martha's good eggs

Real quick note here. I just was nominated as a finalist in the Martha Stewart "Martha's Good Eggs" competition for my egg piñatas in the category "Best Embellished Egg". If you could find the time to cast a quick vote for me (I'm #4) I'd be very thankful. Here's the link:

Martha's Good Eggs "Best Embellished Egg" (#4)

Thanks so much, and have a wonderful Easter weekend!

xoxo

diy egg + crepe paper valentine's day hearts

I'm happy to present my latest project as the featured artist for the wonderful folks at Carte Fini, suppliers of the beautiful crepe paper that makes my world go 'round. I'm back at it with the eggs, but this time I'm nestling them together to make sweet little crepe paper covered hearts. Four different versions as matter of fact!

The colors offered by Carte Fini made doing a Valentine's Day project a no-brainer. They have SO many pinks, reds and corals to choose from. So I chose them all.

I love these valentines because they are so colorful and three dimensional. I can make several of these in an hour, so they just might be classroom valentines for Stella this year. I think they'd also make an amazing Valentine's Day garland.

I hope you'll give these a try! Click on the link below for the full DIY tutorial. xoxoxo!

DIY EGG + CREPE PAPER VALENTINE'S DAY HEARTS

Previous featured artist projects for Carte Fini:

October 2013  CREPE PAPER FLOWER HEADPIECES FOR FALL (giant dahlias)
November 2013 CREPE PAPER WOODLAND ORNAMENTS
December 2013 MOCK-VINTAGE FLORAL BULB REFLECTORS

diy crepe paper woodland ornaments

Today I am happy to share with you my second featured artist post for Carte Fini, my crepe paper woodland ornaments. I combined Carte Fini's amazing papers with my egg piñata technique to make these wonderful and shiny acorns, pine cones and other fun shapes using chicken (and sometimes goose) eggs. These are going to look gorgeous on our tree this year, and will be gifts for many of our friends and family, I'm sure. I will also be selling these through One Kings Lane just before Thanksgiving, so I will keep you posted on that! 

To learn how to make your own woodland ornaments from eggs and crepe paper, head on over HERE for the full acorn tutorial and tips on the other ornaments as well. Thanks again to Carte Fini, I am thrilled to be the featured artist again this month!

My October featured artist project:

Fall Flower Headpieces

babiekins

Photo credit: Babiekins Etsy shop

This is cute. Back in November (when I was still using regular ol' crepe paper streamers), the editor of Babiekins magazine contacted me to ask to use a few of my egg piñatas for a shoot. I whipped three up in a few nights and sent them her way. The print issue is out now and I was able to take a peek via the Babiekins Etsy shop. Can you find the piñatas?

Keeping my fingers crossed that some credit was given for them in the digital and print issues, no matter how minor a role they played. Can't wait to get my hands on a print issue, it's a nice magazine.

Happy Monday!

shop restocked

I've just stocked my little Etsy shop with my newest egg piñatas. A few others have traveled down to Makeshift Society in Hayes Valley for the Rare Device pop-up shop, so you can check them out there, too! xoxo

how to make easter egg piñatas (a.k.a. have you seen my eggs?)

Last Friday I posted a tutorial on how to make my egg piñatas at a very pretty blog called A Subtle Revelry. Here is the link to my tutorial, for which I did all of the photography. Since last Friday, these eggs have gone super-viral (over 1,000 pins on Pinterest from A Subtle Revelry at this writing!) and are popping up linking back to A Subtle Revelry from several other blogs. It's pretty wild.

Since I'm not really in the equation on all these pins and posts, I'm wanting to try to keep track of where my eggs show up. Here is a partial list of where they have popped up in the last few days:

the red thread: FAVE EASTER CRAFT FINDS

this little street: HOP HOP HOP LITTLE BUNNY

the motherload: 21 FUN EASTER & SPRING PROJECTS

say yes to hoboken: WEEKEND ROUNDUP

fiesta facil: INSPIRATION FOR THE SPRING

mes petites mains magazine: PINATA DIY & SHOPPING

antsy hands: PRETTY EGGS
bonjour jacqueline: PRETTY PALETTE EGGSTRAVAGANZA

Here are a few places where they have been featured this past week where it's clear the eggs were made by me:

rare device blog: PINATA EGGS
Thanks, Giselle!

spotted sf:NOPA/RARE DEVICE
A neat surprise!

This next one is really awesome. Mega-talented and beautiful Heather from super-beautiful Poppy Haus wrote a blog post about the eggs, and about me, and it was just what I needed to feel a lot better. Poppy Haus has been in my regular rotation since I connected with Heather at ALT, and I consider her a close friend and confidant. If you haven't been reading Poppy Haus already, please check it out!

poppy haus: CORNER BLOG

Here's something else really cool. An Instagrammed photo from Meg of the gorgeous Anthology Magazine. She visited Rare Device yesterday and posted this photo (with 423 "hearts" at this writing-yay!).

If you happen see my egg piñatas anywhere else, I'd love to know. It's really interesting (and a little painful!) to watch them moving around the ether without anyone really knowing I made them. Such is the case when you're a contributor on someone else's blog. I learned this the hard way!

I'm still recuperating for all the things I did for our recent school auction (like this and these), as well as the egg installation, and am actually spending time with my family again. It feels like I just got home, like I've been away for a while but now I'm home and can sleep in my bed at a decent hour and play with the kids. Stella and I are having to work on getting acquainted again. She's flung herself so into reading that I'm actually putting limits on reading time until we can get closer. Spring break is next week, I hope that time will bring us back to where we were before. I can't wait!

So, that's it until next week. Have a great weekend, and thank you for reading! xoxo

oology

o•ol•o•gy

noun

The study or collecting of birds' eggs.

production house

I have no workspace, so everywhere is my workspace. Here's the progress made over the weekend. The auction signage is especially difficult, but is a fast education in font and typesetting. Too bad all of my white paint markers ran out of juice. Hoping for delivery in the next few days. Back to work, y'all!

small business saturday

•acorn•

This is most of the new batch of egg piñatas I delivered Wednesday to Rare Device. I have started using a variety of lovely crepe papers that I can order directly from Carte Fini and my new find, the other-worldly Castle in the Air. These recent eggs feature an amazingly hued, two-sided crepe called doublette, a thin and strangely colored metallic crepe called noblesse, and the heavy thick florist crepe I've been working with for a while (like I used here). You can read about these crepe papers and more here, if you'd like.

 •pine cone•

•candy striped•

I wanted to go all metallic and shiny and white for the holidays, but some of the metallic papers aren't easy to work with when it comes to standard Elmer's Glue and an eggshell, so I switched directions and went a little woodland with some of them. I have a few in my Etsy shop right now. I have yet to sell any eggs out of the Etsy shop yet! Luckily the are doing well at Rare Device since they started stocking them in June. I think you need to be able to touch them and see them in person to really get what they are.

•white and cream layered winter goose egg in hand for scale•

•trio of blue-to-silver gradated eggs•

•white and cream layered chicken egg•

•golden tree shape•

The reason I worked my fingers to the bone and pulled some late, late nights over the last week was to get the eggs in on time for Small Business Saturday, which is tomorrow, November 24th. Rare Device is hosting an opening for a new pop-up shop within the store, and it is a day I hope a lot of people around here think about supporting fantastic local businesses like Rare Device that carry so many wonderful things from local artists. San Francisco is FULL of opportunities like this, as is Etsy. So much quality, local, handmade wonderfulness out there. Sometimes you just need a reminder to go find it!

a bouquet

I delivered these piñata eggs to Verde SF this past weekend. I like this palette. The teal is lovely, I want to make dozens in that color. I integrated some eggs that had more of a floral/marigold color blocking with some end of summer hold-out schemes. I've been reading a lot about Carte Fini Italian crepe paper, which looks like it has a fabulous texture. I'm thinking of ordering some, but not sure I want to add the extra step in the process of cutting strips of crepe paper before I turn it into fringe. I'll probably give it a try, though. So many new colors for me to experiment with!

open for business

FINALLY! After securing my seller's permit and wending my way through tax laws and the like, I finally have my very own Etsy shop, called cornerblogstore! I'm really excited. Right now it's stocked with my chicken and goose egg piñatas and some beautiful fabric and my holiday cards. It's really great to have found a way to exhibit my wares to a broader audience, and maybe make a few dollars while I'm at it.

When I started this blog, along with being a diary of our family life, it was to provide a platform for all of my creative endeavors. The amazing thing about it is that it has spawned new creative endeavors I never would've imagined had I not started to think more proactively the way I do now. I think having a shop with the potential for larger exposure will push me even further. Again, I'm excited!

My Etsy button under the "about me" section on the top right of my blog isn't working at the moment, so in case you missed the link, HERE it is. I hope to be updating the stock on a regular basis, and can also take custom orders for the eggs, in case you have any requests.

This has been on my to do list for almost a year, so I am thrilled to get this thing off the ground. Wish me luck! xoxo

the good eggs

Tuesday morning we delivered a hot dozen piñata eggs to Giselle at Rare Device. Stop by if you're in the neighborhood and take a look (and maybe pick one up)! They look great hanging in the tree in the window. The rest of the July storefront will be in soon. Neon is the theme, these should play nicely with that. I designed most with the neon theme in mind, but also was inspired by ombre fades and dip-dying.

I designed a too complicated delivery box, but it did its job.

Pink + peach.

Giselle hanging the eggs.

Looking up.

The delivery crew.

This one was the last one I made, and my current favorite.

ideas for cinco de mayo: four festive decorations

I've got four festive ideas for decorations for your Cinco de Mayo celebrations this weekend! I've been pretty excited about these, so let's jump right in.

1. Mexican oilcloth bunting!

JUST in case you haven't had enough bunting (it's everywhere!), I whipped up these two in just a few hours last night, using triangles of assorted Mexican oilcloth, kitchen twine, and my glue gun. I did a how-to using fabric last year, which you can see here.

2. Big cheerful bowl of Jarritos! 

This one is a slam dunk, super easy. Nothing is brighter than sunlight through a bottle of Jarritos, the crazy, sugary soda that is hecho en Mexico. Put a dozen in a giant colorful bowl of ice. This would look awesome in the middle of a big picnic table of food, maybe set on an oilcloth tablecloth.

3. Mini egg piñatas!

Yeah, I'm making these for every occasion now. I'm still in love with them.

Here's Oliver smashing his. It took some muscle (mine)! If only I had a real camera and could've caught the moment it popped it open.

4. Giant crepe paper flowers!

You could use these to decorate your table, your wall, your chandelier, etc. I am using them to decorate myself on Saturday! They'll either go in my hair, or up one shoulder. It's the burlesque, I know. 

I bought these red, white and green flowers several years ago in the Mission, but here is a great tutorial on how to make your own. Really beautiful.

Please note: The "Cybil-Shepard-in-Moonlighting" white, fuzzy appearance of these photos is due to my new best friend, Photo Booth.

I am my mother's daughter. NO holiday gets past me, even if I'm not really sure what the holiday stands for. And one that is celebrated in San Francisco with a ton of beer and chips and salsa (and ironically a reservation at a New American cuisine restaurant in the Italian part of town Saturay night for us!), is not going to go uncelebrated in some way in our house. The kids are really excited to suck down those Jarritos, and hopefully we'll have some great weather. Not to mention the Italian flag and the Mexican flag have THE SAME COLORS! So I can totally wear those flowers out on Saturday night and be relevant in North Beach or the Mission!

Oh, also, don't forget about this guy. Cake is ALWAYS a good decoration!