Movin' on Up

I am not sure I've ever mentioned my BIL, Mr. Bean's little brother. I call him my Billy. He's 7 years younger than Mr. Bean and just about the sweetest guy I've ever known. He's the kind of kid you want for a little brother and the kind of kid you'd want for a son. And, of course, he's the kind of guy you definitely want for a BIL.

When I first met Billy Bean, he was still in high school, had a curfew, wore glasses, and was about as big around as my pinky finger. Now, he's got contacts (so now you can see his beautiful eyes!), an awesome job with an awesome company (after graduating from college with high honors), all sorts of muscles I didn't know Indian men had, and lives on his own about 2500 miles from all of us. And just to rub in to to all the girls that wouldn't date him in high school, Billy Bean just bought a beautiful condo with an awesome view of the city. Go Billy Bean!!

Although he moved in late last week, he's been preparing for the move for a few weeks now. He's drawn up plans for his new pad using Google SketchUp so he could maximize it's potential. I have to say I'm impressed, despite the fact that it doesn't surprise me he'd take so much care to ensure he makes his new space the best it can be.

So, how did I respond to the move? I made a card, of course.


I started the card with no idea of what I was going to do. I couldn't help thinking of a pair of spare keys, so I sketched out some keys on metallic paper and cut them using an exacto knife. The tag is just something I stole from work that we buy from Office Depot, since we are forever labeling keys. I wrote his actual unit number on the tag. I added some paint to make the background of the card to make it interesting. The faux measuring tape is from Urban Outfitters - sort of a nod to Billy Bean's SketchUp drawings - and the other tape is Japanese masking tape.

Billy Bean, Mr. B and I are so proud of you. Watching you grow up into a such a caring, responsible, talented young man has been an honor. We can't wait to visit! I believe I will start calling this my new vacation home. :)

A Birthday Card Story.

I am really excited to post this next card. Lately, I've been saying this with every card, but this is seriously one of my all-time favorite cards. But please bare with me. I am going to selfishly walk you thru every detail of how this card was created so that I can relive the memories.

I worked on this card with a friend of mine. Working with my friend is always a pleasure, but typically we have an agenda. This time, it was fun to sort of play around with materials and toss around ideas with her. She's amazingly creative and talented. She inspires me everyday to live green and think outside of the box when crafting. She's definitely a crafter in a whole other league from me, since I stick to paper and fabric, so she brings a plethora of crafty information with her.

A few weeks ago, my friend and I set out on a mission to create a card for our fellow crafty friend. We are two of her biggest fans. Basically, it had to be fantastic. It needed to be fabulous. And it definitely required some amount of 'clever'. And I, of course, thought it had to have some sort of pennant banner. And at least one rosette. So, we started a think tank and dove head first into a brainstorming session where I presented my friend with ideas like, "Why don't we just encrust it with huge diamonds!!" And my friend would respond, "Um. No." Or, "Why don't we make a remote control card that will zoom in with a cake on top?!" And my friend would respond, "Um. No." So, the dreamer and the realist went thru my craft room and decided to use what I had. Unfortunately, there were no huge diamonds available for encrusting.

We stumbled upon this picture and used it as our inspiration. A desert table by Amy Atlas.


It fit all the criteria. It was fantastic. In fact, it was fabulous. It had some crepe paper rosettes that were to making me scream, "Come home to Momma!!!" And, layering those rosettes?! How clever! The only thing missing as far as I was concerned was a pennant banner. Totally doing this for a party, BTW. Preferably a party for me.

The next day I started sketching out ideas at work (instead of working, yes). At the suggestion of my friend, I included the sketches for you. Kind of shows you my thought process.
Then, it was back to my craft room. None of the patterned paper I had really satisfied us, so my friend came up with the very clever idea of using magazines or catalogs to make the rosettes. I recycle my catalogs pretty quickly, but luckily that morning I forgot to toss the latest Pottery Barn catalogs in my recycle bin before the city came to pick it up. It was fate.

I'll admit, once we started cutting them up, I was a bit skeptical of the catalogs. It didn't seem like it was colorful enough. But, I loved the idea that we were using catalogs. Despite my concerns, that night my friend confidently churned out every single one of those rosettes as well as the pennants AND still wanted to be my friend the next day.

I figured the enforcers of the crafting labor laws would not condone three nights of torture, so the next day, I decided I'd better figure out the rest of the card on my own. So after playing around with a few ideas, I ended up stitching each pennant into a banner by hand-feeding it into my sewing machine. It sounds extremely labor intensive, I know. I'll just keep typing and making you think that. But, in case any crafting labor law enforcers are reading this, it actually didn't take that long once I got the swing of it.

Besides gluing it all together and making the actual card portion, that was about all there was to it. Here is the final product. Enjoy.






And just because I couldn't get enough of the pennants, I decided to use it on the wrapping.



I wish the pictures did it justice. I tried taking pics of it from different angles so you could see how fantastic and fabulous and clever it is. This card will be hard to give away, but I know the person it's going to will love it and appreciate it as much as I ever could.

June Obsessions.

I'm back with some obsessions for June. I realize it is only the first week of June, but my process of being obsessed cannot be contained to 30 day increments. So, I may have to update this post if/when I find myself obsessing over anything else in June.

This song. I know it's old school, but after we had some friends over to break in our Rock Band 2, I've been listening to it over and over and over and over again. Just makes me nostalgic.

photo via Madeline Weinrib

My competition. Check out Madeline Weinrib. Love the fabrics she uses. Awesome rugs, too. I think I will have to expand my empire of exquisite pillows to include rugs once I make it big.

42nd and orange pennant banner

Pennants. They're everywhere. I know. Every scrapbooker in the world is using them. But, I have been living in the land of pennants ever since my friends helped me make a banner last November. And I don't wanna leave.

photo via wedding bee

Paper rosettes. They're everywhere. I know. But, I can't help myself. Once Martha does them, I have to find a way to incorporate them into every part of my existence. And I will succeed.

I will try to limit my obsessions posts to once a month, but right now I'm reading more than I am crafting. I keep walking into my craft room with good intentions, but I can't seem to finish anything I've started lately.

I hope everyone had an awesome Memorial Day weekend. It actually felt like a long weekend for me. Instead of doing everything we needed to be doing around the house, Mr. Bean and I watched a lot of TV, visited with friends, gave Mr. Bean a mohawk, and ate our weights worth in bbq. Fun stuff.

May Obsessions.

I am going to make a potentially long post into a much shorter one for those of you that don't like to delve into the mind of an obsessive craft-pulsive woman. Work has been slow so I've had plenty of time to obsess over quite a few things. Just thought I'd share.

(photo courtesy of Curbly)

- Black and white chevron fabric. I've scoured the ends of the earth for this fabric - OK, well, I had about 30 minutes in Crawford Market and have tried every possible word combination on google search - and I cannot seem to find exactly what I am looking for. I settled for a yard of this print, but it is a bit to crisp looking for me. And too white. I am wanting more of a ikat style block print like this, but in black and an off-white, a little rough around the edges, and in quilting weight fabric, not upholstery weight. See my dilemma? It's more a vision in my head than anything I've actually seen, so, alas, the search will continue.

(photo courtesy of Anthropologie)

- Pillows. This is a long time obsession of mine, but the obsession has emerged anew for the umpteenth time. This how my previous obesssion began. I was wanting to finally make some pillows out of the fabric I brought back from India, oh, 4-5 years ago. I just know I could make some. In my head, I start making pillows for my home and then some famous buyer comes to my house (in my head I haven't worked how who, why or how) and she oohs and aahs over my exquisite pillows (only because I imagine a famous buyer uses the word 'exquisite' upon seeing my pillows) and then asks me to make some immediately for their store. And then I become famous and launch my own website which in turn becomes a store in Soho due to the high demand for exquisite pillows. And then me and Mr. Bean have to quit our jobs to travel all over the world looking for fabrics and inspiration. The only thing stopping me? That damn black and white chevron fabric. And, probably that I've never sewn a pillow. And that my sewing machine was brand new in 1982. But I digress.

(photo courtesy of Winter Works on Paper)

- Subway scrolls. I first started noticing them in different apartments featured on Apartment Therapy. Then I started becoming obsessed with owning one. If you don't know me or just met me, you probably wouldn't have guessed that my favorite colors are black, white and gray - especially if you've been to my home. I love color - especially reds, pinks, oranges, and yellows - but what's more awesome than the boldness of black and white? For a long time, my closet was a sea of black, white and gray. I have worked on expanding my closet color spectrum over the past few years, but I still find it hard to not automatically go to black, white and gray. Check out some subway scroll awesomeness.
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. I cannot put these books down. I am not one to read murder/mystery/thriller type books, but I have become completely obsessed with these books. I highly recommend you go out and buy these books and then make sure no one depends on you do to anything for a week because you will not want to cook, eat, or sleep when you pick these up. Seriously.

That's all for now. I aimed to keep this post short but looks like I have a terrible aim.

What I've been up to lately....

Not too impressive, but I'm working on it. Gotta get the shakiness out. I'll be embarrassed later that I ever posted this, so just appreciate my vulnerability now before I take it down, please.

I've been in love with Betsy Dunlap for a long time now, so I've finally decided to put pen to paper and pretend I am a fabulous calligrapher like her. She has such an awesome style. I am so tempted to email her and ask if she'll teach me the ways of her awesomeness. I could be her apprentice and we could conquer the world one invitation at a time.

Traditional calligraphy (copperplate, italic, etc.) is beautiful on it's own, but I also love those calligraphers that sort of bend the rules and come up with their own style. Inspired by her work, a twist of my own handwriting, copperplate, and a "font" I made up in high school for notes to my friends (isn't that weird that we used to hand write notes to our friends back then vs. a text or email?), I've been playing around words and names and, well.....there you go. I am still working on my capital letters and a few lowercase I've got to work the kinks out to, but hopefully by Christmas, I'll have it all worked out and I'll have my own style to share with the rest of the world. Or at least the people that receive my Christmas cards.

Kind of a Big Deal.

** SPOILER ALERT: If your name is ShP, then do not proceed until after you've checked your mailbox. Thank you. Everyone else can move on. And by 'everyone else' I mean the other two people that read my blog.**

One of my all-time favorite lines from a movie is Ron Burgundy's "I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm kind of a big deal" in the Anchorman. It cracks me up. So, when my friend got a (well deserved) promotion, I thought I'd make her a card that fit the occasion. It seems like being recognized for your efforts at work is something you have to ask for, or even fight for, now days, so it always restores my faith in the system when someone remarkable gets recognized for her remarkable efforts. I'm sure I can speak for all of her friends and family when I say we are all really proud of her and know that this is just the first of many promotions in her career. Congrats, ShP!

This card is the third version I made. I started out with one concept. I hated it. Then re-started with a second concept. Hated it. Then, I decided I go an entirely different direction altogether and I loved the result.


I couldn't get out of my head that I was basically using my version of a quote from a movie, so the third version screamed "THOUGHT BUBBLE!!!" to me. If the connection doesn't make sense to you, give me a call and I can give you the flowchart to my inner most thoughts. Because, let's face it. I am a deep and complicated person. And this deep, complicated person thought she ought to listen to the voices in her head that thought a thought bubble made perfect sense. Moving on. Since my friend is an accountant, I thought I'd get cute and use some patterned I had that resembles a general ledger. The letters are both vinyl stickers and foam stickers. The cardstock is Bazzill. Now, looking back on it, as deep and complicated as this deep and complicated person is, the card is surprisingly uncomplicated.

I hope everyone had as fun this past weekend as I did. Mr. Bean and I rented a beachhouse with a bunch of his cousins for an official Cousins Weekend. We basically ate, ate, drank, and ate while playing games and talking and eating. As crazy as Mr. Bean's family can be, I can't deny I love to spending time with them. Some more than others, yes, but growing up, I sort of missed out on having a lot of family around. So, it's just nice to think that if Mr. Bean and I decide to have kids, that they will have plenty of cousins to play with and fight with and love and hate. We plan to make this an annual event, so hopefully we'll start creating lots of memories to keep us from ever growing apart as so many large families often do.


That's all I've got for now. I am already looking forward to the weekend so I can catch up on some sleep. Just typing it makes me wish it was Friday.

Reunited.

I hope everyone had an awesome Easter. I did. Easter is my favorite holiday next to Christmas. Growing up, we always got a new dress, new white patent leather shoes, and a new Easter bonnet. We'd take pictures out in the courtyard of my childhood home by the azalea bushes that were always in full bloom while holding our new purses. It makes me think that people don't dress up enough anymore. Now, girls show up to the Easter church service wearing jeans and flip flops.

Anyway, our weekend flew by a lot quicker than we'd like. Friday, I got to get some good cardmaking in. My friend and I were reunited once again to use our powers for good rather than evil and worked on a card for her brother's girlfriend. I thought it was too cute that her brother wanted his sister to make him a card to give to his girlfriend. And how sweet is it that his sister couldn't say no?

He wanted a card like the cupcake card we made last time, but we decided to do something a bit different for her.


All of the punches are Martha Stewart. The patterened paper was all from Hobby Lobby. (How gorgeous is that paper?) The solid paper is all Bazzill. I love the color combination. I love the butterflies. I love that it came out so graphic, yet it still looks feminine. I hope she loves it.

I put myself down for dessert for our Easter lunch at Mr. Bean's cousin's house. So, I found myself baking cupcakes at 1:00 in the morning Sunday morning. Not fun. But how can you be upset with a cupcake? Here's an iPhone pic of them. I just used what I had this time, but I think they came out pretty cute anyway.


Alright, I am heading to bed. We got some yard work in this past weekend. Didn't finish. Did some more tonight. I am so sore. I can't wait until the weekend.