jdmakesthings

NEW BLOG

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:08:28 -0500

I’ve redesigned my blog, and moved it over to blogspot. If you’d like to keep up with my updates you can find me here!

PAPER ART + JEWELRY

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 12:08:02 -0500

I’ve been doing a lot of crafting lately, between working on props/backdrops for photo shoots and making gifts for Christmas. Here are a few of things that I’ve made in the last couple of weeks.

Large scale quilling I made for a Bride shoot:

Leather necklaces:

IT FINALLY FEELS LIKE WINTER

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 16:44:28 -0500

Photograph by Joe Vaughn / Styling by me

BEFORE + AFTER

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:20:25 -0500

I created a life sized cross-stitched Christmas tree this year, and it’s also featured over on Design Sponge for their before and after contest. If you have a minute check out the entries, and vote for the best transformation:

http://www.designsponge.com/2012/12/before-after-holiday-contest-finalists.html

Happy Holidays!

Photographs by Martin Vecchio

You can see more photos of the cross-stitch here.

NEW WORK

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 21:36:42 -0500

I’m a bit behind on updating my new work lately, I have a couple of stories from the last two issues of Home. Our Winter issue’s cover story was all about graphic home furnishings:

My favorite pieces we featured were the vintage blocks of type:

Photographs by Joe Vaughn // Styling by Stephanie Potts

See more here.

My friend Martin started photographing his neighborhood during the different seasons… I saw the winter shots, and fell in love with the dreaminess of the photos. I asked Martin to shoot Woodbridge in the summer, to finish the last of the seasons, so we could run a photo essay of the neighborhood:

Photographs by Martin Vecchio

See more of the layout here.

For the Fall cover, we featured a lovely Sylvan Lake home, which belongs to the owners of Fleur Detroit:

Their house was surrounded by so much greenery, it almost felt like you were walking into a rainforest. They also had the cutest Weimaraners, who happened to be best friends… they didn’t want to be separated while we were photographing them.

Photographs by Joe Vaughn

See more of the layout here.

PIE!

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:17:50 -0500

The latest Onstar logo that I styled - I asked Achatz to make the logo out of pie crust. I’m not even a fan of pie, but this one looks really delicious:

Photographs by Joe Vaughn / Styling by me

I also put up my christmas tree for my annual crunksgiving dinner. My favorite part of it is the burger ornament!

RECENT WORK

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:34:00 -0500

Photographs by Joe Vaughn / Styling by me / Modeling by Burt

RECENT WORK

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:20:07 -0400

This is the halloween version of the OnStar logo that I styled… I love the spider web tablecloth - such a great find!

Photograph by Joe Vaughn

CRAFTS + JAMZ

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:29:20 -0400

My friend Liz is getting married this weekend, and my gift to her was a giant cross-stitch with the wedding date stitched onto it. This will be the photo booth backdrop at the reception, and then she’ll be able to hang it in her house as a keepsake… if she has room for it, yikes. Liz helped me with the gridding + stitching, and also made sure that the giant thing didn’t fall on us while making it. I can’t wait to see it hanging in the space!

Kollabora asked me to put together a spotify playlist for their blog, here’s a link to some of my favorite crafting jamz.

IT'S FALL TIME

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:01:32 -0400

This is the first of a series of logos that I styled for OnStar. I love the ring of acorns around the logo, and of course the cider mill donuts. Going to the Franklin Cider Mill is definitely one of my favorite things about fall. Cider mills, and getting to finally wearing scarves again!

Photograph by Joe Vaughn / Prop styling by me

BLOGS I LOVE

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:41:57 -0400

Kollabora did a write up on a bunch of my favorite design bloggers, check out the list right here!

RECENT WORK

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:23:55 -0400

This is a logo that I made for my girl Erika, who started the site Detroit Spoke, and puts on bike events around the city:

And a couple of other color options:

GIANT MACRAME

Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:04:00 -0400

Obviously I love giant vintage crafts. I had found this large scale macramé wall awhile back (via Make’s blog), and loved it:

Today I randomly found this massive macramé owl, via etsy’s pinterest page:

It’s done by Andy Harman. I am blown away. Not only is it giant, but it’s also extremely 70’s looking, not to mention adorable. Check out Andy’s site, there’s also a leather cheeseburger on there. I love his work!

D.I.Y. GIANT CROSS-STICH KITS ARE HERE

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:09:00 -0400

Well, it’s official - now you can make your own Giant Cross-stitch. Kollabora and I teamed up to create these kits, there are five designs, and they come with the pattern already printed on the Spoonflower fabric - so there’s no gridding or counting necessary! All you need is a couple of stretcher bars, and you’re good to go. Check out my interview on the kollabora blog right here.

BIKE LIKING

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 10:40:39 -0400

After about 5 years of collecting cute-but-not-so-great road bikes that are always breaking, I finally have my dream bike. My friend Erika gave me this bike because it was too short for her, in exchange for some design work. My friend Ted rebuilt the bike in exchange for some cross-stitch work. My favorite thing about the bike is the woodgrain rims. She’s like the bicycle version of a vintage station wagon from the 70’s:

30 IN THEIR THIRTIES

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

This shoot was by far the most involved dbusiness shoot I’ve ever done. For our “30 in their Thirties” shoot this year, I did a vintage yearbook theme - and actually got (most) of the 30 people to dress up in character and play along… everyone had so much fun. On top of that, I got to hang out with an adorable bulldog named Duncan (he was the 30’s school mascot), and my best friend Amy was nominated as one of the 30 people to be featured in the story (for her work on Detroit Soup). We shot over three (extremely hot) days in July at Christo Rey High School in southwest Detroit - it had that perfect vintage high school look.

My original idea was to shoot the cover as a horizontal, so we could do a gatefold cover (which folds out) - and fit all 30 people on there. Unfortunately that fell through at the last minute, so we had to go with half of the 30’s… plus a bulldog:

Photographs by Joe Vaughn

Styling by Stephanie Potts (I’m still impressed that she managed to talk one lady into wearing a very short vintage cheerleading jumper for the entire shoot. Not only that, but she also convinced a business man to try on the shortest basketball shorts I’ve ever seen… which he didn’t end up wearing for the shoot, but at least she tried!)

Hand painted banner and type designed by Neil Tasker

The full layout can be found here.

The day before the shoot I went to the location to prep, and to do some chalkboard lettering. My lovely friend Erin has some major hand-drawn-type skills, and helped me with the lettering:

Duncan is hanging out between shots:

I screenprinted and sewed this pennant, for the opener:

Thanks to my friend Ted for bringing Duncan the bulldog to the shoot, and for being nice enough to offer himself up to wear that ridiculous dog costume in 100 degree weather:

The guy that’s hanging was originally supposed to be sitting in the upper bleachers. He decided it would be fun to swing from the upper level while we were doing a test shot, which totally scared me… I asked him if he could do it again (without falling) for the actual shot and he did! It’s the unexpected things like this that make me love my job:

Amy is reliving her high school dance team days:

I will leave you with a shot of the giant dog mask, which was a hit around the office:

RECENT WORK

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:43:00 -0400

Here are a couple layouts from the most recent issue of Bride. For our fashion story, I did a tailoring themed shoot, which was shot in a sewing factory in Sterling Heights. It was a bit stressful being that we had to shoot during one of their 3 sewing shifts, and work around all the craziness. At the last minute we ended up taping some of my vintage sewing patterns up on the wall for the cover shot backdrop. We had 5 minutes to get the last shot (the one of the model in front of the rack of thread)… talk about working under pressure. It actually ended up being my favorite shot of the day!

Photographs by Roy Ritchie / Styling by Stephanie Potts

This flower story was inspired by vintage botany posters and we did a spread of flowers for each season. I dyed watercolor paper with tea to give it a vintage effect, and Martin shot each flower separately so I could piece them together like a botany poster:

The bags of tea I used for dying the paper:

And here’s the pile of discarded flowers - what a shame to see such pretty flowers thrown together in a heap:

Photographs by Martin Vecchio / Styling by Cindy Hicks for Scarlet Poppy Floral Design

GIANT CROSS-STITCH KITS

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 16:00:19 -0400

I’ve been working with Kollabora for the last 8 months to design D.I.Y. giant cross-stitch kits. I just finished putting together the kits, and they’ll be available to purchase on the kollabora site in early September. Check back in a couple of weeks to see the 5 patterns I designed. You can request an invite to the site here - make sure to check out all of their DIY kits and craft supplies!

CRAFTY COOKIES

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:00:54 -0400

Megan and I collaborated on some crafty cookies awhile back, the recipe can be found over on design sponge:

photos by Martin Vecchio

PRETTY PEONIES

Tue, 29 May 2012 16:17:57 -0400

My favorite part about a Bride shoot is the leftover flowers. (Also, the leftover cupcakes).