Urban Paper Girl- Yvonne Trace from the Handmade Project

Urban Paper Girl is our feature that spotlights incredible women that you should know.

Two line bio:

I am a fourth-generation kitchen gadget junkie and life-long Girl-Scout. I am also a proud ethnic mommy to a beautiful lil' girl.


How long have you been making dolls, what other things do you make.

I started making dolls when my daughter was born, she's now four. I also make sewing patterns for the more successful projects I've created.

How and when did you start sewing?

My sewing journey began in 2001 when my mom blessed me with a sewing machine for Christmas. My first project was something else! Hot pink fleece pants with a drawstring...phew.


Your blog encompasses family, lots of handmade items, food, crafts. What is you personal philosphy. How do you make time create?



Self-sufficiency is in my genetic makeup. My parents talk about spending summers on their grandparents' farms and I want to recreate that in my daily life. Creativity was almost a devastating discovery for me because I could happily spend all of my time and resources pursing it. The solution I found is to make handmade as quick and easy as possible.
From a business perpective, what are your challenges and successes as an independent artist?

Right now I am very grassroots! I'm just moving beyond the prototype and development stages and am working to have a 20 or so dolls marketed by May. The biggest challenge I faced was the romantic notion that starting a creative business would be all play and no work. The success is realizing that this is rarely the case and still wanting to pursue it.
Your Sites or where we can find your work?

You can find me at thehandmadeproject.com and http://www.etsy.com/shop/thehandmadeproject

Our Carnivorous Terrarium

My sons and I have wanted to make a terrarium for some time now and finally did about two weeks ago. This was such a fun project --that totally didn’t go the way we planned. My vision was to create a beautiful, landscaped masterpiece full of tropical plants but the final results visually were just ok. But what we didn’t accomplish in beauty, we more than made up for in the lessons we learned about plants, how terrariums work and this project was an awesomely fun learning experience. My photos aren't great, but here's the story of how we (accidentally) built a carnivorous terrarium.

The first issue that I had was finding suitable plants. It is cold here and Georgia and most of the plants that work well in a terrarium environment just weren't plentiful at the local nurseries I visited. However, along with some other small plants, I found a cute little Venus Flytrap at Lowe's and bought it on a whim.

We assembled all our supplies. Some of the plants that I bought were just two big to fit in our selected container. We watched several how-to videos on YouTube on terrariums. I realized that there was no ‘right’ way to create one, and everyone had slight variations on their steps and the supplies that they used.


Time to get started. We first poured a layer of pebbles, followed by a layer of sphagnum moss and then a thin layer of activated charcoal. The moss and pebbles help with drainage. The charcoal helps absorb older. Finally, we covered the pebbles, sphagum moss and charcoal with a layer of soil. We found some moss from our yard and we placed it in our terrarium. Then, in went the Flytrap plant.

Ironically the next day my son went on a field trip to a nature preserve, and his very cool teacher gave him a Sundew plant, which we planted that evening. Sundews are also carnivorous.



What we learned. Venus Flytraps are native to N. America only in the Wilmington, North Caroline area. They have redundant trigger mechanism that must be touched twice in succession in order for theplant to close. They thrive on insects and spiders but can go months without ‘eating’ them. The Sundew on the other hand, has sticky tentacles that will trap small insects. There are a variety of species and they can be found throughout N. America and the world.

The closed lid of the Terrarium allows the plants to thrive with minimal watering. We talked a lot about condensation and the water cycle. Because our terrarium is carnivorous, we’ll have to feed the plants occasionally with insects. Other than that, we will just mist the leaves with water once a week or so.

My hat goes off to all the wonderful Etsy sellers making terrariums, my original source of inspiration. I see I have a ways to go in making my terrarium look like a work of art. However, we’ve already started gathering plants and a vase for our next project.

Craft for Haiti and more news...

One of my directions for the year has been less computer time and more time for creating art ...and this has been one of those weeks that I have been very busy doing just that. SO although this has been a slow blog week, I do have several blog posts planned for this weekend and next week.

• I'll be posting pictures of my first ever terrarium project with how-to's.
• Check back for a special sneak peak of my new jewelry pendants.
• Also, I have two new urban girl features coming soon!

Most importantly, with the tragedy in Haiti, I've been reflecting on how fortunate I am and taking more time to enjoy all the things that are important like family, friends and good health. Please give in any way you can. I'll be participating in Craft for Haiti. Check back because I will be adding several items to the site this week.

Finally, be sure to check out http://homegirl.typepad.com/ for the current give-a-way.

Kia Does Crafty

Since I work at a company that makes craft products, you'd think I craft a lot. Not true. I make stuff, but not really crafts. But last year I was really inspired to do more. Cathie Fillian,one of my favorite crafters, did a series of plates using Mod Podge. I loved the idea. While not as crafty as her, I thought I'd give it a try. For the holidays I presented my parents and in-laws with these decoupaged plates honoring my two grandmothers and my husband's grandmothers. I love the old vintage pictures of them. They are so romantic and I tried to find phrases that fitted their personalities:

Eunice: My dad's mom-I've talked about her. Fisher, homemaker, lovely person.

Pauline: My husband's paternal grandma. Smart as a whip. Still going strong

Edith: Fun-loving and still vibrant.

Cenora: As sweet as they are made.

These were so fun and easy to make. Next time I'll bling them up a bit more. I am looking for more vintage photos and want to try this Mod Podge technique out on jewelry.