Archive for the ‘DIY’ Category

 

 

This Spring is apparently all about the execution and finalization of the trends we saw budding last spring… The chickens are coming home to roost. Anyway, last spring I was OBSESSED with the Proenza Schouler necklace above, and equally obsessed with the creations of Holst + Lee:

 

I even modeled one the day I visited Cut 25! Of course I thought I could, should and would make one of these myself. But it wasn’t until I happened upon the perfect tubular necklace at H&M that I decided to follow through. Sometimes its all about waiting for the right supplies to find you.

Anyway, I made a super simplified version of the above, and now Im thinking perhaps I should jazz mine up with nuts and bolts and more layers…

Here we go:

The basic premise is that you are doing the “Chinese Staircase” stitch around the tube. Do that by first looping a large piece of string around the top of the necklace. That allows you to work with a double strand of floss. In this case, the tube is acting like the second strand, if you were just doing the stitch normally. You put the thread over and around the tube and pull through the loop.

Keep Repeating until you are satisfied with how thick the color is. Then you can bring in other colors by just layering it on top of the thread from the first color. You can bring back old colors by just taking them out of the pile of threads and using it to loop around again.

And there you go! Mine is just OK compared to the original, but it gets the job done for now… I think I may need to add one hundred more of these to get the job done right!

Of course, you can also buy Holst + Lee HERE.

Have a great day everyone, I will, cause it’s my birthday, and I’ve decided to not be a moron about it this year! Have a good one!

Oh! Additionally, I added some new and unsold paintings to my gallery HERE- check them out, and email sketch42blog@gmail.com with inquiries.

 

This one is pretty self explanatory, huh? My friend Rebecca came to the studio today with a brand new pair of TOM’s  in tow and told me to have at it… I used a fluid acrylic paint and used a bunch of thin paint brushes to splatter the paint on. You dip the brush in the paint, and then use your wrist in a flinging motion to get the long stripy lines, or you can shake the brush to make the little dots… You can even squirt right out of the bottle if you are feeling crazy!

But yea, simple is sometimes the most fun isn’t it? This is a great project to do with your kids over spring break, and they virtually cannot screw this up.  Cant wait to wear them, now I have shoes to match my hands and pretty much all of my jeans. Ha.

If you don’t follow my instagram, you should, you’ll see projects like this happening in real time.

Have a great day everyone!

Have you guys heard of Washi Tape? It’s basically japanese masking tape made of translucent rice paper. It was created by a japanese company called  Kamoi Kakoshi after a group of artists approached them with a  book of art they had made using their tapes and requested that they make a tape for artists. You can learn more about Washi Tape HERE.

It was a huge success with artists and crafters. It comes in every color, in patterns and  widths – but it aint cheap, for tape. My new intern Liz made this piece of art for her apartment using Washi Tape and a canvas that she spray painted silver.

She basically started with two different groups of colors, the cools and the warms. She layered the reds heavily on the bottom, the blues on top, criss crossing them over each other at a slight angle slowly blending the color groups toward the middle.

She wrapped the edge of the canvas and used masking tape to secure the edges on the back. Et Voilà!

Her tips:

Use the edge of a credit card to smooth out any bubbles, and the tape is very low tack and easily removable and reusable, so you can peel off any strip you don’t like.

Enjoy!

You can buy Washi Tape HERE. Just don’t scroll up and down this post too much, you might get dizzy.

 

I bought my first pair of actual non-stretch, non skin tight jeans, jeans this week. First pair since about 2004 or 5. Do you know how good it felt to wear actual real jeans? Made out of real soft worn in denim? That wasn’t painted on like a second skin? And didn’t give me muffin top? It felt good.

We’ve been seeing the cool girls wearing boyfriend jeans for years now. But I didn’t want a boyfriend jean. Because I’m short and I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by a big hulking mass of denim that would ultimately make me look 10+ lbs larger. Not a good look for the under 5’6″ set.

What I wanted was apparently a slimmer version of a boyfriend… one that would just cover my legs lightly but not suffocate me.

Here are a few pairs that I really love, wear with chunky heeled sandal, Marni cuffs and  vintage inspired shades… and I’ve been loving that gray/green leather fisherman looking vest for weeks. I’ve been quietly stalking it… It might be just what I need to finish off my spring uniform. And I may just DIY a super distressed pair of jeans.

Sources:

Karen Walker Shades $220

Gray Marni Bracelet $157

White Marni Bracelet $117

Theyskins Vest $1150

Givenchy Sandal $880

Acne Pop Trash Jeans $485 (Center left)

What Comes Around Goes Around Vintage jeans $59 (Far left)

Alexander Wang Woven Leather Sandal $276 (Far left)

Levi’s Vintage Jeans $142 (Far right)

Current Elliot $525 (Center right)

So here it is… The photos I took at the shoot yesterday of the bachelor pad! The place was being shot by Emily Anderson for Kelly Edwards’ The Design Cookbook coming out next year, which is a different spin on the how to do it yourself aspect of decorating. Think lots of breaking down of spaces to their core ingredients, DIY tips and tricks and of course, fun and inspiring interiors. You can learn more about Kelly HERE.

So even though I knew about the shoot for weeks…. Obviously some things still didn’t get done in time. For example, the TV was hung on the wall the night before the shoot and the unit that is supposed to be floating below it didn’t get hung. Not a big deal for these purposes because the TV wall is by far the most boring elevation in the space, but annoying. Another thing that didn’t get done, we are on the hunt for a huge black and white photo for the space near the couch. This is not something you buy overnight, and so for the sake of the shoot we literally hung one of my  raw unstretched canvases on the wall, just to add some color to the photos. That probably won’t be there permanently, although I do love the color in the photos… Hmmm… what else? I brought over my own coffee table books for styling purposes, but now I think that I should leave them there….

Also, I had 8 BILLION pictures to choose from. Like I didn’t want to show 8 pictures of the lucite chairs, but TRUST, those chairs are amazing from behind. And I have even more to show of the bar area and the desk behind the sofa… one day when I hang the TV, I’ll take some photos of that view.

And last, I’ll give you a little insight into my thought process in this space: I wanted to make something fun and cool without being too serious. It’s a rental, and the client is a young fun dude who wanted his space to be exciting! (“Im from LA, I can handle it!” he said!) I did NOT want the space to feel overdecorated and I wanted to play with the ideas of a masculine space, but obviously putting my own spin on it. (I even tried to choose “masculine” flowers for the photos, nothing worse than seeing inappropriate flowers in a bachelor pad!) I also wanted the space to be colorful but Im not the biggest fan of color, so this is my take on that.

We really love the space, I hope you enjoy it too! Overall, it was a fun space to make, not taking anything too seriously and just having fun with it!

Enjoy and have a great day!

The SOURCES post is now up HERE with more photos.