lotus print yoga bag

Namaste!

My absence from blogging hasn't been time wasted, although I'm always sad when I let it slip into hibernation. Sometimes life just gets in the way, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

One of the things I've been doing with my time is practicing yoga. I've always enjoyed it, but decided last month to make it a part of my daily life rather than an occasional stab at wellness. Naturally, I couldn't carry my mat around in my drab old yoga tote, so I decided to make a fresh new one!

I used the lotus print that I made for my friend Jillian (an amazing yoga instructor!) and printed on some deep salmon-colored fabric I had laying around. After the printing was finished, I set to work sewing my bag, including adding a little extra detail to the pocket, even though no one will really see it besides me. Sometimes the little things you do just for you are the ones that can make you realize you're worth the bigger things, too.

I am really happy with the way it turned out, and excited to start on my next fabric printing endeavor: curtains! Stay tuned for more on that... and how printing 15 yards of fabric by hand can really test one's stamina and mental health! :) 

The finished fabric, prior to becoming a yoga tote.

The little pocket detail - a lotus bloom outlined in pink thread.

creative tree

My Creative Tree takes after me: not very photogenic.

Nature is a big influence in my life and my art. From an early age, I remember being inspired by trees; from the roots to the branches and leaves. My older sister and I used to talk about a certain forest near our home in Maryland that we called the Cathedral Woods because when the sun shone through the leafy canopy overhead, the light trickled down in little green patterns like stained glass in an ethereal Cathedral.

I love every aspect of trees: the different shades and textures of the bark; the birds that nest in their boughs; the different shapes, colors and sizes of their leaves; and the fact that they give us air to breathe and shade to sit in. I think I would've made an excellent addition to the Swiss Family Robinson (living in a tree and throwing coconut bombs at pirates?! Sign me up!!)

You get the point. I like trees. So, naturally, I had to have one in my minuscule studio apartment. Meet my Creative Tree: it's a source of inspiration with a really boring, obvious name. Never mind that.

The cool thing about my tree is that I don't have to wait for Christmas each year to decorate it! I've used all different types of themes, from jar lanterns to little fabric birds. Any time I feel the urge, I just take down the current decor and try something new... very important for an impatient person like myself.

My current theme is words (which I am also a huge fan of... can you tell?) I made a paper chain out of several types of old paper I found in some vintage notebooks, as well as sheets of creative writing I typed out on my old typewriter. It was a fun, and time consuming, project.

Next, I took some old blank gift tags and decided to type random, incomplete sentences on them and do my own "mad libs". They turned out being silly, naturally, but they were a nice way to let my brain play.

Here are a few, for your amusement:

I may have to use this in an actual conversation sometime...

I made twenty-four of these... which began to make less and less sense.

Ha! A Freudian slip indeed!

While some people may think it's silly to have a tree (aka a very large branch that takes up a lot of room) in a tiny apartment... I love it. I'm always thinking of new ideas to try on my tree and it, in turn, is always there to shade me when I read.