my tangle & looping scrawl fabrics are now available...

It's so crazy to see my own fabric designs available for purchase on Minted.com!

You can see all of the color ways by clicking the images below...

Thanks for checking out my designs, friends. :)

lots of BIG news...

It's been a long, LONG time since I posted...

but there has been a lot going on in my world.

The biggest news?

My belly! :)

I can't tell you how happy & blessed my little family feels to add a sweet baby girl to the mix. It's been a long journey to have kids... Miracles are real, folks.

Also, we finally moved into our brand new house!

Moving while sick & pregnant was a challenge to say the least. Yikes. Thank heaven for my husband, parents, little brother, and a couple of kind friends who helped SO much. The nausea has subsided in the past few days, so get ready for lots of decorating and baby girl projects in the very near future!

Lastly, remember the fabric design dreams that I posted about?

Well, two of my designs were picked to be sold on Minted.com!!!

"Looping Scrawl" Fabric by Kacey Kendrick Wagner for Minted.com

"Tangle" Fabric by Kacey Kendrick Wagner for Minted.com

I got to make a bunch of different color ways that will be sold very soon. Eeeeek! I'm so excited. I'll be sure to post when my fabrics are live on the site.

Yay! Thanks for letting me share my happy thoughts.

(I've missed this dear blog-o'-mine!)

fabric design...

I have been a busy little bee lately, but haven't had much opportunity to share what I've been working on. Here's the scoop...

I asked for a sewing machine for my birthday nearly five years ago. It was then that the world of fabric was opened to me. I remember thinking, "I had no idea all this cute fabric existed. Wouldn't it be fun to design all these patterns?" Ever since then, I've had fabric design hanging out in the back of my mind. I realized I would need to learn how to design pattern repeats and how to use Adobe Illustrator. Recently, I've really worked to make those things happen. 

My Illustrator skills are still basic, but the only way to learn is to keep trying. So when I saw a contest for fabric designs on minted.com...I decided to give it a shot!

Here are my designs.  

Some are more successful than others, but I had a blast working on them.

Minted challenge winners are determined by popular vote. Any one can head over to the challenge entries and rate the designs from 1-5.  If you'd like to support me, my designs are located on this page.  However, I encourage you to vote for any that you really like. There are a lot of really great patterns! Voting for this challenge ends 2/9/15.

(Sidenote: I also have a referral code if you want to make a purchase...

http://www.minted.com/referral/landing/9df3qv

If you use the link, you can get $25 off of your first Minted purchase of $50 or more.)

adjustable fabric bunting...

Ummm...I accidentally took a 3-month-long blogging hiatus.

Whoops.

I guess I figured I wouldn't look back 20 years from now and wish I had blogged more often.  And I spent years praying for a baby, so I'm going to enjoy him!

With that said, I have really missed documenting my creative endeavors.  I {obviously} don't spend as much time making things, but you didn't think I'd given it up entirely, did you??

Anyway...

Now that my son is 10 months old, I'd better finish sharing the little DIYs I did for his nursery. (And then I'll show you the finished product!)

Fabric buntings aren't anything new.  However, I wanted one that was easy to rearrange or change-up.  A lot of tutorials out there have fabric flags sewn onto a ribbon or bias tape or something... I made mine adjustable!

I began with 6 fabrics that I had leftover from my kiddo's quilt.

I cut twenty-five 5x12 inch rectangles.

I'd like to share some brilliant mathematical equation I used to come up with this number...but I pretty much just looked at the wall where I wanted to hang it and guessed how many flags I would need.  I estimated perfectly...a.k.a. got lucky. :)  But if you over- or under-estimate it's no big deal.  It's adjustable, remember?  You can easily add or remove flags.

Next, I pressed the both of the short ends 1/4" toward the wrong side of the fabric.

(Don't mind my hideous, water-stained ironing board cover!)

Then I folded each rectangle in half, right-sides together, with the pressed ends at the top and sewed 1/4" down each side, leaving the top open for turning.

Then I clipped the corners, turned right-side out, and pressed flat.  The top is still open, but the raw edges are inside.

Next, I pressed the top edge down 1/2" and stitched as close to that open edge as I could to create a little pocket.

I threaded some twine through the top of each flag, hung it up, and slid the flags around until they were spaced to my liking.

The bunting looks bright and festive hanging over my little one's closet.

And if he decides he hates dinosaurs when he gets older, I can easily swap out the offending fabrics.  Or if we move into a new house, I can add or remove flags to fit it to a different length of wall without having to re-do the whole thing! 

guest tutorial: pom pom necklace...

Today my friend Rachel of The Obriens has graciously agreed to share her pom pom necklace tutorial with us.  Take it away, Rach...
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Hello there, all you lovely readers of Kacey's wonderful blog!

I was so excited when Kacey asked me to come up with a springtime tutorial to share over here at Stay-At-Home Artist! I get to craft AND blog - seriously, two of my favorite things! And to guest post over at Kacey's blog - I mean, c'mon, have you seen how talented the girl is? The paintings and drawings, the headbands in her etsy shop, and hello, that craft room?! Swoon. From her stylin' outfits to her little red front door, the girl has got it going on. 

Here's a tidbit about me:

1. The name's Rachel

2. Been married two years

3. Originally from GA (the accent likes to come out when I'm nervous - so if I was reading this out loud instead of typing it, it would probably be a lot harder to understand)

4. I love pickles. They are my favorite snack (don't judge me)

Alrighty then. Let's get on with this tutorial now, shall we?

It all started when I saw an innocent picture on pinterest. 

I looked at it and immediately repinned it (you pinterest-ers out there know what I'm talking about). I absolutely had to have one of those necklaces. I mean, they were just so gorgeous, and so springtime-y. I knew that someday they would be mine.

See? Gorgeous and springtime-y.

source

Problem was, they were sold out (still are). But even if they weren't sold out, the bigger problem was that they cost money. I'm a college student. A married college student at that. Extra money to spend on nice jewelry (or nice anything) is kind-of a foreign concept to me right now. So I decided if I wanted the necklace, but wouldn't spend the money on it, I just needed to make it. I had made a pom pom necklace before using Little Miss Momma's tutorial and I figured it would be easy to adapt the tutorial to make a single pom pom necklace. 

These multi pom pom necklaces are all over the web. They are cute as all get out, but there was just something I didn't like about the tutorials. The back of the necklace is a giant chunk of felt. You can't see the felt at all, but it bugs me. For me, it's a little too messy. I wear my multi pom pom necklace all the time, but I cringe whenever I put it on or take it off and see that nasty felt mess on the back.

I needed a solution to have a cute, pom pom necklace that was clean and crisp with no felt on the back. So I came up with this tutorial to get the look I was going for. 

To make the single pom pom necklace you will need:

please excuse the quality of my pictures. my camera is held together by tape. literally.

Fabric of your choice(I used an old shirt)

Scissors

A pen

Glue gun

A necklace chain and a round charm of some sorts (I picked this one up at Forever 21 - they have a lot of jewelry there for 99 cents)

While your glue gun is heating up, use your round charm as a guide to trace little circles over your fabric. I drew about 10 circles, then cut them out as I needed them. How many circles you need depends on how large your charm is (mine is a little over 1") and how tight you want your pom pom to look (I opted for a more spread-out feel, so I didn't use very many circles).

Once your circles are all drawn, cut them out. Don't worry about being precise - you want them to look messy. And cut inside of the circle - if you use a colored pen or sharpie and cut right along the lines you drew, you will have black, blue, red or whatever edges on your pom pom. You'll want to avoid that unless you are going for that look. 

Next you want to pinch the center of the circle. Some people find it helpful to use a toothpick to push the center down. This is where you are making your pom pom. You kind of pinch it in the middle from all four sides, making it fluff up. The smaller your circles are, the harder it is to do. Try it a few times to make sure you have the hang of it. 

If you need to, use the toothpick to "pinch" the middle of the circle. Once you have it pinched, remove the toothpick and "pinch" it from the other side, making a nice little pom pom. 

Once you have the right form, take your hot glue gun and put a small drop of hot glue on the "pinched" bottom part of the pom pom. Be careful that you don't use too much hot glue - you want to avoid any clumpy-ness. 

Before the hot glue dries, push the bottom of the pom pom onto the necklace. I like to start close to the middle and work my way out to the edges. 

Keep making pom poms and gluing them onto the charm until the whole charm is covered. The more pom poms you add, the "tighter" the necklace will look. Don't worry about covering up every single spot of the charm - the pom pom edges flow out from the necklace and cover up open spots, especially the edges.

If some of your individual pom poms are higher than the rest, or they flow too far out from the edges, take your scissors and very carefully trim around the edge of the necklace. I just eye-balled it and cut the fabric where I thought it looked a little off. 

And voila! You have your very own, very cute pom pom necklace! 

I love that there is no felt whatsoever - just the back of the charm. And you can buy more charms, bigger or smaller, and replace or add to the necklace as you wish. And - in since the pom pom is on a charm and not a part of the necklace itself, you can go out and get a longer or shorter chain and switch out the pom pom whenever you want! It's the perfect accessory for that cute spring outfit you've been dying to wear.

Thanks for letting me guest post over here, Kacey! Enjoy the necklace, gals!

--------------------------

Thanks so much for sharing, Rachel!  

Don't you just love the smaller scale of her design?!  Turns out, pom poms don't always have to be ginormous.  I'm totally making one {or five} of these.

Be sure to stop by her blog, The Obriens.  You'll find craftiness, good design, and all kinds of fun adventures!

summer stuff...

now that it's summer, my art lessons are all on tuesday rather than spread throughout the week.
(so stoked about that.)

i'm now up to 3 little art students. my latest is a mildly autistic 7-year-old...and i LOVE her. she is hilarious. we've been meeting for a month now and i can't get over how funny she is.

plus, she's really talented. today we did color wheels, but i should take a picture of some of her drawings...she just finished 1st grade, but has the skills i would probably expect from a 3rd or 4th grader.

and her enthusiasm is infectious.
"i wish art lessons were EVERYDAY!" :)

on a crafty note, i've been gathering fabric to make some headbands like these to sell. some are designer, some are craft store sales, some are bargain finds, and some were stolen from my mom when we went to visit this weekend. (thanks, mom!)
now that my stash has quadrupled in the last week...i'd better get to work!
any prints you like in particular?

a little treat...

i have the best husband ever.

he is so obliging when we stumble upon a little fabric store.

"i hope you realize i'm the only guy in here..."

and he tries so hard to be patient as i educate him on fabric terms (such as "charm pack") and agonize over which little bit of fabric my heart most desires at that moment.

i've been drooling over hunky dory for months, so i finally went for it.

he's the best. :)

purple-y...

sometimes you go to the store to find skirt fabric, when you come across a rather purple-y, paisley-ish, kind of crazy calico...and you think to yourself, "this would look cute with my purple-y flats."
so you get it even though it's kind of crazy. (because any excuse to wear purple-y flats is a good one.)