This weekend I was in Chicago for the first ever Indie Wed show.  I am excited to tell (and show) you more about the show in my next post. In the meantime, here is a little bit about one of the items that I took to the show.

My jewelry or ring boxes are the perfect container for a special little something.  In place of the traditional pillow, they make the perfect ring bearer boxes in a wedding ceremony and can add a burst color in wedding pictures.  Other people have bought them to help pop the big question.  They also make a lovely little gift box for any special present.

The box measures 2″ square and is 1.5″ tall. The lid snaps snugly closed to keep the contents safely inside.  They are available in a number of colors and patterns in my Etsy store, but I can also accommodate custom requests.  Email me for more information and pricing.

I’m so excited to be participating in the first Indie Wed show in Chicago this weekend!  They have sold a ton of tickets and it’s shaping up to be an extraordinary show.  Tickets can still be purchased here at the pre-show price through the end of the day today.  They will also be available for purchase at the door.  I would love to see you there!  Otherwise, I plan to take lots of pictures and will give you a full report after I return.  Have a lovely weekend!

I recently had the pleasure of working with another craftsperson, Natalia Saddi, to create a lovely custom wedding album.  It was such a treat to collaborate with her!  Rather than telling you about it, here is what she had to say in her own words:

First of all, a big THANK YOU to you Wendy! I feel so honored to write a little blurb for her blog as we are so pleased with the result of our album, and it was such a pleasure to work with someone so invested in their craft.

I am a crafts person myself, working by day as a fashion designer for a French brand in Paris, and fostering my passion for needle crafts by night! I’ve been crazy about embroidery for quite some time now and nothing says “precious” to me as something hand embroidered.

When we got engaged and started to plan our wedding fête, we really wanted to do something casual, intimate, and handmade. So we are getting married in our friends’ garden and having the party at their home. We are not having a band, but making a playlist on the iPod; I’m making my dress out of my old curtains; we’re skipping favors; a friend is baking our own carrot “wedding” cake; we are sending out DIY invites; you get the idea! However, there were two areas of our wedding festivities that we really didn’t want to skimp on: the photography and the rings, which will live on far after the day.

Our photo album was especially important to us since we hope that it will outlive us. I know my grandparents and great grandparents from their wedding photos, and I hope that our photo album will be the same kind of family heirloom. Since we wanted something timeless, I embroidered linen fabric in it’s natural color with our names and the date of the wedding. On the back I embroidered two little trees since we are getting married in the garden under the trees.

I found Windy Weather Bindery while browsing Etsy, which led me to the company website. I saw that the Bindery did custom projects and historical restoration, and I remember thinking, this is my girl! I mailed the fabric panels to the USA with a little description of what we were looking for and left the project in the hands of the master. The result is absolutely beautiful, and I cannot believe that this time next year we will be looking though the photos in our wedding album!

Thanks, Natalia!

Last summer I had the pleasure of working on this sweet book. It came to me from a small rural church in my local community. The book was in rough shape, as you can see from the picture below, but it was very meaningful to the church community. The Bible, which dated to the late 17th or early 18th century, had been owned by the church’s founder and served to physically and spiritually connect the current members to the past history of their church.

The cover was old and worn, but still in decent shape.  It was almost completely detached from the pages.  The front cover provided a wonderful illustration of the way that the sewing was attached to the cover board and also contained the name of the original owner on the leather turn-in (probably not an original signature).  The inside pages were a mess. Pages were missing and those that were there were out of order, worn, and burned at the edges.

I took the whole book apart, mended all the pages, and resewed the book with new endsheets at the front and back.

I sewed onto raised cords and laced them onto the the new boards, in keeping with the original structure.  We decided not to put the original cover back on because doing so would have covered up the lovely history it contained. Instead I created a new leather cover in as close to the same style as possible.

The original showed faint signs of very simple tooling, which I carried onto the new cover.

Because of their importance to the church’s identity, the repaired book and original cover are to go on permanent display at the front of the church.  To help safely display them, I created custom display cradles in which each of them snugly sit, along with a treatment report and instructions on how to slow future damage from light and dust.

It was such a pleasure to work on this book and in a gentle, respectful way contribute to the ongoing history it holds.

Well, it’s a new year and like many people, I have been doing a little assessing and goal-setting. There are lots of changes on the horizon in my business and in my personal life this year. More on that later, but in the meantime, watch for more regular posts on this blog. I didn’t make posting a very high priority last year, but in the coming year it is my goal to share more of the fun and challenging projects I have going in the studio. Check back often and comment liberally! Happy New Year!