mother's day mexico

My family recently went to Ensenada, Mexico for my mom's birthday and mother's day (which was the very next day!).
My family shares a little trailer beach house there, and it's the perfect place to relax.
We all ended up bringing a bunch of craft supplies and made a whole bunch of stuff. It was SO nice.

I made my mom's card the night we got there. I seriously brought everything I could think of, though I forgot my typewriter! I did bring watercolors though, which came in handy for experimenting, and made this doily look nice in different shades of blue.

I got this crazy idea for her card since it was her birthday and mother's day. I wanted it to be reversible! So one side folds into a birthday card..

And the other side folds into a mother's day card! I used my handy decorative tape to piece together 4 thin cardboard pieces, so they could easily fold and flex.


(before I wrote inside of it)..

Here's the cute little card Justine made for my mom. I love the little felt flowers!

I brought this really adorable Japanese Home magazine with me and ended up cutting out images to make some nice stationery for a letter to Hanie.

We just kept making stuff! My mom & I made this mother's day card for my aunt's mother's day present.
My mom thought it would be fun to make bookmarks, so I set up a little workshop for us.

My mom made these:
I made these 2 as gifts:
And I made this one for myself (front & back):

My aunt and my mom crafting! I hardly ever have crafting buddies, so this was so fun & relaxing!
Meanwhile, Justine was making all kinds of cute stuff out of felt:

I also brought some pictures with me from the last time we went to Mexico. I bought this really beautiful album at a little shop and filled it up to leave at the beach house.

I kept it pretty simple..

Mexico was so lovely. There's nothing more relaxing to me than sitting near the ocean and making stuff! The bookmark workshop worked out so well, that I think I might have to do it again with friends!

put it in a book

For my dad's birthday this year, he told me that we wanted lyrics to all of our songs.
This was great because
1. I never know what to get my dad, so I like when he gives me ideas.
2. I love making things, so it was almost like a gift to me.
3. That's just cute that that was all he asked for.

I knew that it needed to be really special, so I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to present each song. I came up with this little book:


(I've been using a lot of tissue paper lately, and discovered that by placing one or two layers over this crisp type-writing, it softens it up and gives it a sort of foggy, dreamy touch)





My dad loved it! It made me so happy.
And when our new album comes out, he will get book #2!
Hopefully it will be a series of books...

nostalgia baby

I've been into the idea of unconventional cards lately, and I like little surprises.

I also love the look of a sort of portfolio- things laid out all neatly with little envelope pockets, but in a scrapbook sort of way. So that was my concept for this card.

I started out with two nice pieces of thin cardboard then rummaged through all my old postcards, photos, and scraps of paper until I found some that I knew my friend, Mukta, would love.

Some decorative tape made a perfect binding, and I threw in some ribbon to tie it shut. (I always like making cards that you actually have to open, like a gift. I also realized that I've been putting the birthday message on the outside; usually "happy birthday" is the message you save for later. But by throwing that out there first, I feel like the rest of the card is meant to tell a story, and for good friends, I usually want to say more than "happy birthday" anyway)

...and for the inside:
Have you noticed how much I LOVE mixed media? Paper, photos, watercolor, thread, fabric, typewrite...
Click to enlarge if you please

I stitched an old envelope for a pocket with a little secret note. I love the texture and feeling of thread and paper together- I'm not sure what it is.


I found a couple of great underexposed photos from a long-passed birthday party at an estate sale. Perfect for a super nostalgic birthday card! Nostalgia is one of my big-time inspirations. When it comes from articles from the past,
it's precious
it's heartbreaking
it's spooky
it's romantic
it's dreamy
and it can make you miss something
that you never even had.

Thankies

After my 21st birthday, I needed to throw together some little thank-you cards to send out.

One of my gifts came with really adorable polka-dot tissue paper, so that was my inspiration for these. I wanted to do a sort of pendant type-thing as well, so I used ribbon for that, and these little roses that I saved from a set of broken earrings at work.

With the little cards, I needed little envelopes, so I made them out of a cute hello kitty paper bag that I saved from a purchase at a toy store.

I used to always see this decorative tape and wonder what you're supposed to do with it. I recently came across this adorable Japanese scrapbooking/collage book and they had so many cute projects with it! (I wish I could share the title with you, but it's not in English!) Justine got me these for my birthday and I've been using them on everything! It was perfect for closing up the side of the envelopes in a cute, and easy way.


For my birthday I also received these cute little Japanese stickers, which I used to seal the envelopes with. I decided that I should always be stocked up on stickers this cute!

birthday honey

I love an excuse to make something cute for someone cute who also loves cute things!

Homemade Stationery

I have a couple long-distance friends that I write letters to, so I'm always in need of stationery, but whenever I buy a set, it never comes with enough paper! I write long letters and always end up using lined paper.

I've been wanting to make my own stationery for a while, but I haven't had the chance to sit down and do it, until I got sick again and had to stay home.

So I finally got the chance! I wasn't sure what to do at first, but I started going through all my stuff and found these old books that I had gotten at estate sales and yard sales.

This graph paper and sketch book have perfectly-browned paper, so I started experimenting with that as my border. Then I found this old math workbook, with the cutest pictures, so I sort of tried to make a theme for each page.


I just glued them on regular printer paper, cut in half.
Then I scanned them, arranged them in a word documents (2 to a sheet), printed them out,
and cut them in half.

Endless stationery!

Here are the pages I scanned so you can print some out for yourself if you want! Click twice to enlarge and save.
I would make the image bleed a little, so it goes all the way to the edge of the paper. (I had to select a "borderless" option for my page layout in microsoft word in order to do this, and it took a couple tries to arrange them, so they wouldn't get cut off).




I'm so excited about these! I have some more ideas for envelope templates and more stationery themes, and hopefully I can find an easy way for people to download them and print them out.


I can't wait to go write some letters! I know Tubby can't either.

(BTW- I've been having trouble changing my background color, or anything really. Is anyone else having trouble with the advanced template designer? Or does anyone know of another way to change things on here?)

so pretty it hurts.

For some reason I've felt pretty uninspired lately with clothes and with my own wardrobe. It sounds funny, but with working at a buy/sell/trade clothing store, my perceived value of clothes has gone down. I buy them cheap, get sick of them, sell them back, and I like to spend $2 on clothes from the thrift store.

I feel like I need to make a change in my wardrobe, but I don't even know what I want anymore. I always go for crazy, eye-catching patterns, bows, or overly cute dresses, but those take time to put together and get old pretty fast.
I need to find some simple, well-fitting, and classic pieces, but I'm not sure that I'm motivated enough to go out and hunt for them.

While I may be in a rut, there are certain things that I do like, and I know it when I see them. I came across Juliette Hogan's winter '10 collection by accident and fell in love.

She creates the perfect mix of cute and feminine, while keeping it classic and sophisticated. Can I has them pleaz?