hellllllloooo washington dc

Guess who is going to the Manifest Hope installation in DC (ill give you 2 guesses, but you might only need one)
Mr. Giant Giant Giant Sequoia!
This will be by far the biggest and best event i have done in hi tree's 9 month existence. There are some big names involved with this installation including –Shepard Fairey & Spike Lee and a ton of incredible artists, Including my own awesome pals travis millard and mel kadel.
I am currently still in Jacksonville, tomorrow i will be stealing him from the Burrito Gallery to ship him off to his new temporary home. This next week is going to be crazy!

Also, keep an eye on Sucker, i am sitting across from her this very moment and she is stitching away at some super cute new stuff for her etsy shop. (sucker aka Christina is my brother's girlfriend and an occasional hi tree helper, when im in over my head)
ok! well stay tuned for more news very soon!!

ok, i know

2 blog posts in one day is probably tacky, but ask me if i care......
i made a purse today! vintage sheet + felt + thread + sewing machine = cuteness!
the only problem is, cant i just keep it? :( i dont think i can keep this one, that was not my intention, so this will be up in my etsy shop very soon, as soon as im done drooling all over it.....
enough of that, here it is.....

Owls!!!!

hoot hoot! im working on owls this weekend. here are the first run of orange owls, one dude is stuffed for hugging and cuddling purposes, and the other, is....... going..... on a purse. what? yup ive given up my purse making hiatus. so keep an eye out this week. its time to make some wicked awesome bags.

Hello!

Well, there is so much going on over here in lala land. I have quite a few new trees that i will be adding to my shop as soon as i get them photographed, as well as some new owl and mushroom fun stuff.

Im going on week #3 of being my own boss, and i have to say, i wake up earlier everyday and i am way more motivated then i ever thought i could be. There has been no shortage of work either! Its been so wonderful.

Now i am looking for a studio space, i need to get the heck out of my living room, its killing me! (If you live in the LA area and you know of anywhere affordable, hook a sister up!)

Today i just shipped out a fat wholesale order to Tokyo, i am very excited about having my work over there, i think its a good fit. So now im all caught up and ready to start preparing for Unique Los Angeles. If you live here in La and you would like tickets to go, i have 10! please let me know if you would like any of them, i think i only need 4, so the rest are up for grabs. I am pretty sure this will be one of the best gift markets ever, you could get all of your christmas shopping done in one place all the while buying hand made. perfect :)

A few pictures from Sunday at the Arroyo Arts Collective rediscovery tour here in Highland park....

Hi!

Im such a bad blog mommy, but i have been so busy since i came back from Jacksonville on Monday.
So here is the Hi Tree update in a nut shell.....

&hearts the Burrito Gallery installation went really well, except for staying up until 3 am the night before art walk to make more stuff!

&hearts Sunday November 23rd you can find me slinging trees at the Arroyo Arts Collective Re-Discovery tour here in Highland Park (Los Angeles) I will be at the Lummis home from 9:30am and i think it goes until 3 or 4.
Lummis home is at 200 E. Avenue 43 Highland Park 90031
come by and see all of the awesomness that North East LA artists have to offer.

&hearts I was invited to take part in the Unique Los Angeles, a hand made market in downtown Los Angeles. I am really excited about this one!

&hearts I have some NEW TREES! they are top secret right now but i promise they will be done soon.

&hearts Keep an eye out for the feb/march issue of Foam Magazine, i did an short interview and sent over about 5 hi rez images, so we'll see what happens!

&hearts Pregnancy and Newborn magazine is working with me on a project i have been dying to do for a long time. Ill give you a hint. bitty trees sewn together to make the cutest crib bumper you will ever see..... to be making an appearance in their May issue and i will also be working on some stuff for the April issueas well.

&hearts im really excited!

&hearts Look what Justin did for me tonight! hitree.com is go. Darn it, now i have to get new business cards :)

And the winner is......

*M*! i dont have your contact info though, please email me! hi.tree@yahoo.com
Tomorrow i am off to Florida! Updates to come.

Hey mom look what i made!

So we have a tree, its the same tree that you can find in my shop as the "tree pin".

yeah yeah yeah have all seen him, nothing special............ WRONG

OH NO YOU DIDNT, oh yes i did. this tree just so happens to be a retractible measuring tape. woot!
i apologize for the substandard photography, its dark here, but i was way to excited to wait until tomorrow.
[dont forget about the giveaway down below]

New Logo!! & Giveaway

{edit 10/27... i forgot to add that i will announce the winner of the giveaway on thursday}
I had trudesign design a new logo for me. what do you think??? i would like to hear some opinions! So how about this, leave your honest opinion about it and i will enter you into a drawing for a new top secret keychain (ok its not really top secret). I just dont have a picture of it yet. So lets call it a surprise. I think its my favorite one yet!ok here is my new logo!

Updates

I have been so busy since the show last weekend. Its been great. For the sake of not rambling on and on ill do a cliffs notes version.
--4 Shops officially carry Hi Tree stuff...
1. Big Red Sun
222 Bernard Ave. Venice, Ca 90291
2. In-Betweens
151-0062 9-6 Motoyoyogi-cho Shibuya-ku Tokyo, Japan
3. Twist
46 Jobs Lane. Southhampton, NY 11968
4. Priti Organic Spa (she has some button rings)
35 East 1st St. Ny, Ny 10003
Pretty awesome! The Green Market was a little slow, so i was pretty much making stuff most the time. Here is my booth and a sweater that i kitted for my engagement ring.


Also, new Hi Tree tote! i finally started making the giant sequoia on a smaller scale. Watch out for a little itty bitty giant sequoia plush comming soon!

This week im trying to finish up my wholesale orders, then saturday i fly out to Jacksonville for the installation at the burrito .

Installation day 2, successful

once again, i dont have anything to say except, tomorrow is D day! ill be blogging about it.

Installation successful!

I have nothing to say, except. whew. glad to have that over with. 1 huge event in my life down, 2 to go!

Exciting news!

Ive been so busy! my head is spinning in circles and focusing is becoming harder and harder as i have so many projects going on all at once. But i wanted to take a minute to share some exciting news.
Justin gave me my birthday present last night, i always know he is up to something when i dont get a present on my birthday, this year i didnt even have time to think about it. But last night i was informed that i am the proud (and excited) new owner of Hitree.com This is a pretty big deal, i didnt think i would ever be able to snag it, someone has been hoarding it for a very long time, and he was finally able to strike a deal with them after a year of trying to get straight answers out of them. He kept this all a secret from me the whole time, and refuses to tell me how much he paid for it.
what a sweet man! so there you have it. I am beyond excited about this!

Also here are some cute little mushrooms i made for a wholesale order not too long ago :)

color!!!!

After i did the last blog post about giant giant giant giant sequoia this morning (see below) christina and i got started on my next installation that will be shipping off to the burrito gallery in jacksonville along with the big big tree and various other tree things. all of this needs to ship aout in about 2 weeks. its clearly not done yet, but im so excited about it! everything is looking soooo pretty. its pretty obvious what the next step will be.

Day 2 & 3

ALMOST DONE!!! just have to build a frame and attach the back! Every thing went really smooth until it came time to attach the leafy parts to the trunk. Christina and I went up to baby cakes to use the industrial sewing machine to do this since it would be pretty much impossible to run it through lil ol' betsy. This turned out to be much harder than expected, but after some blood sweat and tears (ok there was no blood, but there was definitely sweat and almost tears) we got him all stitched up.

So here is some lovely images on my new friend, giant giant giant giant sequoia. he is still flat right now, but he wont be for long!!!

Day 1....

Helllllllo everybody. Today was day one of giant giant giant sequoia's construction. His Trunk is officially in existence. I was so nervous before i started but now i know it is going to be ok. My sewing machine didn't really like it very much, i did break a few needles, but its a small price to pay for the awesomeness that this tree will be when he is done. i think he will be done, minus his frame tomorrow.

I enlisted my lovely friend Christina to come and help me get all of this under control. She flew all the way from my home town, Jacksonville (Florida) here to los angeles for the week to help me. It has been so awesome to have some one to bounce ideas off of and get feedback from. Christina is just getting her Etsy shop underway, its still in its setting up stages but i know what shes capable of and it will be awesome when she has is stocked :) you can visit her shop here.

So here are some images from todays very serious craft session.

I had a photo of mr. giant sequoia printed out on a large format printer to use as a pattern. I know what your thinking, wow what a great idea! yeah...... i know ;) it wasnt my idea. it was justin's. freakin brilliant.





So, we shall meet again tomorrow big tree, and i will finish you once and for all.........

Let the construction begin.

Well my 27th birthday was yesterday, it was pretty fun. Really one of the most uneventful birthdays in the history of tina. I had to work (at my real job) I work at a little tiny boutique called baby cakes in La Canada. We (me and my invisible boss Shannon) make custom bedding and other random baby related items. I call her invisible because when i am at Baby Cakes she is at her other little shop in Calabasas, so when im there i pretty much run the joint. Its the ideal job for someone like me. Anyways....

The next 6 weeks of my life are going to be INSANE. I need a full time employee. Is that crazy or what? well, let me rephrase that, what i really need is a personal assistant. (one can dream right?) seriously though. in the next few days i will begin construction on an 8 foot tall giant giant giant giant sequoia for the green market installation. This needs to be completed within 3 weeks. Then after i make it through that whole thing, i then need to somehow complete another installation that needs to ship out by the 25th to be installed at the Burrito Gallery in Jacksonville, Fl. on the 4th of november. Somehow i know it will work out, but at this point i have no idea how. there is plenty going on after that, but i dont want to think about it right now, my brain will implode.

So wish me luck!!!! ill be documenting the construction of mr. giant giant giant giant sequoia here on my blog. Should be interesting. I think a good question would be, what does one do with a 8 foot stuffed giant sequoia after the installation? ha, i guess we will find out!

Anyone want to be my personal assistant? :)
Seriously

Keychains!!! YAY!

Alrighty. so i decided we were going to do the giveaway drawing old school style. i wrote everyone's user name on a little piece of paper and folded it up real tiny like and put them all in a hat. (i thought i would be more exciting for hazel this way.)
she was definitely excited, she really didn't want to stop at two, but i had to draw the line somewhere.
the two names she pulled out were.......

1.Jessi
2.Tara

I have emailed our lovely winners, and i have to say i think its karma that hazel pulled Jessi's name out of the hat. I bought a doll from her a few months back for hazel. Her name is Agnes and she has to be the cutest doll ever. Hazel and I love her so much.
Here is a picture of Agnes. You really need to stop by her blog and Etsy shop. so cute.
simplijessi.etsy
simplijessi bloggy blog




I will definitely be doing more giveaways, so check back! who knows what it will be next time. Thanks to everyone who participated :)