stef makes.art creative projects by stephanie paulantis

Big News: New Mini Shop - hogswallow

August 12, 2013

Hello Everybody! It has been a little while. I have been on many adventures in the past months, which have kept me away from the Internet and blog updatage, and I am excited to tell you all about them!

BUT FIRST. Big news. I started a project way back in May after I talked to the lovely Claire (you remember Geek Star Costuming, right?) about how she made some of her beautiful geeky accessories. Well, she got me in touch with her laser cutting guy—who can be contacted over here at The Laser Geek— and I went a little crazy with ideas about what I could do. With the help of Brian I started out producing just a few of these cute wood designs. And now I am finally posting about them here on my blog, and officially launching my new mini store hogswallow, wherein you can purchase said earrings.

Woodland Series

These are all woodland inspired designs. The first design I thought of was the morels, a given considering how much I lovethem, and how perfectly they fit into my vision of how I’d do the double layers of wood and the stain would look. I could seriously not be happier with how they turned out.

Morel Earrings - Un Petit Squab / Hogswallow

King Boletus are a close second favorite, and they’re such a cute looking mushroom they also had to be made.

Boletus Earrings - Un Petit Squab / Hogswallow

And of course, you couldn’t have morels and boletus without including some Chantrelles! I did, however, forget to add a hardware hole to these bad boys when I was revising the design. I still need to add the hardware to these, so they are coming soon. Look at how great those gills look, though!

Chantrelle Earrings - Un Petit Squab / Hogswallow

And in the vein of “woodland,” but mostly just because they are my favorite animal, swallows! I actually only have ONE PAIR of these left, because I’ve already sold all the others at a few of the festivals I’ve been to. So snatch them up now, else you’ll be waiting until I make the next batch.

Swallow Earrings - Un Petit Squab / Hogswallow

The Crafty Series

As much as I love the woods, I also love my craftyness. And what better way to sport crafty pride than wearing some hand crafted crafty paraphernalia?

Like, for instance, big flashy yarn balls?

Yarn Ball Earrings - Un Petit Squab / Hogswallow

And adorable little stork scissors!

Stork Wire Earrings - Un Petit Squab / Hogswallow

Or, for the more seamstressy amongst us, sewing shears! A subtle but important difference.

Sewing Shear Earrings - Un Petit Squab / Hogswallow

All of these earrings are designed by me, laser cut right here in Washington, and hand finished by me (sanded, glued, finished, and hardware added.) A lot of love has gone into these guys, and I couldn’t be happier with how they came out. Brian really did an amazing job of getting the pieces cut out, and I’m certain at least a few designs were not easy to deal with so I give a lot of kudos to him and am very excited to work on some new designs (and also working on accessories and items other than earrings) here very soon. For now though, I hope you enjoy these. PS, I’m totally open to requests and ideas for future designs. Just sayin. Comment section is wide open ;)

Over the next few days I will be doing a lot of photo bombing from my summer activities, so look forward to that. I’m also going to be doing a lot of work on the etsy store making it look nice, this is kind of a soft launch but it will start looking cuter as the week progresses.

Also, look forward to the launch of another creative project here this fall. I’ve got a lot up my sleeve and am ready to crack down and get back into my internet ventures as the weather cools and my other job becomes less time consuming. (Did I ever mention that I’m a house painter too? A lovley summer gig that keeps me tired and busy.)