[product] bamboo fun

Adam gave me the Bamboo Fun tablet by Wacom for Valentine's Day! I've had fun just playing around and can't wait to really learn how to use it. Anyone have any tips or tricks I should know??

[place] hunt and gather antiques

I tore out a feature on Hunt and Gather from a Southwest airlines magazine. Approximately 1.2 billion objects from bins of magazines and plastic letters to giant commercial signs and advertising displays. It sounds like such a fun treasure hunt! Plus, I love that the article had old letterpress type as an accent image. If I'm ever in Minneapolis, I plan to stop by.

black eiffel

Do you read Black Eiffel? A few months ago I met with Rachel Jones to show her the L Letterpress. She has a fun blog that features posts on design, style, inspiration and more. Her blog is even part of Martha's Circle!

Luckily she lives right here in Utah so we could easily meet in person. It's always fun to get to demo and talk about the tool to new people. Right now, she's giving away an L Letterpress. Enter here!

cranberry cosmo

In my perfect blog world, I took the time to remake these drinks in a variety of flavors and took amazing stylized photos to accompany exciting text on how to create a fun Valentine's day drink. In my reality, this will have to do.

The picture is of a cranberry cosmo drink I made in December for a Christmas party. Cranberry definitely seems seasonal, but I think you could also easily make it with other fruit flavors (any red fruits like strawberry or raspberry would be perfect for Valentine's day.) I found the basic recipe on the Food Network and modified it for my needs. Of course, my version needed to be non-alcoholic so I tried a few different sodas until I found the taste I liked.

Here's my version of the cranberry cosmo:

scoop of cranberry granita (see recipe below)

ginger ale (I also tried club soda but thought it was too bitter)

splash of fresh lime juice

Place granita in glass, cover with ginger ale and add splash of lime juice. Serve immediately. The frozen granita acts like ice to keep the drink cold and easily melts into the ginger ale. I also added a toothpick skewered with frozen cranberries to help keep the drink cold.

Cranberry Granita

2 cups water

1 1/2 cups cranberries

3/4 cups sugar

Place all ingredients in sauce pan over medium heat until berries start to pop (approx. 7 minutes). Remove from heat and puree. Pass the mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a freezer safe pan. (I don't have fine mesh strainer so I used a thin white dishtowel. It worked great, just turned my dishtowel pink.) Place pan in freezer until frozen. When ready to use, scrape with fork to create shaved ice texture.

vintage couch

Last fall, I found this couch on ksl classifieds. I convinced Adam to drive an hour with me to check it out and help bring it home if I liked it. And liked it, I did. I love the look of tufted furniture.

Its been sitting in my living waiting for me to go figure out what I need to do to get it recovered. Eventually it will sit right across from my desk in my office downstairs. I'm thinking a gray velvet (not sure if I should go more silver gray or charcoal gray) with the wood painted glossy white. Any thoughts?

pics from alt summit

I had a great time at alt summit!  It was so fun to meet some of my favorite bloggers in real life, listen to great speakers and discussions, and demo and talk about the L Letterpress.  It was chaotic getting everything ready for the event, but it reminded me how much fun I have creating with the L Letterpress  Here are some pics from the event:

Opening Party: Old Hollywood Theme

Me, Andrea and Jennifer on 

the red carpet entry.

They had a corner of the room with vintage glamour clothes and jewelry 

where you could dress up in and get your picture taken.

Talking with other attendees at the party.

L Letterpress Demo Tables in the Alt Summit Lounge

alt summit

This week I'll be attending this. I'm excited to get to listen to/learn from/meet some of the biggest design/lifestyle bloggers around. Are you going or know anyone that is?

letterpress giveaway

We're giving away an L Letterpress Combo Kit and a custom printing plate at the L Blog ($190 value)! Click here to find out how you can win.

stockings

I only have 3 stockings and this year we need 4. I tried to explain this tragedy to Adam, who wasn't very sympathetic. The problem is that I have a hard time finding stockings I really like. And, what I like really depends on the year and the basic design theme I end up with for my holiday decor.

If I had more time this year, I'd love to try making these stockings from Made. With the right sweaters, I think they could be fun.

[kid focus] snowman

I had two sizes of styrofoam balls sitting on my table, and Elle instantly thought they were snowmen. She loved the idea of actually turning them into real snowmen, so I got out my glue gun, some yarn, black eyelets, twigs, mini clothespins and orange paint. The great thing was that I actually had all of those supplies just sitting in my craft room.

To create the snowmen, we glued the two styrofoam balls together (1 large and 1 small for the mom and dad snowmen and 2 small for Elle and Liv's snowmen).  We took apart the mini clothespins and painted each piece orange. We pressed the painted clothespin piece into the styrofoam for a nose; stuck twigs in each side of the snowman for arms and pressed black eyelets into the styrofoam for eyes.  I filled in the eyes with black Stickles, but you could fill it in with black paint, marketer etc. We then hand crocheted scarves and hats for each of the snowman.  It ended up being a fast, impromptu activity which Elle couldn't wait to show off to her dad.

thanksgiving table

This Thanksgiving, I went with a natural theme for the table decor so I focused on natural textures and elements in neutral colors with green accents.

I printed the menus and placecards on L Letterpress paper in cream and then used the L Letterpress to blind emboss the matching design on both pieces. 

For additional table conversation, I printed Thanksgiving trivia on L Letterpress paper and then die cut it using a QuicKutz leaf die cut.  The leaf has a fun pop up element that added extra texture and dimension to the decor.

I had originally anticipated going with a more modern design theme, but found these harvest -themed ceramic dinner and salad plates at Shopko for only $.50 each.  Secretly I had wanted to purchase plates for the dinner, but hadn't figure out how I could justify it. I had been thinking white square dinnerware, but at only $.50 each for this style, it was a deal I couldn't pass up.  I ended up loving the way the plates turned out.

The pictures below show how the finished product. There were 31 people seated at the table (my mother-in-law's dinner table combined with two fold up tables next to each other). I used branches, pumpkins (painted off-white), floral greenery for the centerpieces, votives, cream candles, bronze candle holders, twine and twig balls, wire twig garland, stick placemats and burlap.

thankful tree

For Family Home Evening last week, we made a thankful tree.  I die cut and glued a tree trunk to a piece of white paper and then die cut leaves from adhesive-backed cardstock.  We each took turns listing things we were thankful for and then stuck the leaf to the paper. I'm not sure she really grasped the concept of being thankful - she was much more interested in getting to stick another leaf down.  But, it was funny to hear some of things she was thankful for...family was followed by dogs and swimming at the hotel.

thanksgiving kids table

For the kids table this Thanksgiving, I used kraft colored contractor paper from Lowe's as the tablecloth.  I then drew a placemat for each child with a white paint marker.  The girls had a scalloped border and the boys a plain square border. 

The kids could then color and decorate their placemat with color crayons. 

I also cut out several cardstock turkey feathers and scattered them on the table. The kids wrote things they were thankful for and then stuck the feather to the back of a turkey pumpkin.  

baby O shower

My friend Laura threw an amazing baby shower for her sister. Lucky for me, she made the invitations at my house so I got to watch the creativity in action.  She incorporated several letterpress elements into the party using the L Letterpress.  See more at Lucyisms.

knitting needle placecard

This placecard idea from Real Simple uses a wooden knitting needle to skewer a printed card. Might be fun for a craft party....

canvas presents

Love this simple holiday decor idea from Real Simple. Take blank white artist canvases and wrap with ribbon to create faux presents.

pumpkin turkey centerpieces

After Halloween, I bought several small pumpkins on sale with the intent to use them in some way for Thanksgiving dinner table decor.  I'd been thinking about painting them white and letting the kids color them at their tables, but tonight I had an idea to create a "thanks" turkey where the kids could each write things they are thankful for on paper feathers and add them to the pumpkin to create a turkey.  I did a quick google search and found a lot of pumpkin turkey ideas.  If you still have pumpkins around, here are a few links. I'll post what I end up making after Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Turkey Centerpiece at Make and Takes

Pumpkin Turkey Craft at Kaboose

Pumpkin Turkey Centerpieces

Dora's Pumpkin Turkey at Nick Jr.

handprint turkey pie

I love this idea from Family Fun....such a fun way to let your kids help out in the kitchen for Thanksgiving.

[kids focus] thanksgiving coloring pages

While searching for some Thanksgiving images for Elle to color, I came across a great site -Artists Helping Children.  The site has a ton of arts and crafts project ideas.  I loved these coloring sheets for a few reasons - the actual artwork wasn't cheesy and they required some thought and interaction.  Elle had a great time coloring and thinking about what features and color crayons to use on each face.

[kid focus] pasta necklaces

For our Indian theme week, Elle and I made pasta necklaces.  I naively thought it would be a great activity to entertain two 2 year olds while their moms had a meeting...not so much. It worked much better as an activity with just Elle and I.

She probably had the most fun helping to make the colored pasta.  We put the pasta in a ziploc bag, added a few drops of alcohol ink (we used Tim Holtz inks by Ranger) and then shook the bags until the pasta was evenly coated.  The alcohol inks dry quickly so it was fast and easy. We then used clear elastic thread to make the necklaces.  Elle is really into matching and colors so she had a great time mixing up the pasta and then separating it back into color groups. I think this would also be a fun activity to use for teaching patterns.