And yes, we're still working on getting that glitter out of our shoes.

A few months ago Martha made a trip to Colombia, where she was introduced to Silvia Tcherassi, a wonderful fashion and accessory designer. Martha returned with a wrist covered in shimmering bracelets and a beautiful sparkling bag. The invite to have her as a guest on the show went out immediately. Last week she finally paid us a visit and shared some of her designs and techniques for creating her fabulous crystal rhinestone–encrusted creations. The segment will be airing this Friday (May 6) on The Martha Stewart Show.

Silvia explains what she uses for her bags:

The name in Spanish for this style of bags is mochila. My mochilas and the bracelets are handwoven by the indigenous Wayuu women in La Guajira, Colombia. La Guajira is located in the north of Colombia. It takes around 20 days for a woman to complete a mochila, then at my atelier in Colombia my team transforms this beautiful handcraft into a masterpiece item using Swarovski Elements and other embellishments. These are woven with my personal color palette and my personal sizes. I work with different colors according to the season. Working with these women is important to me because it’s a way to support the Wayuu community and to keep their traditions alive.

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1 Several encrusted mochila.

2 Mochila laid out to be embellished.

3 Martha's demo was in burgundy and golds.

4 Lay rhinestones on a work surface, glue side down.

5 When the rhinestone is in the Hotfix tool, the flat back should be facing up.

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13 Pay attention to the details. Bottoms of bags should not be over looked.

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Silvia uses Swarovski Hotfix crystals (they come with glue already on them) and a Hotfix tool to apply the crystals to her bags and bracelets. The crystals come in a wide range of colors, which allows Silvia's unique eye and color palette the opportunity to shine through. It's a time-consuming process, but the results she has created are worth it.

If the idea of doing an entire bag seems a little overwhelming, her bracelets, smaller but just as sparkly, are an approachable project to get familiar with using Swarovski Hotfix. Make a few and wear them in groups—you'll certainly catch people's eye.

Stay up to date with Silvia and her new designs over here.

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1 Bracelets look great grouped together.

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To read more about each of these finalist, head over here. Take a moment to vote for the People's Choice, and you will be entered to win a fantastic gift basket filled with all kinds of goodies.

In order of appearance on the show this week, here are the finalist:

Jody Lunsford - Felted Animals

Kendra Lord - Organic Gardening

Kari Doane - Glitter Wall Art

Tammy Dunwoody - Cake Design

Della Slowik - Fortune Cookie Baby Booties

Good luck to all five finalists! Making it to the final five is pretty REMARTHABLE!

I have some exciting news to share with you!  This Monday, July 19th at 12:01 A.M, Martha will be making her first appearance on HSN to present Martha Stewart Crafts.  She will be joined by Alex Perruzzi our Vice President of Licensing.  Alex and I have worked together for years and he is certainly passionate about crafting.

They have been preparing projects to demonstrate how to use our tools and craft supplies.  They will have card making, punching, embossing, stamping and of course glitter!  One of the things  that our department is most excited about is the introduction of the new Martha Stewart Crafts edition of the Cricut Cake™ System.  It’s an amazing electronic cutting system for decorating professional-looking cakes, cupcakes, cookie, and more.  We were given a demonstration last week and I have to say it's pretty impressive.  Alex gave us some great photos to share with you.  Don't forget to tune in on Sunday Eve/ Monday  starting at midnight or go to HSN.com to shop now.

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1 Introducing the new Martha Stewart Crafts Cricut Cake System

2 Use the Cricut Cake to decorate all your cake, cookies, and confections!

3 You can create beautiful designs using our Elegant Cake Art Cartridge.

4 We laid out our tools and projects before we packed them up to send to the HSN set.

5 These are a few projects we made using the Stamp and Punch.

6 These are our foil transfer kit projects.

7 We laid out these glitter crafts before packing up for HSN.

1 The Original Flea: Saddle

2 The Original Flea details

3 Fill 'em up—how about with art supplies and head to the park? I'm in! Simple and basic, yet well tailored and luxe!

4 The Porter: Burnt Sienna

5 from the current SS10 collection the Salt Bag in Violet

6 and the Salt Bag in Sahara, an all leather version. hot!

Utilitarian and universal, organic and sustainable, locally-produced (NYC) and handmade, vintage-inspired and designed by best friends—you can't go wrong with Fleabag. The genius creators, Shira Entis and Alexandra Bell, blended their talents, loves, and interests in 2009, launching the perfect canvas tote brand. As an artisan and fan of pristine craftsmanship, I was intrigued by the ladies and their local business of handmade bags—so I contacted them for all the details.

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Without any reluctance, they were kind enough to give us a peek into a typical Fleabags day. Essentially, this usually involves going to the factory to review production and/or provide notes on patterns, hand-numbering the bags and stamping the tags, and designing for the upcoming seasons. Click through the gallery and enjoy the day-in-a-life of professional "crafters."

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1 the designers: Alex Bell & Shira Entis

2 At the Factory with Pattern maker

3 Discussing Pattern Alterations

4 the Pattern maker

5 Counting Fleabag Hardware

6 Making Salt Bag Notes

7 Inspecting the Original Flea. Only the best!

8 Choosing Leather for Next Season

9 Leather Swatches: all veggie dyed

10 Swatching Leather

11 Numbering the Original Flea. These are limited edition totes :)

12 Hand-Stamping the Labels...

13 and stamping the Tags.

14 the final product: the Original Flea! This one's in Pebble, my favorite!

For more information, to see the entire Fleabag collection, and to get your hands on one for yourself, visit:

http://fleabg.com/

Boy do I wish I had one of these totes this past weekend at the Brimfield Antique Show!

Thanks Alex and Shira for sharing the behind the scenes with us! ox

Maria told me each piece is laser cut by a company called Ponoko, and  they have a great website that makes it really simple to use their services."  She just updated her Etsy site with some terrific new colors. Check out her designs below.

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If you're in Philadelphia on May 15th, stop by the Art Star Craft Bazaar to check out Maria's work in person.

My mother just gave me 2 more vases for my birthday to add to my collection. I’m so excited !

So I thought I’d write a little bit about Wilhelm Wagenfeld, the designer of the vases and many other things, for you.

I started collecting the vases in the early 1990’s, shortly after his death.  At that time many of his pieces were available at flea markets for not much money at all.

He is probably best known for his table lamp

and for his tea pot. Both which are still / again in production.

Wilhelm Wagenfeld was born in Bremen, Germany 1900 and passed away in 1990 in Stuttgart. He worked as an apprentice in a factory for Silver cutlery, after studying drawing all throughout his young life. He then joined the Bauhaus in 1923, where he refined his skills as a craftsman in the metal workshop. Wagenfeld became a well known industrial designer, and taught at various art schools, keeping true to the modernist principles of the Bauhaus.

Besides the iconic pieces above, he created many many beautiful, always functional, items.

I still love my vases the most.

Since I studied Fashion Design, I often look at my favorite designers for inspiration. Dries van Noten is at the top of that list. Especially for his treatment of fabrics with lots of amazing embroidery and beading,  and his unusual sense of color combinations. So for this post I pulled out a book I own,  to show you some of those fabrics. But when I leafed through it, I realized that maybe you already know about his clothes and have access to seeing them online. What you most likely have not seen, are the very creative invitations for his runway shows.

He is known for his productions in the unusual, often raw and industrial, places,  where he holds both his women’s and menswear shows. The invitations often reflect the type of place, or the theme of the show. Take a look.

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1 Men's Collection Spring / Summer 1992

2 Men's Collection Spring / Summer 2003

3 Men's Collection Autumn / Winter 1999/2000

4 mens collection Spring / Summer 1993

5 Men's Collection Autumn / Winter 1997/98

6 Men's Collection Spring / Summer 1998

7 Men's Collection Autumn / Winter 1992 - 1993

8 Men's Collection Spring / Summer 1994

9 Men's Collection Autumn / WInter 1996 - 1997

10 Women's Collection Spring / Summer 2002

11 Women's Collection Autumn / Winter 2002-2003

12 Men's Collection Autumn / Winter 2003 - 2004

13 Women's Collection Autumn / Winter 2003 - 2004

14 Men's Collection Spring / Summer 2004

15 Women's Collection Autumn / Winter 2004 - 2005

16 Men's Collection Spring / Summer 2005

They are mostly out of simple materials and easy to adapt for a party invitation of your own. Let me know if it inspires you to throw a party (no fancy clothes needed).

Agnes Martin is hardly a new artist I'm introducing ... but still I wanted to talk about her on this blog, since she is one of my most favorite painters ever. I very much remember the retrospective 1992 at the Whitney Museum in New York. I can't even recall how many hours I spent soaking in the paintings, feeling calm and happy and inspired all at the same time. My husband kept trying to understand my fascination. After all it was just mostly  horizontal lines in different configurations and ever so slightly different non colors.

It could be my love of minimalism, my 'less is more' upbringing, the resemblance to warp and weft of my beloved textiles ... It is fascinating to me that so little can be so emotional. I figured out quite quickly that I would never ever own one of these amazing paintings, so I was thrilled when I found this website around my birthday time. I was able to take my birthday money and purchase 2 pieces which I had framed in simple wood frames.

I love looking at them every day. And even my husband has come around.  I'm curious to know what you think. Unfortunately most books about her work are out of print and quite pricey, but I was excited to see that this is coming out soon. Hope it'll make you feel calm and happy and inspired all at the same time !

...like this wall hanging he designed for Herman Miller in 1964.

Girard designed more than just textiles. He rebranded every aspect of Braniff airlines, maintaining his surprising colors and ethnic influences. This new brand declared "The end of the plain plane."

This is the new gate he designed, complete with Herman Miller chairs.

Recently, Girard's work has been reproduced and licensed through a variety of vendors.

Girard originally made these dolls for his home in Santa Fe. He donated them to the Vitra Design Museum, and now you can purchase reproductions.

House Industries has created fonts and objects inspired by his motifs, like this memory game.

Urban Outfitters just released a line of Girard inspired housewares too.

If his work inspires you, and you want to learn what inspired him, you can see his extensive collection of folk art from around the world at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.