a few random things

A few random things to post about today. In continuing with the idea of reusing household items, I posted a how-to about reusing old magnets as the Friday Blogger on The Sampler site. Check it out here and leave a comment to let me know what you think about the project!

Alison from The Sampler will be at Magpie in Davis Square next Saturday, February 7th giving out a free mini Sampler to the first 100 customers. Each mini Sampler contains a variety of valentines, candy, jewelry, pins, cds - all sorts of things you normally get in the Sampler! I'll be donating some of my love-themed handmade greeting cards for her to include in the mini Sampler, plus she'll be giving out free cupcakes too! If you're in the area, be sure to stop by to get your free mini Sampler and Magpie will be offering 25% off all jewelry and valentine cards that day.

The snail mail valentines are available for purchase on the Fred Flare website! Read their blog post about the project here. You can buy them here, and if you enter the discount code "love" they'll give you free shipping! They are selling them as blind surprise so you can't pick the exact valentine you want, but all the cards are handmade by FF customers and there are some really cute cards in the mix. You can view them on their Flickr account here, too.

My coworker Lynn's husband, Wenxiong Lin, has some of his work on exhibit at Bloc 11. We went there this morning so I tried to snap some photos of his photographs and watercolors on display.

We have a small knitting group at work that gets together on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I helped one of my coworkers, Jeannie, by making an umbilical cord hat from the Stitch 'n Bitch book and they turned out super cute!

We both used the Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino yarn and size 3 needles. I love the greenish blue color that she used. I started a feather and fan baby cardigan from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders book last night with the same raspberry colored yarn so hopefully it'll be a cute set in the end.

One of our coworkers, Jessica, does an AMAZING job at crocheting. Seriously ya'll. She made this Noah's Ark toy for her neighbor's son and brought it in to show us the finished product. It just blew us away!

She didn't work with any patterns, isn't that so cool?! The giraffe was my favorite but all of the animals had such intricate details and little characteristics that are simply amazing. She used the Vanna's Choice yarn and entered the project into the contest so I am crossing my fingers and toes that she wins!

Speaking of contests ... I received this in the mail today:

I entered a couple of cards into the holiday contest at Paper Source and apparently one of my designs won! I submitted three different designs so I'm not sure exactly which one was sent to their corporate office, but according to this letter they're going to photograph them and use some of the designs in next year's promotional materials. So I guess I'll have to wait until then to see which one actually won.

Alas, such a long post. Hope you all have a great weekend! :)

camera pics + the killers

We have come a long way with technology to be able to take pretty decent pictures with our cell phones. Mine does an okay job and it's super handy because I almost always carry the phone around and sometimes I leave the camera at home. Anywho, I snapped this one this morning on my walk to work in the snow. Yes, we got even more snow today. They (the weather people on TV) say that we've already reached 40 inches of it this season which is really high for our area. Anyway, it was the you-need-an-umbrella kind of snow this morning.

I am going to be so happy when I won't have to wear my not-so-pretty-not-my-cute-pair-of-froggy boots. Seriously!

I had to do some errands during my lunch break the other day so I snapped these while walking through Harvard Square. The Bob Slate Stationery store on Mass Ave. had these really cool paper snowflakes in their window and it reminded me of the snowflake cutting contests I organized at Pioneer back in the day. Yes people, I actually coordinated such events in my workplace at one time. Crazy, no?


I think it takes a special talent to be able to make such pretty paper snowflakes. I'm sure if I really sat down to design one it would look okay, but some of these in their window really blew me away. Nice job folks!

So that's that for cell phone camera pics. Now, on to The Killers.

Ah, yes, The Killers. I really like this band. I really like their songs. We went to see them Monday night at the Aggannis Arena in Boston and it was an awesome show. They started out with songs from their newest album, Day & Age, which - truthfully? - we haven't liked as much as the other albums. But I do have to say that the songs from that album sounded much better live than on CD. Tony likes their Sam's Town album more, and I like their first album, Hot Fuss, more.

Here's a little video I made of the last song they performed that night, When You Were Young, from the Sam's Town album. (P.S. It looks better if you play it in high quality!)



Still no word about the valentines being sold at the Fred Flare store - stay tuned and stay warm! :)

february sampler on sale now

Just wanted to post that the February Sampler is on sale now. I contributed 50 of these little "hey cupcake" love-themed greeting cards, so you may get one in your Sampler box!

guest blogger

I'll be the "Friday Blogger" on The Sampler website starting today. Stop by the site and check it out! Here's the card that I featured in my post today:

TGIF!

mentioned on fred flare

Check it out -- the "thx" valentine made it into a photo collage on the Fred Flare blog!

Still no mention of when they will go on sale on their website (or in their store for that matter), but I bet sometime next week. Stay tuned and I'll let you know once I find out!

In the meantime, I have the designs available in my Etsy shop, along with the new ones. I have a couple of ideas brewing in my head for new designs which will get posted this weekend I hope!

giveaway winners

Can I get a drumroll please? Oh wait, my drummer is going to bed right now. Nevermind.

The winners of the Valentine card giveaway are as follows:

Comments 8 (Elissa), 1 (Traci), 7 (Joe), 9 (Jessica), 4 (Jordan), and 2 (Tulasmom).


Congratulations everyone! I have everyone's mailing address (surprisingly!) so I'll get the cards to you in the mail tomorrow morning. Enjoy and stay tuned for info on when they'll go on sale on the Fred Flare website. Keep your eyes peeled for another card giveaway! In the meantime, check out my latest card designs.

valentines for a good cause + a giveaway!

So what was in that box?!

Valentines!!

I read about this crafty charity event on the Sampler website and sent in 36 valentines to help raise funds for Elder Craftsmen, an NYC-based organization that brings craft programs to seniors.

They'll be sold on the Fred Flare website and in their NYC store sometime at the end of this month for $4 each. Be sure to check back here for an update on when you can buy one online!

In the meantime, I'm giving away one of each of the six designs! So if you'd like to enter the drawing, all you have to do is leave a comment and tell me which one you like the best. Easy as pie! The contest will be open until midnight (EST) Wednesday, January 21st. By midnight, I mean that after 11:59 pm on Tuesday, the contest will be closed. I'll all announce the winners (determined by using the random integer generator) on Wednesday afternoon.

Here are the designs (click to see larger image):

So be sure to leave a comment and tell me which one you like the best, and you just may win that design! :) Check out what other cards will be available here.

featured on etsy, part 2

Check this out! Another Etsy user picked one of the items from my online store to feature in a list of her favorite picks (click to enlarge the photo):

The "love is the spice of life" card is actually made with three stamps I had custom made from Impress Rubber Stamps last year. I got the base of the shaker image from the Microsoft Clipart Gallery, played around with it a little in Photoshop, and then drew in each of the little hearts so that they were all on one side of the container to make it look like they were pouring out. Then the hearts coming out of the shaker are a separate stamp, and then the sentiment. Funny thing is that I came up with the sentiment because I originally thought about doing little spice jars as our wedding favors, so I was going to stamp that on the card or tag that we would've attached to them. Alas, I went with different favors but I still liked the sentiment so much that I built the images to go with it.

Anyway, not that you needed that much information! Be sure to check out this treasury list before it expires on Saturday (1/17) at 10:43 am EST!

what's in the box?

"What's in the box?" you might ask. Can't say exactly just yet, but it may have something to do with this. Check back soon for a give away! :)

featured on etsy

Check this out! An Etsy user picked one of the items from my online store to feature in a list of her favorite picks (click to enlarge the photo):

It's a photo card and the two red chairs on the front of the card are on my in-law's front porch. I am so tickled that someone picked something from my store to feature in a "Treasury" list! For those who have never explored that section of Etsy (I just recently discovered it for the first time myself):

The treasury is a member-curated gallery of short-lived lists of 12 hand-picked items each (plus four alternates). It functions as a high-demand (and pretty!) promotional tool that many devoted Etsians fight to get. Members can feature their favorite items, items selected on a theme, or just however they like. The Treasury is not intended for self-promotion, but instead to acknowledge and share the many cool things for sale on Etsy. Admin often choose an exceptional Treasury list to promote on the home page and occasionally make them to tie into Storque articles or special events and occasions.

When they say "fight" to get, they are serious! They only allow 333 treasuries at a time (they all have expiration dates) so when the current number comes close to 333, people (like a couple thousand at a time - seriously!) will stalk the page until a page is released in the hopes of being able to get a treasury page. I kid you not! I [insert shameless confession here] admittedly stalked the page a couple of days ago vs. roughly 4,000 other Etsians and did not manage to get a page. Boo hoo. Hopefully better luck next time.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share this little gleam of fame with all of you. Hurry because her treasury expires tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5:16 pm EST!

back from california

Happy New Year to everyone! I'm back from my trip out to California. Spent a lot of time with my sister and the boys (Cade, Evan and Tanner) and also had the chance to stay with my mom and Mike for a couple of days. Gosh, those boys are getting so big! Cade is now up to my shoulders and Evan declares that he'll be taller than me when he turns 5. Tanner is just too cute for words! He warmed up to me quickly this time and so babysitting him was much easier.

Mom, Mike, Linda and I went out to San Francisco last Saturday to do some shopping and a little bit of sightseeing. It has been a while since I've actually been out to the city during one of my west coast visits. It was fun walking up Powell Street to Union Square and reminiscing a little bit here and there about the days when I used to work in the city. We went through the newer side of the San Francisco Shopping Centre (where there are seven floors - the top four belong to Nordstrom), up Powell Street to Union Square, through the Macy's, and then back down Stockton Street to take BART back to Dublin.


One thing that I miss most about the city is the diversity of people. You have people from all over the world (i.e. tourists) traveling around, people from all sorts of different financial backgrounds, and then locals who come to the city once in a while to roam around. I guess we have that here in Boston, too, but San Francisco is so much bigger than Boston on so many levels so I feel like I notice it more when I'm there.

We passed by this homeless man that had a box of rats on his lap collecting money. It was quite depressing actually.


We saw this man with his children on the street playing the drums for money, too. I made a little video of them because the boy that seemed to be the youngest was quite talented at the drums, and the kids looked like they were having a good time.



One of the newer things in the city is the Bloomingdales side of the San Francisco Shopping Centre. We had lunch in the Food Emporium there and it was just amazing. I mean, talk about a vast selection of stuff to eat! Mom, Mike, and I got some food from a little seafood restaurant there. Mike had the fish and chips, mom had the seafood stew, and I had the mussels with fries. Linda got the Korean beef dish with some kimchee. It was all delicious and reasonably priced.

I flew home on a red-eye flight on New Year's Eve night. Yeah, believe me, I'll never do that again. My flight got delayed 2.5 hours so we didn't end up taking off until about 11:45 pm. Talk about a sucky way to spend NYE. Alone and stranded at an airport. Ugh. Here's a picture of my NYE dinner at the Chilis Too. Not the grandest experience.

Luckily, nobody sat in the two seats next to me on the plane so I was able to lie down and sleep the whole way home. Woo hoo!

Hope you all had a fun time bringing in the New Year! I would go on about this year's resolutions but I still have yet to unpack. TTFN!