Author: Lex

My name is Lex. I have a craft addiction. This is my story.
Indie Designer Spotlight

Featured Indie Designer – Supayana

Hold on to your butts, everyone! Our second Indie Designer Spotlight is on Yana of Supayana!

SupayanaName: Yana Gorbulsky
Age: 24
Hometown: I was born in Moscow, but grew up in NY
Current Location: Montreal, Canada

How did your interest in fashion begin? I started sewing things for dolls when I was a little girl.
What motivated you to start selling your designs, and what were your expectations when you started? I started selling my clothing when I was in college, studying Speech Pathology. I needed money to pay for textbooks, and I was always getting compliments on my clothing, so I decided to make some money off of it. I didn’t really have any expectations at first, I thought I was going to become a Speech Pathologist, but towardsthe end of college, I was making enough to support myself so I decided to stick with fashion instead.
Do you have any formal training in fashion, art or design? No, but it’s probably genetic. My grandfather was a painter in Russia. My mother painted and designed scarves in Russia. My sister paints and is a scenic artist (she designs sets for shows like 30 Rock). Read more…

Garden

body modification for pumpkins

I came across this post at Craftster a few years ago, and I’ve been dying to try it ever since. Now that I’ve got a garden, I can!
scarification pumpkinUnfortunately, having a garden does not necessarily mean you will grow things. In my case, my flowers did okay, but my vegetable garden was a big, fat failure. Of the dozen or so veggies I planted (corn, cauliflower, carrots, zuchini, watermelon, etc.), I got 3 pea pods and a handful of lettuce.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I noticed, not one, but TWO large pumpkins in my backyard! And then not one, but TWO birdhouse gourds! Hurrah!

I planted 2 kinds of pumpkins, Sweet Something-or-others meant for pie making, and Big Fatties (or something large sounding) for carving. I have no idea what kind I’ve got. They do look a little different, so I’m hoping I’ve got one of each and hopefully more on the way.

I’m definitely trying the pumpkin scarring technique on one of them. I’m really excited to try it. Compared to carving, it seems like this would open up a lot of possibilities as far as the amount of detail in the design.

I will be sure to post the results. It would have been cool to try it on the birdhouse gourds, too, but I picked them already. If I get anymore, I will definitely try it and see what happens!


Blog

Craftastic!

Welcome to the WhatTheCraft Blog, where I’ll be bloggity-blogging about crafts, sewing, cooking, and other diy endeavors.

My current project is an embroidered belt pouch for my brother’s birthday/going-away-to-China gift. I’m totally an amateur embroider-ist… I’ve done 2 or 3 other embroidery project before this one, and I’ve had zero instruction. So I only really use one stitch and they’re not that neat, but it’s turning out okay. I actually need to finish up tonight because I’m giving it to him tomorrow.

In addition to improving my needleworking skillz (cross stitch seems like it’d be fun to learn, also), I want to start doing glass and tile mosaics.

wonder woman mosaic in stained glass

I did this one for a high school art class, and it was a lot of fun and looks rad. Her hair is blue and black glass, unfortuntely the blue doesn’t show up.

My plan is to do a huge mosaic mural on our fireplace. Right now it’s kind of a dingy brown brick, a little too traditional for me. But I definitely need to practice a little first. I think I’m going to do some framed pieces that can be hung on the wall, as well as some table tops. I want to do one with grapes for my boyfriend’s mom (her kitchen is all decorated with grape stuff) and a whooping crane for my mom.


So that’s it for now. I’ll post pictures of the embroidered belt bag once it’s finished.