210: branching out

There's been this branch sitting in our backyard for weeks. It fell off of our oak tree with no leaves on it or anything... I've been ignoring it for a while but it hasn't gone away.

Today, after throwing my shoe at a squirrel, I had to go retrieve it & I decided to grab the branch too. For some strange reason I felt like it would look nice nailed to our studio wall.


...it didn't. It's kind of a naked branch and it looks a bit awkward.


So I decided to just make it sorta cherry blossom branch inspired & started glue-gunning on some random silk flowers we had laying around. It's a bit strange cause they're rose buds, but whatever.


and when I ran out of roses, I expanded to carnations and others. hahah


& now.... I'm happy with our studio wall decor.
It's a bit random but it's 3 dimensional and sits far off the wall & looks pretty fab.

xoxo

156: in the studio (cont'd)

So in this post I gave you a sneak peek already at our new studio in general.



Well, here's a closer look at that big shelf that you could see a tiny glimpse of in the first pic:



We've got the woven fabrics stored on the left, the knit fabrics stored on the right & some random muslins, tulles, laces & leathers along the bottom row of shelves.
The rest of the boxes are filled with paints, tools, tags & random other things that are a bit of a jumble. I'm still always staring at the boxes & trying to reorganize them so they look more balanced. It's hard when all of your storage boxes are mismatched & by nature you just want everything to MATCH. GAH.

TIDBIT: The window of our studio is facing all these backyards & the fences are just chain linked, so they're not very private. SOOOOO Sam and I have been enjoying the view of a 60 year old man with white Einstein hair, smoking cigarettes while on his cellphone shirtless. Everyday. It's a sexy view. I'll spare you & not post a photo of that part of the studio. hahah

xoxo

151: in the studio

As promised, here's a peek into part of our new studio :)



We've got a bit of a lengthy room, so we kinda divided it by "purpose". In the foreground is our 'sitting area' with a couple of couches to chill out on. In the back (starting at the 'lipgloss & black' banner) is our work area with a bunch of desks, all our sewing machines & shelves for our materials and tools!

In general, we have things pretty together now & there's a place for everything but I'm struggling with adding more decor so that the space is pulled together better. Right now, you might notice that we just have a random Ikea photo frame resting on top of the couch... That's not permanent! Promise! It's a huge space over the couch that I see a lot of potential in but I'm not really sure what should go up there. I'm thinking of painting something on a massive canvas I have, but I'm undecided as of yet. WE'LL SEE.

We're pretty happy in this space cause it's well-lit and roomy enough for us both to work in! And we even have a separate room for our shipments & office things. Being happy in your workspace can make a huge difference in productivity & we're loving it here so far.... so that should mean more clothes for YOU soon. :)

xoxo

147: very superstitious

I promised to show you a look into our new studio, so I figured I would do it little by little. We're still organizing things, tidying up & figuring out where what should go so that it's all efficient and everything... So I'm starting with something small.

When we were moving our entire studio, our mom wanted to make sure that we had a proper lucky cat. It's a popular asian sculpture that is associated with good feng shui for businesses. You might recognize these cats from Chinese or Japanese restaurants or shops & basically the cat "waves" customers towards you. Our family isn't overly concerned in general with feng shui or anything, but we still hang up lucky symbols & signs. So when my mom was going out on her mission to buy us a kitty, my only request was that it would have a really cute face, hahaha.



She ended up buying us this cutie!
Aside from being really adorable & happy, there is apparently a lot of meaning behind why he looks this way:
- calico cat colouring: traditionally it's the luckiest cat
- crystal ball in hand: indicates wisdom & good career path
- mallet in hand: brings wealth to those who shake it
- coin slot: the cat is actually a bank & you have to feed it coins for good luck!

I'm not that superstitious but so far since having our lucky cat, we've had a really successful clothing show, so that was a great start! We fed him some more coins after that weekend for sure :) Thanks mom!

Have you guys seen these kitties before? Do you have any lucky symbols or traditions?

xox

145: spring cleaning

Well, it's more like summer cleaning now.

We're still slowly settling into our house & it seems that the unpacking never stops! It also feels like the moving never stops because everytime we think we're done, we're picking up more things to move here.

Today I spent much of the day organizing little things in the studio again & did a bit of closet organizing too. I hung up all of my own dresses! Almost 40 dresses all on matching hangers ♥!

Tonight, Matt will be helping me with hanging up my jewelry hanger frames in our studio space & I'm so excited for that. Once things are actually IN PLACE, we will be sharing some pics of our new work areas! yay!