Today I'm featuring fellow Carried Away Shop Alexz from Bird Trouble in Chicago, IL. Her bags have a lot of individual style with a sense of urban hipster about them and a dash of whimsey. Alexz is in her 20's and really gets a kick out of rescuing thirft store finds and making fresh fashion.

Today is the last day of the sale to celebrate the graduation season, so hop on over and have apeep at alexz's great bags!

GRADUATION SALE! To congratulate all of our graduates this year, Bird Trouble is having 10% off ALL items from May 15th until May 31st. A refund will be sent to you through paypal after payment is cleared.

While visiting my Dad in Salt Lake last weekend Holly and I were out in the yard. His house sits on about a half acre of property and has quite a few unused outbuildings. While playing baseball under the big box elder trees in the back, we noticed these box elder beetles trying their hardest to reduce the old barn by the garage back to dust. Regardless of the fact that they are supposed to enjoy box elder seeds pods as their preferred food, the paint on the building seems to be mighty tasty! They were swarming all over the building by the thousands. Their red markings make them hard to see as they match the weathered red paint on the building perfectly... so you really don't notice them until you get up close and look down here near the base where the paint has mostly flaked off. I guess they are a pest bug for some folks, but my Dad just thought they were neat when I pointed the swarms out to him.

Holly hasn't spent a lot of time outside where things grow and bugs creep. Las Vegas is a desert afterall, so she was really enchanted with the blue pollen in Aunt Norah's poppies that just began to bloom while we were there. They only last a few days.

She also rediscovered the fact that Grandpa's yard is like "snail central" and spent an happy hour observing her slimey buddies crawling over Grandpa's front steps. On Monday, when we went up Millcreek canyon for the family breakfast, she was at it again with the snails. Even got brave enough to let a few crawl on her.


So of course, she needed help to locate the snails in the long wet grass and my cousin Katie's little 3 year old boys were on the case!

They had quite a collection going, but once the other kids got wind of it, it turned into quite a project. All my young second cousins (and several aunts, uncles and the young first cousins) were recruited to locate snails for her stump throne. She found one that had a bug on it and was all worried for the snail. She thought it might be a parasite and hurt the snail.



"oh no," I told her with an almost straight face, " that's a snail bus. You know, he's hitching a ride on snail public transporation!"

She didn't really buy into this until I got Grandpa and Uncle Cavett to go along with it. :) HAH! Adults do plot!


Isn't is fascinating how kids can find fun under every rock? Sometimes I miss the green lush ALIVE! quality of Salt Lake and Oregon (where I lived for a short time) but then I remember the misery of living in constant RAIN and deep, cold SNOW and bless my 350 days a year of SUN, SUN, SUN!

I had a great breakfast and visit with my sister today. Just as we were winding up our marathon chat, she suggested that we go get our toenails painted and have pedicures. I've never had a professional pedicure before. I'm really not the "beauty-related pampering yourself" kind. It was such a fun experience (especially the pumice stone that tickled like no one's business!) ... and look at these sunset orange toes! Match my chair perfectly. These things are very important! Thanks for the fun day, Sarah!

I was on vacation over Memorial Day and have been working non-stop since we got back on Monday night. One of our more exotics locales was the Lunar landscape (courtesy of the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City). OOps.. time for to leave for work! More later!

I am facing a dilemma, one that many makers of handmade goods face. The old question of pricing fairly to you and your customers. With this new bag, my friend Carin says I am not charging enough for bags like this. Because I really believe in making beautiful things that are still affordable, I would list a clutch like this for $25- $40. She suggested I charge $300. On the one hand, I want the bags to be affordable but on the other... she is right. It is one of a kind and that should command a fair price for the uniqueness along with my skill in making it. So I settled on $75. Too high? Too low? I could really use some feedback from other buyers and makers of handmade. Please share your thoughts in comments or by completing the poll below.

Description from my shop:

The "runway worthy" clutch is a stunner for anyone who champions the cause of literacy or just likes to be accompanied by wise words.

Soliloquy is made from a one of a kind handpainted pink/orange and navy fabric by my wonderful friend Mollie from Monkey Shine Design. She only made a very small piece and this is the ONLY bag I can make from it.

The background is this vibrant orange tinged with brink pink with many variations & swirls of color over the cloth. In my house this special color, seen most frequently in mother nature's spectacular sunsets, is called "plorange." The lettering is in a deep, dark blue, almost black. The cloth features hand painted literary quotes in an elegant curling calligraphy.

The piping is a hand dyed blue/purple cotton. The bag lining is also hand dyed deep navy with a tinge of purple.


Crowning the bag is a handmade lampwork borosilicate glass bead. The outer clear glass encases a complex swirl of color in purple with orange and peach highlights. It almost glows luminous in sunlight. The bead was made by Elesha in her studio up in Oregon.



Framing the focal bead are matte cherry red and orange glass beads from local lampwork artist Trev at Geosoul Arts. Finishing off are little roundelles of pink and red glass.

Soliloquy closes with a brass tone magnetic snap under the flap. The bag measures 9.5" wide by 5" high. It has some shape to it and will nicely hold phone, keys, cards, lipstick and cash.
_____

Is $75 a fair price for this bag?

• Yes, and I want it now!
• Yes, but I couldn't afford it.
• No, too high - under $50 is fair.
• No, way too low. Charge over $100

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

wow! oh wow! oh wow!

I just got these pictures today of the trailer wrap I created for Dana's Metal of Honor Tribute Harley trailer being installed by Mark's team over at Color Reflections. They still need to wrap the other side and the front. The trailer will spend a lot of time doubling as a stationary trade show display with the Harley outside, so the design is a lot busier then it would normally be if it was intended to function solely as a mobile billboard.



Once Nate (MY HERO!) did some roughs for me and Dana fiddled with the design, the wrap took two days to build for production. These files were MONSTERS! Seriously, over 1GB each, with so many layers! After this adventure and Dana's threats that I need to make more big stuff, I broke down and bought more RAM for my Mac Pro. I ordered two 4GB sticks for 8GB total only to discover that my machine can only read 2GB sticks ... so I had to trade it for four 2GB sticks. Once I get it this week, I will have 13GB total. I already have 6GB. I will have to remove 1GB to fit the 4 new sticks. I have 8 slots and can have 16GB total, but you know.. that's just like... silly. I actually remember when 1GB of RAM was over $1,000! 8GB cost me a little over $200.

Anyway, the photos in the film strip are from Dana's upcoming photo tribute book: Pearls of Honor: Their Duty to Remember. It chronicles the commitment of Pearl Harbor Survivors to Keep America Alert. Besides the trailer, I am also designing and editing the book, the blog, the website, flyers, business cards and whatever else Dana dreams up.

The gorgeous flowers on the trailer were drawn by my friend Lori Anzalone. These are the same lovely flowers that grace the website. (Hip! Hip! Horrah! for Mike and Maverick over at SinCityMadMen for being my code warriors!) Lori also did the amazing pearl at the top of the site. The trees and filmstrip are stock art.

Dana will truly be rolling in style for his trip to San Diego over Memorial Day. I wanted to join him, but I will be heading to Salt Lake City with sister Norah and daughter Holly, two dogs and the pieces of wooden sculpture Norah is building for Canyon Creative. (yes, the car will be FULL!!!) We're going to see my dad, my brother, my neice and nephew, my endless cousins, Aunts & Uncles galore and my grand parents.

But a road trip with the trailer and the Harley is in my future. I'm going to try to talk that wonderful Nate guy into subbing in my Photoshop class that week so I can head down to San Diego in July for the HUGE 4th of July parade on Coranado Island. Dana said Holly and I could march in the parade with Metal of Honor as we escort parade Grand Marshal John Finn (Pearl Harbor Survivor and the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient from World War II.) He says it is THE BEST parade to see and feel the patriotic spirit carry you away. I can't wait!

I should have pictures of the completed wrap tomorrow.

Paige over at Lenox Knits turned me on to this quiz. I think my result are fairly accurate.. although I've never liked violet.

you are violet #EE82EE

Your dominant hues are red and blue. You're confident and like showing people new ideas. You play well with others and can be very influential if you want to be. Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

With some help from the fine folks at Creative Wisdom, I made myself a new twitter background. What do you all think? I also made a new one for my sister Kim of OverallBeauty.

Although this appears to be "work" ... I feel it MIGHT be more correctly classified as "avoidance of work by doing something that is productive but not needed right this second" ... but it is Sunday after all.

So I've been looking for a new wallet and my fellow Carried Away Member, Masko of Siam Square makes these great little accordian fold wallets and card carriers. I am truly baffled on how she constructs these.







She also creates these neat zipper pouch organizers if you wanted a bigger wallet.



And many styles of great bags.




Masko has led an interesting life. She is from Japan, but has lived in Thailand, Australia, and Indonesia. She moved to the US in 2003 and was living in New Orleans when Katrina struck. In the aftermath of the storm, she had a chance to experience the charatible spirit of her fellow quilters/crafters first hand as she was given a handmade quilt, similar to the many she had made as a member of her local quilt guild. I believe life always comes in circles and the more good you put out, the better the chance that it will come your way when you need it. I think this story shows that to be true.

Now Masko lives in Tennesse. She enjoys many kinds of fiber arts and crafts. Because she speaks Japanese natively, she is happy to help fellow crafters decipher patterns that are written in Japanese. Just drop her a convo on etsy if you need some help.

I also had to buy some new FQs (They made me buy them! I swear.) and this prompted a little tidying up in my fabric cabinet and lo and behold ... I CAN buy more fabric! See, I have room in the reds, multicolors and greens. Big empty spaces. See? See? Umm, this is "justification through cleaning" gone rampant... isn't it?

At least the cats seem to be in tune with my fabric obsession!

Here's my next project from this great teal paisley batik and deep yellow I got in yesterday's haul. I added in some lime green and picked out some possible beads. Not sure what I'm making, but it feels so summery! Any suggestions?

And we weren't sorry. The new Star Trek movie was actually WORTH the blatant highway robbery they call "ticket prices" these days. The cast was well chosen and the effects were incredible but more importantly, the writers and actors made the characters real and gave them strong emotional bases and multiple dimensions. From the very first sequence with Captain Kirk's father to the end of the film, you find yourself caring about the characters. Good stories are hard to come by in Hollywood films and it was a HUGE surprise to find one in what would usually be a passable summer effects-driven space romp. Kudos to J.J. Abrams, the writers, the actors and the entire team. And if you didn't catch J.J. Abrams as the guest editor in Wired, you missed out!

Many thanks to the fine folks over at the Etsy Treasury Team for the picking me as the winner in their giveaway. I'll soon be enjoying these lovely handmade charms from MidnightCoiler's Shop. I am really excited, as lately I have been making an effort to use handmade beads and buttons in my handbag designs.

Besides the lovely handmade charms, MidnightCoiler also creates gourd art, like this rustic bird house and lovely gourd bowl. She also creates ceramic wall pockets. Lovely shop and certainly worth a visit.

"A+++ What a beautiful purse! Very well made and a Sweet design :) Thanks so much, Krystal! Super quick shipping, too."

Etsy seller Beadfreaky and I recently did a trade. I loved the gorgeous handmade clay buttons and pendants she sent me and it seems she is delighted with the Thessaly hip bag I sent over to her. It's always nice when both parties come out happy.

Gotta love sunny days in Vegas for taking pictures!

My Viridian handbag in all her glorious color!

I had my blog set so only people with google accounts could comment. What a noob mistake! **blush** All fixed now. Thanks Laura for sending me off to check that.

On a blogger blog, you need to go to your dashboard under settings>>comments>> and check the radio button for anyone. This doesn't have anything to do with moderation settings, it just controls who can comment. By default I believe blogger is set to a more limiting option.

Just finished my latest creation, Viridan, tonight. It seems like I have been working on this handbag for ages, which is of course, not true. Just not a lot of time to sew lately, so I haven't been able to focus on it to get it finished. It is one of the more complicated bags I've made recently, but the lack of sewing time means I've been working on it for two weeks. Normally this would have been spread over a few days at most. Total time was probably 4-5 hours.

The set in zipper worked out well and the back side pocket does look good patchworked like the rest of the bag. Good suggestion from twitter peep @kur8er! I did the top a little differently and I like how it came out rounded vs. flat.

I'll get better pictures tomorrow in the sun before I list Viridan. Think this one is going up for $95.

Top of bag with set in zipper. You can see the two patchwork pockets in the lining. One big and one split. There is also a zipper pocket and a keyhanger swivel hook.