A Very Crafty Saturday

I took these weeks ago, but I’ve gotten so behind with everything that’s going on right now that I’m just glad I get to post these at all.

Saturday’s when both my sister and I can get together and craft are rare, so a few weeks ago we took the opportunity to embark on two projects that had been waiting in the wings.

My love for calligraphy is well documented, (here, here, and right here) but I can barely write in a straight line. So my trusty scribe took a shot at it:

It’s hard. (Or so I’m told).

But produces gorgeous results!

And that was only the beginning! Martha Project number two was printing cards using bits of lace. Neither of us had ever printed in any way shape or form so it was a learning process.

Inking the lace:

We used some very architectural lace. This one reminds me of cathedral windows:

The hardest part of this project was applying enough pressure (and paint) to the lace without moving it while it was on the paper. (I actually did help even though it looks like I just took pictures).

This lace was my favorite:

Not too bad for a first try!

Some excellent spring/Easter cards:

Check out the tutorial here. Thanks Martha!

Paper Swap 2010

I’m very happy to announce the third annual paper swap hosted by yours truly!:) I’m doing things a little bit differently this year so please read carefully:

Spread the word! Here are a few buttons for your blog or website and feel free to take the directions and resize them as you need it. Please link back to this post, thanks!

Valentines From the Vault

It always makes me sad when my favorite holiday is over.:( As I went to put away my stellar valentine, I found some Castle In the Air valentines of yore…

My sister tried to duplicate one of my favorites, the tulip heart card:

Not too shabby!

I also found this brochure among the mounds of stuff I brought home from London:

A promotional brochure for Selfridges department store circa 2006.

All images cross posted to flickr.

Christmas in February

There just never seems to be enough time during the holidays! This year, I wanted to make monogram embroidered ornaments for my family inspired by this ornament from September House:

But life got busy as it is prone to over the holidays and by the time I got the supplies it was January. Oh well! Anyway, I haven’t trimmed the edges and added ribbon yet, but you get the idea:

Better than I expected! The pattern came from here (a great resource for anyone interested in cross stitch) and the fabric came from here. I’m obsessed with linen now that I’ve tried it. It’s more expensive than evenweave, but soooo pretty! Also, I recently found out that February is national embroidery month which makes it a great time to start an embroidery project! Here’s some inspiration to get you started:

Lipstick Traces and Bam Pow Hand Embroidery by Sam Gibson via the Hand Embroidery Network

All images by their respective owners.

More DIY Valentine Ideas

I’ve been pillaging my new favorite British blog Tea for Joy and discovering lots of wonderful things like this:

Simple, hilarious, adorable. Check out the tutorial at Jordan Ferney.

Castle In the Air

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! I celebrated the new year by visiting one of my favorite places ever: Castle in the Air in Berkeley. This time I remembered to ask if I could take some pictures and they said yes!

It took three people to decorate this tree:

I wanted everything.

Sparkly gnomes!

Where I get all my sealing wax:

If you’re ever in the Bay Area, this place is definitely worth stopping for.

Castle In the Air

8505 Hearst St.

Berkeley, CA 94710

Christmas is in the details

Before everyone opens their presents tomorrow, I wanted to share a few of my favorite decorating ideas. I never have a problem getting inspired, it’s picking one decorating scheme and staying with it that I find difficult! I’m a very lazy DIYer, so I always try and keep it as simple as possible. Last year, I printed out the first letter of everyone’s name in different fonts and glued it to a bit of spare wrapping paper. They make great easy gift tags and add a bit of graphic interest:

This year, I decided to use these gold foil thingies (I’m not sure what their official name is) that I bought at Castle in the Air as extra decoration/adornment:

And that’s a wrap! Happy Holidays everyone!

Renegade Holiday Round Up

I just got back from the Renegade Holiday Craft Fair in San Francisco and I wanted to show you all what I got!

Pie Bird Press has always been a favorite of mine, not only because they make the most gorgeous letterpress cards that look like paintings, but also because they have great extras like this favorite customer ribbon. So cute!

I love discovering new talent! Power and Light Letterpress may not be new to the rest of the world, but they’re new to me. I picked up this quirky little card at their booth and I can’t wait to send it!

Everyone who knows me knows how much I love a sale, especially when it’s less-than-perfect/experimental cards that didn’t quite make the cut. That’s why I picked up these four cards at Two Guitars. And it was hard to narrow it down to these four. Believe me.

Paper Pastries had the most adorable booth! Everything was pastel and they had a 25 piece stationery set that I couldn’t quite bring myself to buy, but was sorely tempted by. I ended up taking this “I left my heart in” card home for a friend and now it ocurs to me that I should have bought one for myself!

Krank Press had some adorable little card sets that required much heming and hawing before I decided on this rainbow “thank you” card.

One thing I love about craft fairs is that you can get things that aren’t available online! I saw these neighborhood posters by Ork Posters a little while ago on one of the many blogs I read and lamented the fact that I couldn’t get a San Francisco one due to lack of wall space. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that they turned some of their damaged neighborhood posters into greeting cards and were selling them.

All in all it was a great turnout. Lots of new people and some great finds from my old favorites. In my upcoming travels, I hope to make  it to some of the other Renegade’s in either Chicago or Brooklyn and see what they have to offer. If they’re anything like the last three in San Francisco have been, I’m sure it’ll be worth the trip!

Holiday Wreaths

Making a holiday wreath has become my own personal tradition (does two years in a row count as a tradition?). Wreaths are about as complicated as I like to get with my DIY, but  this wreath was definitely worth it. The example:

And here’s mine:

I did a few things differently. I used a hardback instead of a paperback which gives it more of a sculptural quality due to the heavier paper. I also added a little bit of gold glitter to the antiquing process because glitter makes everything better. However, anyone who attempts this project be warned: use a book that’s 200 pages or more! She mentions that you’ll need a long(ish) book in the instructions, but I foolishly did not read that part and ended up substituting pages from a paperback (which are much lighter) in order to finish the center. Oh well! Perfection be damned, I think it turned out well. If you’re looking for something a little bit easier or you have a fear of hot glue, I’d definitely take a swing at the paper leaf wreath I made last year. Here’s the example:

And here’s mine:

Here’s a few more I’m thinking about attempting next year.

Felt:

And pom poms!

Via Paper Crave and Design*Sponge

Paper book wreath tutorial by Living with Lindsay

Paper leaf wreath tutorial by The Red Thread

Felt wreath tutorial by Domestifluff

Pom pom wreath tutorial by Bluebird Vintage

Crafting with Stamps

I can’t resist a sale on stamps. It’s simply impossible. Which is why when I went to Joann’s the other day on an entirely different errand, I had to pick up this guy and put it to work:

But it didn’t stop there. I remembered some old music books for piano that I had saved during our last cleaning purge.

And I’ve never met a pun I didn’t like.

Ta da! Stamp sale + salvaged items from my house = gift tags and stationery!