Allison Kreft Abad

New York bound

I'm heading to NYC for a few days for the NSS, Surtex and my personal favorite the ICFF. Can't wait to share when I get back.

-Allison

As you may be aware, Harry Hambly is looking to wind down operations at Hambly Studios. As a result, they are no longer designing new products and I am no longer working for them. I have had a wonderful experience designing the Hambly products over the last 8+ years, and working with such genuine people. I will of course continue to design and be a part of this great creative community. The Hambly blog and Hambly facebook page will be on hold while I transition into new projects and opportunities. I'll keep updates on my personal blog or facebook page. If you need to reach me, please contact me through email. 

I have also started getting e-mails and notes from a bunch of you. Thank you all for the nice comments, they mean alot to me. It is very sad, and still hard to believe. Hambly's products really were so different from anything else out there.

Recently I've been working on a collection with Echo Park which I'll share more information about soon. It's been nice to focus on something positive and exciting during this difficult transition with Hambly.

Sincerely,
Allison Kreft Abad

This week in pics

I still love taking pics with my iphone- here are some recent favs...

1.Worn out after our trip to Chicago 2. Box of yarn 3. Adelle's retro kitchen 4. Chevron & coral 5. Shopping 6. O'Hare at midnight 7. Superdawg! 8. Best estate sale find-vintage kids sewing machine 9. Drinking coffee

Instagram pics

Recently I've been becoming more obsessed with Instagram. (find me there -allisonkreft)  Here are some pics from the past few weeks. 1.Picking flowers barefoot 2.Colorful peacock at Picchetti Winery. 3.Trying olives for the first time 4.Riding on Daddy's shoulders. 5.Happy Easter 6.Pretty coffee at Red Rock 7.My little artist trying out crayons. 8.Hummingbird nest with 2 little eggs 9.Playing with a balloon from Boardwalk Arcade.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

We had a little family outing this weekend and went over to the boardwalk. Here's a few pics I took. (pics were edited using instagram)

I love making these bracelets using Hambly Rub-ons, DIY bangles and Claudine's paints.

Our CHA winter collection is now shipping!

Check out the Hambly site for my newest collection. I made this layout with a mix of the new products.I can't wait to start seeing everyone using it in different ways!

-Allison

Rolled Fabric Flower Headband

When Adelle was baptized I wanted to make her a special headband for the day. I had some extra peices of material leftover from my wedding dress, and thought it was the perfect fabric for the headband.

For this project you'll need a piece of fabric about 1" x 18".  If you have a long enough piece of fabric then this could be a no-sew project. I did however use my sewing machine to make a long enough piece to use.

Start by folding your fabric in half and rolling the center together. Use a hot glue gun to keep it together.  (your fabric will probably not be as stiff/thick as my wedding dress fabric shown here) Keep rolling the fabric around the edges and add glue as needed.

Glue the last part of fabric to the side of the flower.
I repeated the steps above for a 2nd flower, and added them to a vintage piece of elastic I found.

March Hambly Sketch

We did another sketch on the Hambly blog with the design team. Here's my take on it.

Chevron Birthday Cake

For Adelle's birthday I wanted to make a cake that was simple and clean looking to go with our theme. While shopping for fondant I found these sugar sheets. First we covered the cake with fondant (my sister did this part).
Then we used the Hambly Chevron and Chevron Mash-up paper as a template to cut the sugar sheets. I used scissors to cut out the designs.

After I cut out a few designs, I found it easiest to tape the chevron paper directly on the protective liner of the sugar sheets and cut through all the layers.

Once I removed the protective backing, I used a little bit of water to help the chevrons stick on the cake. The hardest part was lining up the designs. I had to fake it a bit, but it turned out okay.

I think this technique could be used in so many different ways.

Enjoy!

Adelle's First Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated my daughter's first birthday! I can't believe she is 1 already. We had her baptized early in the morning, and had a small party with family after. The simple theme was chevron design with bright fun colors.

We made a big cake for all our guests, which we decorated with fondant and sugar paper which we cut out.

Adelle had her very own Banana and Blueberry Cake which she enjoyed.
It was the perfect celebration!

BTW a few of you have asked about the highchair. It's an old wooden highchair that I painted with acrylic paint for the party. I saw a similar photo on pinterest and fell in love with the idea. Now I kinda want to keep using it, but I can't find anyway to make the tray food safe. Anyone have suggestions?

Sketch Layout

This is the first month that we've hosted a Sketch over at Hambly. I thought it would be fun to play along and use some of the newest release.

Limited Edition Prints!

We still have a few of the Limited Edition Overlays, Papers and new Mini Overlays from the new release for sale!  These are only available while supplies last.

Our newest release for Hambly

So I think pinterest is my new blog.....well not really but I've been spending a lot of time over there.

I've also been catching up on everything after CHA. This is the biggest release we have had at Hambly to date. What do you think? Any favorites?

CHA (through Instagram)

We're back from CHA and had a wonderful show! Thanks everyone who stopped by the Hambly booth. Here's a few photos we took.

Karine Cazenave-Tapie(from our DT) and Celine Navarro were there all the way from France!

We always have so much fun seeing Angela Daniels.

Kelly Purkey came by the booth -love her!

Mou Saha was also there from our DT. (she brought with her some more great layouts using the new release that I'll post later this week).

I used the new chevron overlays to cover the lamp and cabinet.

Everyone loved the new papers & mini overlays!

Erin Yamabe had some beautiful layouts at the booth. I love the mix of the new papers with the overlays. 

I also had Adelle with me in L.A. for the week and she made a quick appearance at the booth. (She took her first steps at the hotel - pretty exciting! It was such a fun show!! We will have some limited editon prints for sale soon.

-Allison