NY Creates Holiday Market

NYCreates’ Sixth Annual 2009 Holiday Crafts Fair at the Brooklyn Historical Society

New York Creates is pleased to announce its latest initiative for the NewYork Craft Artist Community. In association with the Brooklyn Historical Society we are producing a Holiday Crafts Festival. The festival will take place on the ground floor entrance of The Brooklyn Historical Society’s building, located in downtown Brooklyn’s Historic District at 128 Pierrepont Street.

Come see me at the market and support local artists and crafters. There will be over 50 New York artisans participating, including Leisure Society. I am very excited to be showing new pillow designs and brand new sizes. I now have 18" x 18" and 12" x 12" pillows in addition to my 12" x 16" pillows. All styles are made with vintage fabrics and filled with recycled plastic soda bottles shredded up into fine filaments. Reuse and recycle!

What a perfect match - Leisure Society at the Brooklyn Historical Society.

New Pillows

Catching Up

I have been horrible at keeping this blog up since I've been freelancing Mondays through Thursdays. When I work at a job outside of my home, everything else kind of falls away. I guess that's one reason why I don't like working a full-time job. There's a lot of other things I want to do with my time! Anyway, here are some photos of what I've been up to in my free time in the past month.

Trout Fishing

We went to my Dad and Molly's house this weekend in CT. My dad goes fishing a lot and we asked if he would take us. We spent the day at a beautiful river, and we did pretty well! We caught about 8 trout, but we let 5 of them go. The next morning Dad grilled them up for our breakfast. What a great experience.

Photo Shoot

I did a photo shoot with my friends Eric and Matt for my new improved website and for some promotional postcards and such. It was really fun.

Shhh, it's a Quiet Day!

This morning when I woke up, it was so blissfully silent that I declared today a Quiet Day. This means no music, and minimal talking. I just want to enjoy the silence for as long as I can, you know? I always put music on as soon as I wake up and it's going all day. And I usually listen to Sirius XM radio and I get really annoyed with the DJs or with stupid songs that I don't like. So by having a quiet day, I'm cutting out those annoyances too. Everybody wins. It's been pretty peaceful. I have found myself going to put on the music a few times, absentmindedly of course. I bring noise into my life without even thinking about it most days. Well, not today. I decided if it starts to get loud outside, like construction or dogs barking or kids yelling, then I can put the music on. Those things are more disruptive to my sanity than bad songs on the radio. So, I offer the challenge to you. Can you have a quiet day? Tomorrow I'm going to try a "no computer day". Boy, do I waste a lot of time on the internet.

Goodspeed Opera House

This place is so inspiring to me.

Key Lime Pie Project

I found this craft project idea in a book called 52 Projects. Make a key lime pie, take pictures of it. Take pictures of people eating it. Then hand-write the recipe out and put it in a box with the pictures and a bag of key limes. Send it to a friend with directions that they should share their photos with you, and pass it on. I'm totally paraphrasing the whole project, you get the gist of it. It was really fun. We need to work on our graham cracker crust techniques however. It wasn't as successful as it could've been. It was delicious though!

Hen Night

We sure were a group of lovely hens! My very good friend Heather is getting married very soon, and we had her hen night this past Saturday. I danced my butt off! Our friend DJ Kimmy Gibler played my favorite kind of dance music: David Bowie, T. Rex, the Go-go's, Erasure, Wham. The bride-to-be looked fabulous, as you can see.

I contributed some of the photos that were hung all over the bar, Heather's own personal Wall of Shame. It was a very creative idea of some of the bridesmaids. It really made the night extra fun, I thought. Kate was an amazing bartender, serving up our drinks with straws in a very particular shape. I haven't stayed out that late in a long time! Cheers everyone, it was a really fun night, a raging success!

Mexican Holiday

Crazy blue crabs!


Giant Buddha heads


Coconut palms everywhere


I could stare at the ocean all day long

We had a lovely 6 day holiday in Playa del Carmen, Mexico last week. Ahhh, only took me 2 days to relax. They had a decent spa where I spent most of my time in the Turkish bath and sauna. Got a pretty good massage. Swimming in the crystal clear water was my favorite part. I took so many photos, I may have to make a slide show and share it here.

It was a cold rude awakening when I got back though. The next day it snowed! Quite frankly, I am annoyed with this weather.

Still embroidering away over here. I joined a team on Etsy, the newnew. I hope to become an active member of the group when I finally wrap my head around the whole thing.

The Best Leisure Activity Ever - Rowboats in Central Park

I was a passenger of course, rowing is too much work for my delicate constitution. It was the first beautiful day this spring. What a great day. If anyone is interested in doing this, I highly recommend it. And I'll definitely be back there soon.

March Blahs

The month of March is my least favorite month of the year. It's so long, there are no holidays, and it's still COLD!!!! I am sitting in my warm kitchen embroidering away. I am looking forward to a little vacation next week - in Mexico!! Ahh, I will be in the sun a week from today. Just wanted to check in. I have contacted a few neighborhood shops to introduce them to my handiwork. I'll let you know if I hear back.

Don't work too hard!

And oh yeah, check out my website: www.leisuresociety.net

Leisure Society Featured On Papernstitch

Check out Leisure Society as a featured artist at www.papernstitch.com, a wonderful online exhibition for artists, makers, crafters, etc. Click on Leisure Society, a photo of an orange scribbley pillow, to see my shop there. Then if you click the pink heart in the left hand corner of the screen, you'll be voting for us as best shop for the month and I'll win a prize!

Other news:
I applied to be a seller at the BUST Spring Craftacular at Warsaw in Williamsburg in May. Fingers crossed that I make it in!

I'm going to working on an official website this week! I'll keep you posted.

I Heart Montauk

My sweetheart took me away for a surprise weekend getaway for Valentine's Day. Once we got onto the L.I.E., I knew we were headed for Montauk, at the very end of Long Island. This is my new favorite place on Earth.

Leisure Society Shop Is Open!

Psst, please visit my shop on Etsy! I am working on more pillows and a little booklet to hold all of your embroidery needles. Please check back often to see new styles.

www.leisuresociety.etsy.com

Pillows

My first batch of pillows are almost ready! The printed fabric on the fronts are vintage fabrics I have picked up here and there. The backs are solid, made with either reclaimed or new fabric. The fluffy inserts have filling made from recycled soda bottles. Now I am going to add a little hand-embroidered "graphic" to each one and they'll be ready for sale on Etsy and hopefully a few other places. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Happy New Year

I had a quiet New years in the Catskills at this cabin we rented with some friends. No cable, no phone, no internet. There was a DVD player though. We cooked dinner, played Cranium, read books, talked, and watched the fire in the wood-burning stove. At midnight, we had our own countdown around the kitchen stove's digital clock. We had no noisemakers, so we used pots and pans to make lots of noise and ring in the new year. One night, we went night snow-tubing at a near-by ski resort. That was really, really fun!! I haven't had that much fun since I jumped off the high dive at Scott's this summer or got pulled around the lake on a tube by a motorboat. Wait, I see a tubing trend here.

For a few minutes, I felt like I missed out on something more raucous or social. But I know I didn't miss a thing. I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The Cure For Anything Is Salt Water

OMG, I am so sorry I haven't blogged in so long! The holidays really got me into a lazy funk for a little while. But I'm back! And lazier than ever. No, just kidding. I have been trying to get up earlier while still maintaining a life of leisure. I received lots of Christmas gifts that are helping with Leisure Society. I got a few embroidery books, embroidery floss and hoops, an amazingly cute tiny paper cutter, just to rattle off a few. I got a great book called The Cure For Anything Is Salt Water, How I Threw My Life Overboard and Found Happiness At Sea by Mary South. It's an amazing, inspiring book by a woman who walked away from a big job in publishing, sold her house, and bought a 30 ton steel trawler boat. She took a short course in seamanship and set out on a journey from Florida to Maine with her 2 dogs and a classmate. As you may or may not know, my true home is the ocean so I absolutely loved the book. She braves storms, running aground, near-accidents, and comes through a first rate captain. As it says in the book, "Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors."

The pics above are of the lighthouse in CT that I grew up looking at. The kiddies are my niece and nephew on their first sailing trip. Ah, to be at sea.