Day 334: Designing and Mailing Christmas Letters

Time: Couple hours
Listening to: Christmas Music

I love Christmas letters. We always sent them out growing up and we always received a bunch from friends, family, and even some people I didn't know. I loved opening them and reading them all. I was always so intrigued about what people decided to include, what they didn't include, and what crazy matching outfits they picked out for their picture. Anyways, even when I was single and in college, I was sending out my own Christmas letters. I like thinking back on the year and summarizing what is going on. I also love to make them interactive...like little puzzles. My previous favorites have been the crossword puzzle and the word search. This year we decided to do one that you have to fill in the blank and use the first letter to solve the puzzle at the end of the letter. It isn't too tricky this year, but I still like imagining people getting out their pens and filling in the little spaces.

Day 275: Redecorating

Time: Hour +
Listening to: iTunes mix

As I previously mentioned, I recently switched two rooms in my apartment. I moved our bed into the former tiny craft/storage room. So I've been hanging stuff, rearranging, making new stuff, etc. Here are some of my favorite efforts:

Day 273: Redecorating & Chandelier Hula Hoop

Time: 1 hr +
Listening to: Nothing

I got it in my head that I needed to move around two rooms in our apartment. We had one tiny room in the back of our house that I kept picturing as this little cozy spot for our bed. For some reason I've always loved sleeping in tiny spots...and this room just barely holds a queen size bed! So yesterday, I made it happen (with a little lifting power from my hubby)!

Today I spent some time making a hula hoop chandelier to put in our teeny tiny room. First I took my nice yellow hula hoop and wrapped it with some linen squares I had in my fabric stash. I used my handy glue gun to make it stick.

I then took my white lights and wrapped it around the hula hoop.

I tied it to some nails on our ceiling.

And there it is, just nicely lighting up our ceiling!

Day 262: Flower Arranging

Time: 1/2 hour?
Listening to: Patty Griffin

I spent some time with my flowers today...arranging and planting!

Arranged bouquet

Planted this cute little succulent!

Close up---isn't it adorable?

Day 250: Photoshop (Donut Love)

Time: 15 minutes
Listening to: Ellie Goulding on Spotify

My little nephew loves donuts so I made this little diagram today...

Just how we all feel, right?!

Days 242 & 243: Design & Photoshop (Business Cards)

My brother makes some sweet stuff but never has any business cards so I thought I'd furnish him with some! He is in the Grand Rapids, MI area so give him a call if you want any furniture, remodeling, or carpentry work done. Here is a link to his Etsy page if you want any beautiful cutting boards.

Here are my sketches:

And the final product:

Days 236-241: Decorating

Time: HOURS
Listening to: Ipod mix

We arrived in Oregon and have been busy unpacking and decorating. It is crazy how long it takes to feel settled in. Anyways, here are some pictures of my favorite decorating moments:

My cute new mantel!

I love my map wall!

I love my circles above the windows and my color coordinated bookshelf!

I really love my asparagus towel!!!!!

My cute little work space.

Day 210: Design of Moving Announcements

Time: 1 1/2 hours
Listening to: MasterChef/Project Runway

So I made a little moving announcement and sent it off to friends and family this evening!

Secret Project Reveal: Wedding Invitations!

So my wonderful Molly is getting MARRIED TODAY!! I am so excited for her and her fiance, Dan, to start their life together! This is them and us!

Anyways, I thought that this might be a good day to reveal the invitations that I made for their wedding! For privacy sake, I changed most of the info but you still get the idea!

Day 141: Flowers!

Time: 20 minutes?
Listening to: Regina Spektor (love her!)

We had some leftover flowers from graduation at the store so two of us picked out the good ones. I have some cute little bottles at home so I decided to make a couple little vases. Here is what I came up with:

My three little vases!

I love putting this little vase on my color coordinated bookshelf!

Day 119: Decorating and Hosting

Time: All day almost!
Listening to: ??

Here are some pictures of a couple things I made for the shower and b-party for my lovely friend, Molly!

My friend, Annica, made the blue ones and I made the green!

Lilacs from Annica's mom!

A little chalkboard canvas I made!

Day 69: Design/wedding invitations

Time: 20 minutes...?
Listening to: Nothing

I really super extremely didn't want to do anything productive today. I don't know what got into me but I felt absolutely adamant that I should not do anything creative.

Somehow I managed to work on some changes that my friend wanted on her wedding invitations and RSVP cards that I'm designing. Nothing earth shattering..but it was something at least!

Day 65 and 66: Embroidering and photoshop

Time: Hours
Listening to: Mad Men

So Saturday night (Sunday morning) my husband and I decided to stay up really late and watch a gazillion episodes of Mad Men. I was wide awake because I was embroidering and loving it. Here is my lovely flamingo. 

I've also been busy making my friend Molly's invitations and RSVP cards for her upcoming wedding. The flamingo may or may not be apart of them! More to come later!

Secret Project Revealed: Nephew's Mood Chart

On day 29, I hinted that I was working on a project inspired by a mood chart.  My mom has made several comments about how she loves all of her grandson's facial expressions. So my mind started turning and I couldn't resist making a mood chart out of my nephew's many expressions!

My adorable nephew and his many moods

Today I feel....

Looks pretty good on my fridge!

Day 31: Photoshop

Time: 1 1/2 hours
Listening to: Silence. Noisy neighbors.

During my freshman year of college, I had a project to design a cyborg soldier. I had to basically create a part man part machine soldier on Adobe Fireworks. All this to say, I became thoroughly obsessed with doing weird things with pictures. Last night I was looking through some old projects I had and found a picture of a walrus that I put my husband's (friend at the time) face into. It was weird...but funny to me still! So I decided to make him a new one to love and cherish. Here it is.

Weird, I know. But he loved it. See, we are perfect together.

So anyways, this evening I wanted to make a birthday card for a previous coworker of mine. We worked together at a printing shop and I still send jobs there often. So I wanted to email him a job that turns out to be a surprise birthday card. He has no idea that I remembered his birthday so I think he will love it! So in following with my found again love for making weird pictures, here are a couple jobs I sent him for his birthday.

Day 24: Secret Project

Time: 2 Hours
Listening to: Chatting with friends


Tonight I worked on a special present for a friend! I want it to be a surprise, though, so I can't say another word...until later!

So instead of a project, I wanted to share some pictures of my creative space!

I got this great old teacher's desk off of Craiglists earlier this year and love the storage and work space. I can fit my computer and sewing machine comfortably on it and also a few of my favorite things (like wine, chocolate, Nerds, etc...!).

On the side of my desk, I keep my favorite glass elephant, my Best Wife trophy, a card from a friend, and my cutest little Craft Angel that my mom gave me for Christmas!

 And here is a close up of my sewing machine cover that I made in December. Simple but gets the job done! Plus I think it is adorable!