happy tuesdays

Thank you all for your really positive and sweet comments about my jacket refashion! I sometimes wonder if I’m totally wacky to do these things, but for me its more than about saving a penny or two here (which I admit is part of it!). Sustainable style and the concept of reusing and recycling plays a large part in my decision to use thrifted/vintage as a base to experiment with my design ideas. It also is a big time-saver for me: starting with already constructed clothing. I get to avoid pinning, cutting and that stuff! lol.

Design class was this morning, and I wisely opted to make a quick swing by Starbucks before school. Although I consider myself more of a morning person, an early class combined with not being able to sleep the night before equals a very ditzy Casey. lol. The last thing I wanted was to be an airhead for this class too, since color theory is something that I’m not as comfortable with art-wise. We’re using Josef Alber’s book on color interaction as our text along with a wonderful, candy-box assortment of handscreened colors called Color-Aid. I already love Alber’s prose-style: it borders on free-verse format, which makes me pay close attention to what is being said. Today we went over the basic principles and terms of color: hue, intensity and value; mixing primaries, how light affects our perception of color, direct versus reflected color, etc. We also had our first homework assignment handed out: creating various value scales using black and white paint, primaries and two compliments. That’s the easy part. ;) The next assignment was using our lovely Color-Aid papers to create a set of nine bright hues paired with two lesser-intensities of that hue. At first I couldn’t really get my mind around what it was we are supposed to do: I kept wanting to pick out values rather than intensities of a given hue. I had to talk to the teacher for a good twenty minutes, look at her examples she pulled and then go pull out my own example to make sure I was on the right track. Now that I am, I have to say its going to be an exciting challenge. The little tidbits I’ve learned about color only excite me to learn more! This coming from the girl who wore pretty much all-black for three months straight. lol.

Oh, and look what I got in the mail all the way from the lovely Leslie in Australia:


Isn’t it pretty?! I just love the little bit of nature captured in the resin; its especially nice right now with everything so dreary and snow still visible in spots. Makes me wish for spring all the more! :) I need to find the perfect silver chain to hang it on; I think I shall have to stop at the local beadstore this week and pick up some jewelry chain and perhaps a few yellow beads to use with it... Thank you so much, Leslie for this sweet gift--I shall really enjoy wearing it and showing it off! ;) If you want one of your own, be sure to check out her Etsy shop (which has other handcrafted goodies as well)!

As a final announcement: my website is finally back up! Sorry it was down for so many weeks; the domain expired and I wasn’t able to renew it right away. Everything is back online though. ;)