Happy July! I’ve always loved the month of July. I think that growing up in the Finger Lakes makes you love the warm summer months because the lakes are warm enough to swim in by the holiday weekend. We’re not headed to the lakes this year, but I am turning 30 on Sunday (woohoo!) and the weekend is packed with lots of family and friends. I’m on a quest for sparklers for our party in the park Saturday.

I got the best birthday surprise this week when I landed this beauty:

And this one:

Seriously?! My friend Rafe was unloading them before he moved and I jumped at the chance to buy them for a fraction of what they are selling for on ebay. I feel like I basically stole them.
The larger one has little drawers that pull out in the center and it stands taller than I am (at 5′9″) because it comes with a base as well.

Anyone who knows me knows I love old library catalogs and they are almost impossible to come by in 1. mint condition 2. with every drawer present 3. for cheap. I’m giddy about these going into my studio, which I was hoping to start painting this week but we’re still waiting on the contractors to finish the dry walling. For now, my card catalogs are in the front hall, awaiting their big move upstairs. Count-down to studio time.
Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Thread Home opening was a grand success Friday night. Two of my bffs, all in our Thread dresses:

Sandy (Thread owner), me (Thread shop’aholic/designer), Tanya (Thread shop’aholic #2)

Made By Rachel cuffs and earrings display case:

I really really want it to stop raining…

A few pictures from the finished collection:

The entire collection (30+ cuffs and some earrings) can be seen in the portfolio section of my website some time this weekend. Otherwise, head to Thread to see everything!

I am taking custom orders, so if you see something you like on my website or at Thread that isn’t in your size, contact me through my website and I can set you up. Because all of the leather is recycled, many colors are limited, but I do have a nice stack of leather left to get through so there are lots of options.

Hope to see you at the grand opening of Thread Home tonight from 7-9. 20% off everything at Thread, including my leather cuffs and earrings.

*Special thanks for my last-minute models, Jay and Heather!

Spent the morning hammering in snaps for 28 cuffs. I ended up doing it on the front porch because I needed a surface I could pound on really hard without ruining any floors, but the heat was killer even though I was in the shade.

Feeling so close to done with the first set. If they sell, I’ll probably hammer out another set by August, but I have a tiny stack of reserved leather saved for myself and a few close friends that I want to get to first.

All that’s left for this set is taking photos, picking up my new display tags and figuring out how to tag all the cuffs with my letter stamps. Of course, it’s about to pour so maybe I can pound on the kitchen floor, since we’re ripping it up in a few weeks anyway.

Today is one of those days where you know it’s going to be 85 and sunny all day and you can’t decide if it’s a day to stay out of the sun and do work, or give in and soak it up. I’m going to aim for a little of both and see where it gets me.

Leather collection is inching along. I’m really enjoying the process of something that doesn’t require constant sewing machine access and backstitching. If all goes well, some cuffs, earrings, and other small items will be in Thread by Friday night for the grand opening of Thread Home. Everything is 20% off at both stores; my guess is that I’ll be doing more buying than selling that night!

The tub is done and is awaiting transport. Now that it has silver feet, we keep laughing about how it looks like a big white animal belly-up and sunning itself in our very weedy backyard.

I’m excited to finally be to the point of figuring out what I want the studio to look like. Admittedly, I’m a bit hesitant: completely renovating a house and starting over on every single inch of it is not only stressful but starting completely from scratch is overwhelming. It’s one thing to renovate a room; it’s another thing to renovate an entire two floors where ever single decision feels a wee bit scary.

Thankfully, I have some very creative friends who are willing to look at a lot of inspiration pictures, send me helpful links online, and run all over town looking for interesting stuff. (Thanks Whitney!) I made my very first studio purchase last night and lucky me, I got the very last one! (In the size I wanted: I’m sure there are still more.) Of course, it’s on back order, but I think it’s worth the wait.

I also made a drastic decision for me: I’m leaving the greens behind, my friends, and making room for some reds, oranges and purples. I think I’m ready to make my next studio a very different space this time around.

For those interested, we relaunched our house blog and are busy updating it. You can find me other here over the next few weeks, attempting to paint the entire upstairs, landscape the yard, move us upstairs and begin gutting the downstairs. Welcome to my summer!

I was interviewed by writer Lindsay Crandall for the online magazine The Curator. Scope it out here!

In other news, hope to see you there!

As most of you know, we’ve been renovating a very old brick house for the last year and a half. It’s been super-slow going, mainly because I’m a full-time PhD student and C runs his own business and we’ve pretty much been doing all of the work ourselves. This summer, we decided that other than madebyrachel, I wouldn’t work so that I could help us pick up the pace of the house renovations. The great news is that the upstairs is completely framed out and insulated and the drywall crew showed up at 7:45 a.m. this morning to get to work.

And now it’s hitting me that one of my main jobs this summer is to paint every wall upstairs so we can move up there by July. Yikes! C and I have agreed we want our house to be as simplistic as possible, which means that most of the walls in the house will be white; however, my studio is a different story. I’m completely stuck: do I want to paint it white and or do I want to paint it a color? Decisions decisions.

C and I have been collecting pictures* online of house interiors we love. I was thinking this morning that I should starting sharing some of the pictures that have inspired me in hopes of maybe making some decisions. Here’s the first small batch:

The studio is in the front of the house and has two window facing north. I want the studio to feel bright and warm year-round, since Rochester has some pretty cold winters. It’s no secret that I love green, although when I’ve painted rooms green in my apartments, it’s usually a very light, almost white green. But I like this, even though it’s crazy bright:

And this, even though it might be too dark…

I’ve never painted a room blue, but I love this color:

(I’ll take that doggie on the bed, too).
I’m also leaning toward a light grey, because it’s color, but it’s subtle:

Finally, there’s SO much amazing wall paper out there now, I’m tempted to wall paper at least one wall in the house. It might not be in the studio, but I’m lovin this:

I’ve toyed with doing an accent wall a color or paper it and leaving the rest of the room white, because I would have a perfect wall in the studio for an accent wall. So much to think about…

It’s Thursday and it’s raining again. Lucky me, I bought the rain boots I wanted (in navy!) and I’m working at the farmers market this afternoon with one of my favorite friends who is excellent at understanding studio spaces, so I’m sure she’ll have some great insight for me. Hope you’ll swing by and visit us.

*I’ve been collecting these pictures for a year and unfortunately, never tagged what blogs they came from. Sorry I can’t source them here!

Taking a break from the leather collection (yes, I finally started it!) to work on refinishing this tub for Sandy for a display in Thread Home. My friend gave Sandy the tub and we had it delivered to my back yard yesterday: it had been sitting outside for a very very long time.

Sandy and I started cleaning it last night but got frusterated by how many application of CLR it took to just get started. Here’s the before:

I started in again this morning on the inside. Three Boulder iced teas, four steel wool pads, one gallon of CLR, and one very sweaty tube-top later:

I was going to say something here about sun-bathing, but I’m trying to aviod that much cheese:

Time to flip ‘er over.

My friend Jay brought me a box of leather and leather-tools the other day and asked me if I could use any of it. After our trip, I finally got a chance to paw through it all. Along with a small mound of leather and snaps of assorted colors, there were various hole punches and tools that I have seen online while researching to buy the new tools I talked about the other week.

I honestly have no idea what most of the small silver tools are for. I’ve been trying to find some resources online that will explain techniques for using them, but the best I’ve come up with are a few video clips on youtube about how to use various tools that I don’t need any explanation for. Of course, I should be to the point of actually making all the cuffs now, but instead I’ve been putting in a few random hours here and there helping S get ready to open the new store, Thread Home.

Stay tuned!