Some New Note Cards

Last Christmas I made a lot of stamped note card sets for gifts, but since then, I kind of lost interest (At least I didn't buy that many stamps...) and have been designing the cards in InDesign or Photoshop Elements to print out. Here are some I made this week. I want to pinch their cheeks I think they're so cute.

I'm also trying to decide what I want to do for Christmas cards. Do I want to do postcards like I did for our housewarming party? The pros are that I still have a bunch of postcard stamps (Someone promised to get all their coworkers' and friends' new addresses but never did. I won't name any names. ; ) ) and additional postcard stamps are less expensive than regular ones. However, if I have the postcards printed professionally, that will cost a bit of money, they'll be digitally printed (to keep the price down and since it's a small quantity) which always results in shoddy cropping, and I'll have a ton of extras since we have about 60 people we mail these to and the quantity choices are normally 50 and 100. If I printed my own postcards, they'd likely get wet in the mail since they wouldn't be shiny and waterproof. Any other solutions out there? I think I'll be printing at home and mailing in envelopes.

Pretty Papers

Over the weekend I used some adorably patterns from lovelydesign to be easily crafty. Like play in Photoshop Elements, print, cut -- that easy-peasy. (Okay, anything with Photoshop isn't that easy but still.)

First, I made a little something for Lee for Valentine's Day. For V-day and anniversaries we tend to spend our money on the date and just exchange cards, but I wanted to get him a little something. I couldn't find any Valentine's Snickers, so I made Lee a Valentine-themed Snickers with lovelydesign's February pattern.


And I used her November pattern for a note card.

Week in Review: 1/21

Today's the last day you can vote for Lexington Children's Theatre to win $1 million!

Adorable Valentine's Day cards from Made.

Another cute card from How About Orange.

I don't know why I bother bookmarking specific Smitten Kitchen recipes because I bookmark every. single. one. Like these ricotta muffins.

Kerri, Erin, Ashley and a bunch of other bloggers were part of the beautiful video below for Brandy and her Hot Awesome Dude, who I mentioned a couple weeks ago. There's a Love Harder fund started for fellow bloggers (or anyone really) to contribute to research for the type of cancer HAD has.

Back to "Normal"

Now that the holidays are over, I have no idea what to say here. For so long it was all holidays, and crafting, and holidays, now I can't remember what I wrote about before there were holidays, back when things were "normal".

There is food in the fridge again since we'll be in town all week. I have to actually work five whole days this week. We are starting the house hunt again tonight after a December hiatus. My TV shows have new episodes again. The tree is coming down tomorrow night.

Even though I have no Christmas gifts to make I still have more than enough to fill my waking hours: proofreading cousin's dissertation, returning to the baby blanket project, volunteer writing for a local non-profit, crazy attempt to finish The Two Towers by the end of the week (only 237 pages to go!).

I was a little crafty this weekend. Instead of stamping I took the tech route and designed a birthday card in Photoshop Elements. One of my favorite bloggers does this and it turns out better than my stamping and is less time consuming and less messy. I might have to do this more often.

I'm pretty proud of how the whole gift presentation turned out.

There are cute Etsy hair goodies (this in brown and fuschia and this) inside.

Note Cards for Everyone!

A lot of this gifts I made this Christmas were note card sets.

These went with the gifts I mailed.


Perhaps this will encourage my friends to write me real letters? I do love real letters. I should send more myself.

The cards were a nice break from sewing. You'll have to wait until next week to see how the totes turned out.

I made my sister some with Texts from Last Night on them. We love that site!

I tend to keep them pretty simple.

Not only is it easier, but I tend to have a clean, simple aesthetic.

I also stamped some simple gift tags and sewed some bags to wrap the cards in.

A Year of Happy

Perhaps the Christmas project I'm most proud of is the one that was the easiest (sort of). For Caitlin, I made A Year of Happy: a jar filled with 365 hand-written quotes (or it will be when I mail her the rest). The quotes are mostly from Caitlin's favorite movies, TV shoes, books and people, along with some happy memories. (Although I might have included a happy memory that was with someone else. Oops!)



Despite the simplicity of writing things on coordinated paper and cutting them out, it took a very long time! I only sent Caitlin the first 195 and hopefully in January (February, March...) I can get the rest done. Surprisingly though, I haven't run out of quote inspirations yet. We'll see how I'm doing once I get to 320.





Mod Podge, more paper and stamps helped to decorate the top of the jar.

Week in Review 11/20

Love these classy bulletin boards from The Shabby Nest.

When Lee and I were registering for wedding gifts, we did not register for a wall clock. We attempted to, multiple times, but clocks are one of those funny things that Lee suddenly has an opinion on. Despite his general lack of interest in things not related to me, computers, and UofL sports, he will have surprising opinions, out of nowhere, about clocks. Lee prefers clocks with roman numerals, abstract markers, or nothing but the hands. I like clocks with twelve numbers because otherwise I can't read time. (Well, I can, but it's harder than necessary.) Long story to say, I found this clock (found via Apartment Therapy). Will Lee like it? It doesn't have numbers!

I think these hole-punch cards are awesome and could be a lot harder that it looks of fun to do yourself.

The big excitement for me this week has been the announcement of a Young House Love baby. For reals, I did a happy chair dance and interrupted a deep chat with Jenn about religion and politics with this:
me: YOU MUST GO TO YOUNG HOUSE LOVE RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW!
Jennifer: [Jenn did not immediately following my directions and continued the politics/religion conversation.]
me: GO RIGHT NOW!

Have a wonderful weekend! :)

Just a Little Crafty

I went to one of my good friend's baby shower last weekend and made her a card (containing pictures of the still in progress baby blanket!).


I think it turned out a little ghetto but mom assured me that it was adorable. And that she knew right away that it was a banner.

Thanks mom! :)

Crafty Progress

The knitting is starting to come together I think! The baby blanket is starting to look more like a blanket than scarf...maybe?


I also made some more progress on another secret project. I think it's a secret. I can't remember what I've said about it before. Hmm...I should finish it this week and it will cease being a secret soon.



My goal is that if I work really hard and finish secret project and make lots of progress on the baby blanket this week, then I should have tons of time in November for Christmas gift making. The hopefully-not-too-lofty goal is to finish gift crafting in November and dedicate December to holiday baking and other general merry-making.

(Caitlin, no this secret thing is not your mysterious birthday present, which I hope to finish in early November.)

Presents

My mom's birthday is Monday and since the family (Even Grandpa!) is coming to visit on Sunday she will receive her handmade gift them. Since mom is this blog's #1 fan, I can't reveal the handmade surprises in store for her yet, but I will go ahead and share the cute handmade box I crafted from this tutorial.



Happy weekend! :)