The slow push forward.

I am not sure if anyone completely understands the gravity of the above picture. Maybe only a few. PATTERNS are DONE!!! Everyone, this has been one of the large to do items on my list. Getting all the patterns draped, transfered to paper, sewn up and revised, and revised, and revised.. then finally put onto manilla paper, given a style number and a pattern card. Wowza. Next the samples need to be made in correct fabrication and all needs to be delivered to the grader so I can have SIZES. After that the sky is the limit and I am so very, very excited. As we speak the fabric has been ordered, the cupcream website is getting a new look, and I will be making my final samples for the photo shoot. I am so excited for the photo shoot, one of my most favorite things to do ever. Mostly because the girls look so very cute and I always love the pictures.

These three beauties are the vintage voiles I found that will be for the beach cover ups. I have been wanting for a long time to do a line of soft vintage styles for the beach. I am constantly on the look out for cute beach/pool cover ups for the girls. While terry cloth is nice I want something light and easy for them. And I just love the idea of vintage beach. LOVE. So I am off to start those patterns next. I will keep you posted and updated. Check in often and leave some comment love so I can put you on my mailing list for when everything is ready!

nichole

Never too late for Happy New Years!

Where have you been? Oh wait...

Well friends, it has been awhile hasn't it. Since last I visited Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years has all passed. We had a wonderful and very blessed holiday season. The Boutiques were tons of fun. ( who doesn't love setting up beautiful items all the while listening and enjoying the christmas season and at the same time catching up with good friends and making new ones.)

Had a wonderful time celebrating my husbands birthday up in seattle sans the cuteness in the photos above. We were able to regroup and plan and talk. Something that seems to get lost over the course of a year when you have little ones. So much in life is a balance. Which brings me to my spring dresses. They are always the first thing to go on the back burner so to speak. I have managed to prepare the shop for the new styles but just seem to lag on getting everything done. Thank you for being so patient and understanding. For the next few weeks I will be getting ready for all that needs to happen as well keeping up with my little ones and making time for this:

Watching a spirited rendition of Kung Foo Panda OF COURSE. The Kung Foo rules our home these days. Even our littlest one at 20 months grabs a stick and yells HI-YAH at a moments notice. Who says girls only like dolls and princesses?

I hope to do a better job in '010 with keeping things moving and visiting with you more often. If you would like to catch up on my life feel free to visit me over at reallymuch!

n.

boutique season. welcome.

Just a few pictures and a quick note to say Hooray for Boutique Season! There won't be much posting for awhile as we are getting ready to make the holiday rounds. I will post some shots of our booth and pictures of others that are inspiring.

Hope you all are having a great Halloween!

xoxo

n.

a little afternoon designing...

So I had a little bit of time this afternoon and decided to do some designing on the form followed up by pattern making and some light sewing. Two dresses down and three more for spring. I love, love, love this dress because of the extra wide binding along the top, the drop waist and bubble skirt. I also really love that there is no hardware on the entire dress. For those of you who don't know there is a lot going on with the lead laws and testing etc for children's products. One thing that they have concluded is that if the products are of natural materials i.e. cotton then you are exempt from all the testing! So I have decided for spring, the line will be done in only cottons with no hardware.. very fun! I find it makes for an easy summer play dress.. just slip it on and you are ready to go! I will be testing this dress on our little Olivia tomorrow for church. I'll post some more pictures and let you know how it goes :)

more to come...

nichole

PS anyone interested in having their little ones be fit models? I am going to be doing all the size grading myself and would love some help with fit. Send me an email if you are interested and I can share the details with you. I am looking for sizes 2T / 3T / 5T / 6T

nichole@shinners.org

Some new things are coming...finally

So very excited to say after much thought it is time for some new dresses and other goodies. For many reasons I have been contemplating the clothing line of cupcream and wondering if there is a future or not. While I decided to remove all my dresses from our website I seem to still be filling orders and special requests for people... So as the long winter months come I will be creating dresses like the one above for spring. I feel really excited about this and the new creative direction I am taking. I will be back often to post on inspiration and new designs!

see you all soon

n.

ps don't you love our new look? thought it was time :)

my "new" hutch!

So after the hutch was moved into place and decorated with all my new flea market finds, turns out I really like it. I thought it was going to clash with my walls big time. It really doesn't clash that much. Don't you just love the colors of the jug and the green glass bottles with the robins egg blue on the hutch? I just love it. It is so nice to finish a project after it has been sitting unfinished for over 6 years. Almost inspires me to finish a few more :)

n.

Don't be scared.. well maybe a little.

In the summer of 2003 my dearest person went home to be with Jesus. My godmother. My sweet Godfather was awesome and let everyone have something meaningful to each of us. I chose this amazing hutch in which she used to store and hold all of her paints in her studio. She was an amazing painter. My Godfather would cut all the wood pieces she needed for her and for her classes and paint it all. So when I visited every summer I got to look through the books and choose what I wanted to paint. Grandpa would cut it out for me and then I could take my new piece and my book with the pattern and choose the correct colors from this hutch. She always had all the colors, she was well stocked. So in the summer of 2003 we drove out to pick it up and haul it home. When it first got home I painted it black. Now I think I am ready for some color. So here is my post on the process.

This is the original hutch ready to be stripped.

I am guessing that it had 3-4 layers of paint on it.

Here it is about half way done. The wood underneath looks amazing. In most areas it has this old farmhouse look. At this point I am wondering if I should be painting it after all. I think though that the entire cabinet needs to be saturated in the colors that I want to see in the patina. So I finished the cabinet.
Here it is all painted up. Please don't judge her yet. This isn't a look I am fond of. I really LOVE the colors but dislike the concept of the two tone. It is very 90's "country". So tomorrow I will be grabbing my tools and getting to work.
Here is what I plan to attack my cabinet with tomorrow, after my paint has had time to set up. I think that the color it is now will give it an amazing base coat and extra coloring when I sand most of it off. Afterwards I will be applying an antique glazing gel. This makes me happy because my godmother was the queen of antique gel. She gave me many lessons and I know she would be proud.