Patchwork in crafts can come in many shapes and forms.  The first thing that comes to mind is quilting.  I remember when I was a teenager my friend Becky's mom made her a crazy quilt for her bed out of all these vintage fabric scraps she had.  Becky secretly hated it, but I loved it.  All I knew in the world of quilts were the family quilts my mother had lining the upstairs halls of her Victorian home.  Lots of flowers, pastels and girls in bonnets.  Becky's quilt was wild, colorful and well as the name implies crazy.  I'm leaning towards scoring any number of the vintage quilts currently listed on Ebay.

When I see handspun multi-colored yarn, it's enough to make me want to learn to knit.  Venus Art is here in Austin and every time I am in Craft-o-Rama I eyeball her delicious yarn.  The other yarn is by Folktale Fibers and is equally fabulous.  Another idea for us non-knitters is to wrap a bracelet with it.  There is an easy how-to at Craft Stylish with all the instructions. 


My favorite patchwork craft is collage.  I love getting my fingers covered in Decoupage and sorting through fun papers to make jewelry.  Some of my favorite papers to use are by Traci Bautista who has a very cool graffiti chic style.  They are perfect for my jewelry and Traci keeps me well stocked on all her goodies.  I even used her papers for a project in my book!  I am so excited to also tell you that Traci has her own line of Decoupage called Collage Pauge coming out through Aleene's this summer!  You can already snag some at JoAnn's and pretty soon I'll be able to wave to Traci at Hobby Lobby too!  Shiny, matte or glittery - whoo-hoo!  I can't wait to play with some at CHA this summer!


Recently a fun craft company called Decopatch contacted me and asked if I was interested in trying out their product.  Me say no to free craft supplies, ya you know me better than that.  They sent over a stack of their fun papers and two little ponies for me to get crazy with.  My first thought was that I was going to make bookends.  I had seen the cutest pair of patchwork squirrels at Rose and Radish, but then I thought better of it. 

I asked Hope "do you think this is horse, is too big for a necklace?" she of course being a blood relative and one with very similar taste in giant tack-a-liscious jewelry said "no it would make an awesome necklace".  So let it be written, so let it be done. 

The first thing I did was to tear the tissue thin paper into little arbitrary strips.  Sure I could have used scissors, but that is way to precise for me.  I just tore until I had a nice little pile and took my handy dandy decoupage and started going at that little pony. 

First I covered him in a solid floral print and then went in and added zebra skin accents.  Once the Decoupage had completely dried I went back and added a layer of Triple Thick top coat just to make him nice and shiny.

Once the little pony had dried over night it was time to bust out my handy dandy Dremel.  Almost anything can be turned into a piece of jewelry as long as you have your trusty Dremel at your side.  The paper mache pony was quite easy to drill and I put my bit to his little jugular and made a hole.  I knew I would never be able to get it just right where the horse would hang centered so I decided to save myself a lot of heartache and make him intentionally hang with his head reared. 

Once the hole was in place I stacked up some vintage plastic flower petals on a head pin, grabbed my pliers and wrapped myself up a make shift bail.  I love the blue plastic feather, now Mr. Pony looks like he could work in Vegas! 

There you have it.  What was once intended as a book end became one of my new favorite necklaces. 

I had extra paper left over so I covered a plain bangle bracelet I had lying around to make a set.  I also scored these weird wooden things at Michaels that I also covered in Decopatch and then glued to a bracelet blank.

I taught a class on paper jewelry at Craft-o-Rama Tuesday night where we did some similar projects and I wanted to show you a picture of what everyone made.  The Decopatch paper was a big hit.  Some people brought their own things to use like foreign money and old greeting cards and speaking of cards someone made the picture on my business card into a necklace.  She said she chewed a lot of bubble gum so it was perfect for her!

Do you use patchwork in you crafting?  Any other examples I am forgetting.  I think what it boils down to is that I love as much color as I can get at one time and patchwork is perfect for that.  The more color the better for me in fashion, home décor and in my crafts.

I awoke to a text yesterday from my friend Erin informing me that we were going to see Loretta Lynn in concert. It was as if she knew I would say yes and already bought the ticket. Was it the fact that I have seen Coal Miners Daughter so many times I can recite lines or the fact that she and I had already been to see Dolly Parton together that clued her in? When I got the text the first thing that ran through my head was what western themed outfit could I wear? My cowboy boots are hot as a firecracker and all my western shirts are long sleeved so those were out. I know a cowboy hat! Not a normal cowboy hat, a wee little baby one cocked on the side of my head for a comedic effect. I had to go to Michaels and Hobby Lobby yesterday for other craft supplies so why not hit the doll aisle while I was there. They have oodles of different doll hats so you can follow the instructions below and make yourself a headband hat out of cowboy hats, baseball caps or perhaps that little velvet sombrero someone brought you back from a trip to Mexico. Ole'

First up you want to gather your supplies
1 Small Doll Hat
Glue (I'm a fan of Liquid Fusion)
Headband
Foam Board
Scissors
Ribbon
Feather


I have to give my sister Hope credit for the next step. As I sat there perplexed about how I was going to get good gluing contact between the straw hat and the headband she suggested filing the hole with foam board. I don't know why I just so happened to have foam board in my studio, but I don't know why there are a lot of things here and I was just thankful. I found a little piece of wood I have been drilling on lately that fit inside the hat hole where the dolls head would go perfectly and traced it onto the foam board. From there I used plain scissors to cut the circle out and a whole lot of glue to hold that sucker into the hat.



Clearly I was not going to wear a plain old straw hat, me leave something under accessorized - sacrilege. I scored some feathers at the craft store and already had spools of thin ribbon at the house. First I measured my length of ribbon. I opted for red and white check because it felt the most country to me. I put a strand of glue around the hat and tacked my ribbon into place. After the ribbon was down I just stuck my feather between the ribbon and the hat with a large dollop of glue.




The next step is the trickiest part, gluing the hat to the headband. The key is a mother load of glue. I'm a firm believer that you can never have too much glue during these types of situations. The tricky part is making sure the hat, which is now slicker than a greased pig from the glue, does not skate all over your headband. You should put your headband on first, take a gander in the mirror and get an idea about where you want your hat to sit. Once you have made a life choice glue that baby down and set it up to dry. I put mine out in the garden hanging over a tomato cage in the sun. It was 100 degrees yesterday and I had like 3 hours until show time, I needed to help my glue drying time along.



The next step is sometimes the hardest. Put on your new headband and make sure that you really have the inner strength to pull this bad boy off. It's all fun and games when you are home alone in your studio making this, but your first step into a public place (mine was the 7-11 down the street) and the looks people will give you is where the line is drawn in the sand between the crafty girls and the crafty women. I was prepared and have worn way more obnoxious things in my time. Plus all night people complimented me on my hat and couldn't believe that I made it myself. Needless to say at a Loretta Lynn concert I was surrounded by real life cowboy hats. On top of that I had forgotten that the Austin Biker rally was this weekend. I feel like I have a whole new inner strength wearing a tiny little, I'll admit it - slightly redic cowboy hat in front of hundreds of tough guys on huge motorcycles. I only had make a crack about me heading down to the Copacabana later, but since I am a Barry Manillow fan I just smiled and took it in stride.






Beyond the hat the music and concert was amazing. We were outside at the amphitheatre at Stubbs BBQ which also means I got to have a chopped beef sandwich for dinner! I dusted off my First Ladies of Country Resin Bracelet (click here to learn how to make your own) because of course there is a picture of Loretta Lynn. Loretta was amazing and wore a full length lavender sequined gown, had her hair teased up and had a thicker accent than I do. She sang all the hits including "Fist City", "Honky Tonk Girl", "Coal Miners Daughter" and more. She was taking requests from the audience and bless her old as dirt heart sometimes she would forget the lyrics and the band would have to start singing for her to remember. It only happened a couple of times and it was hot and she was in long sleeves so I'll forgive her. I think one of my favorite parts of the night was the Color Me Country coloring book they were selling. For just $5 how could I not buy one? It is pretty much the most amazing thing I have bought in a good long while.




If you want more info on making your own adorned headband I have a couple of suggestions for you. You might remember the old cover of Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girls Guide to Handmade Jewelry had a picture of the Quitting Time Headband. Yup there is a fun headband project in the new book! Also sometime on the DIY Network you might be able to catch an episode of Stylelicious called Putting it On where I show the girls how to make some wacky headbands with cupcake topper crowns and high heel shoes.

Today we announced the winners of our Naughty Secretary Club Polyvore Contest!  Read an interview with our gold medal fashionista, style tips from Simon Doonan and of course take a gander at a slew of cute outfits using Naughty Secretary Club Jewelry.

 Read all about it on my blog here.

Two blogs in one day, well that's just crazy!  Since both blogs are really more pictures than they are writing I figured what the hell.  I'm home from my first day at BEA convention and boy am I pooped.  Love the hotel, but they need something a little better than a shear curtain to keep the sun out.  My room was lit enough to do brain surgery by 6am and my circadian rhythms got me right out of bed.  It was just as well I ordered breakfast and watched Regis and Kelly.  I headed for the convention about 10 and braced myself for a lot of walking.  There are a ton of people there and the place is huge.  I didn't even make it through one hall today.  All your favorite book vendors are there F&W, Chronicle, Tashen, Harpers Collins and more.  I love books so and there were so many to add to my wish list.  I even got a free copy of Guerrilla Publicity!  Lots of celebrities too.  I saw Dionne Warwick, Mario Lopez, Mary Lou Henner and George Hamelton!  I didn't talk to them, but I did see them and stand within 20 feet of them so that counts. Here are a few of the other highlights of my day...

I stumbled into the Princeton Architectural Press booth where they had mock ups of Handmade Nation, postcards and tote bags to give away.  I asked the lady in the booth to take my picture holding the book.  Looks like my profile in the book is in the chapter entitled South Central along with Jenny Hart, Whitney Lee, Kathie Server and Knitta.

Another unexpected surprise was that my friend Travis Nichols from Austin was the convention.  He has a new book coming out called Punk Rock Etiquette that I got a signed preview copy of.  The book is hilarious and the illustrations are amazing.  After all Travis is a rock star and a cartoonist so how could it not be.

My signing in the F&W booth was from 2:00-3:30 and will be the same tomorrow (Friday).  We had free Naughty Secretary Club T-shirts to give away, promo copies of Naughty Secretary Club to look through and I bought a few pieces of jewelry to give away which seemed to make some really cute girls very happy.  It was so fun to see my book all around the booth and to actually hold a copy in my hand.  It is a square shaped, wide as a normal book just not as tall.  I had no idea.  I kind of love it.  It was so fun to see the reactions of people to all the jewelry I brought with me.  I also got to see some old friends like Stephanie Girard of Sweater Surgery and Tamara Berg who was a guest on Craft Lab.

I need to freshen up a bit as I am going out to dinner at Spagos tonight.  I wonder if Wolfgang Puck will be there.  If you are at BEA here in Los Angeles tomorrow be sure and stop by the F&W booth around 2pm!

A few months ago I did a post called How I Got Into Seventeen Magazine and You Could Too.  Several people emailed me afterwards asking questions about what a look book was and how I put it together.  Several other people made comments about the fact that they too made one of a kind items and by the time they put something into a look book to send out to a magazine that item might be sold.  I just had my look book redone and am posting it here for you to see and answering a few questions.  The look book is two sided, on shiny paper and folds up and is stapled like a booklet. 

This is the cover and the back page.  I wanted my logo big and lots of jewelry.  I also wanted my name.  Lots of people go by a company name, but no one knows their real name.  When I write an article as Jennifer Perkins I would like for that to be synonymous with and just as familiar as Naughty Secretary Club.  I feel like people are doing themselves a disservice when they hide their name.  Sure your brand name takes precedence, but people want to know there is a real person behind that brand too.

The back cover of the look book is an ad for my new book The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girls Guide to Handmade Jewelry.  Since I am taking this current batch with me tomorrow to BEA in Los Angeles and that is my biggest announcement on the horizon I thought it was important to dedicate an entire page of the press kit to this.

The next page in my press kit is my bio and my contact information.  Some magazines will just want to use my jewelry for a photo shoot and others might be interested in writing an article about me.  I want to be sure the press kit has both.  This is pretty much the same bio that is on my website.

Who doesn't love bullet points?  When it comes to busy magazine editors they all do.  Some might love reading my bio and others might find it daunting and would prefer the bullet points.  These bullets let editors know a few fun facts about Naughty Secretary Club: I'm an Austin Craft Mafia member, I host Craft Lab, the books I have projects in and more.  Just quickie highlights.  Most importantly there is more jewelry on the page.

Editors like to see what kinds of press coverage you have received.  As the saying goes: No one reads your press, they weigh it.  These are a few of the mastheads of magazines I am most proud of.  The second page are a few tear sheets of where I have been featured.  This page gives editors an idea of how your work has been previously featured and how they might work with you.  I actually might go in and add another page of tear sheets before I have a huge batch of these printed up.  Again there are more jewelry pictures sprinkled around the page. 

Also, if you are just starting out and don't have a page full of magazine pictures to fill the pages with don't fret.  It is not the most important part of your look book and hopefully after you send yours out you will have some to fill the pages of the second edition.

What I do not have shown here is the cover letter (and of course business card and free jewelry sample) that I will also send along to magazine and blog editors with this look book.  This is where I will introduce myself and let the editors know that my work is mostly one of a kind and they should treat the ever revolving stock on Naughty Secretary Club as the most up to date look book.  Very seldom have I had an editor want to pull something they specifically saw in my look book.  A look book gives them an idea of your work and style, it puts you on their radar.  From here they know to contact you if they are shooting something that they think your work might fit with.  Editors will not call and say can you send the necklace on page two in the bottom right hand corner?  They will call and say we are looking for huge chunky necklaces with lots of colors and pearls can you send us some samples. 

Hopefully this helps give you a better idea about look books and press kits.  This is my new press kit and it is different and shorter than the last one I sent around so I am curious about what the response will be.  I'll keep you posted.  Does your look book have a completely different look?  Do you think I am missing something?  I'd love to hear your thoughts on this or answer any other questions.