Author: JNA

Coming from a background in design, graphics, metal arts, and leather work, Jenifer Nakatsu Arntson makes quality hand-built vinyl goods such as hand bags, wallets, checkbooks, and accessories. Her materials are animal-friendly and her finished products are stylish and modern. After working in leather for many years, Jen has switched to working entirely in vinyl but approaches design and construction with the same attention to detail, quality and function she learned when apprenticing to master-level leather craftsmen and metalsmiths. She is now an Austin-based artisan but has lived in Kyoto, St. Paul/Minneapolis, and Tokyo. Jen's work is also available in Austin, San Francisco and New York boutiques. Her website is www.nakatsudesign.com. Jen is also an active member of the Austin Craft Mafia, and Babes in Business Bonanza. When she is not at the studio, she is on her way there.
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Happy Holidays Everyone!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

The Blue Genie Bazaar has just started in it’s NEW location! The Blue Genie folks have made this space look spectacular.

Featuring over 80 artists, and running 20 days this year: from December 5th-24th at the Monarch Events Center.

The show is open daily (weekdays from 10am-10pm; until midnight on
Fri-Sat) every day until X-mas eve Dec. 24th!

This is a FREE event. Go have a beer and check out the really cool stuff there! There will be DJ’s, a bar and lots of amazing goodies to choose from.

Map to the Monarch Events Center:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=monarch+events+center+austin&
ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&om=1&ll=30.317766,-97.742958&
spn=0.20568,0.321007&z=12&iwloc=A

or
http://tinyurl.com/328qmo

(The Monarch used to be the old Lincoln Village Movie Theatre at the s. end of Lincoln Village, a couple of doors down from Radijazz — between Highland Mall and I35, near Little Jerry’s Artarama ).

More info: http://www.bluegenieart.com/art_bazaar_2007.html

Thanks so much for your continued support, and feel free to pass on this info to friends you think might enjoy the event.

Please have a safe and joyful holiday season,
xoxoxo
JNA

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cranberry sauce, yummm!

putting my notes here because I had trouble finding them from last year…

*Whole Cranberry Sauce with Orange

In a sauce pan, combined 6 cups of fresh cranberries with 2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice, 2 1/2 cup sugar, about 2 tbsp fresh grated ginger, and the zest from 2 oranges.
Bring to a boil while you stir. Adjust flame and continue stirring until berries “pop” and “sauce” thickens (back of the spoon is clear when you swipe your finger across). Made the day before and chilled

*CANDIED YAMS

2 40 oz (2#, 8 oz) cans yams

butter

1 cup orange juice

1/4 cup brown sugar

Drained yams, discarded liquid. Arranged in baking dish. Pour orange juice over yams. Sprinkle liberally with brown sugar. Dot with butter pats. Sprinkle with marshmallows, if desired (I am not a fan of marshmallows in my yams, but some folks like ’em). Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or in any oven temperature (i.e., right along with the turkey) until marshmallows melt and liquid is bubbly.

Cooked night before and reheated!

http://www.culinarycafe.com/Vegetarian/Vegetarian_Dressing.html

Vegetarian Dressing
Serves: 6

Ingredients:

* 1 loaf day-old bread, torn into small pieces
* 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
* 1 (10.5 ounce) can vegetable broth
* 2 tablespoons water
* 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
* salt to taste
* ground black pepper to taste
* 1/2 cup wild rice, cooked
* 1/4 cup dried cranberries
* 1/2 cup fresh mushrooms
* 1/2 cup chopped pecans
* 1/4 cup cubed apples

Mix together the bread, cream of mushroom soup, vegetable broth, water, poultry seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste. Add rice, cranberrys, mushrooms, pecans, and apples as desired. It will be sticky. Shape into a loaf and wrap in (nonstick, sprayed) foil to bake. Bake for about an hour at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). You can slice it like a meatloaf and serve.

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Stitch is Saturday, November 10th!


This Saturday Nov 10th I will be sharing a booth at Stitch with my pal Jessica (her business is changing name from BunBun Babythreads to Rose & Duke, stay updated via her blog).

Here’s a list of other people who will be participating: Who’s Going to be at Stitch 2007!

I have restocked Pink, Sparks, and Moxie; and have been putting more stuff together every free moment I have! It’s been crazy over here.

See you there, Stitch is a fun event with great vendors, and an awesome fashion show. Note that this year it will be at the Austin Convention Center, the Austin Music Hall is still under major remodel/reconstruction.
xoxo
jna

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Swap-O-Rama-Rama at Maker Faire

Passing on some info for an event I will be doing this weekend with the Austin Craft Mafia:

Austin’s First SWAP-O-RAMA-RAMA is Here!
http://www.swaporamarama.org
@ Maker Faire
http://www.makerfaire.com

Saturday October 20th 11am to 5pm & Sunday October 20th 11 to 4pm
And A Recycled Fashion Show Saturday Eve from 5pm to 6pm

At the Travis County Expo Center, Austin TX

A ticket to Maker Faire plus any size bag of your unwanted clothes required to enter,
leave with all the clothes you can carry plus learn to modify and make new from old.
Save $ with Advance Tix: http://tinyurl.com/yolpga

“There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it makes hunger and unhappiness.” Gandhi

Join in the communal process of reuse and celebrate our collective creativity! You are invited to Swap-O-Rama-Rama, a giant clothing swap and series of do-it-yourself workshops in which a community explores reuse and creativity through the recycling of used clothing. And while your there explore the massive creativity of Maker Faire celebrating art, engineering, science and the spirit of DIY.

It’s easy to make the move from consumer to creator – and it’s fun. At this Swap-O-Rama-Rama you’ll find a host of talent brought together to teach you how to transform your new/used duds into works of your own.

Check out the extraordinary crew of artists and designers & the workshops being offered, which include local groups: Craft O Rama, Craft Mafia, Sublime Stitching, Goodwill, First Samples and Studio 3 as well as artists Zimka, Mary Keene, Andee Knutson and Gretchen Elsner. You’ll find T shirt mods, conductive textiles workshops, silk screening, wool re-spinning and a whole lot more!

Together the creative reuse community of Austin bring you: DIY Stations where you can learn many wonderful ways to create out of textile reuse, Sewing Stations where local designers will teach you fresh clothing mod tricks, on site Silk Screeners with a host of original designs to refresh old duds and extraordinary local designers who’ll show off their work in the Swap-O-Rama-Rama reuse fashion show MC’d by Jennifer Nordstrum.

Of course the core of the swap is the gigantic piles of free clothing (several thousand pounds!) sorted into categories: pants, shirts, skirts, sweaters etc. These piles are the collective total of each guest’s contribution of any size bag of unwanted clothes so clean out those closets and let go of what’s no longer inspiring. Take home as much clothing as you can carry. Remainders go to Austin’s Goodwill.

Wondering what to bring?
Sewing machines are generously supplied by Janome
Austin’s Goodwill will be on site teaching DIY mods and offering their generous support.

See you there…

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Maker Faire coming to Austin Oct 20-21st

I will be at the Maker Faire Swap-o-Rama-Rama DIY & Sewing Stations: Unique Mods Taught by Local Artists at the Travis Co Expo Center. There will be other members of the Austin Craft Mafia, as well as Craft-O-Rama folks, looking forward to meeting some other people who love making things.

Here’s the skinny:

SWAP-O-RAMA-RAMA
Saturday October 20th 11am to 5pm & Sunday October 20th 11 to 4pm;
And A Recycled Fashion Show Saturday Eve from 5pm to 6pm

At the Travis County Expo Center in AUSTIN TEXAS
Bring any size bag of unwanted clothing, leave with all that you can carry and of course – modify!(All remaining clothing will be donated to Goodwill, a supporter of Austin’s Swap-O-Rama-Rama)

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New to ravelry…

I have been reading about ravelry on various knitting blogs, and it was mentioned in podcasts, and I finally got an invite and started playing with it a bit. We just moved to a new house a few weeks ago, so my stash is in boxes, some in storage at my mom’s, some in hubby’s studio, but I have kept a few projects with me, my set of interchangeable circulars, and some yarns I’d like to play with. Over the past few months of packing, movig, putting things into storage, and trying to hustle up as much freelance work as I could, I finished a couple pairs of socks, some scarves, and pair of cargo pocket toddler shorts (sewing the pockets on now). Making some headway towards my holiday gifting, also have a hat mostly done for my hubby (decreasing for crown). The socks, shorts and hat are all black or charcoal, and I expect I might have problems photographing them.

Anyway, hope I will be better about documenting my projects, I added linkage to this blog rss feed, my del.icio.us bookmarks, and my flickr account. Seems pretty handy so far….

[added 2/22/2010: Love, love,  love ravelry! I have lots of bookmarked patterns in my queue and it’s been a great resource!]