The Round Top Review

I have only missed the Round Top flea market a handful of times since I discovered it’s majestic shopping awesomeness. Once I was in Los Angeles filming Craft Lab and for the 2009 spring show I had just given birth to Tallulah. Both flimsy excuses I know. This fall there was nothing that was going to hold me back – not a baby, not work, not weather – I was going. Thursday morning my mother and I packed up Tallulah in her stroller and headed out about an hour outside of Austin on a junk shopping mission.


I made a few new additions to my Fisher Price family like this aqua chime ball!


Rub-a-Dub-Dub I also found a Fisher Price 3 Men in a Tub. I remember having this one as a little girl.


Tallulah was quite a little helper making motorboat sounds and warming the hearts of all the dealers helping me get a better deal. I decided to start her out young on the flea market circuit just like my parents did with me.


The next flea market we go to I am going to ditch the stroller and just use the new Woolco grocery cart I got. I think it will look fab in my back yard filled with plants.


My mother who is obsessed with all things vintage Christmas got so much stuff it took 3 of us making 3 trips to her car to get it all packed up.


The big excitement of my 3 day shopping weekend was scoring an all new dining room. You can see what the old one looked like on Apartment Therapy. The polka dotted floor had seen better days, the stuffing is coming out of the chairs and I was just ready for a change.


Day 2 I spotted these lovely plastic cafeteria chairs in 3 shades of awesome. I took a picture to take home and show Chris and get his seal of approval.


The next day with the chairs still on my mind I scored this huge vintage pin ball machine glass that my sister and I named "Hank, Izzy and the Sluts". A new frame and a little paint touch up and this my friends will be bad ass.


I found a Danish Modern table to go with the chairs and the pin ball glass, thank God the chairs were still there at the end of the day or I would have been in trouble. They got a quick bath in my front yard along with some bowling balls I snagged.


The bowling balls were easy to place, my new dining room is a bit more perplexing. I'm guessing you will be hearing more about my design dilemma in the coming weeks. We are getting new wood flooring in October where the polka dots once lived, the red curtains will have to go and I have no clue what color to paint the walls. I'm open to suggestions.


One of my favorite booths at Round Top is always Punkies Place. They have the cutest things and the best styling. I want to live under their tent.


More goodies from Punkies Place. The only items we actually scored were a big batch of old pageant trophies.


I think I have been watching a little too much Toddlers and Tiaras.


Georgie was most excited about all the bags that mom and I brought home from the flea market. You can see a bit of the vintage fabric my mom nabbed for making Christmas Stockings and a little Girl of the Year trophy in the picture.


On the second day of Round Top we traded in Tallulah for my friend Karly who purchased this fine piece of art for her home. Formal reclining nude with James Franco mountain.


One of my favorite purchases was this wee little aqua vinyl platform rocker for Tallulah. Every baby needs their own lounge chair.


I was giddy with excitement over all this loot. A giant bag of rick rack flowers, hand painted lady heads, square dancing bow tie and a speckled cafeteria tray!


Is it weird that I get really excited about things that come in bulk? Like these old perfume bottles. I didn't buy any but they sure look pretty.


3 days later and miles of hot and dusty terrain covered I am worn out. After Austin City Limits this coming weekend I plan to just lay on the couch for days straight. Or at least while Tallulah naps.

Austin Joins the Handmade Nation P.S. Win Free Stuff!

I finally feel like I have some closure now that i have seen Handmade Nation. After reading all the hype about all the other premieres around the country we Austinites were waiting with baited breath for the screening at The Alamo and it did not disappoint. Faythe Levine the director was here for the screenings and did informative Q & A sessions along with a few of us Austin crafty ladies after the film. The whole weekend was full of crafty goodness from a book signing of Handmade Nation to kick things off to an after party at Austin Handmade to wrap things up. I of course took a few pictures of the whole thing that I thought you might enjoy. Also for those that could not join us I have a very limited edition Handmade Nation Austin Tote Bag to give away stuffed full of awesome.


The Austin ladies of the Handmade Nation at Domy Books. Kathie Sever (Ramonster) Faythe Levine (director) Magda Sayeg (Knitta), Jennifer Perkins (duh, me!) and Whitney Lee (Made With Sweet Love). Super fun getting to see everyone and got to feel like a rock star signing copies of the book.


All my pictures in the Handmade Nation book were taken by the amazing Cory Ryan.


Western Wear Goddess Kathie Sever and craft orator Faythe Levine at Domy Books.


Hooray for the Wondercraft they brought their portable craft studio in an Airstream to The Alamo. I had to take a family picture since after honeymooning at an Airstream trailer park I have a soft spot for them.


My fellow Austin Craft Mafia member Susann Koehane of All Dressed Up and Shy was at The Alamo representing the YuDu.


Last but not least I had my first post-baby mojito with my lady friends Cory and Erin at the crafty after party hosted by Austin Handmade.

So now onto the part about the free stuff....

We have a pink Austin themed Handmade Nation tote bag to give away. Did I mention the bag is stuffed full of goodies like jewelry from Happy Owl Glassworks, Notepad from Sublime Stitching, charm from Adaptive Reuse and more! All you gotta do is leave a comment about Handmade Nation. Have you seen the film? Read the book? Heard about? Were you at an event where they were filming? Gimmie the scoop and in a week you will find out if you win the bag.

I Love to Create - DIY Silk Screening

I realize not everyone has a Yudu or the knowledge of how to make and burn their own screens. Never fear, if you were feeling a little left out of the screen printing fun I have just the project for you. Today for I Love to Create we are silk screening using pantyhose, decoupage and an embroidery hoop!


SUPPLIES
Tulip Soft Fabric Paint
Collage Pauge or Aleene’s Instant Decoupage Medium
Onesie or something to screen on
Embroidery hoop
Pen
Pantyhose
Paint brush
Business card


WHO DOESN’T LIKE UNICORNS?
First choose your image. Something in silhouette works best. Also I would not opt for a design that was too complicated. Make sure your design will fit inside the embroidery hoop you will be working with. I chose a perky little unicorn in all its magical glory.

PREPARE YOUR SCREEN
I retired my panty hose a long time ago when I quit my day job as a secretary. Luckily my friend Susann who was the mastermind behind this project brought over a lavender pair for me to work with. All you do is stretch the hose out in your embroidery hoop nice and taunt just like you would get a piece of cloth ready to embroider on.


TRANSFERING YOUR IMAGE
Lay your image down on a flat surface and place your embroidery hoop on top. Trace the outline of your image with a pen onto your panty hose.


BLOCKING OUT THE SCREEN
Using your decoupage and a paint brush fill in the area around your image. Be sure to apply the decoupage to the top of your screen and only put the decoupage where you do not want your paint to go. Allow the screen to dry completely.


GET YOUR SCREEN ON
I stretched my onesie over a piece of cardboard so that the fabric paint would not soak through to the back. Once I had done this I laid my screen top side down on my onesie and squirted out a generous helping of paint.


SCREENING YOUR IMAGE
Using a business card or old hotel key scrape the paint across the image in a firm manner while holding your embroidery hoop in place on your onesie. You do not want the image to shift or your baby will have an ugly outfit.


PLAY DRESS UP
Once the paint has dried on the onesie give it a 45 minute spin in a hot dryer to heat set the image and all that is left to do is get your baby dressed!

Have you tried the embroidery hoop method of screen printing? I am particularly curious if anyone has tried to screen a multi colored layered image? I wanna hear all about it!

Also remeber this is day 4 in a week long screen printing adventure. Flip back through Print Liberation, Screen Printed Record Bracelets and a YuDu Improved Record Clock. Don't forget our Handmade Nation round up and contest tomrrow!

Yeehaw for YuDu - Day 2 of Screen Printed Record Crafts!

Today is day 3 of our screen printing journey. We kicked off the week with a review of Print Liberation. Yesterday we embarked on our YuDu journey making record bracelets. Today we wrap up our YuDu report with 2 more projects a retro-rific record clock and a Badassical piece of art.

SUPPLIES
Yudu + YuDu Goodies
Clock Face
Computer
Scanner
Vinyl Record
Clock Kit


The trickiest part of this project was finding a clock face that I liked. After wasting time looking at clip art of clock faces I finally decided to scan in a vintage cherry red clock of my grandmothers and use those numbers. I had to clean the image up a bit in Photoshop, but nothing major. Once the image was on the transparency there were still a few botchy spots that I just filled in with a Sharpie. Follow the Yudu instructions for burning a screen.

Once your screen is burned place your record on the sticky placket and screen your numbers. Allow ink to dry.


When the ink is dry follow the instructions on the clock kit inserting the hardware through the hole in the center of the record. I had to use my Dremel to make the hole large enough for the clock hardware to fit.


All that is left to do is hang your new spiffy clock on the wall and count the minutes until 5 in style! If you don’t have a YuDu another possibility is using some rub-on numbers in a fun font.



One small complaint about the YuDu would be that the size of your screen can not be any larger than a piece of 8.5X11 paper. Hence why I used a square clock face. I guess on the flip side I would not want the YuDu any bigger since it already takes up a lot of studio space.

I got so excited about screening all the left over records I did a few art pieces like this one with the logo from Badassical designed by the amazing Bonnie Rue of Model Citizen Clothing. It sits proudly with the rest of my tigers.


By the end of the day Saturday I was feeling ready to take on the YuDu world and wishing I had more ink color options and more screens to burn. Screens and inks are a bit pricy so those urges were put on hold. I contemplated whether or not I could use fabric paint or Speedball ink on the screens even though the instructions say not to. I also found myself using the YuDu Emulsion Remover more than once to clean off used screens so that I could burn a different image.


I think I might be addicted to screen printing at the moment and now I see why all the Gocco people are so fanatical. Again I totally plan on taking a class at some point so I can get in touch with my screen printing roots. In the meantime I am pretty smitten on my YuDu and already have some new and exciting projects involving home decorating in mind. Stay tuned.

Don’t have a YuDu? Come back tomorrow for an easy DIY screen printing project involving undergarments and unicorns. Now if that does not pique your curiosity nothing will. Plus don’t forget about the Handmade Nation Austin round up and give away on Friday.

I leave you with this questions: what is the weirdest thing you have ever screen printed on or seen printed? For example there is a local Austin artist who screens his art of drum heads. Pretty cool stuff.

Yahoo for YuDu - 2 Days of Screen Printed Record Crafts!

Sure it costs a few hundred bucks, ya it's big and like most new craft ventures there are lots of accruements that you need to make it all work -BUT.... The YuDu is worth it. The YuDu makes what was once a somewhat tedious, messy and time consuming process happen in a very clean jiff. I would still one day like to know the fundamentals of screen-printing and how to burn screens the old school way, but at this exact moment with a 7 month old baby which only allots me so many hours a day to craft - mama's gotta take a few short cuts.


The lovely Rachel Hobson guided my first attempt at the YuDu. Rachel is a much more experienced screener (old school and YuDu) and graciously offered to give me a lesson. I like to refer to her as my YuDu Guru. My solo attempts at the YuDu did not turn out so hot so I in turn got turned off. That is until this past week when the YuDu light went on in my head. The stars were aligned with Tallulah napping, Chris going out of town leaving me to my own crafty devices and I had a big stack of records left over from my Musical Mustache Masks project just begging to be up-cycled.


You heard me right the YuDu not only works on the typical tote bag and T-shirt I used it to screen records all weekend long. As matter of fact I screened so many records I am breaking my YuDu report into two blog posts. Today we are taking plain old vinyl records to an all new wearable level.


First things first if you don't know how to make a bracelet out of a vinyl record I have this handy dandy video of me making some on Stylelicious. They are super easy. Once you watch the video and know how to make the bracelets scroll on down for instructions on how to use your YuDu to customize the baubles.


SUPPLIES
YuDu & YuDu Goodies
Vinyl Records
Scissors
Craft Knife
Oven
Beer Bottle

I was planning on making record bracelets for my booth at Austin City Limits so I burned a screen to adorn them. Each record makes 4 bracelets. Using Photoshop I laid out 4 designs to print on my transparency that I measured to fit on a 12" record.


Next I burned my screen. A few tips - first, don't get the screen too wet. Second, the YuDu has a built in fan/drying rack. The instructions say it takes a lot less time to dry than it really does. If the sticky back does not peel off your emulsion sheet easily then the screen is still too wet to burn. Once your screen is dry you tape your transparency to the glass on the YuDu, put your emulsionafied screen on the glass, program the timer (I like 6.5 minutes) and hit the burn button. When the timer goes off rinse your screen well and put it back in the YuDu fan to dry.


Once my screen was burned I was ready to add the ink. The YuDu comes with a sticky placket to hold your item in place so I laid my record down making sure it was lining up with the designs on my screen. I decided to use yellow, orange and pink ink at the same time. Using my squeegee I ran the ink down the YuDu and then back up. The YuDu does not recommend screening more than 10ish items at a time before washing the screen. Just like traditional silk screening you need to keep ink or water moving through the screen at all times or you will ruin your screen.

Once my ink was dry I converted my records into bracelets.


I could have stopped here, but why? I had a screen left over from the YuDu booth at the Handmade Nation event and a new journal with an ugly cover begging for a revamp. I screened another record with the crafty image, measured out my journal and scored the lines on the record, heated in a 200-degree oven, cut and glued. That's it, my new crafty journal was born!


Love to hear what you think about the YuDu? Do you have one? Do you want one? Are you sticking to your roots and boycotting the YuDu and making your own screens?

Remember it's silk screening week here at Naughty Secretary Club. I have two more YuDu projects tomorrow, a DIY silk screening project on Thursday and a wrap up of the Handmade Nation Austin event on Friday complete with give away! *Please note that I was given a Yudu for free by the company*