Artsy Tuesday

The other day I found this tutorial online for paper flags without using glue or tape and decided to give it a try. It helped I was planning a baby shower so I definitely had the inspiration!

You'll need: Paper, scissors, x-acto knife, candy sticks and ruler, .

Cut strips of paper 1/2 inch wide

Hold strip of paper on a small angle around the stick

Bring the back side over the top piece of paper

Turn the piece of paper on top around the stick and under itself

Pull tight

Cut the endings and tada!! you've got a flag!

At this moment I'm in Franconia, NH freelancing for Garnet Hill. I wish they had some sort of stationery/craft/paper store. Or even a good fabric store... pretty much all you can get is Nascar and hunting fabric. Imagine that!

Oh! and ps. I now have a Twitter account! (yes... after meeting so many amazing people at the National Stationery Show I gave in) You can find me here! though I'm still working on learning everything, so be patient with me!

Everyone is talking about it

I found this commercial and thought it was just beautiful!

I know it's a few weeks past...

Made out of paper

Paper butterflies :-)

Loved the paper dresses

Yours Truly & Susy Jack

Inkprint and Design*Sponge

Sugarcube Press

Blackbird Press

Alice-Louise

But I wanted to let you know how AMAZING the National Stationery 2011 was! I had the greatest time with Melissa, from Yours Truly, and I even got a picture in with Grace, from Design*Sponge and Susy from SusyJack!

Most of all, I got the feeling that this is a great industry to be in with lots of amazing and extremely people and it is something I want to be part of. My goal is to exhibit at the National Stationery Show 2012!... we will need to prepare some serious work for that to happen!

Any help, input from some veterans are more than welcomed! (please!)

I hope you're enjoying the nice weather!

New finds...

What a gorgeous weekend it was! Adam and I went up north to spend the weekend with his parents for Mother's day. The weather was perfect and there was no one cloud in the sky. On Saturday we decided to go for a bike ride, and after almost dying due to lack of oxygen (man, I'm out of shape!) we made it back into town.

Franconia is set just above the White Mountains National Forest. "Downtown" is a small street with a convenience store, a hardware store, a bicycle store, a coffee shop, the postal office and Garnet Hill. In the midst of this there is a small property that houses the Franconia Heritage Museum. It was here that I stopped on my tracks when I saw what was outside... just rusting:

Now, I'm not expert, but I don't think you could salvage that... could you?
I got talking with the ladies who were sitting outside the museum and they told me they had a couple more inside, but they didn't know what to do with them. So I went inside and found two Pearl (I know one was a pilot and one was a treadle, but other than that I'm really no expert).

They also had forms still set up from an old card for the Sunset Hill Gulf Club

I also saw these two things, but I had never seen them before. Does anyone know what they are?

They have no idea what to do with them or how to organize them, so I am looking for someone that knows something about them who wants to donate some time to the museum with me and fix up the room like a real printer's room. These beauties deserve better than to let them rust there without being admired.

Any takers?!

Design design...

So spring is here... for real this time, and even though it is still raining every other day we can see small green leaves and flowers everywhere! We mowed the lawn for the first time on Tuesday... hmmm... the smell of fresh cut grass. It reminds me of summer. But before we get to the delicious barbeques and days at the beach, there is spring cleaning, spring organizing and spring designing! Weddings people, weddings! Working on Jess and Rob's wedding suite at the moment.

Oh, and remember these? We're using them for an upcoming family baby shower - Can't wait!

Fixing things

Lately I have been obsessed with Young House Love. John and Sherry make it seem so easy to just roll up your sleeves and do something about the things you don't like in your house. It made me decide to do something about this plain dresser I have. Following are the pictures of my experiment... and what I have learned from it.

First... I sanded down the whole thing

Then I primed it with water base primer. I didn't have anything different and I needed to get this done pronto due to approaching clouds. So I asked my dad and this was his advice: people always tell you how to do things one way or another, in the end, you need to figure out what works best for you... so, why not!

(and here's where things started going wrong)

I had seen a picture of a dresser that had rough brush strokes on it and I completely fell in love with it! (wish I had kept the picture) so I decided to paint my dresser flat white (!!) and this is the outcome:

Does it look pretty?!

Now, here's what I learned:
First of all... if you're going to paint a piece of furniture, make sure it is some kind of satin or glossy coating. Everyone tells you is because it is easier to clean, and you say "psssttt... I don't have kids, a bit of swiffer duster and it's clean!", but here's the deal: every time you knock it bringing it into the desired room, every time something of other color than white hits it, every time you place something on it.... it will leave a mark! ahh... but no one told me that before!

(Kind of like no one told me how to put out a fire in the kitchen until I set it on fire by throwing a pan full of burning oil under the faucet - in case you were wondering why Adam does all the cooking, that's probably why - but after it happened everyone was offering advice left and right! yeah... where were they when I needed them?!)

Second... if you are still stubborn enough to go with a flat surface try to do it with a roller for the most part. Also, start from one side to the other and NEVER go over something you just painted until it's absolutely dry - it won't be pretty anymore.

Third... if you decided to (again, stubbornly) do it with a brush, once the whole thing is dry, sand it with a very fine grain, like 150 or something like that. And then gloss it! I don't care how pretty it looks, gloss the heck out of it!

I had the common sense to spray paint the knobs, so that came out awesome! If I had to do it all over again I think I would definitely spray prime it and paint it. I have a tiny jewelry box that I will be working on... see how that comes out!

Ps. this is probably more a guide on what NOT to do when painting furniture. For a complete guide on what you should do go to the YHL step by step guide.

Fear

Source: madamecupcake.tumblr.com via Ashleigh on Pinterest

I found this through Pinterest and it was the answer I have been looking for. There have been so many questions in my mind... so many changes in my life, it is hard to keep track of what is really going on and what I really want.

I have been terrified of designing anything, or even making a choice on picking a wall color! - which reminds me, I went through a similar thing between my sophomore and junior year of college where I didn't want to draw, design, take pictures or anything at all! I remember crying over getting a B as my final grade for my design class as a sophomore and I was really crushed. It seems so silly now... it is not college anymore. It is real life. You make a choice, you stick with it. Every choice has consequences, and you either take the safe route, or you follow your heart (somehow the two don't go hand on hand).

Am I the only one in this boat? Can someone tell me how to get out of it? What are your fears? or what's stopping you from making your dreams come true?

All I want is to print!