Swap Time!

And the partners are in...

I'm SOOO excited to do the ornament swap again, hosted by Freshly Blended, whose blog, I will add, I absolutely LOVE. This is my third year now, and I can easily say it has become one of my favorite holiday tradition. Last year I never posted pictures of the ornaments I made or the ornaments I received, I'm very sad to admit. This year I promise to do better. I will say that I hid my post from two years ago with my ornaments, because my ornaments this year will be similar in style, but slightly different in design, and I don't want to ruin the wonderful surprise for my wonderful swap partners.

I'm also going to wait until after I have sent them all out to add them to my Etsy store. I've been doing a lot of product development the last little while, and have something very exciting to share. I'll hopefully add the new products in the next day or two. Wish me luck!

$25 Chair

Today I put together a chair for Duppy's desk for a grand total of...you guessed it, about $25.00. I didn't plan on it costing quite that much, but when I took the seat of my $5.00 DI find, I discovered mold. So, I had to buy new padding and cut a new seat. Luckily I already had wood in the garage, or it would've been a bit more. This poor chair was a mess when I bought it, but I didn't take a before picture. To give you an idea (even before I spotted the mold), it was black/bronze metal with a few rust spots, the rubber feet were cracked and one was missing, the top sides were open tubes, and the seat had more stains than I think I've ever seen on a chair. But to look at it now, you'd never know!
My purchased supplies included two cans of white spray paint ($5.00), plastic feet caps ($1.00), crystal knob things for the top back ($6.00 for 2), yellow canvas to cover the seat ($4.00 @ 50% off), cushion padding for the seat ($4.00), and of course the $5.00 chair. I used some other things from around the house, of course, like hardware, a staple gun, ribbon for the back, etc.

Anyway, I think this chair is one of the happiest looking I've ever seen. The crystal knobs sure add a nice sparkle too. Notice how from the side they look clear and from above they are yellow in the picture below. I sure love adding personal touches to things for our home!

Growth Chart

Well, well. I've been working on all sorts of projects the last couple weeks, so I thought I should start posting some of them. This was one that I did the other night. I've been wanting a growth chart, so I designed one and cut it on my plotter. It is now hanging in the playroom, waiting for me to find a Sharpie. I don't know about your house, but scissors and Sharpies are two of the things that I know we have a million of, but I can't ever find them when I need them. And exacto knives. Anyway, I love the way it turned out, all graphic and such. I might just start selling them in my Etsy shop, along with a few other things I've been working on.

Birthday Cake

For Mia's first birthday, we had some family over. The most important part, of course, was the cake. Because, what do you want from a first birthday party? Pictures of the little one making a mess with the cake, of course! So, I went about making a cake, but not just an ordinary cake. I went for something different, and used banana bread for two of the three layers, with one chocolate round in the middle. Add some cream cheese frosting, fondant, and icing, and voila, I had me a tasty cake! I was quite proud of myself. I also made Mia a little cake of her own, with just a mound of banana bread. I guess that's the new thing; a cake for everyone to eat, and a "smash cake" for the kid. Great idea in my book, and Mia loved it too!

Baby's Wall Decor

This week I've been working on decorating Mia's room. I will have it decorated before she turns one. That's my goal at least. A bit pathetic, but hey, she's too little to care! Here are two of the projects, and I have a couple more I'll post about, hopefully soon.First, I've finally gotten around to hanging her name on the wall. I bought various letter from eBay and Etsy, a couple from old theater sign boards (A & I), a letterpress wood block (M), one from a '70s interstate sign that used to hold reflective "coins" (E), and a couple old wall hangings (L & A).I've also hung artwork above the changing table. I love how this turned out as well. I bought different frames from the D.I., prints and artwork from different sellers on Etsy (some cards, some prints, and one or two originals), and there fun little flowers from Target. A couple of my favorite prints are the drawing of the girl with a city in her hair from Paula Zakimi's shop (bottom left), The Neighborhood print from meArtDesign (bottom left of bottom right photo), and Give from ErinJaneShop (top right of bottom right photo). The flowers from Target look as though they are being blown out of their frame towards and out the window on the adjacent wall. Did I mention I love how this looks?

City View

Manhattan, now 4, has become obsessed with the city for which she was named in the last few months. So, I decided to bring the city to her room! She loves it, and is getting more and more excited to take a trip there, hopefully sometime this year. Can I tell you how simple this was? I love my plotter and all the many fun things I can do with it!

Blue Birdies

Most of my recent projects have been decorating our house in one way or another. Plenty to keep me busy for quite a while! In our room I decided to go with a birds and trees theme, using a robin's egg blue and dark brown. On Etsy I found EarthArt, an artist who paints on wood leaving a lot of texture. She is very willing to do custom orders, so I told her I wanted two birds on a branch using browns and the particular blue-green for the sky and this is what I received. I LOVE it and it fits perfectly in our room!

I also created these three images to hang just by our door. My three birdies greeting us as we enter and bidding farewell as we leave the room.

One of my recent projects...

So, yeah, it's been a while again. Lame excuse (but true): we couldn't find the charger for our camera and didn't want to buy a new one because we knew the old one would turn up as soon as we did. After a few months we bought one and as soon as it arrived, I found the old one. Anyway, now we have two. I've done a few little projects in the last 6 months (I sure would hope so), and this is one.

It seems as though most kids these days have their names displayed in there room in one way or another, and this is one of the more generic. I bought some pre-cut letters from Michael's and glued scrap book paper to the fronts using colors that coordinate with her room, of course. This is the result. after I've finished all of my planned projects in the room I'll post some shots of the "finished" product. Even though I don't really think a room is ever finished and they just continue to evolve.

Onesies

I'm still alive! Well, barely. It's been an interesting last couple of months. We moved, and the baby came a month early. Needless to say, the house is a disaster and everything I've been working on has been left unfinished. Someday I'll get back around to it though...eventually.
So, with babies come baby showers, which usually mean games that no one (at least not many of us) wants to play. For the shower my sister-in-law Laura threw me, I found a great alternative. Jordan, from the blog Oh Happy Day which I read just about daily, posted this great idea on the Cookie Magazine blog. Read all about it here. Basically we bought Onsies in different sizes, some really cute fabric quarters, and some iron-on fabric adhesive. The outcome was great, and my little Amelia has about 20 onesies with cute animals on them! Gotta love it.

Custom Keds

I know, I've promised to show you something I've been working on for a while now, and hoped to have done a couple weeks ago. But, of course, that's not done yet. I HAVE found something super cool today, though. Did you know you can customize Keds shoes? I don't mean just pic the color of the panels and the trim. You can upload images to be printed on the fabric. It's quite cool. I have friends who like to have little get togethers where they decorate Keds. But this....just imagine the possibilities. I really like something along the lines of the red ones in the picture. Someday, I'll get around to designing myself some shoes...

(Image from HabitForming on Flickr)

28 Weeks

It's true. I'm 28 weeks as of today. That's like 6 months and something. Wow. Time flies! So, this isn't the most flattering pic...it's hard to get one of those taking pics of yourself with a camera on a tri-pod in a semi-dark room against a dirty wall wearing a color that just makes you look bigger. Oh, and the shaddow. Didn't want to bother making myself a decent light source....but it really accentuates the belly, no? But hey. When you're pregnant, you get to look big, and you have a reason. And don't ask what I'm looking at. No idea. I probably just didn't get my head turned all the way before the timer ran out. So, because of requests, here's a pic for those of you who are too far away to see the belly.

Early Bird

This week I've been working on something that I'll hopefully have done next week so that I can share with you. So, since it's been a while and I still haven't caught up on some other things I've done, I wanted to share this.

Back durring my letterpress class, we had an assignment where we had to pick a zinc cut image from the collection and create a project from that image. So, this is what I came up with. The early bird gets WHAT?! I used wood type in different fonts for the title, and then hand set my thoughts on the matter in wood type:

A worm? Who wants a worm? I certainly don't. Okay. I know the old saying tries
to motivate us all to get up early because the early bird gets the first pick of
food for the day. But my eggs and orange juice will still be in the fridge, no
matter when I wake up. I don't think I'll wake up early if it just means that I
get a worm. But thatnks for the advice.

And there you have it.

Happy Chair

Today's project: bring new life to an old chair. Last year when I started getting pieces together for my space/studio/office here in the basement, I found a stool at the D.I. that I brought home, sanded, and made mobile with casters. As much as I love my stool, and even though the super-soft cushion is the perfect color of green vinyl to go with my space, I'm going to have to retire it. (By retire, I mean I'll probably just pull out the casters that make it the perfect height and use it as a spare chair...because I just can't part with it.) Mike has told me since the beginning that my stool is unsafe and that I'm going to fall off it and hurt myself, and although I personally haven't fallen off it, I've witnessed just about every other person who has sat on it either tip and almost fall, or completely fall off the stool. I won't name names, but you know who you are! Here's the stool:

As much as I love it, I love my new chair even more. I was browsing Craig's List the other day and spotted the chair I've been looking for: an old school adjustable counter- or bar-height chair with a footrest and back. Kinda looks like a lab chair or something. Here's the before:

Sorry for the tiny pic. I always forget to take the before pic before I start working. So you have the Craig's List pic followed by a pic after I disassembled the chair. It was an icky brown colored vinyl for the cushion and the back, and the metal was a creamy tan/beige color. Not the best. Mike thought I made him stop to pick up a piece of junk, but took it back when he saw what a couple cans of spray paint, a yard of fabric, and a couple of hours can do. Let me just say that Rustoleum spray paint is super awesome. I LOVE this fabric! Matches my decor of white, green, stainless steel, and light wood to a tee, not to mention my retro-ish details I've added around the room. Green makes me happy!

Still alive....

Alright. It's been....more than a while. As most of you already know, Mike and I are expecting a baby girl in August! So, January, February, and half of my March were spent mostly either near the toilet or in bed. We'll just say I wasn't feeling to well. But, I'm happy to report that now that I'm halfway through the pregnancy, I'm feeling great again and my need to make and do things is in full swing. But, before I get into that, here are a couple pictures:

First, we have the profile showing us a cute little nose, and second, a hand. I like the hand because, as Duppy pointed out during the ultrasound, the baby is signing an L, and it almost looks like "I love you." She was quite excited to think the baby knows sign language. We didn't argue with her.

So, I've been working on lots of different projects, slowly, over the last little while, and hopefully over the next littler while I'll be able to post about them all. For a quick preview, I've been working on organizing and decorating my "space" in the basement, made a poster-ish thingy for Mike, created vinyl patterns for my Ikea Aspviks, deciding how I'm going to decorate Baby's and Duppy's rooms, and starting on making stuff for the rooms. There you have it. That's an update in a nutshell!

Ornament Swap Ornaments

I know, I know. It's been almost two weeks since Christmas, so no one really wants to see more Christmas ornaments, but I said I was going to post about them. So, here they are.

Triangle Pouch from swap-bot user "Calendula."

Mini mittens from "gidgeflibbit."

Felted snowman from "nysa."

Two headed dear from Jane Wynn.

Red felted ball from "etiecke."

Golden snowflake from "MonkeysInk."

Felt tree from "dianedundee."

Paper Bird from Paper Lady Invites.

Dear Crossing! From Zebula Designs.

There should be one more, but I never received the 10th. I don't think they got sent out. It was fun to participate, and I think I'll try and do it next year too. I think the mini mittens might just be my favorites.

Oh Wow.

So...it's been a month. And I'm very sorry about that. But I think I at least have good reason. And, to maybe make up for it, a lot of what's been keeping me busy (and by that I mean being up til 4 AM multiple days in a row) is fun stuff I can post about. I'll make a quick list and then post about each over the next few days.

• Ornaments for the ornament swap
• Deck of cards paper sample
• Letterpressed perpetual calendar
• Packaging assignment
• Filling orders (people buy stuff for Christmas...imagine that!)

I feel as though I'm missing something. Probably because now that I have that written down the list looks a bit short. However, I must say that those four things didn't have to be as hard as I made them, but now that they're done I'm glad I did because the end results are...well, you'll see.

Anyway, I'm glad it's all over so that now Christmas can start!

Ornament Swap

I'm so excited! I just found this today, and luckily today is the deadline, so I can participate! I get to make Christmas tree ornaments and send out 8-10 to people assigned to me, and then I receive 8-10 in the mail from different people. How exciting is that! I'll be sure to post pics of my ornaments and all that I receive.

Also, swap-bot, the site where this swap is hosted, hosts many other swaps that anyone is able to participate in for free. Check it out!

Happy Little Dishes

I was at the D.I. a few weeks ago (the main thrift store here in Utah), looking for something else, of course, but came across a great find at the bargain price of $2.00 total. These four little bowls make me so happy! I know, three pictures of four bowls is a little excessive, but I can't help myself. I LOVE them! I've decided to keep the goodies for my inspiration wall/note board in them.

• #1 contains white chalk (yes, it's invisible at the moment)
• #2 contains my happy little magnets
• #3 contains push pins
• and #4 contains graphite shavings from my drafting pencil (no, not for the wall)

They now live lined up along the wall in the middle of my desk. The perfect color and the perfect size. Quite useful and visually pleasing at the same time. They look great stacked inside each other too. Sigh. Why do I find such small and simple things so wonderful?

Letterpress Project 1

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am taking a letterpress class this semester. I love it. It's a lot of work, and very time consuming, but it's great none the less. So, today I want to share my first project. Being the first, there were quite a few guidelines/restrictions we had to follow. First, the paper size and type was determined for us. It was a very thin sheet, not leaving room for much impression, and the size had to be 4x5. We could only use black ink, and only text. The text had to be set by had and original. We were to choose an object that has some significance to us, and then write 50 words, describing it. See if you can figure out what my object was.

The text reads:

Six surfaces form the solid shape; faces the same size, 12 edges the same length. The colors call, asking to be grouped. I twist and I turn, hearing the familiar friction of plastic on plastic as each small square moves to become one with the other 8 of its color, creating solid faces. Once such a mystery, now so simple to solve.

Now, for those of you who don't know what it means to handset type, let me paint the picture. Each little letter is a piece of type. The type is stored in a case, which is basically a divided drawer.You guessed it. You have to line up the little pieces, add spacing between words, and leading between lines. Takes some time, but gives you some appreciation for what people used to do back in the day. When there's a letter that's worn down, you have to replace it. If you run out of e's, you have to run it on the press twice, once for the first half, and once for the second. The particular typeface I chose, Twentieth Century, has a lot of smashed type, so I spent a lot of time replacing the little letters with tweezers. And I mean little. The first part is 6 point, and the bottom two lines are 8 point. If you want to see how small that is, type something in 6 point, print it out, and imagine cutting out each individual letter and that letter sitting on a piece of lead that's .918" tall. Tiny.

Books.

I know, it's been a while. I was doing so well...for about a week. But here I am again. Lots has been going on with school and at home and such. So much to do! I'm working on quite a few different projects, some for school, some for family and friends, and then also on getting my studio/working area up and running. I'll post about all of those, but for now, I'd like to introduce you all to something that is completely awesome.

Amazon has wish lists you can make public. I love it! I think everyone should log into Amazon and create a public wish list of all the great books they want so that when someone is completely lost when it comes to getting you a gift for, say, Christmas or your birthday, they can all go there and get you something you really do want. Yay! All you have to do is search for the person's name, and voila, there's the list. If you have a common name, it helps to add a few details. There's another Leah with my last name in CT. I'm not alone.

Ok. So, just when you thought that's all there is to it and that's as good as it gets, don't worry, it gets better. You can "get a wish list button" which will somehow or another let you add things you want from other websites too, not just Amazon. I'm not sure how it works, but they explain it here. I haven't done that yet, but I think it would make life easier for people! Anyway, if you're interested to see what books I'm currently salivating over, view my wish list. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, just go to amazon.com and see if you can figure it out. Don't be scared. It's easy. I'll even give you a hint: click on "gifts and wish lists" at the top and then type my name in on the right. As easy as that. I think I'll go add more books now.