Leanne Shawler, Artist

Hey, I know my blog has this new focus of being beloved by God, but I'm feeling a little retro today. So we'll be taking a step into the vintage/creative/mori girl world today. I'm taking the Full Tilt Boogie class and have been doing practice signatures before starting "for real".  Here are the albums I got a super deal on Ebay. Can you guess which one I will find impossible to cut up? inside of bottom album inside top left album inside of top left album inside of top right album inside top right album So, were you able to guess which one I don't think I'll be able to cut up? Let me know in the comments... Also, I have had this pinned to my Pinterest for quite a while.... Source: honestlywtf.com via Leanne on Pinterest ... and made the first one today (forgive horrible iPhone photos, the light was going. The lace is hand sewn onto men's white boxers. Lessons learned: pin vertical, not horizontal...

The next to last project we did in the Mori Cupcake class (which I miss already) was to put together a journal. Mine's not finished yet, but I thought I'd share the cover and a few pages. I made the cover from a David Austin Roses catalog... I brilliantly managed to stitch in one signature upside down (and also used too thick cord to do the binding), but I kinda like the haphazard rusticness of it. The spread below has a page added by using rings, because it was a pretty card I'd been hoarding and always wanted to use. But here's the other side of it. The Red Riding Hood image is a creation of my Mori Cupcake teacher, Natalie Neumann (so all credit is to her!), to be included in an altered clothing project (confession: still haven't made it), and I added it here on top of some experimenting I did with alcohol inks for the La Sirena class! Below is the first spread I did with fabric, using a left over piece from my embroidery sampler and images from the net of the M...

Last week, my planned workday went to h*** in a handbasket (hey, I work in a church, remember?). The priest's vesting room stunk to high heaven of mold/mildew from the recent downpours, the carpet had been soaked in one place, and my hubby recommended we get the vestments outta there before the mold/mildew spores transferred as we knew the smell was coming from somewhere . So we start hauling out vestments and transferring them to a couple of other closets....they were dry and untouched (and not smelly, apparently I have a nose for it) .... But found that we had a pile of mildewy clothes on the floor of one of the closets, and the wet had wicked up from these.... Alas, two gorgeous black wool cassocks were completely ruined with mildew up to the knees. I have a bad feeling that can't have occurred in just the last couple of weeks and that this has been an undiagnosed problem... Fortunately, the vestments currently in use were spared and weren't even damp, but...

At time of writing, I am Really Really Close to signing up for Mori Cupcake . (editing to add: I have signed up! First lesson starts today!) Two weekends ago, I went through my wardrobe, which I've mentioned in an earlier post, to weed out the too big clothes, the clothes I never wear, figure out my style, etc. This t-shirt had been consigned to the toss pile (not even good enough to give away). You can't see it in the photo, and the close up didn't show it either, but the threads are pulling in the fabric. However, it's an extraordinarily comfy shirt so I didn't want to give it up. What to do? I thought of covering it in net and embroidering on it and hiding the edges of the net with some silvery grey seam binding. And then I came across this fabric in Yardage Town. Sheer(ish) with embroidery. There's only one problem: the fabric's not wide enough for the tshirt width. So now I'm stuck. I had visions of it going longer than the shirt itself (going for...

I wrote this last week. I thought while I'm feeling chatty, I may as well spread them out in even batches. My fashion style seems to be three different kinds: 1) jeans and t-shirt: although my latest pair of jeans have rhinestones down the seams and my favorite shirts are printed with swirls, text and a bit bedazzled, my attire is usually pretty plain. I catch a bus and walk to work, so it has to be comfortable and not result in chafing! (was that TMI?) 2) loose and natural: my summer gear of long linen pants (see commute) and long sheer shirts 3) the 20s/30s look: this is probably the vaguest of the lot and is primarily evening wear. Long lightweight coats: plain, chinoiserie, float black pants, vintage styled silk tops And there is a fourth. The few pieces that survived my brief foray into the goth world, although really they are a few velvet tops of various colors and black lace stuff. There's also romantic swirly dresses and a long summer coat that I fell for but haven...

Mum asked for some Mori Girl examples, so here they are. Some photos of Mori girls, purloined from the web without credit, which is not kosher but as I saw these images in a bunch of different places without attribution, it makes it a little difficult to credit! (If these are yours, let me know and I will credit!) So this is an example of Mori girl style: whites, neutrals, pastels, long skirt, cute hat, lots of layers, sweet without being sugary. Here's a closeup: I have a sundress from my teen years (yes, I do have great difficulty throwing out pretty things), that I think I could cut to get a skirt from, if I can but figure out how to make a waistband and attach skirt to waistband without going crazy. It could be a little shorter so another skirt could peek out from underneath, or serve as the longer petticoat... Here's another Mori Girl look: Love the waistcoat over the dress, and the lace headband. I went shopping at Yardage Town last weekend and picked up this lace (and...