Necklaces Necklaces Necklaces.

My quest to become a master solderer continues. It's surprisingly tricky. I'm not exactly sure how the explosion of soldered glass jewelry has happened, since it seems like it takes a lot of practice! Anyway, here are some new soldered peacock feather pendants. When my skillz get really good, I'm start producing round ones, since round glass costs more. I really like the fabric chains because I have PLENTY of extra fabric from making clothes and I think putting fabric behind the feathers works better then paper.

I don't like to toot my horn too much but this necklace made from a Smuckers jelly lid is simply wonderful. It is. I cut out the cross stitching from one of the handkerchiefs I bought at an estate sale and glued it inside the lid, then hung a little green glass heart that I had soldered earlier. I'm in love with it.

And then there's these bird necklaces.  I'm pretty stoked about them too. Having an etsy store has been so fun because it gives you the opportunity to see where your sensibilities and others meet, or don't, as the case may be. For example, when I made these earrings  I really wasn't crazy about them and didn't think anyone else would like them. They are my most popular item, by far. Conversely, (inversely? reversely?) I thought these earrings would be an instant fashion sensation, but nobody gives them a second glance at all. So, I'll be interested to see what catches on. Either way, it doesn't matter, the Smuckers necklace is bad ass.

Teablossoms first photo shoot

Hello! Welcome to my first blog post on my blog devoted to my latest scandal: Teablossoms! It's handmade clothing, it's freerange peacock feather accessories. It's....a state of mind. I've always wanted to make clothing for a living and be self-employed and have an excuse to have fun and frequent photo shoots starring ME! And I was recently fired from my lame office job, so it seems god is closing a door and I'm opening an Etsy store. Quick disclaimer: I've been a very fairweather blogger in the past, but I'm gonna do my best to produce the all-important content and photos!! Without further ado, let's see some sexy pix from my first photo shoot featuring my first three Teablossoms...Yes, it's true. With my very first Teablossoms skirt, I reveal the seedy truth about myself: I'm an Amy Butler WHORE! Just like the rest of you. It is pretty though, isn't it.

Girl makes some pretty fabric, what can I say? You know what else I discovered? Ladies love skirts you can wear as shirts! Jeff (my fiance') , who was snappin photos was like "No, don't wear it like that." But every female who sees this photo is like, "Oh, I LOVE that you can wear it as a shirt!" I know what girls like. Perhaps I'll snap some with it on my head and the Nun community will be signing up on etsy. The best part is that I get to use the tags "whore" and "nun" for this blog post.

Try as I did, I still managed to flash some folks during this clothing change. Good thing Jeff was around to protect my honor. I called this the Just Bee skirt on my etsy store. Which is here, by this way. And I have bad news (for you): it's been sold. To my friend Lindsay. She loves it and hopefully I'll have some pictures of her wearing it to share. I have a prediction: Bees are going to be the new Owl which has been the new Black of fashion this summer. You heard it here. Let's see if I can find a detail of this Bee fabric cuz it's just Beeautiful!

Here we go. This is good because you can behold the bees as well as my design m.o. Teablossoms is all wrap skirts all the time! (with the exception of the Amy Butler one above, that's just an a-line). Wrap skirts are one-size-fits-most. Whether you're skinny, curvy, preggers or just want your kids to be well-dressed siamese twins for Halloween, chances are there's a Teablossoms skirt for you.

I call this skirt Tropical Shimmer, Be a Hawaiian Goddess or Just Look Like One. I'd say the biggest challenge of working with this fabric was trying to get the color right in photoshop. Sheesh! It's really bright and quite shiny. I'm not sure I ever really did it justice. Oh well. It's silk jacquard. Which I think maybe means fake silk because you can machine wash and iron this baby just fine. Not at all possible with 100% silk. Perhaps it's a blend. Anywho, here I am rocking the tropical shimmer in front of the Revolutionary War monument in Ft. Greene park in Brooklyn.












That's all for now! Stay tuned for some juicy peeks at a suitcase full of vintage linens that my mom lugged all the way from Colorado last week as well as my foray into soldered glass pendants. This was a fruitful photo shoot and I'm super grateful to Jeff for his fashion photography skillz. If you're curious what Jeff does when he's not directing me Austin Powers-style, here are his webisodes starring food critic, Josh Ozersky.