handmade cass

My husband took over all my mom duties tonight and I did some crafting with a Gilmore Girls marathon. Bliss! This lovely Smith-Corona typewriter hasn't seen the light of day in over 4 years. I used it to write a sentiment on a Mother's Day card. I also took inspiration from a card I received recently to try out some freehand gems using a gold paint pen on watercolors. And I used a few Stampin' Up supplies (sentiment stamp and embossing folder) to embellish another Mother's Day card.

I just got my first Pipsticks envelope in the mail and I was swooning over the packaging right away. Everyone knows about my affinity for clear envelops since I professed my love last December. Pipsticks came to my attention last December when an ad popped up in my Facebook feed. I clicked through and kept going back every few days...I couldn't get the idea of a sticker subscription out of my head. In grade school I had a sticker book and collected all the best glitter, fuzzy, puffy stickers the early 90s had to offer. I don't have that sticker book any more. But because I have been crafting for my entire adult life I clearly don't need any more stickers. See for yourself. This stack of 12" x 12" bins is half stickers...mostly ABC stickers from scrapbooking. Eeek! I can't believe I showed that to everyone. Despite all those stickers sitting in a bin, I decided to try this out for just a month. I want to show you what I got in the January Pro Club Class...

I had this crazy idea to build a king size bed frame. We moved in 2014, but saved our own room as the last one to paint, decorate, and furnish. After sleeping in a deep, dark red room for two years my mom offered to paint it for us. That really got the ball rolling because I was in love with the room again once that dark red hue was gone and I was surrounded in serene Benjamin Moore "Misted Green" paint. But once it came down to actually buying new furniture my budget got the best of me. I have expensive taste and limited secondhand furniture options because we live in a small town. I picked out this set of instructions for a DIY West Elm Alexa reclaimed wood bed frame . My mom also agreed to help me out with the construction and teach me how to use some new to me power tools. It took me three weekends, and cost just about $260 for all the supplies needed - I had the wood stain and power tools, but needed to buy everything else including a Kreg jig. There were a f...

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a new year filled with lots of crafts. We took a little drive to our local sledding spot and were greeted by giant snowflakes all around. Fingers crossed for a white Christmas at our house.

Has anyone else been coloring? I have been using Copic markers for a few years and just succumbed to buying the ZIG Clean Color Real Brush markers. When I was checking out on Amazon this coloring book was suggested so I added it. I'm having fun coloring when I can't muster up enough crafty mojo for a full project.

I used to be semi-obsessed with this amazing DIY blog called Young House Love. And they wrote about house portraits a number of times: here , and here , and here .  I kept this idea in the back of my head for a few years.   So when my family finally moved into our very own home I had to make it happen. Then I saw a write up in our paper about a local (who also happened to be our neighbor when we first moved to town) that painted buildings around town .  I sent an email and the next thing I knew, this was happening... I will be taking my custom portrait to get matted and framed so I can proudly display it in the home where we are creating memories every day. You can  check out Terry Brooks' artwork here . 

I recently decided to expand my DMC floss collection because I have been doing more stitching on my paper crafting projects . And my mom happened to have an extra floss organizer...so I spent the last couple nights winding up floss while watching TV. Only problem is that I can now see which colors I am missing (navy blue, red, purple, and coral just to name a few). Not that I need them right now - but I can see that I am missing them! I also love doing art projects with my daughter, and she was kind enough to let me use her Do A Dot markers on a doily while she was creating her masterpiece (on the green sheet underneath). The end result on the scrap paper under the doily is what I really loved. It gave me some ideas for future painting, misting, distress, etc. I'm still loving doilies, long after Valentine's Day.

I think I have talked about my family's tradition for Saturday crafting in the past...and last weekend was no exception.  My aunt and cousin organized an afternoon of bracelet making and my mom was kind enough to distract my sweet baby while I made one too.  So happy with the way it turned out and grateful to my cousin for helping me get it finished quickly. The supplies for these bracelets are so simple: leather cord (about 4 feet for a double wrap), beads (I used cherry quartz), a button, sturdy thread and a needle.  There are some really great instructions with step-by-step pictures here . And if you want to see all the bracelets that my family made you can check them out here on Pinterest .

My husband is really hard on clothes.  It still shocks me how often he has a wardrobe turnover, because I am still wearing clothes from my college years.  There have probably been about 5 occasions when he has walked through our front door with his pants split open or a sleeve of his shirt ripped up.  Like the time when he decided to take a bicycle for a test ride when he was wearing his expensive (tight fitting) work pants....they split right up the butt seam.  I still laugh about that when I remember it. But anyway, I have had a pile of his clothes sitting on my sewing table to be fixed and I made some time yesterday to tackle the mending.  Most were shorts with little holes and I could use an iron on patch on the inside.  But this pair had a bigger hole, right by a bulky seam and I couldn't get my machine to maneuver in the right spot.  So I added a little heart patch on the outside. When I showed it to him he said, "hey, you do love me". ...

This is what addiction looks like... I started to clean up some of the mess in my crafting area tonight and look what happened.  I discovered that I have 41 rolls of washi tape and some other decorative tapes.  So many rolls that they needed their own cubby in my storage cabinet.   Time to really buckle down with my resolution this year - to only buy the supplies that I am going to immediately use.  I had a little backslide this month, with Hambly going out of business .  I had to place my very last order and build my Hambly paper stash to keep me going to a couple more decades.

Look what I found while out and about in the neighborhood! I always loved reading about  yarn bombing online and so happy to see one in person, here in San Diego.  There were actually a number of stop signs that had been converted into flowers around our house.

A while back I decided I wanted to make a list of 30 things to do while I'm 30.  It was pretty easy to come up with the list, but getting them done in one year is going to be the challenge.  I printed my list on vellum and added it to my Book of Lists (Smash Book). I also celebrated my birthday with a huge stack of homemade waffles and my favorite little helper.

I love it when my husband creates homemade cards for me.  They usually involve a piece of printer paper, a ballpoint pen, and a sharpie.  But this year he went all out.  Luckily I had taken out a bunch of my Valentine's Day supplies for a mini book, and he used what was out on my desk.  This is his masterpiece. My first reaction was - wow!  I was very impressed with his punching.  Then I couldn't hold back and said, "you used my expensive markers!".  He tried to deny it, but there is always bleed-through proof with Copic markers. Love him anyway.  It's best that he doesn't know how much I spend on crafting supplies.

It was a very happy Christmas for our family.  We were lucky enough to get to spend time with both families - my daughter was spoiled by her grandparents in Hawaii and then again by my entire family here. And it was a very crafty Christmas for me!  There were a few themes this year... Matryoshka Christmas On the left is the awesome packaging that my mom found at World Market.  She even saved the extra tissue and wrapping paper for me!  And on the right are the tapes that I had seen on etsy as well as this amazing matryoshka nativity fabric.  I am hoping to make a tree skirt with that. Handmade Christmas My hipster brother just recently moved to Portland and I think he loves all the handmade shops there.  He spoiled me with these rolled rose felt hairclips  and a felted wool ring - not to mention the earrings with vintage beads. And my youngest brother who has dappled in the culinary arts decided to give me a homemade dessert every month! ...

Handmade Christmas cards or photo cards... I have been going back and forth for weeks.  And now here it is a month before I want to get my cards out and I still haven't started anything handmade yet.  Here is the issue - I know that I am going to include a photo with the card anyway, and I have a credit at Shutterfly to print enough photo cards for everyone on our list (about 35).  So do I take the easy way out and do them all there?  Or do I divide the list and make some cards?  If so, then who would get the handmade ones - people I like or don't like?  Just kidding.  I like everyone on our list.  But seriously.  Don't know what to do. 11/19/2011 Update I ended up ordering 15 cards on Shutterfly and I'm hoping they get here soon so I can see if I like them.  If so then I'll just order the rest and be done with it.  But I should probably get started on a few cards just in case.  I already have the photo file ready to pri...

Watch out, they bite!  The new Martha Stewart Paper Tapes are dangerous.  Turns out I really should have looked at the packaging better before I started to open it.  They come in a pretty little box with an awesome feature - a cutting blade.  But in my haste to rip it open I sliced open my finger and couldn't figure out why.  Now I know why boxes like this have silly warnings that say "blade is sharp".  For people like me, apparently.   I am in love with these tapes!  They were really inexpensive for the quantity and they will be perfect on my glassine envelopes for Christmas cards. Pretty sure I should stop buying these paper washi tapes now.  Or at least get a few rolls used up...

Ever since I went to Alaska last year, I have been a little obsessed with matryoshka dolls .  I got these two sets while we were there (both made in Russia).   The bigger set in the back was from a fancy Russian store in Alaska, and I picked it because the dolls all have red hair like me.  Then afterwards the cruise we were on had some pretty inexpensive sets, so I got the set with strawberries and an itty-bitty baby doll. Frank!  Who knocked over the itty-bitty one? You can see just how tiny it is here.  The head is smaller than a pencil eraser. And I get a little thrill every time I see matryoshka designs online.  Apparently they are becoming quite popular in the crafty world.  Look what I found... I love EVERYTHING about this post from Polka Dot Prints Studio .  And I want to throw a party just so I can use these invitations and somehow find a way to get these cookies here all the way from Australia. Image credit: Naomi V Photograph...

I love a good stamp.  And I'm not talking about the rubber stamp variety.  I mean a trip to the post office to pick out the latest and greatest, so you can send off cards to the ones you love.  I am already planning my Christmas cards and couldn't help but take a peek at what stamps are available right now.  I expect that at least a few more sets will be released, but these are my current favorites. And to make the outside of my cards even more special, I got some glassine envelopes and I am going to attempt to make some pretty address labels.  Inspired by this craft from Martha :

I think that I read somewhere a while back that someone used a Copic marker to touch up something that had a paint chip or similar type of fix-up.  So after staring at a chip on our stained pine cabinet for a few weeks I decided to try out a Copic repair.  It looks so much better!  The pictures don't quite do it justice because you really don't even see the light wood underneath anymore. before after

Last night my husband and I were watching a movie when I asked him to look up typewriters on craigslist. I figured that I could probably get one in okay working condition for about $40.  It was a mistake to ask him to do the search... Thinking that our local options were simply not good enough (and there weren't that many many manual typrewriters listed) he did a bigger search and stumbled upon this {$600} beauty .  Now I'm pretty convinced that I need to have a pink typewriter.  If only I had been looking two years ago this Royal pink one could have been all mine.  Better start saving up my pennies. And by the way - we talked about typewriters for almost two hours before he actually asked why I needed one. :)