happy birthday

Today one of my little brothers turns 13! Happy Birthday John!

I bought this party kit on clearance a few weeks ago at Michaels. It really is cute. I'd love to recreate it in my own patterned paper and cardstock.

spell with flickr

This is a fast and easy way to find letters on flickr. Just type in the word you want to spell out then click on each individual letter until you find a photo you like. You can then click to the actual photo on flickr and depending on the license on the photo, you could then print it out and frame to hang you your wall.

etched glasses

I love the way these glasses look. These were vintage glasses sandblasted and sold by Umbra. However, I'm wondering if you could DIY with glass etching cream? I just might have to try.

bird mobile

I've been thinking about ideas for decorating my little girls' room. I think they'll share (if we ever end up getting them out of our room!) which means I need to accommodate the crib and a bed. I saw this project idea a lot last summer and still really like the bird theme.

valentine idea

I think these are cute, fast and fun.

valentine card idea

I think this (from lucykatecrafts blog) would be a fun project to make and reuse every year with a new Valentine's love letter to my husband or kids. Plus, it would make me practice using my sewing machine which I would love to be good at but never seem to take the time to use.

mini cards

I love mini cards. They're fast and easy to make plus they are typically simple in design -a style I definitely prefer. These are mini valentine cards from BHG. This year I'd love to spend a day making a whole stash of cards to use for a variety of events.

doodle stitching

I got this book at Christmas. I really like the style of the book and projects it features. It even inspired me to hand stitch around an applique for a tote bag I made over the holidays.

valentine dinner

I like the concept of this table setting - plus it's a great way to use patterned paper which I tend to collect and not use! While it was designed with a Valentine theme, I think you could easily take the elements and mix it up for a variety of events...birthday parties, dinner parties, etc.

Flower Centerpiece: Place glass votives in a tray and fill with a single flower. Cut the stem short enough so the flower just rests above the tray.

Candy Favors: Roll a piece of patterned paper into a cone and fill with candy.

valentine giveaway

My sister-in-laws and I post ideas for keeping our kids busy, educated and entertained on RedRoko. We're having a create-your-own Valentine card kit giveaway which ends tomorrow at midnight (I know this post might be too late...hopefully you'll get a chance to check it out). It's a super cute kit filled with all you'll need to create handmade Valentine's with your kids. Just leave a comment and you can win!

happy holidays...

Happy Holidays! Here a pictures of the four letterpress Christmas cards I sent this year. Hope you had a great Christmas!

christmas countdown

I saw this idea a few weeks ago from my little mochi. It's an advent calendar made from two packs of gum. Each day you get to pop out one piece. Obviously, December is already well on it's way so it's too late for a traditional advent calendar, but I think it could even be fun to do for the 12 days of Christmas. This is definitely on my holiday project list for next year.

letterpress placecards

I also letterpressed these placecards when I was in Washington to use for Thanksgiving dinner. We ended up writing the name of each dessert on an individual card and placing it next to the dessert on the dessert table (I think we had at least 9 or 10 options including pumpkin pie, banana cream pie, apple pie, rasberry pie, pear crumble pie...)

To create:
- Create artwork in Illustrator and have a photopolymer plate made.
- I letterpressed the cards with a Vandercook SP-20 using Crane's Lettra Superwhite and dark brown ink.

thanksgiving table

I also got to help with the table for Thanksgiving dinner. We filled the length of the table with candles, gourds, pumpkins, leaves and berries and featured an arrangement of orange roses set in cranberries in the middle of the table.

thanksgiving menus

The cooking part of Thanksgiving doesn't interest me that much. I'd much prefer to focus on the presentation of the meal. Luckily, I have a mother-in-law who is a fantastic cook and a sister-in-law who asked me to help her with the table. We eat our meal in courses so she had envisioned a menu that could be sitting at each guest's place. I had exactly 18 dark brown Envelopments envelope pockets that turned out to be perfect. The front of the pockets have a flap that folds over to close the envelope. On this flap we wrote the name of each guest and used a QuicKutz leaf die cut to keep the flap closed.

The envelope opened up to the menu which was printed on white cardstock with dark orange ink and embellished with a bronze turkey die cut.


In the bottom pocket, a card was enclosed which asked each guest what they were thankful for. In addition, each card contained a piece of Thanksgiving trivia. In between courses, everyone had a turn to answer the question and also read their trivia aloud to the table.

Overall, they turned out nice and definitely added to the experience of the meal. Now we'll have to see what we can come up with for next year!

homemade halloween costumes

I know this post should have happened a few months ago, but right now it's better late than never for me.....My mom always made our Halloween costumes growing up. She is a great seamstress. I think my favorite costume was our "Daddy's Little Girls" cheerleader outfits. I wanted to follow in that tradition and make my kids' costumes, but unfortunately my sewing knowledge and ability is limited. Last year, I made my little girl a flapper dress. She was a lucky 6-month-old with enough dark hair to create a finger wave hair do to go with the dress. I made the pattern up so the workmanship was especially weak, but I was still happy with how it turned out.

Because of my schedule this year, I figured I would just have to buy her a costume while I was in China. Luckily, my mom volunteered to make her a costume that would match my little sister. They were both gyspys. This is the skirt my mom sewed. We paired it with a black leotard and a lot of plastic beaded jewelry and rings. She looked so cute!

go team

Before my trip to China, I flew to Washington D.C. and Auburn, Alabama to see my younger brother and sister play football and volleyball. My brother plays football for Southern Virginia University and my sister plays volleyball for Auburn University. For the games, I made my little girl personalized shirts to cheer on her aunt and uncle.

SVU shirt:

To create:

- I cut out the letters SVU in vinyl on the Silhouette and then adhered the vinyl to the shirt. I ironed on a piece of freezer paper to the inside of the shirt to prevent ink from seeping through to the back side of the shirt and then used fabric paint to paint in the letters. After drying, I removed the vinyl and freezer paper.

- I cut the numbers 55 out of a glitter material with the Silhouette and glued them to the middle of the shirt.

- I die cut a football on the Revolution tool out of felt in white, black and dark brown and glued to the bottom of the shirt.

Auburn shirt:

To create:

- Since it was October, I thought finding an orange shirt would be easy. However, there were no orange shirts to be found. The night before we left I found this shirt as part of a terrible tan corduroy overall set for boys. I decided to try and make it work, but the shirt definitely was not the cutest. It turned out okay, but I wish I would have had time to go get a different shirt.

- I cut out the letters in vinyl on the Silhouette and then adhered the vinyl to the shirt. I ironed on a piece of freezer paper to the inside of the shirt to prevent ink from seeping through to the back side of the shirt and then used fabric paint to paint in the letters. After drying, I removed the vinyl and freezer paper.

- I die cut a volleyball on the Revolution tool out of orange felt and a blue glitter material and glued it to the center of the shirt.

two kids, inc.

This is the business card I letterpressed on the Vandercook SP-20 for my little girl to hand out announcing the upcoming addition to our family (arriving May 2009). I'm really happy with how they turned out. Overall it was a fairly easy project. I found the most difficult and time-consuming aspect of the project was making sure the artwork was aligned correctly for printing.

To create:
- I designed the artwork in Illustrator and sent it to Boxcar Press in NY to turn the artwork into photopolymer plates for printing.
- I hand mixed the ink based on Pantone formulas to get dark brown and pink. The pink ink was difficult. I wanted a lighter color but the transparent white ink which I added to tone the pink down was not very tacky which made the ink spread easily and not print as well.

- I printed the image on Crane's Lettra Superwhite and then cut the business cards down to size.

finally...a post

17 days of travel (SLC to Washington DC to Alabama to Atlanta to Hong Kong to China back to Hong Kong to Washington then back to Utah), a cold, the flu and a new addition to our family (arriving May 2009) resulted in a unanticipated abscence from this blog. Fortunately, creativity was not completely lost during this time. The next several posts are catch up for the past month and may be a little outdated for this year, but I wanted to make sure I documented some of my recent projects including the great time I had letterpressing in Washington with my family and friend Rachel (see a sample in the next post).

The week in China was also a great time for creativity. In addition to getting to go to the Canton fair and see products for crafts, stationery, home decor, toys, furniture and tableware, I found myself being especially creative when it came to the food. Being pregnant and sensitive to smells, made meals like this especially interesting. Here are just a few pics of some of the dished I tried to creatively pretend to eat...

chicken: cold, rubbery, fatty and slimy with decorative head and feet

dessert: a sweet grean bean soup. one of three options served including warm chunky milk and warm chunky ginger milk.

business card holders

Tomorrow I leave on a business trip to China.  Next time I want to carry my business cards in of these leather holders.

From Blueprint
1. Print out the template. The pattern is already sized to fit standard business cards. If you want something bigger (say, 3-by-5 photos), feel free to enlarge the template on a photocopier.
2. Cut out pattern and trace it onto leather. Using a mini hole-punch (the kind scrapbookers like), make small holes at three of the tips, as shown on the pattern. The top hole will be slightly larger to accommodate the button stud front closure.
2. Fold the leather into an envelope shape: Bring the left and right flaps inward and line up the holes. Hold them together with a great little piece of hardware called a button-stud.
3. Insert the back piece of the button-stud up through the holes in the flaps. Finally, screw on the front piece of the button-stud, and push it through the hole on the top flap.
Published: November/December 2007