New Blog!

Hello everyone,

After a long hiatus from blogging, I have decided to launch a new blog through wordpress and I would love it if you could check it out! There's already some content up on the new blog, and I won't be updating this one anymore.

You can find it here: http://thebeeskneeswithmia.wordpress.com

If you would like to get email updates whenever I make a new post, you can enter your email on the righthand sidebar.

Please feel free to share the link to my new blog to anyone who might enjoy it!

-Mia

Lettering and Typography

I have been really interested in calligraphy and lettering lately, and have been playing around with them a lot. I am trying to learn calligraphy and I'm not very good at it, but practicing it has helped me to begin to approach lettering like you do drawing--focusing on the shapes, the line quality, and the negative space. From this I began looking at fonts present on Microsoft Word and tried to sketch them like you would a still-life. 

These are some of the initial experiments: 

This is a line from a poem by Anis Mojgani called "These Things are the Way You Make Me Feel" If you are interested, you can watch him perform this poem here. I think it's really beautiful and the video in the link is a wonderful performance of it. 

This is a quote from the film "Beginners," which is one of my favorite movies, and the font I chose was inspired by the scene from the movie in which this phrase is spray-painted onto a blank billboard. The plant pictures are cut out from an old Anthropologie catalogue.

From this, I went on to experiment further on little stationary cards. I found some scraps of vellum paper in my collage materials, on which I drew the lettering and then placed it over the collaged backgrounds. I really like how these turned out, as the vellum mutes the colors of the backgrounds and highlights the emphasis of the words. 

I made the Alaska card for my friend Setasha, which has personal significance to us and our friendship and some goals we have as people. 

The other two cards are based much more on aesthetic than on personal symbolism and have phrases that I thought had a nice sound and complimented the backgrounds I collaged with scraps from old NYLON magazines.  

I have been sorting through all of my collage materials, including old magazines, paper scraps, stickers, and many odds and ends and I have been finding a lot of inspiration in doing this. I am working on many little projects in my down-time and I hope to finish some of them up and share them on the blog. Keep checking back for updates… 

New Ties

I have uploaded some new ties onto my Etsy site! Check them out!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/EmmalinesUniverse

Bee Pictures!

Here are a couple of bee pictures that I forgot to post! Working with the bees is such a wonderful experience, and I am learning so much about how truly amazing bees are, while getting to sample some truly amazing honey along the way!

Collaged Sationary

My sister brought me an issue of Vogue Magazine for me to cut up and use for collages. I found a number of ladies in fancy dresses and decided to make little stationary cards from the pieces.

Collaging in one of my favorite art forms right now!

Dried Lemon Garland

I saw a lemon garland like this in an Anthropologie store and was very inspired. The thin slices of dried lemon caught the light so nicely, and I thought something like it would look nice in my room. So I made my own! I dried the lemon slices in the oven and then strung them on fishing line, separated by little golden beads.

I may even take this with me to school in the fall for my dorm room!

More Bee Adventures!

I got to film with the bees again this past week, and I got to learn about langstroth hives and I learned how to harvest honey!

Langstroth beehives

Bars of honeycomb from a top bar beehive

Fresh comb honey, its absolutely delicious!!

I am so thankful that it has worked out for me to work with these amazing beekeepers this summer, and to be able to use my passion for videography to help out our little bee friends!

4th of July in Colorado

For the 4th of July weekend, my parents and I went up to Colorado for a bit of vacation time. We had a wonderful time just getting out of town and spending time around the Durango area. We got to see some amazing fireworks, went to a wonderful farmers market (where the strawberries are from), and got to do a bit of hiking. It was so nice.

Headbands!

I have recently painted some new headbands, and uploaded them onto my Etsy site!

Headband in Dark Blue and Silver

Headband in Dark Blue

Headband in Aqua

Headband in Purple and Blue

Headband in Blue and Silver

California Vacation

A couple of weeks ago we spent some time out in California, which was absolutely wonderful. We spent a lot of time by the ocean which was absolutely lovely, and a much needed change of scenery from the hot summer desert. It was also the first major outing for my new camera, and I enjoyed playing around with it. Here are a few of the better pictures that I took!

Bees!

Today was my first day filming with the bees for the New Mexico Beekeepers Association!

Because what we were filming was some basic introductory material, we didn't open any of the hives, but I did get acquainted with some of the bees! I will be editing the footage throughout the summer, so the videos will be up later. But in the meantime, here are a couple of pictures from today!

Sale on Ties!

With Father's Day coming up, I decided to run a little sale on my Etsy shop, as these ties make wonderful gifts!

On sale are the ties from my "Moonshine" collection, which come in varying widths. 

Here are some of the ties that are on sale:

Also, I have introduced some ties that are painted on silk ties (the others are on satin), and these silk ties are a dark blue:

Please browse my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/EmmalinesUniverse

Transitions

I am back home for the summer now, and am ready to take on some fun summer projects, that I hope to share with you!

Here is a bit of a teaser image… featuring my cat.

Keep checking back to my blog for my summer adventures!