Greetings Nohwear fans. As you might recall, over the past year I have participated in a couple steampunk fashion shows featuring my Pop Brollies - Great hand painted umbrellas with bold graphics to make rainy days less gray and sunny days a little shinier. Well, I am packed full of too many umbrellas and need room to make more. As such, I'm having a sample and prototype sale which offers a deal you won't find again.



These umbrellas were used in fashion shows and/or were prototypes while I nailed down ink and fabric combinations for my Pop Brollies. As such, there is some cracking in the paint, some are dirty, the paint could crack further or even stick to itself. This is why they're on sale so cheap. I 'm just trying to recoup my cost only so I can buy more supplies for future designs. Shipping is a flat $10 via USPS within the US. All others, please inquire for shipping international

Regular price for Pop Brollies run from $50-$150 all of these are now sold but contact me if you'd like me to create one for you.


Pop Brollies - Asteroids
Regular Price $50


Pop Brollies - Space Invaders
Regular Price $50


Pop Brollies - Swirl
Regular Price $70


Pop Brollies - Bombs Away
Regular Price $70


Pop Brollies - Bats in the Belfry - Silver
Regular Price $60


Pop Brollies - Steam Wheel
Regular Price $90


Pop Brollies - Silhouette
Regular Price $70


Pop Brollies - 1900 Gears
Regular Price $50


Pop Brollies - Burton Swirl
Regular Price $90


Pop Brollies - Carnival Stripes
Regular Price $150

Please remember, every Pop Brolly is a functioning work of art. If you use your Pop Brolly in the rain or snow please leave it open to dry lest you damage your the art.

Studio Revamp Part 2

Well, things are definitely coming along in the studio. I'm going to have to make yet another Ikea trip to get the handy organizers I wanted to pick up. Frustratingly they were out of stock and it's not an item they sell online. The boxes I will paint the lovely teal blue of the chair and desk to help bring that color more into the space. We're awaiting the frames for the Gladiator Bicycle print and a few other prints we have, then we'll hang everything including the fun bulletin board I made using that beautiful Ikea frame. The husband also needs to spray paint the legs silver, since Ikea was out of silver legs when we originally bought the table and it seems silly to buy two more legs when we have plenty of paint around.

The decision to start off by redoing this room was definitely the right one. It was such a wasted dump of a space that we hated working in. We'd bring all of our project components up to the living room to work creating huge messes and twice the work for ourselves. Now, we're thrilled with the space plan in here and both my husband and I have been happily tasking away back here every day. It's amazing how a space that's tended with a little love and a lot of thought and organization can transform from a place you avoid being near to a place you look forward to being in for hours. Even the cats love it.

Studio Revamp

The husband and I are having a baby. As a result, we have a lot of spaces in our home that have to be redone before the arrival of our little one. Luckily I'm in full-on nesting mode and now that my summer traveling is done, I'm starting my many projects. The first on my list is the Nohwear Studio.

This studio has to serve two functions. In addition to being the space where I paint umbrellas and work on my different design projects, it also serves as my husband's bike workroom. So trying to come up with a great design for the space that's functional and we both will enjoy working in there is a big challenge. So here's what we came up with - a white, lime green and teal space that I get to do whatever I want with. Thank goodness. Here's the one accent wall we're doing, check back over the next couple of weeks to see how this place transforms. Ahhh, I love paint, what a great way to cheaply revamp a room.

Pop Brollies - Wedding Skulls

Just before I shipped out this wonderful custom set of Pop Brollies I managed to put together a quick impromptu photo shoot. These umbrellas turned out really fantastic. Done in red and silver on a black wood cane umbrella, all the umbrellas got a variation of a skull & crossbone design. The ladies umbrellas were done with a googly-eyed kitty skull & crossbone. The gents had regular googly-eyed skull & crossbones. In order to set the bride and grooms umbrellas apart, I reduced the size of the swirls and vines and enlarged one skull & crossbone, leaving a few smaller ones as well. In total there were 12 to the set. And I'm anxiously awaiting the photos from the real couple.

For more images of this wedding set of umbrellas, see the photo shoot on flickr.

Steampunk Fashion Show - Redux

I did another Steampunk Fashion Show in January. While I did include the Bombs Away, Stripes, Silhouette and Steam Engine Wheel, I did create three new umbrellas for this show. First was Pop Brollies - The Penguin's Umbrella. This is a design I created for an Etsy Customer. She wanted the Penguin's Umbrella from the first Batman Movie... You remember Danny DeVito's delightfully disgusting portrayal, I'm sure. To me, it feels a bit more Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, but hey, you say tomato and I say tomato, right? Either way, it looks great but this design does come with a small price, it took a lot of paint, and a couple of tries, but in the end, it's amazing and such a fun umbrella for any Halloween fan.

Pop Brollies - Fuck Cancer. I have a friend who has gone through some really tough times lately. She is a cancer survivor, but just lost her father to it. I lost my mother to lung cancer not to long ago too, so my heart was with her as she went through this struggle. As a gift, At her request, I made her a geary, swirly, fuck cancer umbrella, based off of my original 1900 Gears design.








Pop Brollies - 1900 Flower Gears. In my search for gears I found so many great designs from the 1900's that just one wouldn't cut it. I want to have a nice variety for people to choose from. So, while the other design was based on hearts, this one is based on outer space and flowers so that each gear has a wonderful galactic floral feel to them. They even remind me of stained glass windows.

I'm also thrilled to share with you a close up of that Steam Wheel design from the previous fashion show. It's such an impressive scale and detail it was a shame to lose it in such a faar away shot.

All of these photos are thanks to Jason Ernst over at Wildhare Designs. Check out images from the rest of the fashion show including close ups of my other designs on his site. For even more photos, check out BCJ Photography who, once again, was the official photographer of the event.

Steampunk Fashion Show

I really have been horrible about getting updates done. I suppose that's because I've been so busy painting umbrellas rather than blogging about them. Here I'm thrilled to show off the set I created for the first Steampunk Fashion Show held at the Subterranean in Chicago November 2008. I really need to get these out for a special shoot outside one day soon, since I still have them, but in the meantime I give you the few shots I do have and will follow up with a couple links to others photos.

First up Pop Brollies - Bombs Away. This design was graciously permitted by the amazing Bethany Shorb, the genius behind the Cyberoptix Tie Lab. This is one of her very popular ties. I took the design scaled it way up and hand painted it on a black wood cane umbrella.

Next, Pop Brollies - Steam Wheel. I found the inspiration for this umbrella on a turn-of-the-century steam engine wheel. Obviously the umbrella lends itself to the wheel so it seemed the natural choice for a steampunk themed fashion show. After digging long and hard for just the right way to do this, I found some schematics of a steam engine. Stripped out some excess, enlarged to near life-like scale and voila. A great design for the engineer in your life.

Pop Brollies - Carnival Stripes. I became obsessed with the idea of creating perfect wide stripes on a curved surface. No easy feat mind you, this umbrella clocked in about a month's worth of work in and of itself. I can say if I ever do this one again, it won't take as much time, but I'd guess it'd still rack up a good 40 hours solid. Never-the-less, it turned out fantastic and I'm keeping this one for myself. I love walking around in the rain with it. It's so Beetlejuice!

Pop Brollies - Silhouette. When I think of Victoriana, I immediately think of a silhouette. A classic gentleman's profile in white on a black wooden cane style umbrella. I can just imagine this umbrella along with a lady's silhouette as the perfect wedding gift for a unique bride and groom.

Pop Brollies - 1900 Gears. You can't have Steampunk without gears, but I didn't dig up any old gears for this umbrella. I scoured the net for hours to find gears from bicycle chainrings from the turn of the century. Sadly this photo doesn't quite show them off as well as I'd like, I'll have to see if I have some better photos for you. I can tell you the largest gear at the top is wonderfully sweet with heart shapes in the cut-out of the gear. A wonderful design for a valentine's day gift or just to tell someone you care enough to keep them covered all the time.

Pop Brollies - Hi Biscus. You've already had the pleasure of seeing this wonderful umbrella, but I did choose to show it at the Steampunk Fashion Show as Victorians were keen to study horticulture and often tended to their gardens. My model did such a great job in the show, I wanted to include the photo here for you to enjoy.

For some more great shots, check out the BCJ Photography site, home of the event's photographer.(Warning some images are NSFW) You can also check out the entire runway shoot on my flickr account.

Pop Brollies - Hi Biscus!

Well, my apologies for taking far too long to update, but that just means things have been pretty steady and wonderfully busy!

First up, the Hi Biscus! Pop Brolly. A beautiful cascade of white hibiscus flowers trimmed with black to pop off a bright green cane style Raines umbrella. This was a design I came up with simply because I really wanted to see how a nice flower done in different sizes would move on the surface. I think they came off really well and this was one of the first brollies I decided to do freehand, eliminating the template to see how well I could do it.

This brolly sold over at the Nohwear Etsy Store just in time to be a beautiful Christmas present for a very lucky wife.