September Obsessions.

I figured while I am trying to look busy at work, I'd fill you guys in on my latest obsessions.

{Image taken from the header of Elements of Style}

Elements of Style Blog. This blog has so much eye candy, I can't stand it. I basically want to live in this blog. If that were possible. When it is possible, I'll let you know. I'm sure I could use the company, but mostly I'd be that kid that shows off all their toys and won't let you touch anything.

{Image via Green Your Decor}

Cloud9 Fabrics. As much as I'd like to think I am livin' La Vida Verde, from the sewing perspective, it's kind of hard to make the full switch to eco-friendly fabrics. They just aren't that cute and there aren't that many options. Cloud9 Fabrics is changing all that. And me likey. Seeing this fabric is making want to consider making a quilt, but really it's just so I can buy it all and keep them all in my "collection."

{Image via Martha Stewart}

Vacation Memory Jars. Why didn't I think of this?? I always have the best of intentions when I travel to make a scrapbook, but I never follow thru. Then I think, 'Oh, I'll just make a shadow box' and then that falls thru. Everything I save basically stays in a photo box on a shelf in my closet and all the pics remain as little thumbnails on my hard drive. This idea is basically the answer to all of life's vacation memory questions - because I know you have them. My love of jars + my pack rat-tiness + my travels = a perfect solution for displaying all of my memorabilia. Love it. I'm planning a trip to IKEA to look for some cute jars STAT.

The Blessing Basket Project. I went to a blessingway ceremony recently for a friend and one of the hosts presented the mother-to-be with a basket from The Blessing Basket Project. I love baskets to begin with, but their baskets are really extraordinary. They are all made by artisans in Uganda, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Ghana. All of their images are protected, so check out their products here. And read more about the project in a more eloquent manner here.

That's all for this month! Like I said, August flew by way to quickly for me. I've got a lot to catch up on in my craft room, at home, and on TV. Yes, I have a rough life. ;)

Are you there, Fall? It's me, Pintobean.

Sorry for the hiatus. August flew by way too quickly for me. I'm not sure I totally believe it's September already, but I'll take it. The weather has been playing tricks on me and it actually feels like it's cooling down. But, I won't hold my breath.

I hope everyone had a good Labor Day Weekend. Mr. Bean and I took Freddie Girl up to visit her new cousin, Colt, in Iowa for the weekend. 18 hour drive there. 20 hour drive back. But, seeing this face as we were leaving.

{Love how it looks like she's actually smiling}

And this face when we got home......

{Love that she let us put a jersey on her. That's how tired she was.}

Makes it all worth it. Even the part where we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere.

However, I am completely exhausted. I have a couple of things I need to finish up before I can post anything interesting. I don't think I've stepped into my craft room once since the last card I made, so I need to get busy! I'll post a few pics from my trip, in the meantime, but I'll need a couple more days to recuperate.

Two Birds. One Card.

Recently, a good friend of mine, Christina, asked me to take part in an event her organization is hosting. She and her husband, Nehme, own Chadra Mezza & Grill in Fort Worth, Texas. If you are ever in the area, you must stop by. Just tell Nehme "Drunk Girl" sent you. Long story.

As if owning a restaurant wasn't enough, Christina is also the president of the Fort Worth Chapter of the Hispanic Women's Network of Texas. Every year they host the HWNT Latina Art Show as a fundraiser that goes toward college scholarships for Latina students. This year, Christina asked me to make some birthday cards for the event. I, of course, accepted but was hesitant because what on earth would I make??

That brings to me Mr. Bean's cousin. She and her two sisters are the only girl cousins Mr. Bean has on that side of his family. She just finished her undergrad and is on her way to get her masters with the PPA program at her university. She's sweet, stylish, beautiful and extremely talented (there is one painting she did that I am tempted to carry out with me every time I go to her house) and she loves crafts. My sister and I always lived far away from our girl cousins until we were much older. But, I don't actually have too many girl cousins to begin with, so the fact that Mr. Bean's only girl cousins have welcomed me with open arms means more to me than they'll ever realize. So, I wanted to make something special for her.

I have a bookmark of Stonehenge that I brought back from our India/London trip in January. I have it at work on my cork board, so everyday I see it and wish I could be anywhere else than at work. While daydreaming, I've been sort of inspired by the shapes of Stonehenge and how, even though each piece is unique, they all fit together to form a cohesive pattern.

This isn't the bookmark. It is a pic I took while we were there, but you get the idea. I used this as inspiration for Mr. Bean's cousin's graduation card.

I basically randomly cut out the shapes I wanted and put them back together so the wood grain pattern was pieced back together.

Here's a close up. I added the butterfly for some more dimension and color.


The "congratulations" is written on the inside of the card, so I cut out the dark brown metallic cardstock and the front side of the kraft cardstock so it would peer out. I love looking at demolition drawings at work with all the dashed lines, so I added a faux stitch so it looked like that one piece of patterned paper had been demo'd.

This shows the layers. I used foam pop up dots for each layer. The kraft cardstock is Bazzill. The brown metallic cardstock is similar to one sold at Paper Source. The patterned paper is Hambly.

I ended up liking the results so much that I am also going to make it again and use it as one of the birthday cards I am submitting for the Latina Art Show. I have one more card to make for the art show, which I am still trying to work out in my head, but I will post that as soon as I get it done. Until then!

Crafternoon

Even though I didn't do any of the real work on this next project, I did offer tons of moral support so I figured I had rights to post about it. That, and it kind of fulfilled one of my life long dreams. Silk screening.

My book club is having it's 5 year anniversary next weekend. All the members of the book club are buying shirts with the quote, "The first rule of Book Club is: you do not talk about Book Club." It's a play on the number one rule in Fight Club. We are going to all wear the shirts to our August meeting, go see Eat, Pray, Love, and then go out for dinner and drinks to celebrate. We will be having a book exchange where everyone has to bring a new book with the number 5, or the word "fifth" in the title or somewhere on the book. Should be good times.

My crafty friends and I wanted to do something special for everyone and, well, it was a good excuse to have what my friend calls a craft-ernoon. So we decided to make some totes for the group. I did a little research and had suggested trying out a stencil using freezer paper, but my friend scoffed at me and busted out all her silk screening supplies. I still haven't seen her craft room, but I imagine it looking like an art supply store with aisles and aisles of crafty goodness.

Anyway, she basically did all the leg work, so I can't get too detailed here. Inspired by the t-shirts, she created a logo for us and put the image on the screen. I am not sure about the process, but I am pretty sure it involves some magic. We all got together and help silk screen the image on the totes. Here's some (iPhone) pics of the day's events.

We tried playing around with the color by adding some white in it. We only had acrylic paint on hand, but figured it wouldn't harm it too much since it was just totes and not anything anyone was going to wear. But the pigment in this silk screen paint must be ridiculously potent because after adding nearly two bottles of white acrylic paint, our red paint came out, well, red. So, this is the color we ended up with. Red.

This is the practice run on one of Mr. Bean's old t-shirts to make sure we were going to achieve perfection.

Here my friend is applying the paint on a tote. So exciting. You'll notice our little template we rigged up in the bottom left hand corner of the picture. We did this we could keep the image centered on the tote. It was just scraps of cardstock taped together at the corner to ensure that we got it right every time. And we did. Plus or minus a one or two. Or three. Definitely no more than four.

The final product!!! Perfection!!

Don't they look pretty?!?!! I get giddy just looking at them. TOTALLY doing this again. With my friend's help, of course.

August Obsessions.

August is probably my least favorite month of the year. While most cities are getting their last few weeks of summer before they head into fall, we are still in record heat and humidity with at least 3 months of it ahead of us. People that say they prefer the heat over the cold have never walked from their front door to their car and sweat thru their blouse. Trust me, it's not as cute as being all bundled up in a jacket and scarf.

Anyway, I have a few things to share so that you can obsess with me.

{photo via IKEA}

{photo via Jayson Home & Garden}

African inspired textiles. Apartment Therapy pretty much read my mind when they posted this trend watch on Kuba-style textiles. While it's nothing new, African inspired textiles seem to be popping everywhere right now and I can't get enough. I love the graphic simplicity of the designs. Totally on my wish list for my home.

{photo via Paper Source}

Hero Arts Doily Stamp. I've been eyeing this for quite some time now and it was well worth the wait. Paper Source finally wisened up and built a store here, so my friends and I went to pay our dues last night. I decided I had to have this stamp to commemorate the occasion. Once I picked it up, I swear every woman in the store told me what an awesome stamp it was. I can't wait to use it. On everything.

{photo via Window Farms}

Window Farms. I saw this on Good Morning America and I was amazed. You can basically convert your window into a garden! I LOVE this idea! You don't need soil and it uses recycled water bottles. Amazing. To read more about it, here's the GMA segment on it. It provides more links to get info on kits and official how-to's.

{photo via cnet}

Photoshop Elements. I know I am a little late in the game here, but PSE has always imtimidated me. If I ever needed anything done, my dear, sweet, kind sister would do it for me. I finally decided to just download the free trial and see what it was all about and now I am addicted. My first project was a watermark for my photos (in case you haven't noticed) and I think it was about the most fun I've had since art class in the 6th grade.

Amy Butler's new fashion and travel bags. They are gorgeous!!! Seriously, I want to take a trip just so I could check everybody out that is checking me out for my gorgeous bag. I would post lots of glorious pics but I am afraid I will get arrested for copyright infringement and I just couldn't live with myself if I upset Amy. We will be BFFs one day, you know.

In other news, I've finally gotten up the nerve to post some of my cards on Two Peas in a Bucket. I don't know why, but I've always been very shy about sharing the stuff I work on. Even though it's just paper to some people, it's still very personal to me (hence the reason I never really tell anyone I have a blog). But, a conversation with my Seester helped me realize how fun it is to share your projects with people that 'get it'. That appreciate what you do and understand why you do it. Two Peas is a world of people that get why letterpress makes me misty eyed and why office supplies can turn my frown upside-down. So far it's been really fun. I don't know what I was expecting. I guess I thought people would start mocking me or telling me what I should or shouldn't do (because I know how snarky people can be when they are able to hide anonymously in the shadows of the internet). But, it's been really fun, and, actually, sort of invigorating. I feel like I got my mojo back. :)

That's all for today. Blogger has not been my friend the last couple of days, so I decided I'll ignore him for a while to see if he'll fix his attitude or blame his friend, My Computer. I am working on a couple of things of fun things that I hopefully can finish up by next week. I will share it all soon!

A Birthday Banner and Some Cupcake Goodness.

Two of some of my favorite people were born in July. My friend Laura and my oldest nephew. I've known Laura for going on 22 years. Laura is one of those friends that basically always has your back. She's probably threatened to beat up every one of my shady boyfriends at one time or another, so when she met Mr. Bean and loved him, I pretty much knew he had to be The One. She inspires me to find joy in the little things in life - like the little chocolates you get with your meal on the airplane or the fruit tarts you find in bakeries all over France - as well as the mundane things - like cooking a pot roast. I don't know that I will ever understand why she thinks I am so awesome (because she really does tell people that I am awesome) but I hope I am half the friend to her that she is to me.

Laura has an understated elegance that I could never achieve. While I am loud and crass, Laura is quiet and refined. I love hot pink and bright orange, she loves pale pinks and blues. I love excess, she believes in moderation. When it came time to make her a birthday card, I decided to do something that was a little bit of the both of us: minimal with a little bit of drama.

My inspiration was basically a birthday banner. I didn't want to do a pennant banner because I wanted to challenge myself to think outside of my tiny creative box. I originally wanted to try a pop up card where when the card was opened, this banner pops up and basically screams 'Happy Birthday' at you, but it was getting late and I couldn't get it to work properly. Maybe another time. So, I decided to go with a party-in-an-envelope concept. In my head, it would be like an instant party.

Step 1. Pull the string.


Step 2. Start the party.


Isn't that kind of how it goes? Well, that's how it goes in my head, anyways.

For this card, I drew out all the letters by hand, then cut them out and sewed them together with my sewing machine. That's about it! The patterened paper is all Martha Stewart. The envelopes are from Paper Source. The kraft cardstock is Bazzill.

One of my other favorite people born this month is my oldest nephew. He is going to be 15 tomorrow. I can't begin to tell you how old that makes me feel. And short. Because he is probably 2 feet taller than me already. This year my sister-in-law decided to throw him a surprise party with all of his friends, so she asked me to make the cake. But, why eat cake when you can have a cupcake? That's my motto.

I tried not to make the cupcakes too childlike since he is 15, but I still wanted them to be cute. So, I took some of my Japanese washi tape and toothpicks and created some cupcake toppers.

Please forgive the color of the chocolate icing. I cut out some of the chocolate the recipe required because the grocery store only had semi sweet chocolate when I needed unsweetened chocolate. I was sweating it for a while, but luckily I only got one dookie comment from an entire crowd of 15 year old boys, so I'll count it as a success.

And, just in case you are interested - ok, really, I am trying to put off making dinner - for his cake, I made him a cupcake cake with 6 cupcakes and a ton of icing. I tried to decorate it so that it matched the cupcake toppers, but I doubt anyone noticed that. Since my nephew is a texting fool (he only uses about 20 minutes of actual phone time, but manages to send out about 25,000 texts a month....seriously), I thought I'd get all witty on him and put 'HB2U' in lieu of the much longer 'Happy Birthday'. Just trying to stay hip, you know. One cupcake at a time. Unfortunately, I don't think it worked. Instead of the high-fives and loud bursts of exclamations like "Your Aunt is sooo awesome!" that I anticipated, several kids asked what it meant. But, I look at it this way. Maybe I am just head of my time.....


Alright, well, I've neglected house, home, and husband this past week, so I've got my work cut out for me. Mr. Bean has been forced to eat sandwiches for dinner lately and I'm pretty sure the jig is up and he's caught on that it's not a home style version of the newest Quiznos sandwich.

Birthday fun at the carnival.

I have a confession to make. I love carnivals. Especially at night. There is something about a carnival that gets me all giddy. The food, the rides, the colors, the lights. The combination of it all basically equals F.U.N. Love. It. All.

Lately, I've noticed a new trend to use carnival influenced typography on invitations. And I am in love. So, naturally, in my quest to get inspiration for my next card, I was amazed when I saw this carnival themed wedding.

(photo via Red Heart Photography)

I remember when planning my own wedding, my main goal was for everyone to have fun. How could anyone not have fun at a wedding like this?? I think I need to have another wedding. Or, can someone please have a carnival themed wedding and invite me?? Check out more pics of this crazy cool wedding here.

Although I had plenty of inspiration, I couldn't finish this card for the life of me. I tried out several ideas (even soliciting the help of a friend and her Cricut) and all of them fell flat. I kind of lost my mojo with this one, but I am glad I worked thru it once I realized the irony of the whole situation. I was taking the whole carnival concept too seriously when the whole concept of a carnival is supposed to be about having fun.

Anyway, I made this card for my sister. I really wanted it to be perfect and I really wanted her to love it (and keep it). I hope she does.

I drew out the clouds and the red frame and cut them out using an xacto knife. I cut yellow paper strips to 1/4" to make the stripes. The stars are from a punch I bought at the Target $1 spot. I used a white Signo gel pen to draw the circles, hoping to give the illusion of lights. I also drew the black flourishes with just a fine pointed black pen on the stripes as well as on the lights. The letters are from Making Memories. All the cardstock is Bazzill. Below is just a close up of the details. Don't ask me why my camera suddenly takes a good close up.


I added some pop up glue dots to give the card some dimension. So some clouds are raised some are flush with the 'sky' and, of course, the entire sign is raised higher than any of the clouds.


Since we are twins, I can't use the excuse that I forgot about my sister's birthday. I kind of dropped the ball on sending this out to her on time. But, my sister knows me and knows I won't send something I'm not happy with. So, sorry, Seester. I hope it was worth the wait. :)

Update: Apparently, Iowa is where cute cards go to die because my sister said the card arrived like it barely survived a battle with the postman . Sorry, Seester. Can we have a moment of silence?