Love is Eternal

 Grandma

 Christmas

More wrapping

I had to post some pictures of Justine's gifts, because she wrapped them so cute! She made the little red pompoms out of yarn.

(If you order things online, they sometimes come with brown paper to stuff the box with; it's kinda fun to recycle that paper and use it to wrap the actual gift in! Justine & I used a lot of that paper.)

Look at this cute tag she made with twigs!

She also spelled out names in yarn. I love it!

On another note-
I guess this is the time of year where everyone reflects. I was just going back, looking at old entries, and I can see how much I've changed over the life span of this blog.
I'm glad I've documented lots of things I've made, since most of them are gifts for people. It was also kinda fun listening to old demos I'd posted of songs that are now developed, recorded, and finally about to be released in January!

It feels good to sort of remind myself what I'm capable of. When you think about it, it's a great thing that we are granted the imagination to see things in our head and materialize them. It's amazing! We can start with nothing and make something. I hate to hear people say that they're not creative. Everyone is capable of creating, and everyone does it in their own way. Take a minute to think about things that you made happen this year (big or small) and be proud of yourself! Also, be excited for all things you can make happen next year. Dream big. All you need is an idea in your head and belief in yourself.

DIY wrapping paper

I've never been too good at fancy wrapping around the holidays, but this year I felt like putting in a little effort. I made my own wrapping paper using stamps, acrylic paint, and a roll of paper.

I topped them off with colorful embroidery thread and cardboard tags.

The extra paper worked out well for other gift tags too.

This was fun, but I'd only recommend it for small boxes, as it takes a lot of time! It would've been easier if I had bigger stamps, so I think I'll make my own stamps next year!

Lovely Rainy Days

U R L !

Note: I changed my URL! I'm now lovegoldenbrown.blogspot.com!

Happy Birthday Baby

A birthday card for my man. I cut out this anchor design from an Urban Outfitters shoe box that came in at work & thought it would be cool to use, since Cameron is into nautical stuff too.

I made a sort of trap door out of the cardboard scrap, with string and a button for closing.
I typed out a little note- "25 reasons I love you" - & tucked it under.

The rest I made using thick cardboard, decorative tape, and rubber stamps. This was a fun one to make!

goodbyes

I haven't posted in forever! I've spent the whole summer recording an album, which is almost finished. I'm also doing all the artwork for the album, which has turned out to be my first big photoshop project but is also very hands-on, so that's been fun.

Recently, two of my coworkers quit to move on to new things. Nina had been working with us for 2 years I believe, and was one of our most consistently cheerful and hardworking employees; and Mukta, who worked for us for maybe a year, was also one of the most contagiously cheerful people I've ever met and made a huge impact on all of us. We were all pretty bummed they were leaving, so I wanted to do something special.

I wanted to create a really personal, interactive card, and I came up with an idea to make a sort of scrapbook/portfolio-like layout using envelopes (In fact I made something similar for Mukta's birthday card). I decided that I'd make a small envelope or pouch for each of my coworkers, then have them all write personal notes to slip inside.

Before I started anything, I dug through my paper collection, and made a "Nina" pile and a "Mukta" pile, picking out patterns and colors that seemed to suit each of the girls' personal tastes.

The cards needed to be pretty large to fit all the envelopes (plus huge cards are fun), so I cut up some cereal boxes for the covers and painted the outside with acrylics.

The girls seemed to love the cards, and it was fun to watch them read through the notes tucked inside. I consider both of them to be good friends, so it was nice to be able to give something more personal than a store-bought card sprawled with signatures.

I know I'll still be seeing Nina and Mukta around, but I'm still going to miss them!