hooray!

i won a giveaway! whee!! jen for our daily big top was kind enough to giveaway three picnik 3-month gift trials. picnik is a fantastic free photo editing program. you don't even need to register if you don't want to. there are plenty of options to play with in the basic version but i've been eyeing those premium features for awhile now. this is going to be fun :)

before

after!

thanks again to jen!

rain rain go away...

it has been raining for a month straight in boston. we've essentially forgotten what the sun is and where to find it. every few days we think it might be a nice day but then... it rains again. to illustrate, this is a screenshot of the weather report yesterday...

strange thing is, it never storms. it's always this strange misty trickle. kind of makes you feel like lettuce at the grocery store. i love a good summer thunder and lightening storm because afterwards, you just feel so refreshed. it's like the world just got a good scrubbing and the air usually feels so much lighter. but you just don't get that with a drizzle! ack! so, since the weather has been so miserable, i've been able to tackle some projects that have been on my back burner for awhile.

i bought these frames from ikea over a year ago and never could think of anything to put in them. then i saw this over at the martha stewart crafts blog and thought it would fun to try out with different shapes. it's also a great way to use up all those teeny scraps of paper that i can't seem to throw out. i'm really happy with how they turned out :)


love letters! this is the first stamp that i've carved that was an outline (not like a solid shape like the heart.) i had been putting off trying it because it's such a pain to get those corners carved out. i realized that sometimes a good old xacto is better than a linoleum carver for clean lines and neat corners. we are powering through onto more complicated shapes! next up... trees?

gypsy and twink

have you met gypsy and twink? she uses such simple shapes to create beautiful pieces. i'd love to know where she gets her papers :) it's so sweet how the pieces snuggle into each other and how they're not whole without one another. home isn't home without my family.

2 birds, gold and red

word house with lady

blue house with tree

photos from gypsyandtwink

shark!

when did cupcakes get so popular? there's even a whole separate section just for cupcakes on the martha stewart website. maybe i'll make some cupcakes this weekend. it's been raining for about two weeks straight so i'm sure everyone could use a cupcake. and i've already made plans to whip up a batch of these for miss n's going away beach party :)

shark and beach cupcakes from martha stewart

turning 26

i was not looking forward to turning 26. i didn't like how 26 sounded... i'd rather stay 25. but my 26 birthday was actually quite lovely. miss e and miss j treated me to a mani/pedi, i stuffed myself with some joy yee's (if you're ever in chicago you HAVE to go to joy yee's to get a strawberry peach freeze and some beef cube and tomato fried rice), went to the harry potter exhibit (so cool!), and laughed with my fam and friends til i felt sick. due to the nightmare that is flying, i spent more time at the airport this weekend than with my fam and friends but those few hours were totally worth the trip. i love you guys muchos <3

butterflies

i love this pretty mobile that jen over at indiefixx made. i may just have to make on in blues and creams and hang it above my bed :) maybe i'll switch the butterflies with birds. and it would put all the shells i've gathered to good use. it kind of makes you want to float away doesn't it?

shipping updates

shipping updates! with the post office raising their rates and the cost of shipping materials going up, i've decided to no longer include delivery confirmation with every order. of course you're always welcome to add it on to your order. i've been avoiding this for awhile but i sat down with calculators, receipts, and the usps website and i banged my head on my keyboard a few times and this is what i came up with. i try really hard to keep the costs of cuteness down because, well everyone needs a little cute, and even more so these days when times are a bit rough. so i will continue to do my best and keep serving up little morsels of cuteness :) thanks for your support!

snail mail

i need to write more letters. i used to have pen pals that i would meet at summer church retreats and we would write letters to each other filled with stickers and random bits of news from our week. sending a letter, written on my best stationary of course, was so exciting but even more exciting was to get a letter in return. who doesn't love getting mail?? especially if it's a nice note written from a friend or even better, a package! (let's ignore bills for now although those can be fun also. i'll explain the reason another day) email, cell phones, blogs, facebook etc, makes it easy and fast to keep in touch with our friends and family. but has the old fashioned letter become obsolete? i'm worried that the art of letter writing will be lost. will kids ten years from now know the excitement of opening a letter? or maybe that same sort of excitement comes from getting and email also... but personally, nothing beats a real, postman delivered letter. i'm a huge fan of paper and tangible things and emails just don't feel as special. i've pretty much saved every single note and letter that's been written to me since i was born (much to the dismay of my mom who doesn't know what to do with all the boxes of stuff that lingers long after i moved to another state) and going through them brings back so many memories and helps me to remember things that i had forgotten. I like sending thank you notes, i always send postcards but i admit, i rarely write letters. i think i'll start up again. if you get a random letter from me, telling you things that you probably already know from my facebook or emails, don't be too confused :)

Vintage French Postage Stamps (25) for Collage, Altered Art, Travel Journals and More

from ImagineArt7

(ImagineArt7 has a sweet collection of ephemera in her shop. take a peek!)

Mail Love - Set of 10 Retro Inspired New Airmail Envelopes

from foundpaperco

cookies

I had a productive weekend... job hunted, walked a few miles, ran some errands, but most importantly... i made chocolate chip cookies :)

a rainbow of books

hm... i'm debating... my sister sent me a photo awhile back of some book collections that were organized by color. i've been debating whether or not i want to commit to this. a) i'm not sure if my books vary enough in color to look really neat. b) my books currently are in a very specific order that probably only i can navigate but that makes total sense to me. has anyone else tried this? i'm worried that i'll never again be able to find the book i'm looking for! but darn it, look how cool it looks! this may be my project for the weekend.

photo from flickr