We’ve been in our new art studio for about two months, and it’s starting to feel like our second home. I’ve been busy planning and prepping for workshops and a keynote talk, so there hasn’t been as much making time in the space as I would like, but we’ve managed to spend a fair amount of time tinkering, crafting and making over there. Here’s a little sampling:
Homemade journals, sewing stuffed animals with my 4-year old, crafty Saturday with my brother-in-law, Painting salt dough ornaments.
To celebrate our new digs, our friends at Poppy England sent my kiddos (and me!) party dresses to wear in our new space. And they’re rad!
I was first introduced to Poppy England’s dresses when I was lucky enough to win a contest hosted by Maggy Woodley of Red Ted Art. (If you don’t know Maggie’s site and you love crafting with kids, you’ll want to bookmark it). As the winner of Maggy’s contest, Poppy sent my older daughter the sweetest dress from the Boats and Floats collection (see image below). She loved it so much that she wanted to wear it for her first day of school. Awww.
Since that wonderful introduction, I’ve become a full-0n Poppy fan, and we’re excited to share our new party dresses (and a peek into our slowly-coming-together studio) today.
My kids love any excuse to take photos (as in, they love to be behind the camera), so I set up a tripod and let them have at it. They were entertained.
And here’s the photo they captured of me. Not bad!
I should mention that the fabric of these dresses is beyond cool…and very thoughtful. I selected my dress for the hardware pattern, which seemed too apropos for our new studio. Take a look at the little hammer, power drill, and and wrench details. Charming!
My girls picked out matching snowstorm patterns. The grey and black fabric is punctuated with balloons that are little bursts of yellow and lime green. These sweet linen dresses would be so cute for winter holiday parties.
The kids caught me with this sort of pensive, confused look, which is probably how I look all the time. If you know me, you’ll have to let me know 🙂
And after that bit of photo-taking passed, we were back to our usual silly, maker selves.
You can see how the studio is filling out. I’m trying to keep it somewhat clean and empty because lots of space keeps my head clear. Here’s a look at how it looked when we first started to move in:
And my favorite is this time lapse of us pulling all the furniture in:
Thanks, Poppy England, for helping us make our new maker home so much fun!
Girls’ Dresses: Martha Snowstorm in Grey
My dress: Ava Long Sleeves in Hardware
Gift Ideas: tons of unique products that would be perfect stocking stuffers.
Bonus: Poppy England is offering TinkerLab readers a special 15% off discount with the code TINKERLAB15, which ends on January 7, 2015.
The London dress is so cute!
The dresses are beautiful and I love love love seeing your light filled studio. The pic of the girls with the tripod is my fav! And the one they caught of you by the table smiling : ) Great post. Really enjoyed it Rachelle. xo
I also love that photo with the tripod, Meri! Thanks so much for your sweet comment, R
i like the snowstorm
Oh my! Those dresses are so beautiful! And your studio looks amazing!
Thanks so much, Adri!!
Love the Freda Forest Navy women’s dress.
What a wonderful post! I now spent ages browsing the Poppy England site. I adore the Beatrice long sleeved in forest. What a great print!
Thanks for sharing.
Aren’t their dresses swoon-worthy, Charlie? If I wasn’t committed to the hardware print (it was too perfect for the studio), Beatrice in Forest may have been my first choice!
Love the Make-A-Wish print! Love the blog and thanks for introducing me to Poppy England – super cute!
I love that one, Jan! You’re welcome, and thank you for the comment 🙂
I love the girls’ grey dress! My daughter would love it! 🙂
I just turned one of these images into our holiday card, Tammy! Those dresses are the best.
I love the Martha Aunt Eva dress the most, I think. I could probably be talked into something else though 😉
Oh, that one is A-dorable!!
I like the Freda Lollipop Steel Blue dress. They are all lovely dresses and your girls look adorable.
Boats & floats are super cute! Especially Beatrice long sleeves in Indigo Boats
I love the snowstorm dresses – unfortunately they don’t seem to go up to my size!
I know, Rosemary! My kids would have loved to match me, and I adore that pattern.
Love the colors of the snowstorm.
millie butterfly dress
Love them all, especially the tea part ones in red and the Doris snowstorm. All gorgeous, and I love yours!
Love the Make a Wish dress
How beautiful. Thanks for sharing!
Love the snowstorm dresses.
I love your site and use it all the time for ideas at home and work (I teach preschool). My favorite dress is the Freda Snowstorm for the winter and the Beatrice dress Capped Sleeves in Navy Butterfly Print for the spring!
Thanks for the lovely comment, Kellie! You made some great choices.
I like Beatrice’s dress in cocoa
I love them all, but my favorite is probably the Millie Snowstorm in Grey!
The Snowstorm dress is my favourite… Good choice girls!
Thanks so much, Lisa!
Love them all! I love the Beatrice London dress for me and the jane forest for my daughter!
I love the Aunt Eva dress! I like the snowstorm too, but Aunt Eva is my favorite!
How does one choose? How about beatrice in the forest…
It’s kind of impossible. We spent hours on their site. Must go back for more, I suppose 🙂
Great blog and fantastic dresses also lovely bundle of goodies on the giveaway, thankyou for the chance :o)
All dresses are so cute, but I think London is my favorite.
Your new space is my dream art space!!!
Thank you so much for the comment, Lori. I’ve been dreaming about a space like this for AGES! I just about fell out of my chair when I learned that I was granted a spot. Dreams can come true. 🙂
love your tinkering space…getting inspired for my own!
Thank you so much, Carla. Please send me a photo of your soon-to-be space.
I absolutely love the snowstorm dress! The colors and pattern are striking. I also love Make a Wish.
These dresses are so lovely!!! I really like the cut of the Martha Dress and love the London print
How is one possibly supposed to choose! But…I think the Grace dress in black and white cats is my favorite!
haha! there are too many good choices, sandra 🙂
I love the the hardware pattern fabric and the lovely dress made from it– but my favorite are the snowstorm dresses– Just precious!
I love all the dresses but my favorite is the Aunt Eva dress.
Seriously?! So hard to choose a favorite! I love the hardware and snowstorm patterns for different reasons. All are so precious. And these pictures are precious! Love the tripod picture!
We all had the same dilemma, Jenn. Tough choices, for sure! Thanks for the lovely comment. The tripod picture is too much!
Hi! This comment has nothing to do with this particular post, but I couldn’t find a comment form on the post I was just on. I just discovered your blog yesterday, and I see you are also a former museum educator, so I just had to introduce myself. I blog at the Art Curator for Kids currently but I used to be a museum educator and my MA is in art museum education. It’s nice to come across another one of us out in the wild, and I look forward to exploring your blog more. 🙂
Cindy
Hi Cindy,
It’s so nice to meet you. Due to high levels of spam, comments are turned off on my older posts. I’m glad you figured out a work-around! Yes, us museum educators seem to be a rare breed. Please feel free to email me so we can talk more off-line. rachelle at tinkerlab dot com.
Rachelle
I love the Make a Wish dresses. Dandelions are the best!!! What a great collection.
All of the dresses are quite clever, but my favorite is the Make a Wish dress.
I absolutely love the Make A Wish Beatrice with cap sleeves. Wish they made these in plus sizes!