the great help and input on my photo taking. I think it all paid off.
I spent all day Saturday taking photos and waiting for the perfect light. But I was still getting some blowout of the high polished silver areas. Then I remembered that I had made this cool velum and balsa wood light baffle. I placed that behind the jewelry and ta-da it worked.

And here are the results.
Adding back some props.

Now the only question is for my enamel work.

Do you like the colored background or the rustic background for this kind of work? I like the rustic one. But I worry that the enamel work isn't really rustic. It's more clean and fun. Which makes me think it needs the solid colored background. So I'm torn, what do you all think?

Weekend Eye Candy Circus

Okay I might be a little obsessed. As you may know from yesterday's woes, I have not been having much luck taking photos for my, coming soon, etsy shop. So this weekend's eye candy is all about inspiring better photos. These etsy sellers have some really great photography. Not to mention the items themselves. I'll spend the weekend trying to live up to their example.

You can check out their shops at:

1. Metal Heart Design 2. Umbilicus Designs 3. Chocolate and Steel 4. Jen Kahn 5. Lora Hart 6. Copper Frog Studio 7. Souly Yours 8. Besa Design 9. LuLu Bug Jewelry

I'll let you know Monday how it went. Now, let's go check out Such and Such and Chocolate and Steel to see what treats they have to offer this weekend. Thanks for visiting.

Photo Woes

I really want to open an etsy store next month. So yesterday I spent a little time in my yard trying to create a photo set up that I liked. I brought out a lot of toys that I though would look good.

.....83 pictures later and I'm not a happy camper. The worst part is, I think I take pretty good pictures, but merchandising shots are killing me.

This picture really looked great in the set up. I remember thinking "this is how I would display this pendent if I was selling it in a shop". The pendent has movement and it looks dynamic. But as an online sale photo, is it a little busy? And I know I can't show 4 pictures like this, it would become to much "about the prop".

Pendent 1

But.......this shot, which has simplicity and shows the pendent great is a little flat feeling. And also a little, dare I say, boring.

Pendent 2

This picture is a little bit of a compromise but still not great. It still feels flat. But I love the prop.

Pendent 3

And the same thing happens with the earrings. Love these shots of the earrings. But are they to busy? And 4 pictures with these props will become "about the prop". But I love the dynamics of the shots.


So here is my question for all you etsy experts out there. Can I use a picture like Pendent 1, or the earring shots, as my main picture because their dynamic, but busy, and then use pictures like Pendent 2 to show details? Or do all my pictures need to be on the same background? I did a lot of surfing etsy and most sellers use the same background for all the shots of a piece. Is this a rule I can break? What do you think?

Thanks for visiting.

Order Restored

The closet that was.

I had a very grand plan for organizing my closet this weekend. It included a lot of these really cool things from Ikea.


Then my budget had it's say (I have a literal, beautiful, poopie, excel spreadsheet budget and we have a love/ hate relationship.) and the budget said... well the budget just laughed at me. So I down shifted and did a lot of cleaning out and re-organizing instead of redecorating, cleaning out and re-organizing.

I finally got both my wine crates mounted to the wall. I hope this photo makes sense. It's actually two photos together.

I moved my empty Ikea 3 drawer set, which they don't sell anymore, from under the bed and mounted it to the wall.


Then I cleaned, organized, and re-arranged everything in the craft closet. I hope I can find everything again. The before doesn't show both sides of the craft closet because I had to clean up to get all the sliding doors off.

The closet that is.

So now I have more storage, a clean space, and I didn't spend a penny. I'm very happy with the results. And maybe the budget and I will discuss some of those fantastic red boxes next month.

Thanks for visiting.