Holiday Boot Camp to Whip those gifts into SHAPE...

Ok, crafters and non crafters alike... Thinking of making your gifts this year, but haven't started yet? Or maybe you're short on time and space to get things going...

The holidays are upon us. There are exactly 43 sleeps, 11 hours, 25 minutes, PST of crafting time to get all of your gifts made, wrapped and delivered. If we get started RIGHT away you'll get it all done if you're ON IT! 

I'm on it... Are you? If not, we've got the answer...

HOLIDAY GIFT BOOT CAMP!

Come learn how to make your gifts with your friends at Tangerine! Alison and Julee will be hosting a fun weeknight class each Thursday starting next week! Yes, NEXT Thursday November 17th. We'll be there with our first project all set out. All you have to do is show up.

We'll keep you going, help you get things done AND have a fabulous time doing it! We're doing it in the evening on a weeknight so that you still have plenty of time to shop and craft on the weekends. 

Thursdays through the holiday season we will be Gettin' Our Craft ON!!! 

Check it out: (If you click the images you can right click and save the flier so that you can hand them out to your friends... everyone is going to want to do this!)

1. Have you seen those *swoon worthy* book page wreaths? We'll make one in class and then you can go home and make them for gifts! 

2. Winter weather means candles. We'll make a fun and easy ice candle in class and then you can go home and make them for gifts!

3. Paper clay Peace Dove ornaments. We'll make a few in class and you'll go home and make them for gifts!

4. Darling paper garlands. We'll make some that have the ease of those childhood garlands with the sophistication to please any "grown up". We'll make 'em in class annnnnddddd.... you'll go home and make them for gifts!

BONUS Week Wrap Up In our final week will be all about making tags for your packages and showing some fun alternative wrapping ideas. 

Sounds awesome, right?! YEAH!!! 

Pricing is just $200 for all 4 of these FUN, Gifty, crafty classes! Plus the COOL BONUS class

If you would like to choose any 1 class the price is $65

If you would like to choose any 3 classes the price is $175

Dates:

November 17th, December 1, 8, 15 and BONUS week to WRAP it all up on December 22.

Time: 6:00 - 8:00pm 

Kids welcome! We will have some things set out for the kids to create ornaments and cards or you can sign them up for the class.

You can leave me a message here and I'll email you to make arrangements to sign you up. Or you can email me julee@heartcollective.com and we'll get you all signed up OR you can go to Tangerine and get all signed up OR you can call Gina 925.548.8447 to get all signed up. 

Tangerine is at 7038 Village Parkway, Dublin, CA 94568 Their hours are approximately 10 - 5ish most days. Closed on Sunday and Monday. 

Tutorial Tuesday: Mori Girl skirt for a Fairy

Ok... if you have a kiddo like I have a kiddo then you have a few outgrown party dresses that were worn once and then relegated to the back of the closet... we have more than a few, I must confess... my Mom *LOVES* to buy her granddaughter darling dresses and we just don't get around to wearing them all that often... but they are SOOOO CUTE! and made with such lovely fabrics and notions how could I just let them hang there?

Well, a woman I know who has a talent for inspiring me to do stuff *you know who you are* said... why don't you just make those into skirts? Fantastic IDEA! I can do that... right???  Sure... well, that was last Summer and we're now rapidly approaching skirt weather again so I finally got to it!  At first I thought it would be a breeze and then I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, but ultimately I had a BLAST and can't wait to do this AGAIN, but for me! ;)

Here's how I got started... first... sign up for a Mori Girl workshop and get completely entranced by the Mori fashion craze that is ALL over Japan... Mori is Japanese for Forest... what's not to love? Fairy Fantasy meets fun and creative... pretty much has my name written all over it... oh wait, this was a project for Alexia... hmmmm

Where was I... ahhhh yes, old Christmas Party Frock

Make sure the area that you are going to use as the waist still fits your sunshiney daydream girl... in my case I'm pretty sure that Alexia has only grown taller in the last two and a half years so we're good in that way, but also make sure that the skirt will still be a length that she'll like...

check~
check~

snip away top, preserving notions and fabric for future use

My original plan was to use the button to fasten the skirt onto the child, but that didn't work... I still kept the button because it was cute, but this is something to consider... do you have a zipper to deal with? How does your child feel about elastic waistbands? I decided to avoid the zipper for my first project and did end up going with the elastic (thanks mom!) If you do that make sure you measure an extra inch of elastic to allow for overlap in stitching and so that it won't be too tight.

We also opted to save the sash for a bow.

Roll the top down and pin and fit it to your child... this is when we knew the button wasn't going to work and allowed us to add a sleeve for elastic (see, this is where I was like... uhhh... yeah... MOM! but I persevered!) I also knew that I liked the way it looked to have a higher waist and that I would use some of the lovely decorative stitches my machine offers to embellish that area.

This is what the backside of the waist looks like finished. I used a soft pink felt to encase the elastic and it gives the piece a finished look. Now... with all of the technical challenges met I got to play...

I ironed some Mori Girl inspired illustrations from my friend Natalie Neumann onto some unbleached muslin and stitched them onto the underskirt... patchwork style... this deer is on the back of the skirt and I stitched a button that I made with the excess fabric in place to hold the over skirt up a bit to reveal our little forest friend....

I continued embellishing with our other little cute critters AND Little Red Ridinghood...

 here's mister bunny all stitched on

 mister fox auditioning embellishments

and miss doe showing a little layered embellishing... keep going with it until you've run out of supplies or you're pretty sure the skirt will fall off if you add one more thing! :)

The whole thing came out darn cute... If I do say so myself

Imagine Me!

We all start off in this life as a blank slate... no one knows where we will go or what turns we'll take, but we do know that all sorts of ideas are imposed upon us from an early age. 

Oh perhaps, she'll be a writer or a teacher look at how she ____ fill in the blank.

But that's just it... what if SHE, or HE for that matter, interprets that act in a totally different way. Perhaps she's writing down all of the cool ideas she has for how her first symphony will look or how she'll arrange the books in her library.

Oh, I'd bet any thing that these kids are going to grow up to do something great... I have no doubts and neither do they. What I'm curious about is, will we hear the first inkling of their self identity?

The fact of the matter is that we all have a way that we see ourselves. 

And little by little life colors our view of our self

Until we become what we think we will be

Or what others think of us as

Or until we form into a whole new self in 3 dimensions

Imagine Me! Is a 6 week course designed for elementary school students and is being taught by Julee Herrmann (hey! that's me :) at an Orinda Elementary school Spring 2011. 

The lessons will begin with learning about the landscape of the face... Through collage students will learn where each of our features sits in relationship to the others.. then with fully supported sketching techniques designed for easy understanding, children will begin to sketch stylized self portraits... no right or wrong... no preconceived notion of "supposed to"... no mirrors. The students will start to consider how they see themselves and put those ideas into a 3d sculpture. 

IT all sounds SO darn SERIOUS... and it is, but it isn't... its all just for fun and exploration.

There are just 3 spots left in the class.  Contact me if your child would like to attend a Spring Break workshop, an Enrichment class or if you're interested in bringing this workshop to your elementary school.