Music to Your Ears

found image clef earrings by little eye.

Just listed in my Etsy shop, a pair of treble and bass clef earrings made with found images from a Jimmy Buffett songbook, of all places!  The little cut out sheet music bits are set in 14mm antiqued brass bezel post earrings.  These are a great seller at the craft fairs, so I’m hoping the internuts like ’em, too.

I’m also kinda happy with the fabric in the background – I can’t tell if the flowers are too distracting yet but they seem just fine for now.  What do you think?

Speaking of music, time for me to go practice guitar — our band has a show in like a week and I’m super rusty!

It’s a Picnic!

Picnic is almost here!  For those of you who know, you know this is one of the most fun arts, crafts and music festivals that Portland has to offer.  For those of you who DON’T know, then you better find out!  Saturday, August 25th brings sunshine (I hope), arts, crafts, and loud noises to Lincoln Park in Portland, ME.  Lincoln Park is right by the courthouse, on the corner of Franklin Arterial and Congress Street.

Once again, Little Eye will join Kate Sullivan-Jones at a fun-filled booth of buttons, bottle caps, metalwork, vintage goodies, screen printed kid’s clothes and canvas totes.  And I’m sure whatever else we can cram in to our luggage as we pack for Picnic!

We know you’ll be there to enjoy the yummy snacks, get some books signed and listen to some music.  Stop by and say “Hi!”

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures of our new products that will be debuting this weekend… we’re busy, busy in the workshop so no promises!!

A Brief Hiatus – Based on a True Story of Music, Event Organization + Bottle Caps

Bath Salts (the band)

Hey internet, how’s it going.  I have been on a brief hiatus from posting new Etsy listings, making “Little Eye” products and being a good businesslady.  That’s okay:  the ebb and flow of the creative process shouldn’t be fought.  In fact, to do a good job sometimes you have to act like an anti-business to maintain your happiness and freshness – that’s what I’ve been doing.

What’s been keeping my hands busy:

Big Thaw applications just closed, so now begins the process of learning everything about the vendors and posting article after article online.  I love that part.  I think we’ll be doing some raffles/giveaways through the site this year and I’ll try to amp up marketing.  Anyone know anything about that?  I sure don’t!  Well actually I know a little… what I really need to know is someone on TV or someone who writes for local press.  Hook it up!

Also, I’ve been chugging away at a large wholesale order for a lovely wine and beer supply company out of Seattle, WA.  There’s nothing like filling your kitchen with a stockpile of bottle caps, washing them, poking holes in them, beading them, packaging them and shipping them to really get your heart racing!  Actually, it’s fun and totally satisfying to complete a huge order and to do it with some kind of process.  But it’s definitely taking up some serious creativity time!

Lastly, our band Bath Salts has been writing, recording, practicing songs like nuts since September.  It’s so much fun.  We just get together, make loud sounds, work until the sounds are good together, then find some people who want us to play at their venue and pack it up in the car and go there.  You can view a couple of our songs here on Bandcamp, but there’ll be about 6 more in the next coming weeks.  Check back!

Home Improvement: Cleaning Up the Attic

Darn it, I know I should have taken some true ‘before’ pictures.  But really, I’m glad I can’t possibly get back to where the attic was before I attacked it with a vacuum and some organization tonight.  Just picture less twinkly lights and more cat fur embedded in the carpet.  Ew.

Music Space

Our apartment is awesome.  The first floor has all the regular living necessities:  kitchen, bathroom, living room, bed room.  But then we get an entire extra floor, the same size as the rest of the apartment, to make art and music in.  Yesss.

Tonight I spent time setting up the music area.  This is about 1/3rd of the total floor space of the attic, the other 2/3rds reserved for my crafting (ay ay ay I can’t get this organized!) and my closet area.  Music was an easy place to start.

keyboards and amps

So now, upstairs, we’ve got a place to make nice sounds.  That seems like a pretty good luxury to me.  If I can get it together again this weekend the next task will be cleaning up the closet/dressing area so that my mornings before work aren’t so hectic.

Then:  the dreaded crafting area.  I think I might actually need a different piece of furniture from what we have to make an actual work area, so this is the biggest challenge because I can never seem to commit to what will be the most functional.

Stay tuned for more improvements, and more pictures!

the rest o' the mess

Good

There was a impromptu gathering of very excellent bands last night in an undisclosed location at an undisclosed time that kept me dancing until about 2:30 last night.  Foam Castles, Soft Pyramids (Boston), Brenda, and The Rattlesnakes played through the wee hours in a dimly lit room and it was the best. show. ever.

Here is a little video that Mike from Brass Cankles took of Brenda playing a new song.  This, and the blurry picture of the room I took with my dinky cell phone above are all you’re going to get!  Click on the band names to hear/learn more.

Day 14 of Giving: Music in the home.

If your home is anything like my home, then there’s usually some kind of music playing while cooking dinner, doing the dishes, cleaning, even when Jason’s playing video games.  My young niece has a particular fondness for music.  Before the holiday really gets here, I’m picking up my guitar and learning a few easy songs that we can teach her to fill the cold winter air with sound.  Standards, carols and classics, they’re all welcome under my roof!

 

…Trying to catch up!  Entires #15 and #16 are on their way!

Convalescing, Craft Style

Hello everybuggy!  I’ve just started this site to keep y’all up to date on the comings and goings of Little Eye Designs.  We (Kate and I) just finished up PICNIC Music and Arts Festival and as my reward I’m taking the month of September to recline, clean up and regroup.  The ultimate goal is to learn some new skills, see if anything sticks and take pictures all the while.

So far, we’ve learned how to roast coffee and I’ve started pouring soy candles in to mismatched tea cups and shot glasses.  Pretty good!  Next up:  basket weaving, baking and t-shirt quilts.

In the meantime, why don’t you let your mind be blown by what I saw today?

Go Here and Drool

There are about a hundred things on this website I wish a) were still made today b) were semi-normal to wear in public.  Not that I would let that stop me.  The jacket shown is by a designer, Fortuny, whose estate’s website is www.fortuny.com and totally Italian and totally inspiring.  In addition to making beautiful velvety clothes he was a renaissance man, photographer, and even made his own photographic paper.  My kind of guy.