Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Had a wonderful birthday today. Spent the morning brainstorming and shopping with Dawne, we ate some lunch, then spend the afternoon sewing.
The kids and some friends took me to the new restaurant in Amite,  The Boston. The food was delicious and the company was better.
I have some work in progress photos from the project we started today. What do ya think?


As a bonus we caught a peek of Mark Wahlburg & Denzel Washington, as they were filming their new movie 2 Guns, across the street. 


Thursday, July 19, 2012

Pearls of Wisdom


We hope the Gypsy Pearls will be a place for you to find some “Pearls of Wisdom” you can use in your craft, business or everyday life. We are new to blogging but intend to use our blog to share what we have learned. Dawne will be posting tips & tricks for alterations, interior design & sewing projects. Dianne will share works in progress, do guest artist features & share upcycling ideas. Cally will be sharing “Pearls” about her art. We will all post about some of our life lessons.
    Feel free to comment or add insights to what we share…..we would love to hear from you!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Introductions

The Gypsy Cottage is the collective efforts of three artisans. We wanted to introduce ourselves and invite you to do the same!




Hi Dianne here! I was born & raised in southeast Louisiana. My "cottage" is nestled in the woods about an hour north of New Orleans. I have been happily married to my husband Clay for over 20 years and have 2 daughters, 2 sons, a grandson, a grand-daughter and a multitude of kids who call me Mama. My life is all about family.
I am a self taught seamstress and crafter. I inherited my love of sewing and beautiful fabric & trims from my Grandma Spears and my love of quilts and gypsy style from my Grandma Busby. I am a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University. I have done a multitude of things from accounting to hosting Extreme Cowboy Races and everything in between.

Hi Cally here! I am a 19 year old art student at Southeastern Louisiana University. I do multiple things with my art. I enjoy charcoal drawing, graphite drawing, wood burning and making jewelry. I help my mom (Dianne) by collaborating on the designs for her clothing and modeling their work. My daughter is what drives me to do my best work. I hope you enjoy my creations.

Hi Dawne here! I have been happily married for 20+ years and am the mother of twins, my son who is in the Army National Guard and has recently married and my daughter who has recently graduated from college.
I was born in Lombard, Illinois where I lived until my father was transferred to Atlanta, Ga. when I was 13. I went to Beauty College and became hairdresser there, which is where I met my husband, also a hairdresser. We married and had the twins. When they were 1 year old we moved to his hometown of Amite, LA. We wanted to raise them in a small town atmosphere, which turned out to be a good decision as they have both grown to be adults we are very proud of.

As for my sewing career I started sewing when I was 9 with no training, I guess I was a natural. I got my first sewing job with a local alterations shop while in beauty school. I learned all the ins & outs there. My next job was with an interior design workshop where I learned all their tips & tricks. We moved to LA and I met Dianne. We shared our love of sewing and soon opened our first business with me doing alteration and her sewing from scratch. It grew and I was soon doing alterations for 17 cleaners with several employees. In 2003 I gave it all up to become Mom, Dad, grounds keeper, taxi and everything else when my husband was deployed to Afghanistan. After he returned I went to work for a friend’s bridal shop doing alterations. After 7 years she closed to raise a family and I went back to work as a hairdresser. I am now an assistant manager of a local chain.
Dianne & I put our creative heads together and are once again working to create the items for our online store. I hope you enjoy our wonderful, fun items and your visit to The Gypsy Cottage!

We would love to met everyone who visits our blog......so please introduce yourself!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Inspiration

    I thought I would share the inspiration for the The Gypsy Cottage so we can get to know each other. The Gypsy Cottage was born from the need of the three partners to let our creative spirits loose to wander and explore thus...Gypsy.  We each create in our own "Cottage" then bring our projects together to share, tweek, collaborate and finish.  We would like to see our cottage industry grow so we can create and share full time. Artfire.com is the venue we choose to offer our work to others because the creators seem to understand what an artisan is looking for.
    We would love to hear your stories of inspiration for the things that are important in your life!


Hope you will join us again soon!
Dianne

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Welcome to the new Gypsy Cottage Blog. Thanks for joining us!