The cooler weather has definitely put me in the mood to changes things up over here at Casa Shim. Most of you know that I have a thing for mobiles and floating objects in general. There has been a steady rotation of mobiles/floating objects in our kitchen nook over the past year and I've been meaning to replace the tissue paper pom poms I took down a few months ago. So a few weeks ago I revisited my favorite linen leaves craft and sewed some together to create linen leaf chains.
And since it is difficult to make just a small batch of linen leaves I now have a tray full of linen leaves waiting to be transformed into a simple little mobile.
I was testing out a few ideas for a freelance project last week and decided to make little covers for some glass cups I have sitting in a wood tray on the kitchen table. They were influenced by my pencil + cups and have now inspired me to make a few new pencil + cup designs.
It is no secret that I have a weakness for Japanese craft books. I am in love with the beautiful photography and styling of some of the minimalist books. Since I think I've only used one pattern from all the Japanese craft books I have, I usually don't even care whether the books contain patterns since so much of my inspiration is drawn from the handmade objects themselves. So when I saw Blair had posted about Lotta's newest book, I made a mental note to stop by our local Kinokuniya to check it out.
I picked up a copy this week and of course I was not disappointed. The projects are simple + modern and I actually like that fact that she doesn't include patterns for all the projects, that way every person can come up with their own version. And like so many of us who are influenced by Japanese craft books and find ourselves working on similar projects as other craft blog friends, I was pleasantly surprised to find two projects in her book that were similar to what I had just worked on. I love the pattern on her fabric mobile [in the book Lotta explains several ways to print on to fabric.]
And she has some really cute cup + flask covers in there as well as some spiffy tote bag designs.
Oh, and I also thumbed through her travel style book at the bookstore and it is chalk full of inspiration--definitely putting that book on my wish list.