Unicorns are people, too...

Underwater Basket Weaving - Turns Out, It's Not That Easy

2011-09-03T14:08:00.000-07:00

I was exposed to an entirely new form of crafting last week. One I had miraculously never even considered before: basket weaving. I even drove 5-1/2 hours to try it. IT WAS AWESOME. Yes, it killed my fingers a bit, but it was totally worth it! I went to one of these art classes with my Mom, and we both made baskets.(That's my Mom and me if you hadn't figured that out, yet. Aren't we amazing?!)

An explanation as best I can manage: we wove the bottom of the basket, then we turned up the stakes and wove the top with different kinds of reed. Oh, and we got to cut the tops and do more weaving and then cut more stuff. And we used different colors! My favorite part was the basket feet, though. I LOVE baskets with feet. And also stair baskets, but we didn't make one of those. :( Anyway, as fun as that all sounds, you should definitely try it if you EVER get the chance. I'm pretty sure it won't be my primary hobby (*sad face*), since I have a bazillion other hobbies (how much is a brazilian?), but I will do it whenever I can. (Ooh! That's my basket!)

Actually, today I bought a ton of basket making stuff. I'm amazed at the ways you can use baskets. The basket class was at the instructor's house, and it was fun to find all the baskets she had around the house and all the uses she had found for them. They weren't just baskets. They were magazine holders, tissue boxes, utensil holders, bird nests, hearth baskets and trash cans. Now I want everything to be a basket, and, guess what? I think I can make them all. :)

New ECS Products! Introducing "The Bunting"

2011-05-15T12:19:00.001-07:00

This is something I have always been interested in, and there are so many ways you can make them! Mine, of course, will be made with paper since we are a paperie, and I'm so excited to add them to the shop!

I am one of those people who loves things in miniature (keep your comments to yourself), and these little paper buntings are so cute I had to make one for myself. It does a great job at brightening up my crafting space, which is currently recovering after Hurricane Rayna ran through it. I'd love to get some picture of my craft space up, but that will most likely never happen since I run through my crafting space like a crazy person leaving a trail of cut paper, ribbon and messy adhesives in my wake. Feel free to imagine what it might look like, though. What you can see is the wall I look at when I craft. :) My drafting table is in this corner, and I have access to my crafting lamp and my embellishment center (on the right side of the picture). And then there is the lovely bunting I made for myself out of some of my favorite paper.

These buntings can be made out of all kinds and patterns of paper, and I am currently making them on 5'1" long cotton thread with 1' of blank string on either side for hanging. They can also be tied to skewers on either side and put into a cake! I'm thinking about making a cake just so I can do that. These things are very cool. :)

Go check these out at the shop... Love 'em! *ECS Paper Buntings*

Happy Mother's Day! And a Sale to Boot...

2011-05-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

Good people of the interwebs, Ehle Custom Stationery is having a sale! It is indeed a momentous occasion. :) In honor of all the wonderful mothers out there, we are making our items cheaper! That's always good. This time, it's just for you!

All you need do is go to our online boutique, which you may know very well and you may not, but you can click on the image below to be transported to a world of paper crafting goodness. I've added a lot of stock to get ready for this sale so you should be able to find lots of good stuff. If you see something that is snatched up before you can get it, or if you want a sketchbook made out of paper you saw used for magnets, email me so we can make sure you get the item you want during the sale. The sale is for one day only, and you can only use the coupon code once so I want to make sure you get what you want!

Click on the image above to be taken directly to the Ehle Custom Stationery website. THIS SALE IS FOR ONE DAY ONLY! I don't mean to yell, but that's very important to know. The sale will last the entirety of May 8 give or take a few hours. I think we all know how I am with time restrictions. I'm always fashionably late. Don't wait until the last minute,though... Be sure to use the coupon code mday50 to get the sale. This will save you 50% off your order of $20 or more. You must use the coupon code to get the sale. If you have any trouble, just contact me and we can get things figured out.

Otherwise, I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day, and I'm sending all kinds of good thoughts your way. Here's to Moms!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Let the Freebies Begin!

2011-04-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

Come one, come all! The day has finally come for our Water for Elephants Giveaway! Huzzah! This was a fun giveaway for me because 1) ECS loves elephants! and 2) I love themes. :) I am a theme hound, and it was really fun looking for supplies to make this week's giveaway. Here, ladies and germs, is what we are giving away in honor of a fabulous-looking movie, Water for Elephants:

Here we have a set of 5 matchbook notebooks with 15 pages of recycled newsprint paper in them. We've got some cycling elephants, some circus poster taglines and the beautiful trapeze artist alongside her elephant pals (her elephant pals are on the reverse side :)). This one has rules just like the last one did so keep on reading!

Rule #1:
Like Ehle Custom Stationery on Facebook. If you already have, fabulous. This just makes it easier for me to find and notify people when they win. Click the link below to be taken to the ECS facebook fan page:

Also, by becoming a fan on facebook, that's another way to keep up with the doings of ECS like sales, new products and shows!

Rule #2:
Let me know which act it is that brings or would bring you to the circus. I'll start. I love the animals. The boring ones are okay, but mostly I like the dangerous ones. The elephants with their sharp tusks, the lions and tigers with their man-flesh-eating-ness and the alligators who also eat fleshy men. I love the danger in it. :) Now you. What is your favorite act at the circus?

So leave a comment on this blog post telling me all about your circus habits, and I can't wait to read them! Plus you'll be entered in the drawing. :) Also, if you join the Ehle Custom Stationery Ehlebots, there are discussion boards and other ways to get savings and new product reveals. We've just got all sorts of stuff going on!

The giveaway starts as soon as this is posted (if you're reading it now, that's now!) and ends Sunday night. Joey and I will be picking a winner Monday morning sometime so tune in then to see the winner! Just remember: elephants are our friends, R-Pat and Rees are tremendous actors and unfortunately good-looking people, and, hence, you should go see Water for Elephants. :) Ciao, bellas!

I Can Yudu, Can You?

2011-04-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

I have FINALLY got myself a Yudu. I've been watching these things for a LOOOOONG time, and seeing as there's no way I'm ever buying myself a craft something for $400, I didn't have one. Until yesterday... Being an exclusive member of Michael's email list, I get these awesome coupons from time to time. Yesterday, for ONE DAY ONLY, the Yudus were $99.99! That's hundreds of dollars in savings! I ran right out and got one. I stood right by the Yudus while the lady looked to see if they had any left. She was finally able to scrounge one up, and it was still in the shipping box! I'm still getting shivers thinking how close I was to having to run all around town looking for one of these things. Oooohhh...

Anyway, I got it, brought it home and immediately opened it and started trying to make something. I then proceeded to immediately mess it up. First of all, I'm not entirely taking the blame on this one because the instructions are crap. I should know, instructions are my living. They truly suck. So I effed up the only emulsion sheet I had. Scott had to run out and get one on the way home from work. He's such an awesome husband. :) Then I found out I needed some things that, for some stupid reason, were not included in the box. Okay, check this out. You put emulsion on the screen to make the image. You need emulsion remover to clean the screen of the emulsion ick. THE DAMN YUDU DOESN'T COME WITH EMULSION REMOVER! And I didn't know I needed it until I got the damn thing home and read the instructions. So then I had to run out and get that. :) The good thing is that I was able to find and print a 40% coupon. So there, Michaels. Take that.

So we're now at the point where I have watched several videos online to try to figure out what the heck I'm doing since the directions sucked. I have some new emulsions sheets and emulsion remover now so I can clean the screen I effed up the first time. After all that mess, it was pretty easy to do. I got my screen burned and inked.

The Yudu originally only comes with an adult t-shirt platen so I had to improvise to make this shirt for Joey. It worked just fine, though sticking the back of the shirt to the platen (like you're supposed to) and sticking a piece of cardboard (with double stick tape on the inside of the front and back so the cardboard doesn't move around in the shirt) in the baby tee. I just had to make sure the image on the screen was in the spot I wanted on the shirt.

Then you just make a couple runs over the t-shirt with the ink and you have a screen-printed tee! This one came out super awesome for my first try. The bottom's a little smudgy, but I wasn't sure how much pressure to put on the squeegee when I was pulling the ink through. I didn't push hard enough the first time, and then I lifted the mesh screen to see the shirt. Don't do that. :) So, after that, I made a couple more passes with the ink pushing much harder this time, and it went over it like buttah. I got this design from Michaels. They sell their own art transparencies, but you can also make your own designs. I might have to try making my own next time.

I'll admit I'm slightly concerned about the cost of maintaining my Yudu because emulsion sheets are 2 for $20, and you have to burn a new screen for each image you want. Unless you're doing bulk screenprinting or are an enthusiastic crafter (like myself), I probably wouldn't recommend it. You're essentially paying $10 plus the cost of whatever you're screenprinting. It's up to you whether it's worth it or not, but I just like the idea of making my own designs on t-shirts and such. I LOVE tote bags, and this will be perfect for that. Also, I just had another thought. I can screenprint my own notecard caddies! Holy moley, I love the sound of that idea.

I think Joey liked his new shirt. It made him run around like a crazy person. :) He looks so stylish in his mock designer tee!

Ehle Custom Stationery's First-Ever BLOG GIVEAWAY! (that means free...)

2011-04-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read that right. In the spirit of getting my butt in gear and getting back to business, I'm giving away my first-ever prize package. Exciting, right? I'm pretty darn excited about it! Oh, but not only is this a wonderful prize package, it includes a couple exclusive products that aren't even for sale, yet!

But now for the rules. I'm not just going to GIVE it away. You have to do something for it. Don't worry, it's not hard.

Rule #1: Like Ehle Custom Stationery on Facebook. Here you can get all sorts of news from ECS and get pics of what is currently in the works. You'll also find some sales announced here from time to time. If you have already liked us, fabulous! If not, I won't make you feel bad, but I will look away while you head on over to Facebook to like us. I'll pretend I didn't notice you hadn't liked us already... (you can click on the image below to go to the Ehle page on Facebook)

Rule #2: Leave a comment on this entry letting me know where your notecards go. Where do you send them? If you don't write letters, to whom do you gift them? If you're not in it for the notecards at all, if you're more of a magnet, book or gift tag kind of person, where do they go? I thought it would be fun to know where all my products have been. I can't wait to hear about it!

With that said, I feel like I can now reveal the prize... curtain's being raised, you're on the edge of your seat... ta da!

For the lucky winner, they receive 3 ECS original design notecards, 2 of which are not in the shop, yet. There is also 1 set of ECS bubble magnets and a lovingly hand-stitched pocket notebook also not in the shop, yet. I had a really fun time choosing what to give away, and these notecards are seriously some of my favorites, the banner one, especially. Here's the breakdown:

(1) Thank You Card w/ envelope (invitation size)
(1) Hello Friend Banner Card w/ envelope (invitation size)
(1) Party Penguin Card w/ handmade self-adhesive envelope
(1) 4-piece Creamy Soup Magnet Set
(1) Breezy Trees 20 page Pocket Notebook

To recap, in order to win this prize package, you must 1) Like ECS on Facebook (see Rule #1) AND 2) Leave a comment letting me know where your ECS products have been or will go. It's easy, right?! All entries are due by Wednesday, April 6 at midnight. Don't worry about the time zone, I'm sure it'll be close enough. :) On Thursday morning (April 7), I will put all the names in a random drawing, and I'll let Joey pick a name for me. I will do my best to read the name before he tries to eat it.

If you have any questions at all for me, please let me know. I'm really excited about my first giveaway, and I hope you guys have fun with it! Good luck!

FINALLY!... after 2 whole years...

2011-03-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's right... I FINISHED MY SOCKS! After 2+ years of staring at those socks wishing they would just finish themselves, I finally did it! I'll be the first to admit the 1st sock has a few mistakes in it, but I dare you to find them. :) Usually, everything I make has at least 1 mistake in it, and I like to make a 'Where's Waldo' out of it. Fun times. :) The 2nd sock is gloriously flawless, of course. It's taken this long to make them so one would hope I've learned something since then.

I got this pattern from a book called Sock Innovation by Cookie A. Cookie is a nutcase. She designs all these whacked-out socks for the fun of it! She also tries to teach the reader to design like she does, but I'd sooner stick a pole in my eye. Her designs are incredibly cable-intensive as you can see from the pattern I did. Most of them look like that. I'd rather torture myself making them than designing them. Making them is the fun part, anyway.

Looking at these socks from any angle shows something different. There are 2 sets of cables that wrap around the fronts and sides of the socks and one entirely separate cable that goes down the back. I made these out of some great yarn from Knit Picks (that they don't make anymore, argh) that is 75% merino wool and 25% nylon. Talk about heaven on my feet. :) Oh, and when looking at these pictures, please be sure to ignore my fabulously pasty white legs. And, yes, I glow in the dark.

Ooh, in this one, I even blend in with the white wall! But, wait, ignore that, please. You see nothing! In short, I friggin' love these socks. I have a pair of ballet slippers that I absolutely hated it when you could see my socks through the top. These new socks look great showing through the top. As a matter of fact, today I wore these out and deliberately made them visible. Look at me and my fashion sense go!

Despite the fact that this Cookie woman is gloriously mad, I have plans to make more of her socks. Of course, the next pair I make will also be for ME as I am putting in the work. I'm being selfish, but with these patterns, I feel I deserve it. Then I have the inevitable birthday and 'something' presents that I make up because I just want to make more socks. This has been the longest 2-whatever years of my life, but I deserve these socks! I worked hard for them. :)

Etsy Rocks My World: Serpenthes

2011-03-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

I got my etsy order yesterday! It's only 1 of 2, but I was really looking forward to this one. You may think it strange that I ordered notecards since I make them, but I do have a couple reasons for that. One, it's no fun making a card and then immediately using it. Second, I love it when I share a hobby with someone. Plus, there are just some people out there with wicked awesome designs. And that brings me to Serpenthes! She has the most amazing illustrations that I just had to buy some cards. I bought 2 sets, and they have the coolest octopus images on them. I still can't believe someone can draw like.

Even the note she sent me has a great illustration of the day of the dead! Even her business cards are a work of art. I was just blown away by what I got. Ooh, she also sent me a free gift! I got the postcard in the middle of the steampunk girl on her bicycle, which was GREAT because I was looking at buying that one, too, but it was only available in print form. I will remind you that one of the great things about etsy is custom orders! Probably about 50% of my orders have been customized for what I want. The octopus with the heart was a regular listing, but I asked for a custom order of the girl walking her pet octopus (that's me, by the way ;)). Serpenthes had a collection called Animal Variety Show that included people and their quirky pets, like this one. While I did like the other ones, I could NOT get enough of that little girl walking her octopus. I had to have it. Lots of it. A whole set dedicated just to them!

Needless to say, I will DEFINITELY be getting more cards from Serpenthes, and some of you will, no doubt, be seeing them firsthand! I've already sent one out. These are definitely some notecards you canNOT get anywhere else! And that's what I love about etsy. Etsy makes you the cool kid in school. :) No one will ever be wearing the same dress to the prom because we got ours from etsy.

If you are interested in some of Serpenthes' artwork, as I know you are after that GLOWING review, check out her etsy shop at Serpenthes' Etsy Shop. She's got some wonderful artwork and notecards, and she has some great invitations. I wish I had known about those octopus wedding invitations and save the dates when I got married. They rock. :)

Also, check out the Animal Variety Show collection! I'm seriously thinking about getting that one now that I have Wanda and Sid. That's what I named them. :)

Hockey Season is Over...

2011-03-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

Let me start by clarifying that I'm talking about high school hockey. So no smartass remarks.

There. Now that that's out of the way, I had the pleasure of making the invitations for the Big Rapids Cardinals Hockey team's annual awards banquet. Now I'm really starting to branch out in my audience! Those of you who know me know that hockey is my thing. Everyone has a thing, and hockey is a very significant thing to me. So this was definitely a big deal. On top of all that, it's my little brother's hockey team.

Justin (aforementioned little brother) usually plays travel hockey all year (he's been playing since he was a wee laddy), but this year, he got the chance to switch schools and made the high school team! I was so frickin' excited for him. I even made him special Big Rapids Cardinals Hockey cupcakes with his number on them. :) You can see those in my Thanksgiving post, by the way... (hint, hint...)

As you can imagine, I used the team's colors as the base of the design. I used my cricut, as always, and made the beautiful frame shape for the base of the invitation. From there, it was really just figuring out how the wording was going to come out. I did use a couple of cool embellishments to make it look "official", but those were pretty easy. I used a blue satin ribbon and then cut some fancy corners on the text card. I attached the team's logo to the pretty satin ribbon, and voila! You have a beautiful custom-made invitation. :) Did I mention its beauty? Yeah. I'm pretty proud of these.

So... now that you know where to get your custom-made invitations, I'm sure I'll be hearing from some of you. ;) If I don't, I suppose we can still be friends. This last picture I just took because I love seeing all the cards I made in a big pile. You might have noticed I like to do that in previous posts. It looks cool. And official. Like I'm mass-producing them or something. But no, they're special. Just for you. ;)

Boring Craft Day!

2011-03-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

I suppose I have some other interesting crafts I could talk about, but I just finished this one. And I want to talk about it. This was really a practical project, and it's pretty rare that I do one of these. We put some new bamboo flooring in Joey's room, and we're working on putting some beautiful teak flooring in our bedroom so we had to do something about our slightly leaky humidifiers. For some reason, they also occasionally leave some yucky powdery stuff on the floor. Ew. Anyway, I didn't want to mess up our floors that we worked so hard on putting in so I came up with these.

They came out of a book of crochet motifs I got for Christmas (Thanks, Sarah!), and I have made tons of them already. It's fun to check them off as I go and note how I used them. So this one is the illustrious humidifier rug. I had to add 4 extra rows because it wasn't big enough for our humidifiers, but it looks great. I love that it looks like a little rug. :) It's a great scrap project, and I chose colors that would match our respective rooms. Ours is the black and grey one. Our room is light grey, and there are various other shades of black and grey throughout. Joey's is green, brown and maroon to match his jungle room. The colors look a little off in that photo, so you'll have to trust me on this one.

This project took all of 30 minutes, and it helps keep our beautiful floors beautiful! We just about broke our backs for these floors. They are getting NOTHING on them. I think Joey approves also. :) No more nosebleeds! Yay!

Good Deeds are Good

2011-03-11T11:39:00.000-08:00

It should always make you feel good doing good deeds, and if it doesn't, then you should be ashamed of yourself. I have my thing where I like to do one good deed (or thing, if you will) a day, and this one should at least last me a week or so. I believe in karma so if I do something good for someone, then that should keep the baddies away from me. That makes sense, right? Yes. Moving on...

I knitted up a hat and a pair of mittens for some cute little boy somewhere for a friend of mine. She told me his story, and I had to do it! I'm a sucker for children, emotional stories (be warned if you ever end up watching a chick flick with me) and other such nonsense. I won't bore you with the details, but he needed a little extra warmth and love that can only be given by a handknit hat and pair of mittens.

I got both patterns off ravelry as I love their free patterns, and if it's free it's me. So that was a pretty easy decision there. I changed both patterns a bit as I so often do, and I ended up adding the cute little white stripes to the mittens. I don't know if you can see from the picture, but there is a button on the cuff of each mitten that the mitten-keeper cord is attached to so you can remove it if you choose to do so. I guess not everyone likes mitten-keeper cords, but I think they look pretty darn cute. I have always wondered if they make wearing mittens at all uncomfortable. I guess I'll never know.

The hat was pretty fun to make and also an interesting experience. It started out well because I just had to braid some yarn together. No knitting required! Then it got tricky. It's a fair isle pattern, and I have never ever done that before. Now I know why. It was frickin' exhausting! My yarn was getting all twisted, and I was freaking out thinking my tension was going to be horrible and there were going to be holes all over the darn thing. I was as shocked as you are now that it came out so well. I did take out quite a bit of the fair isle turning it into the solid grey background, but I was working on a deadline, and I was tired of making every single little stitch a different color. It was making me batty. The pom on the top was also a new thing for me. This was the 3rd pom I made. The first 2 sucked so I let Joey play with them a while before he started pulling the yarn out of them and then threw them away. I tried to get him to model the hat, but that didn't work well, either. He kept trying to pull it off while yelling at me for more graham crackers.

All in all, it was a great experience, and I learned some new things about knitting. So here's to doing good things!

On a different note, I've been doing quite a bit of shopping on etsy, lately, and I can't wait to post what I've bought! I'm pretty psyched about them, and I'm mostly writing it down here so I don't forget to blog about it when I get them in the mail in the next few days. Remember, Rayna!

Joey has THAT kind of Mom

2011-03-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's right. This year, I became the kind of Mom that went a little psycho with the birthday party. It was totally awesome for me, but I fear it may become a little more embarrassing for him as he gets older. I made EVERYTHING. Except for the food. I wouldn't dare do that, but besides the food, I made every thing. I mailed out invitations (I made!) a couple weeks before the party, and our theme was monsters. For those of you who plan on doing monster theme parties for your little one, know this. I looked everywhere for monster stuff. No one has it! We went to Party City and the party sections in all major department stores (Target, Walmart, Meijer, etc.), and we found zilch. I eventually found some party favors at Oriental Trading, who, frankly, has everything. So it ended up working in the end, but maybe I'll say that's why I made everything. Yeah, that'll be my excuse.

These are the invitations I mailed out. I used my Mini Monsters cricut cartridge and some of my favorite embellishments. It was a pretty simple design, which I liked about it. I'm trying to get more streamlined in my designing. As you can see, there were 3 designs, and this theme went throughout the whole party. Again, as I like to protect the innocent, sorry for the little black boxes, but this time I'm protecting myself. So deal with it.
So I got my RSVPs, and all Joey's little friends came. We had our 3 friends from playgroup and our next door neighbor. It was crazy! We had 4 small children running around the house along with their 4 dads. So, basically, I guess you could say we had 4 small children and 4 big children running around like hooligans. It was a blast, but we were all pretty bushed after that.

I made us a party banner because I wanted. :) Parties need a banner, right? I used the same papers I used with the invitations, and, of course, the theme came through in the banner. The H at the beginning had monster horns, and the y at the end had dragon wings. I tied the ends up in pretty bows, and it looked like something out of a magazine. It really did. Sorry, but I can't be modest on this one. :) It looked great.
On top of that, I made some cute little party favors for the little kidlets, and I made Joey's shirt. I decorated some chinese takeout boxes, which are, by the way, the best party favor boxes there are. If you want to make a big impact at a party, use chinese takeout boxes. Each kid got a little monster rubber ducky and a monster beach ball. I made Joey's shirt with my cricut and some fabric spray paint. I made stencils for each spray paint color using my cricut. It took a little bit of time because you have to wait for each color to dry before you spray a new one, but it was totally worth it. I will definitely have to try this one again. Simply Spray is the best stuff there is. It dried on the shirt as if it was part of the shirt. It didn't get all rubbery like most screenprinting does. I did totally goof up the first one I tried, though so if you're going to try this yourself, you should buy at least 2 shirts. I ended up buying 3, and now I have an extra shirt to stencil something else. You really can do anything with the cricut. I stenciled "AaarGh!" on the back of the shirt over his butt. I thought it was cute. :)Joey's birthday really was a whirlwind from the very beginning. I had planned on making thank you notes that matched the monster theme, but I just ran out of time and gusto. I had a blast, though, and I would do it all over again. Now I just have to try to top this next year!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

I realize it's pretty late for a post pertaining to the entire day, but I had to get this up here before tomorrow! Oh, and I had a really busy day with my valentines. :) I have a new one this year! Joey and I had a great time while Scott was at work. We played a ton, had snacks together, and then we went shopping at Target. We got some birthday presents for him (I told him to act surprised), and we got some valentine presents for Scott. After that, we went to Party City to look for party things for his birthday party. Did you know they have nothing for a monster theme? I don't understand it. They didn't even have licensed monsters or scary monsters. No monsters at all! What kind of place is this?!

Anyway, I did make some valentines this year. We don't normally do the Valentine's Day thing because we're anti-Hallmark-holiday people, but everything really is much more fun with kidlets. So I had to make some valentines to send out with the ones Joey colored on! We picked out some Spongebob valentines because we like Spongebob, and Joey does, too, believe it or not. He'll sit and actually watch it. Hurray for bright colors!

I will be the first to admit, my cards were made kind of last-minute because Valentine's Day really snuck up on me. I do really like some of them, though. Others you probably won't be seeing again. In any case, happy valentine's day, they're awesome.
In case you can't tell, I love taking pictures of my cards all stacked up. They look so awesome in a huge pile! It's like when you think about swimming in a huge pile of jellybeans or zebra cakes or something. So then I had to take a picture of mine with the spongebob cards Joey colored on. You know, though, it just occurred to me that I should have taken a picture of his colorings. That would have been much cooler. Damn. Maybe next time.

For now, everyone have a happy, happy day. Know you're loved!

Baby Shower #1

2011-02-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

This must be the time to have babies because we know 7 families having babies! It's ridiculous. I feel like I'm missing out on something. I'm not ready to go there again, though. I love my Joey, but I remember that experience like it was yesterday.

In any case, I finally got around to blocking out some address and other sensitive info to protect the innocent, blah, blah, blah, and now I get to show you the pictures! For my baby momma sister-in-law, I made the invitations for her baby shower. She has the good fortune of having a pretty cool nickname (Jenny Bee) so I had a great time making the bee the center of the theme. I love bees myself so I definitely had the materials for this one! I made it nice and neutral because gender is unknown (but not for long!). Yellow and grey is one of my personal favorite color palettes. :) As you can see, there's a super adorable bee as the feature element, but that's not any ordinary bee... It's a bee stamp that originally came holding a flower. I masked the flower out and added the umbrella. I know, I know, pretty cool, huh? ;)

I also used glitter! Those who know me will be saying what?! Rayna used glitter?! I know, it's the herpes of craft supplies. It gets on everything, and you'll find it a week later in your underwear. I think I used it pretty well, though. I just put a bit on the edge of the wings to contribute to some translucence. I had a ton of fun doing some watercoloring (one of my new favorite things to do), and I added the cool little embellishment on the bottom. I cut out the envelope with my cricut, curled some wire and cut out the little green flower with my cricut also. I thought the green was a nice little pop of color. It's only in the second picture, but the envelope was for the little heart that has the registry information. I love that part. :) Ooh, I also printed the envelopes so the typeface would match the invitations. It's the little things that really make a project!

In addition to the invites, though, I always have to make something. Especially for family! I usually have a formula: clothing, toy, blanket. I had to deviate this time, though because I just didn't have the time. We still just moved into our house so we're kind of overloaded with all sorts of house stuff. It's slowly getting better, but, I swear, it never ends. Anyway, I did make the toy because I saw this bird and decided they had to have it! I've also been wanting to make this hat for a while. So that's what I ended up doing.

The bird came from a book I got for Christmas called Knitwit. I LOVE it. It's got all sorts of weird critters in it, and I can't wait to make myself something! Of course, there are some things I'd like to make for Joey, too. I want to make him the alien pirate. :) I did end up changing the eyes for the bird because I liked my way better. :) I very often change a pattern to suit my own style. I think it came out much better! It was really fun to knit, though and took very little time. I also changed up the pattern for the hat because they had you knitting just a square bag, which is cute, but the flour sack version is cuter. So I had to improvise a little bit, but I think it turned out well in the end. :) That one came from Closely Knit, which is one of my favorites. I've got a long list of things to make from that book. I'm actually in the process of making something from that book right now! I'm making a sweater vest for Joey for his birthday, but that's another blog post...To top all that off, I made her Thank You notes. No, this was not a preemptive move. I made sure to tell her I was not expecting one back. :) And, to be absolutely clear, she asked for them. So there. They don't match the bee theme, but I also have a soft spot for elephants (check out my shop ;)) so I couldn't pass up this pattern. I used a new technique on these cards that I couldn't believe I had never tried before. I colored the images with chalk and then set it with a fixative. It took no time at all, and it looks great! I might be using these thank yous for myself also. ;)
I'm working on a TON of stuff so keep an eye out! I'll try to keep up with everything! Happy Crafting!

Like a MoFo!

2011-02-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

I have been crafting like crazy, and, honestly, it's been nice being busy making stuff. I've finished up a load of stuff that I need to be getting on here soon, but, for now, I'm going to stick with the easy stuff. :) I've been making a lot of cards, which is awesome! I had been in papercrafting purgatory for a while unable to make anything due to our transitory existence in that creepy hotel. No, not The Shining creepy, but when you've lived in the same hotel for 5 months, nothing seems normal anymore. We're slowly getting back to that normal state. Slowly. I had a ton of thank yous to send due to Christmas, wedding anniversary and my birthday so I had some fun making some of my own. :)

I love the bird thank you card. I was able to do some quick japanese stab stitch on that one to add a little extra oomph. Mostly, I was just experimenting, but I had a great time. I was amazed Joey even let me work for a little while! On that note, I need to do some maintenance on my shop. It's been such a long time since I was able to sit down and do some work for my little stationery shop. :) I miss it! So, watch for these! There are also some other new things I'd like to add to the shop, but my little Joey will be 1 in a week and a half! Wow, I can't believe that... yikes.

In any case, we're having a party!!! I'm planning the whole thing and trying to come up with some clever ideas for decorations and favors and such. I already finished the invitations and got them out, and they're adorable, of course. Our theme is monsters. Now I have to make a banner, some cupcake toppers and get some favors together. I can't wait! I love parties. :) And this one's mine! Well, watch for more. I'll try to keep things updated. :)

Oops, forgot one. This one was super fun to make because I used 4 different stamps (from the same set so it would still look cohesive) to make this pattern. Making paper is one of my favorite things to do, and this is really something new for me. I make my own patterned paper all the time using a single stamp, but I've never piece something together. I had to take a picture of it so I would remember just how I pieced them together for this one. :) I love how it turned out! I also love putting a little something extra on the envelope. When you get an envelope like that, you know there's something awesome inside. :)

It's Thanksgiving, ya'll!

2010-12-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a fantabulous Thanksgiving... I know I did! Joey got to see his first hockey games ever (his uncle was playing), we ate super good food, and we got to spend time with family. Isn't that what it's all about? I'm sure that's what everyone did, except maybe minus the hockey. That's an Austin family thing. :) And I love it! I made Justin (my kid brother) some extra special celebratory cupcakes since he made the high school hockey team this year. They're little mini cupcakes you can just pop in your mouth, and I made a little chocolate team logo and his number to stick in the frosting.

I felt like a true pastry chef when I made the little chocolate toppers. :) I printed off his high school logo and put it under some wax paper so I could trace it with the chocolate. I heated red and blue chocolate and then piped it onto the wax paper. It was delicious! They peeled off the wax paper really nicely, and I didn't break any of them. I was pretty proud of myself for that. Again, the chocolate technique came from my 'What's New, Cupcake?' book. Congrats, Justin!

So I did end up doing some crafting for Thanksgiving, and since my crafts are fairly limited in the hotel room we call our home, I'm learning some new things. I did some cupcaking again! How can you go wrong with cupcakes? I made some Thanksgiving cupcakes made to look like stuffed turkeys. This one also came from 'What's New, Cupcake?'. The turkeys and turkey legs are made of rolled caramels, the turkey legs of potato sticks and the stuffing and lettuce are corn flakes. I will say the corn flakes got really soggy in the frosting. I ended up pulling them off and not eating them. Yuck. I did like the turkey legs, though because they were solid caramel! They were a huge hit, and everyone ate them all. I think Grandpa ate the most, despite the fact that my dad said Grandpa wouldn't eat them because they looked weird. :)

Scott bought me some new tools of the trade that I am realizing I don't know how I lived without. If anyone is going to get into any kind of baking hobby where icing is involved, please get pastry bags and tips. They work wonderfully as far as control and technique go, and they just make it more fun. It's not fun when it's difficult, right?

So I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and ate tons of food. Nothing brings people together like food does. On to the next holiday!

PS - Since I've received my yarn to continue my cardigan, I've completed both front panels and a sleeve. I just might make my goal of finishing before Christmas! One more sleeve to go... Happy Crafting!

Sneak Peek Monday!

2010-11-15T06:35:00.000-08:00

It was going to be Sneak Peek Sunday, but I wasn't quick enough on getting this out. So you miss out on the alliteration, but you still get the sneak peek. Yay, you! I can't work on my awesome new cardi because I ran out of yarn, and I'm still waiting to get new stuff in. So I decided to share what I have because I'm just so darn excited. And you get two sneak peeks in one! We finally closed on our house, and I get a craft room! I can't wait to have my own space to mess up again. I will say, though, it's really sad to leave my craft room in Holly as we put so much time and effort and thought into it. *sigh*

We'll start with my new craft room since it's the less cool of my cool sneak peeks. This is my new craft room in the new house. There's not really anything in it so it may not be the greatest look, but it's got so much potential! I can't wait to fill it with my crafting things. It will definitely be epic. Epic, I tell you. Plus, I'll have a place for the Rayna Crafting Tornado to pass. I understand how these pictures are probably boring, but I can't help but picture all my crafting things and all the ideas that will be buzzing around in there. It gives me chills. :) My room has one very large closet and lots of space. And also two windows and a ceiling fan. Thrilling, I know. :)

On the other hand, we have my awesome new cardi. Once again, it's a free pattern on ravelry. (if it's free, it's me!) I heart free patterns. :) I'm not the kind to knit sweaters. I'm way too impatient for that. I get bored with long runs of doing the same thing so this pattern is perfect for me. It uses a bulky/super bulky yarn with giant needles. So it takes a fraction of the time that a normal sweater would. I chose Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca in a beautiful deep blue color, and it's sooooooo soft. I can't wait to live in this thing! This is what I have of the back panel. As you can see, it's got a really cool lattice pattern with some cables on the side. Now, tell me, have you ever seen anything like this in the store? Exactly. It's mine. Because of the yarn I chose, it's quite an expensive sweater, but I am strangely okay with that. In any case, I can't do anything until I get the remaining 8 hanks of yarn. This is 2, so far.

Please to enjoy my exclusive sneak peeks. :)

Special note: I took all the pictures here with my new phone, the LG Optimus. I freaking love this phone! It replaces my uber-crappy Samsung Reclaim. I am never buying Samsung again. I called them so many times with issues about my phone, and they didn't seem to care. So take that and stick it in your powdered donut, Samsung.

Cupcakes are crafts, too!

2010-11-09T10:51:00.000-08:00

I'm trying my hand at a new hobby. Rayna, do you really need yet another hobby, I hear you say. One can never have too many hobbies. I find joy in many things so why should I limit myself? So there. Yes, another hobby. But this one's delicious... I'm making novelty cupcakes! Well, I've made one batch, at least. But I do plan on making more! Scott bought me a really neat book for a housewarming present (warm my house with cupcakes!), and it's got so many cool recipes in it. I'm definitely planning on making more. I've already planned things like Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays ( I can't decide if I want knitting or goldfish cupcakes for my birthday. Maybe knitting goldfish? Awesome!).

For those of you who know me, I hate cooking. Maybe not hate it, but I'm terrible at it. I mess up macaroni and cheese, and I usually eat ramen when it's just me. I cannot cook. I will not cook. Although, I have been making Joey's food. That's beside the point, though. I can puree anything. That's not hard. So, anyway, cupcakes. Mmm, cupcakes. This book has everything in it. There are several recipes for cupcakes, which is good because I like everything in one place. There are also a bunch of frosting recipes. I went kind of cheap on that front. I bought frosting. :) Hey, you have to start somewhere. :) It's just as delicious, I can assure you. I'll get to making my own.

I made the Bake Sale Pies. Delicious! Anything with M&Ms is a hit with me. This was also marked as an "ez" recipe so it was a good place to start. There are so many cupcakes I want to make in this book. There are cupcakes that look like eggs, monsters, jungle animals, whales and bees, just to mention a few. Of course, there are also things you wouldn't want to eat. For some reason, there is a recipe for cupcakes with roaches on top of them and cupcakes that look like nasty rats. Ew. Definitely do NOT want to eat. This book has all the techniques and recipes you need to know to make their cupcakes. I love it! As you can see, Scott and Joey loved them, too. These cupcakes make a great snack! ;)

The Frog Prince

2010-11-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's November already! We had a wonderful October as we took our boy trick-or-treating for the first time. It was so much fun! We have since moved to Ohio, but we haven't yet moved into our house. Preemptively, we trick-or-treated around the new neighborhood where we will be living very soon I hope. We met a bunch of the neighbors, and we got candy, of course. It was awesome! On that note, the craft for this time was Joey's costume. I knit him the cutest little frog costume. I, personally, thought it was genius. :) Plus, none of the other kids had the same costume.
I got this pattern from a book called Wacky Baby Knits, and, despite all the problems other people had with it, I had a great time knitting it. When it comes to knitting, I just trust the pattern. Even if it doesn't make sense to me at the time, I always just do what it tells me. It always turns out. :) I wish everything worked out that way! There were a couple times I had to check the ravelry forum to see what other people thought of the pattern, but then I just went for it. Sure, I'll make the frog eyes just like I made the frog eyelids. It doesn't make any sense, but I'll figure it out. I'm usually one to make it up as I go, anyway. Everything turned out fine, as you can see. The pattern was free, by the way. I'm sure you can google Wacky Baby Knits along with frog or you can just go straight to ravelry (if you have an account) and look it up there. Ravelry is definitely my go-to place for patterns. Google is kind of a waste of time that way.

Scott also had a hand in this, and I always value his design opinion, but he really helped with this one. The pattern had me stitching the black part of the eyes. We went button shopping for all the buttons to close up the legs and the collar, and Scott found the coolest green froggy eyes! They match the yarn perfectly, and they really just made the outfit. So, thank you, baby. :) Your input was invaluable.
I hope everyone had as much fun this Halloween as I did. We're finally starting to move into our new house! We should close on Monday so I can't wait to get my craft room back. I'll have to post new pictures! I get my own room with a ginormous closet! Hurray, me! I hope everyone's looking forward to the holiday season. I finished knitting Scott's Christmas presents, and I have to start work on Joey's sometime soon. I'm hoping I'll be able to wait until we get into the new place. For now, I'm working on something for me. ;)

For My Favorite Baby Momma

2010-10-12T20:22:00.000-07:00

This post is a very special one because I get to announce... dun, dun, dun... my sister-in-law's pregnant! As you may have noticed, I go gaga over babies, and this is an extra special baby because they will be my very own niece/nephew! I can't tell you how excited I really am so I am dedicating this post to my very favorite family right now: Jen and Kevin Ehlert and the little bun in the oven. :) I haven't had a lot of time to do yarn crafts for the little bugger, yet, but I have definitely been inspired by Jen herself. I found the coolest stamp at Michael's in the $1 bin (Yay, $1 bin!), and it really brings out the fun in pregnancy. :) I had a lot of fun with this stamp. I made my own paper print by stamping a really fun curlique-type stamp in red, and then I stamped the little pregnancy dress on top of it and cut it out. This is a super fun technique called fussy cutting. It's one of my favorites! Then I made it even more fun and whimsical by stamping it on the paper print again and cutting out the bottom part of the dress so I could pop it out with a 3d dot tape. I thought Jen would love the realism. :) I also heart rhinestones so, of course, I had to add some of those.

I also made the envelope myself so I could coordinate with the card (for themed party coordinations, hint, hint... ;)). I used my much-loved cricut to cut out the envelope and stamped the same curlique-type stamp from the card on the corners of the envelope. Then, instead of adding rhinestones (because I'm sure they would fall off the outside of the envelope), I colored the little circles red.
There are a couple things I love about this card. One, I made it. Call me egotistical or whatever you'd like, but it's genius. Two, it's a little less baby (although we all know babies are indeed wonderful) and more a celebration of pregnancy and the beginning of motherhood. In other words, it's more about Jen! So, yes, we're all really thrilled about a new baby, and we can't wait to meet them, but it's also always fun to be celebrated and spoiled a little yourself. :) So this one's for you, Jen. We'll get to the baby when they get here. :)

To go back a bit, there was a card I made a while back that was also inspired by Jen. Her nickname is Jenny Bee. I guess I don't actually know if it's Jenny B or Jenny Bee, but in any case, she likes bees. So, for the sake of argument, it's Jenny Bee. I was trying to come up with some themes for a baby card, and baby bee sounded so cute! So we'll give this one to you, too. :) You're just so inspiring! This one was fun because I also made my own paper print, and I got to use some embellishments I don't normally use in the wire and the button. Plus, kraft paper is the best.

So, this post, dear Ehlerts is for all 3 of you! But mostly Jen. Take all the time you can get together because it will disappear quickly when you have a little one. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but store up face-time with each other because between sleeping and work and baby, you may not see each other for a little while. :) But you know who you can call for help, should you need it! Crazy Aunt Rayna will be on the move...

The Fabled Follow-Through

2010-09-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

I did it! I, who never follow through with (hardly) anything, have finished something I said I would do. And I can safely say it was all thanks to... da, da, da, dum... Couch 2 5k! I followed the program for 9 weeks, and while there were some rough practices, I finished the program and went on to run my first 5k in... forever. A long time, in any case. I did the Raise the Roof 5k benefiting Cincinnati's Habitat for Humanity, and the course was at Sharon Woods, which was SUPER HARD! It was crazy hilly, and it went through some really pretty woods (as you might have gathered from the name of the park). My boys were there to cheer me on, and I don't think I could have done it without them, either. While I didn't reach my personal goal of finishing within 30 minutes (I finished in 35:38), I did a pretty good job, and I only walked twice for a very short distance. Oh, and I picked it up at the end. :)

Oh, and the whole point of this post was to display my headband I knitted just for this occasion. I thought it would help my inner get-up-and-go if I made something special for myself to get me motivated, and it really did. I made this beautiful headband, and it's one of the many free patterns I've gotten off ravelry. By the way, if you're a fiber crafter, and you're not on ravelry, you're seriously depriving yourself of something wonderful and pure. So do it. I used this really nice thick wool yarn in my favorite crafting color: grey! I know grey sounds like such a boring color medium, but it's so versatile. And this thing is super soft. I doubled the yarn because I wasn't sure about the lace in a headband I wanted to keep the cold out of my ears, and that did the job. It worked great, and I actually ended up taking it off the last mile and using it to wipe the sweat off my forehead. It worked great for that, too. :) In addition to the beautiful, soft grey yarn I used, I used a very cool wood-like button for the back closure. The headband took no time at all to make, and I would recommend this pattern to anyone! It was great to work with it, and I loved the end result. If you're going to make it, the thing does stretch so don't worry about gauge too terribly much.

I'm really glad I did this, and I'm actually thinking of doing more 5ks. I'm kind of worried that now that I have no goal in mind, I'll stop working out. I can't let myself do that! I will NOT let myself do that. Oh, and I have to eat better. I'll be working on that. So today's lesson is to get up and go outside! I know it's hot, but you can do it. You will feel better, I promise. Unless you pass out from heat stroke, but I trust you to listen to your body and go inside if you start to feel sick. Okay? Okay. If I can do it, you can! (I'm a lazy bum. :))

Time to Accessorize

2010-09-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

So we've been traveling a lot, lately, and I can't really craft. That means I have to find something I can do on the road (or in the hotel) and something that will also dress up my travel gear. Enter knit and crochet flowers. I've made some of these before, but I hadn't thought about putting them on all sorts of things. They're really easy, though, and I love them. :) So that makes it awesome. I bought 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet by Some Lady (google it, you'll find it), and it's got the most amazing flower, leaf, fruit/vegetable, bug and leaf designs. I've been piecing together flowers to make little corsage-type things. The most recent one I made was a bouquet of trillium (They're called something else in the book, but I made them white, and now they're trillium! Voila.) with 2 large leaves and 1 small. You probably wouldn't know that if you saw it, but that's what they're called in the book: large and small leaves. I think it looks awesome on my suitcase. :)

There's really not a whole heck of a lot for me to craft right now, theoretically speaking. I can't do any of my paper crafts right now (bah!), and there are only limited knitting/crocheting capabilities because I don't want to be carting around skeins and skeins of yarn. Plus, I have a Halloween costume to finish, and that really needs to take priority. I can't wait to show that one off! Trust me, that'll be a lot more exciting than a tiny corsage. :) This was a really fun project, though, and it made me slightly more excited about moving all my crap to another state. I definitely plan on making more of these. I think I'm going to try wearing one in my hair next time. Something fall-y. We'll see how that works out.

Joey and the Eggplant

2010-08-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

Have become great friends since I introduced them almost 2 weeks ago. They like to play together, roll around together and the eggplant likes to be chewed. Joey is more than happy to oblige. It all started with a promise I made Joey when he was around 4 months old. I promised him that I would make him an eggplant for his 6 month birthday. I like to think Joey loves it. :)

It may be unnecessary to say this for those who know me, but I have recently become obsessed with amigurumi knitting. You can knit your own toys! It's awesome! How many children out there have a stuffed eggplant? I would challenge you to find one. Plus, it's so well-constructed. ;) It's soft, there aren't any parts that will pop off and choke him, and it's got a really fun stem that he can chew on and hang on to so he can swing it around and hit people.

I have the most wonderful book of amigurumi knitting written by Hansi Singh. This is the second pattern I've used from this book, the first one being the Garden Snail, which was also awesome. Joey really likes that one, too. He likes to chew on the snail's antennae. The eggplant was a super easy pattern to follow, and I would recommend it to EVERYONE. The only thing to brush up on may be picking up stitches, but there's an entire section on this in the book. Everything you need to know can be found IN THIS BOOK. It's awesome. I absolutely hate it when I get a book that has specialized stitches (triple treble crochet clusters, for example, 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet...), and you have to bring along an additional reference book to be able to figure out those wonky stitches. For my amigurumi knitting, I need only one book. It's heaven. :) The patterns are just so unique and fun, too. What child wouldn't want a stuffed jackalope? I have at least 2 other patterns currently planned for this book. I bought yarn for Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster (this one's for me), and I want to make a spider for Joey for Halloween. That one may be a little late since we're A) in the process of moving into a new house and currently living in a hotel and B) I'm already knitting him a costume for Halloween. You'll have to wait and see what it is. :)
In any case, I highly recommend this book as it is wonderfully fun and quirky, and Hansi Singh is a friggin' genius. Yes, some of the patterns seem pretty challenging (I love to read knitting patterns before bedtime), but challenges are fun! It always feels good to accomplish something like this. Happy knitting!

Going green with crafting!

2010-07-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm finally finding the time to tell you how it was sewing Joey's wet bags, and I know I said I was going to do it a few days ago, but, well... life gets in the way sometimes. We had to make an emergency trip to Ohio (good emergency, nothing's wrong, but thanks for worrying), and my poor little boy is cutting his first tooth, and it finally broke through today! He's still quite a bit cranky, but you would be too if something razor sharp was tearing your gums apart trying to rip its way through your face. So don't judge.

So, wet bags. I found a GREAT pattern online courtesy of the oh-so-talented Jessica of Yarnmonster. Just for your clarification, she made an all-cotton bag so, if you use this pattern, adapt it to what you need. The link for the pattern can be found below. I made a drawstring wet bag using cotton flannel and PUL. PUL is a wonderful fabric that I used for the first time for this project. It's a thin, slightly stretchy washable water-resistant fabric perfect for things like wet bags, snack bags and whatever else you would make that you would want to resist water. Please note I say resist. Not water-proof so keep that in mind if you decide to use it. I made the bags slightly bigger than Jessica uses in her pattern, but she is wonderful at explaining how to adapt your measurements so it was absolutely no problem. These bags could also be made to be nifty little reusable gift bags. I made the 2 bags on the left, and all the diapers on the right are FuzziBunz. Great stuff, so far! I love them. We got several different colors so Joey can always look stylish in his FuzziBunz. :)

Jessica's Drawstring Bag Pattern

Below, you can see Joey modeling a pair of his FuzziBunz. He looks very cute in them, if I do say so myself. He's also very interested in his diaper bag. That's fine, I suppose. They were made to hold poop. He couldn't do much worse than that to them. Have at it, little gooba.

I sized the bag to fit Joey's diaper pail so we could continue to use our current diaper disposal system. You can kind of get the look of the PUL in this picture. It's the light blue, shiny fabric wrapped around the top of the bag holder. You do have to be a little careful when sewing this fabric as it is slightly stretchy, but it's definitely manageable. I had no problem with it, and I'm definitely nowhere close to being a first rate sewing person (whatever you call them). The only problem I had with the bag/pail combo is that between the cotton flannel and the PUL fabric wrapped around the bag holder and the piece of plastic that's supposed to go into the holder so it closes securely, the fabric is a little too thick for it to close. However, that ended up being just fine with us because 1) we put little Arm & Hammer odor eaters at the bottom of the diaper pail, and 2) since we're using reusable diapers, there is no actual poop in the pail because we rinse the poopy diapers in the toilet because I AM NOT putting poopy diapers in my beautiful green washing machine. NOT doing it. So there's really no smell to speak of in the first place. Now, I just lift the entire lid of the pail, throw the diaper components in, and when it's full, I take the whole bag out and throw everything into the washing machine. Voila. Just like magic. I'm loving this system! Plus, using reusable diapers makes me feel like a better person. So, the two reasons we're using reusable diapers: 1) wonderfully adorable fashion statement (for Joey), and 2) it makes me feel better... so purely selfish. But still okay!

I had to include King Gooba himself in some of these pictures. I put him in the midst of the bags and diapers, and he ended tearing up my pretty picture and chewing on diapers. I guess when you're this cute, you can pretty much do whatever you'd like. :) I don't think there's anything I didn't cover, but if you have any questions about this project or Yarnmonster's pattern, let me know!

Joey says: "Thanks, Momma, for saving the planet for me when I'm a much older, mature and handsome man." Go, green!

New look!

2010-07-20T21:34:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, I've changed the background on my blog! I probably had too much fun messing everything up, but I think it looks great. It looks like a unicorn threw up rainbows all over it! I love it! For those of you who don't know, unicorns throw up rainbows. It's a fact, look it up.

In other news, my darling hubby now has his own craft-related blog! His craft is not nearly as feminine as mine is so you'll be disappointed if that's what you're expecting. His craft, however, is incredibly cool. To preface, who likes beer? ME! I DO! (bouncing up and down while violently shaking my arms in the air...) His craft is... BREWING BEER! How cool is that? I've tasted his homebrew, and it's great. His most recent creation was a watermelon wheat, and it's summer in a bottle. It's awesome. This is really the first batch I've gotten to enjoy like this simply because I was pregnant for, well, 9 months, and I missed a lot of it. But now I'm back in the game! Yay, beer drinking game! So if you're interested in his homebrewing hijinks, check them out at:

Beer Blog

Yes, it's seriously called Beer Blog. Now he just started it tonight so maybe give it a few days before you start expecting something, but go ahead and bookmark it. Bookmark it. Now. Well, I suppose you can finish my blog first, but THEN bookmark it. You'll be very glad you did.

I did finish both wet bags as I tested the first and completed the second today. They look great, they fit in Joey's diaper pail wonderfully, and I'll have more on that tomorrow, probably. Pictures and such, you know.

So I hope everyone has a good night. I've sent the unicorn back home after he so lovingly contributed his beautiful unicorn vomit to my blog. Bjorn (the unicorn) is wonderful for helping me out in my time of need. So go bookmark Scott's blog, and then come back later for wet bag project info! Don't tell me... YOU CAN'T WAIT!

Holy notecards, Batman!

2010-07-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

As you may know, I've been working on a very large order. I think it's the largest one I've done, minus work I've done for craft shows, of course, but it's been an absolute blast! I got to use a ton of creative license, and I am very grateful for that. I came up with a ridiculous amount of new designs, and I have listed many of them on my site already. So, as I said, TONS of fun. I think the most fun part was ending up with a huge stack of notecards at the end.

Awesome, right? I LOVE IT! :) Anyway, I'm sure it's boring reading about how I stacked up a bunch of notecards so I'll stop. But it was fun. I mean, look at that placement!

Anywho, besides, going bonzai on my notecards, I've been working like a crazy woman on stitching some more notepads. You know what they say about crazy bookbinders... they're crazy. Watch out, right. Since I've had my bookbinding drill, I've made a few more notepads, and I've got quite a few more in the works. I'm working on a very special one that I'm making out of the very same paper I used to make Joey's baby announcements. I'm thinking about keeping that one for myself. In any case, my bookbinding drill is a-freaking-mazing. I can clearly get notepads done in a fraction of the time, and it really does save my wrists and hands. The stitching is quite a bit easier, and I'm just plain happier with my products. Go, me.

Now that I've mostly got my products solidified, I'm working on finalizing some other business-type things. I worked on some packaging materials yesterday, making myself some stickers for sealing product bags, and I got my new stamp! Yay! Now my products will all have my new website on the back. Woo hoo! While this may sound very boring to you, it's so exciting to me! I've also started making a list of new things I might want to carry. Party accoutrements! Banners, themed thank yous, cupcake toppers... Of course, I'll have to work out the logistics, but, again, I'm really excited. As you can tell, it doesn't take much. :)

Now that I'm done with this order, I'm going to get it ready to send off, and it will be lookin' good! Then I have another order to work on, and in between all this, I will get that wet bag done. I promise. I'm off today to get more fabric. Unfortunately, I did misjudge what I would need on that front. While sewing is not my first love, I like to think I'm capable. :)

So little time...

2010-07-10T17:03:00.001-07:00

I've been making a TON of new card designs, lately, and I just wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten about my blog. I'm working on some great stuff, and I'm also working on adding some stuff to the shop. I had been waiting for some supplies, and I got them in the mail yesterday so... yay! Hopefully, I'll be on that soon.

In other news, I am officially a member of the Cricut Circle as I received my welcome kit with my exclusive Cricut cartridge about a week ago. I would have mentioned it earlier, but I wanted to make some things with it first. The cartridge is French Manor, and it is not available for purchase. Yep, that's right. I did say exclusive. :) The cartridge is filled with beautiful vintage, French country designs, and I'm going to have a blast with this thing. Here are a couple of the cards I've made.

This first one is obviously a 'hello' card, and I used one of the two chandelier die cuts from the cartridge. I put it on top of an embossed damask pattern I made with my epic six, and I then added some color in the pink rhinestones and ribbon. I find that I have been obsessed with rhinestones, lately, and I've been adding them to everything. This, of course, was no exception.

The second card I've made with this cartridge, so far, is a wedding card where I also used a damask-type pattern for the base of the card. Again, I used my epic six to emboss the eyelet pattern on the semi-circle, and I added a 'Congratulations' sentiment with some rhinestones. Go figure. :) I got the beautiful bird cage from the French Manor Cricut cartridge, and this card is seriously one of my favorites. I also got the birds from the new cartridge. Other than that, I pleated some mulberry paper underneath the semi-circle and added some color with the purple bow to match the card base. The thing I love about this card is how personalized you can make it. Instead of using purple, you can use the wedding colors or color-coordinate the rhinestones or the bird cage or the brads. There are SO many different versions of this card to be made.

I'm definitely working on some other stuff to make with my new cartridge. These 2 cards are not yet on my shop site, but they will be there soon. These are actually the first pictures I've taken of them, and I took them about 30 seconds ago. Needless to say, I'm already loving my Cricut Circle VIP status. This is heaven for a paper crafter.

I just bought a Japanese Screw Punch, and I'll be taking that to some notepads. I had previously been using a paper piercer to individually pierce 5 holes in 50 pages and 2 covers. This was killing my wrists and any free time I had so I googled for a more efficient way to make them. I came up with this screw punch that was both cost-effective and seemingly wrist-friendly. I'll have to let you know how true this is.

I'm also attempting to get some business cards made via The UPS Store. Holy crap, is it a pain in the behind. They're really nice and everything, but, for some reason, they can't print my business cards the way they're supposed to look, and it's driving me insane. They print beautifully at my house, and I'm wondering if I shouldn't have done it that way in the first place. Oh, well, you live, you learn. Hopefully, I'll have them soon (since I've already paid for them), and I'll be well on my way to handing them out and posting them on random public bulletin boards. I want to get the word out. EHLE CUSTOM STATIONERY IS BACK! I'm now doing more occasion-oriented cards to make myself more marketable, and I'm trying to get some advertising accomplished. I seriously suck at advertising so if anyone has any ideas, please LET ME KNOW! I would love your help and support.

Ode to My Cozy Feet

2010-06-29T16:19:00.001-07:00

Don't they look comfy? Well, they are, and that's because I made them so! I started these slippers sometime after Christmas. They were supposed to be the slippers I took to the hospital with me when I had Joey, but that clearly didn't happen. :)

I got this pattern from an awesome book called Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick. Fabulous book, if you ask me. It's a good knitting book for traveling if you knit when you go places (I do!). There are all sorts of patterns, and then mixed up with the patterns are fun things to do related to knitting. There is a list of movies to watch that have knitting scenes, there's a way to wind down in the bathtub (while knitting, of course), there are various recipes, how to decorate with yarn, etc. And all these things relate back to knitting. I love it! I'm such a dork.

For these slippers, I used the pattern for the argyle slippers (in the book), but I used a chart from another pattern (almost-famous luggy bonnet, also in the book) and changed it to fit my slipper tops. I also picked out my own colors, obviously. :) It was a really fun pattern because there were several little pieces to knit so it didn't seem to take that long. The thing I had to work with was not having the pre-made kit to make boots (they give you the resource in the book, but the company is ancient and doesn't have a website. Plus, I'm not paying a ton of money for a kit I can make up on my own). And, if you ask me, my kit ended up being better. :) The way the book had it, you buy this boot kit, and you have plain old boring brown or black suede boot bottoms. After some research, I found that these things are usually between $15 and $50 depending on what you want. Boring! (and ridiculously expensive) I bought supported shoe sole inserts for $2.50 and covered them in fabulous fabric of my choosing. I also have some really nice leather from when my Grandma used to make slippers so I covered the bottom of the inserts with the leather and sewed it into the slippers. It sounds complicated, but it was really easy. In short, there are 2 bands that go around the perimeter of the slipper. The leather goes up in between them and is sewn and glued in there.

I also made an extra piece to make them extra warm on top of my feet. The pattern was more of a guideline for me. :) I think mine turned out awesome, though! I made them with super soft yarn, but with the fabric bottom, I can also wear them in the summer. I will say, the only thing I didn't like about this pattern was the fact that I had to assemble about a brazillion pieces. I do not like assembling. I'd rather knit everything together somehow. So, whenever you're cold, think of my cozy feet. Then you'll feel better. :)

Now that I'm finally done with these slippers, I'm moving on to more projects FOR ME! I have this bad habit of never making myself anything and also working on a million projects at once. I'm going to try to close some out. Next, I'm going back to some socks I started ages ago. Wish me luck! And don't forget about my awesome hand-knitted feet. :)

Ehle Custom Stationery Has a New Home!

2010-06-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for me to move on to something more... me. I have my very own space now! Yay! And it's much easier to update and change, and I feel more in control. I need to be in control sometimes, and this is one of those times.

On the opening page of the site, there's a photo gallery of lots of different kinds of things I've done. Some of them will be on the web site for sale, and some of them will not. If you see something in that gallery that you would like, just contact me using the Contact Me button on the toolbar at the top of the page. I won't bite, I promise! I hope the site is also easier for shoppers to use. Scott and I had a fun time testing it. :)

I also have a couple special offers going on for a little while. I don't know how long they'll be going on so you'll just have to keep an eye out on the main page where I'll be sure to post all the promotions I have going on. So, this special offer of which I speak...

SPECIAL OFFER #1:
For the next little while, maybe a couple weeks or so, those people who read my blog get their very own special offer. When you checkout with an order of $5.00 or more (before shipping, obviously), you get an extra %10 off! Yay, savings! Just enter the coupon code bloggerunicorn when prompted and BEFORE actually placing your order. If you need help finding it, just let me know.

SPECIAL OFFER #2:
The first 5 orders I receive through this website will receive a free gift! You don't need a coupon code for this one, I'll keep track of these.

So I hope you have fun tooling around the new shop site, and keep in mind that if there's something you see in the photo gallery or have seen in my other shop that's not listed for sale on the new one, just contact me. I'm a very nice person. :) Thanks for your support!

Coasters!... And Why Animals Eat Their Young

2010-06-24T23:00:00.000-07:00

Another craft project, yay! That's how it happens in my head, anyway. This project was a new one for me. I've never done anything like this before, and I've never really worked with cork or plexiglass so I broke the mold on this one.

My husband's amazing hobby is beer brewing. Seriously, does it get any cooler than that? No, I must insist that it does not. For his home-brewed beers, he also makes his own labels every now and again. His favorite was a pumpkin beer he made last fall. Unfortunately, I was not able to taste it as I was very pregnant, but I'm demanding pumpkin beer this year. Scott, take note. Anyway, he was very proud of the label he made so I made him a set of label coasters for Father's Day. I will note that I had to add the twisty gothic vine border to make the image wide enough for a glass to sit on top of it. It was kind of funny how it happened because I had seen the idea on Martha Stewart's website, and, despite the fact that I cannot stand Martha herself, her people (I refuse to believe it's all her) have some really good ideas. Case in point, these coasters. I looked everywhere for the oval shapes in which he makes his labels, and I couldn't find it. He ended up mentioning that he could cut them for me. So, in short, he ended up helping me with his own present.

It was a really easy and fun project to do, and you could really make coasters out of anything. They sell plexiglass sheets at home improvement stores in very manageable sizes for good prices (8.5" x 11" for $4.50) or you could just buy shapes, but, after not being able to find the ovals, I'm definitely going to be making squares or circles from now on. Ooh, I just had an idea for the next set of coasters, too. Can't tell, though! Ha, ha...

I feel like an idiot explaining this, but the project consists of 3 pieces: plexiglass shape, image and cork backing. You can buy the cork backing in rolls at any craft store. I also bought some spray adhesive (Elmer's) because it's awesome. Just don't sniff it. I sprayed the back of the plexiglass where I would affix the image. I didn't spray it on the image because I didn't want the ink to bleed. I then immediately adhered the image to the plexiglass. I let that sit for a while, and then I cut the image to size. Then I sprayed the back of the image and adhered the cork backing. Again, I let that sit for a while before I cut that to size. The cork's really easy to cut so you really don't need anything more than a pair of scissors. I used rotary cutters to make it a bit easier and faster.

I can't think of a segue so I'm just going to tell you that Joey isn't sleeping through the night anymore. We think he's teething because he goes on these ridiculously brain-melting crying jags at night before bedtime, and there's hardly anything reasonable that calms him down. He's also got a little bump on his bottom gum. I'm excited about the tooth, don't get me wrong, but I was just starting to enjoy being able to sleep 6 or 8 hours at a time.

Due to this recent annoying development, I've come to a realization. Babies are so damn cute because it's part of their survival mechanisms. Joey can really ramp me up to the point where the sound of his voice starts giving me polio, and he'll just throw in a random smile at me. It's always his mischievous smile when he knows he's driving me out of my friggin' mind. But I can't help but smile because he's SO CUTE. He completely contains my anger for just a few moments before he starts crying again. If babies weren't so cute, I'm pretty sure we'd eat them just for a moment's peace. Sometimes I wonder how or why people do it. But I guess I'm people now. And I love Joey for it, but I'm just glad he's so cute, and, luckily, he's got some really cute survival techniques. The evolution of the baby is a wonderful thing. :)

I'm sorry to all those ugly animals that I have offended. I'm sure your babies were delicious.

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-19T21:59:00.001-07:00

Today, we Ehlerts did the Father's Day thing because Scott has to work tomorrow. We had a super awesome fun time because it was Scott's 1st Father's Day! Yay, Scott! Of course, how else can you start a holiday than with presents. Joey and I woke up Scott with some cards and a present, which Joey presented himself. He was kind enough not to drool on them. We were also kind enough not to take pictures of Daddy first thing in the morning before he even got up out of bed. You'll have to do with pictures from the second present. :) The second present was also presented by Joey, but by that time he was trying to chew on them.

Now Joey and I decided to make Daddy work for some of his presents. So what we did is we made letter tags with my other best friend, my Cricut, and we hid a letter in each one of his presents. By the end of opening presents, he had 8 letters, and he had to unscramble them to find out our last activity. Scott actually ended up solving it faster than I had anticipated, but it was still fun. :) We took Joey on his first-ever carousel ride! It was wicked good fun, and Joey had a good time looking around at stuff while Scott and I were feeling a little nauseous. It's been a while since we were on a carousel. So we got daddy lots of beer-making stuff and some fun boy stuff. Joey had picked out a little football so daddy could teach him to throw. He's not ready for throwing, yet, but he's an ace at chewing on stuff. He'll get there.

Joey had his 4-month check-up at the doctor yesterday, and we were told he could start eating cereal! That was super exciting to us so another thing we did today was get all set up to start making baby food. We got some really cute teeny spoons, some teeny bowls with fishes on them, a food processor and some freezer storage cups. We just need to get a recipe book, but that's coming soon! I just couldn't wait to get him up in his high chair so after a couple tries and some wailing and flailing, he finally sat up in his chair so we could feed him. I don't think he liked the cereal. Or maybe he's just confused about the spoon. He was either letting the cereal leak out of his face or trying to lick the spoon. It was weird and entertaining. I'm still kind of confused. Maybe I've been using a spoon so long I kind of take it for granted. I'm still inclined to think they're not that difficult to figure out, though. I'm sure Joey will teach me lots of interesting uses for them. He did finally get the idea that he could bang on the high chair tray. That was fun. And then he dumped his bowl of cereal all over his tray and himself. He figured that out pretty quickly, too, which, in turn, taught Daddy to put the bowl further away from little hands banging on the tray. Here's Joey's take on the cereal:

Overall, it was a great day, and it was fun seeing Joey move on to another phase in his quickly changing little life. Hopefully, he'll get the idea of eating cereal soon. :) It makes such a yucky mess! To those of you celebrating Father's Day tomorrow, have a good one!

Gallery Idol 2010

2010-06-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

To those few who know what I mean when I talk about Paper Crafts Magazine, you may know what I'll be talking about here, but to those who don't, it's a pretty cool contest. Gallery Idol 2010 is an American-Idolesque competition in the way that... um, there are finalists... okay, so really in name only. But you get the idea. The first round was open auditions so anybody could submit their designs using the theme "Thank You Cards", and, from those submissions, 20 finalists would be chosen. Now, I told myself I wouldn't be disappointed if they didn't pick me. I was convinced they wouldn't, anyway because stuff like this never happens to me. I was right, they didn't pick me, but that's kind of beyond the point now. I actually wasn't disappointed because when I looked at the 20 finalists that were chosen, while there were some excellent ones, I didn't agree with most of them. So there. It did make me feel slightly better. :) This kind of design competition is really subjective, and, while it sounds like I'm making excuses, I honestly thought at least 1 of my cards had something of a chance. So, no, I'm not making excuses. Believe me or not.

In the Open Auditions, you could submit as many designs as you want so I decided just to do 3 so I wouldn't exhaust all my design options and techniques in the first round, JUST IN CASE I got chosen to continue. My first one I made using heat embossing, stamp masking and precision cutting techniques. The bears are also 3-D, as you can see. I think this one's really cute. I love those bears. They're like, hey, what's up... I'm a bear.

My second card was made using flocking and precision cutting techniques with pearl and button embellishments. And, yes, I cut out all those leaves myself. Again, the tree, leaves and deer are all 3-D. Whenever I use flocking, my husband uses it as an excuse to say, "What the flock?!" Yes, Scott, you're very funny. :)

For my last card, I used heat embossing, die-cuts and paper piecing techniques with pearl, chalk and ribbon embellishments. The bird mat and thank you cloud are all 3-D. This is the one I thought had a fairly good chance, and it's also my favorite. For this one, I used the swirly embellishment and the pearl embellishments like I had never done before. I was really happy with the way it came out. This card was really unlike any I had made before, and I could actually imagine seeing it in one of my Paper Crafts Magazines. I love it!

So, despite the fact that I DID not make the final cut, I'm still voting, and that is still fun. There are some interesting themes after that incredibly vague open audition theme. The second one was Sympathy/Thinking of You, and the third one was Masculine Garage. For the third one, they had to make a card for a man using items "from the garage". My favorite was a card that said "I Want to Be Just Like You When I Grow Up" with a little nail (baby nail) and a big nail (daddy nail). It was adorable. The next theme is "Ribbon". Do with that what you will, but it will be really interesting to see what these gals come up with. If you are interested in voting in some of these rounds, you can do that below by clicking on the link. You do have to have an account to vote so you may not want to, but you can view the entries without an account. I'm just saying.

Gallery Idol 2010

On a side note, tomorrow is National Knit in Public Day! Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to participate as tomorrow we're celebrating Father's Day because my husband has to work on Sunday. I know! It's horrible. But for those of you who can, enjoy the audacity of knitting in public! Be proud of your hobby!

I'm Baaaack!!!

2010-06-16T21:25:00.001-07:00

Holy crap! I've been gone a super long time. While I was gone, I had a beautiful baby boy. His name is Joey, and he is the new love of my life. Now I have 2 of them... my husband and Joey. :) I also made tons of stuff for Joey and lots of other stuff. I'll probably be throwing some random posts in here just to try catching myself up.

Currently, though, I know someone else having a baby, and I have found how much I love knitting/crocheting baby things so I went crazy for them. I'm so excited! Now, I won't throw out any names because I don't know how they'd feel about that, but they're having a baby boy, and he has a snoopy-themed room colored with browns and a pretty celery green. I made a 3 x 3 tile blanket using those colors because I found the most wonderful washcloth patterns. The first one is Snoopy as Joe Cool, and the second is Woodstock. They're original washcloth patterns, but I wanted to do something ambitious with them! So I made them 2 of the tiles, and I threw in a nice medallion bobble pattern tile in the middle. On the two edges you'll see gooseberry stitches, and the remaining 4 tiles are simply stockinette stitch.

I had a blast making this play blanket. I'm hoping they love it! I made a small blanket similar to this one for Joey before he was born, and now it's his play blanket. His was made with several tiles, but there are 3-D hearts sewn onto randomly placed tiles because I figured he would like the different textures. I had the same idea for this blanket. I thought between the purl stitches making up the patterns for Snoopy and Woodstock and the gooseberry stitches, their baby would have a ball with all the textures!

If you have access to ravelry, you'll be able to view the patterns for the Snoopy and Woodstock tiles, if you're interested. They're great patterns, and, best of all, they're free!

* Snoopy as Joe Cool

* Woodstock

In running with the Snoopy theme, I also crocheted them a plush Snoopy as the World War I Flying Ace (personally, my favorite version of Snoopy). This was also a pattern I found on ravelry, but I had to buy it on etsy, and as much as I like the finished product, I would NOT recommend buying this pattern. It was really hard to follow because it was written very poorly, there is only one view of the finished product, and the assembly instructions are incredibly vague. I did a lot of winging it on this one, and I am very confident in saying it would not have turned out so great if I hadn't been a veteran crocheter. So, buyer beware is all I'm saying.

I also made them one more thing. Can you tell I was having fun? This was something I made for Joey so I knew how much fun it was to make and have him wear. :) This is a pattern I got out of The Expectant Knitter by Marie Connolly. It's a beautiful sweater that's pretty easy and quick to make. It's a great pattern!

So while I've spent all this time talking about someone else's baby-having and already mentioning that I also did some of my own baby-having, I have to show off my little angel. He's now 4 months old so he's not technically a newborn, but I'm already having a great time watching him grow up, and he'll always be my baby boy. He learns things so quickly. I swear he learns something new every single day. I'm learning to enjoy every single moment and spend as much time with him as I can. We do a lot of playing, attacking with Kissy Monster and Momma Zombie (Momma Zombie wants to eat baby's bwainz!!! He always laughs really hard at that one. :)) and he flies around on the airplane that is Momma's shins. So any of you ladies having babies soon, enjoy every moment! I can't believe how quickly my moments are coming and going. Good night, everyone!

2009-05-19T05:02:00.000-07:00

I'm going to apologize right now for being soooo out of the loop. I've been caught up in my own little crafting world here at home so I haven't had much time to play on etsy. So I'm sorry, but I've been super busy! The question remains... what haven't I done?

My husband's cousin is getting married at the end of this month, and I had the absolute pleasure of making the bridal shower invitations. That was a big job that had a lot of design work behind it, but I eventually finished that, and I was really happy with the design I came up with. It was also pretty exciting to receive one in the mail. :)

Also, I had an idea for a favor for the bridal shower, and I really wanted to do that so I made it, showed it to the approvers and said if you like it, I really want to make them! It's part of my present. Not all of it; I will also be getting her a real present. Something fun! Anyway, the favor... The bridal shower is a tea party, and I made a matchbook with a teabag inside. The outside has their names on it with their cute little logo, and the tea tag on the actual bag also has that stuff on it, along with the tea flavor. It was just really fun to design and make. Check it out.

A friend of mine asked me to make him a Mother's Day card so I also did that. That was fun just because I'd been looking for an excuse to make this particular card design, and I'm really glad I finally did. I love it! It's also one of my few cards that has a sentiment printed on the inside. It also has shinies! Yay, shinies!

In the midst of all this, I'm sewing a dress! I decided to try this one more time. I attempted sewing a dress last year around this time, and I just didn't get it. Honestly, it's a mess, and it's still unfinished amongst all my scrap fabrics. Not to say it's scrap, but that is where it has fallen. :) So try #2 is going pretty well. I hit some rough spots, but it doesn't matter because you can't tell. I'm not gonna show you that one, yet because I'm waiting to reveal it. But I will tell you this, I look fabulous in zebra print. :) It's almost done!

I'm also working on some smaller crafts and, of course, I have a staple knitting project going. I'm still working on my purple tank top, and I'm loving it. It looks great at this point. I also tried out a new craft. I made a gift bag banner. I some one at Michael's, and I figured, hey, I can do that. I do that frequently at Michael's. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I think it did this time. Note the adorable teeny tiny clothespins holding the banner onto the bag. That's my favorite part.

Wish me luck in all my personal crafts. I'll be finishing them soon and returning to play on etsy!

Moving on to Invitations!

2009-04-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

I've branched out into yet another different kind of paper goods. At least I think so. Yes, I do notecards, but invitations are totally different. Just ask those crazy wound-up chic people who do wedding invitations. And now I can say that I've done that. :)

My husband's cousin is getting married next month, and her mother so kindly asked me if I would like to make her bridal shower invites. "Of course!" I cried delightfully. That's my thing. My favorite part of making stuff has always been designing. I made several sketches, and finally came up with what I thought would work. I actually went through several sketches before I came up with my final design, but here it is.

She wanted 27 invites so I thought it would be cool to divide them into 3s and make 9 each of three different paper designs as you can see. Oh, and don't mind the black spots all over the place. I have to protect the innocent and all that jazz. You get the idea. This is the main part of the invite. It also comes with a folded map and a registry card tucked into a pocket in the bottom.

Here's a close-up of the two enclosed cards. Again, don't mind the little black boxes all over everything.

The map has the actual map on the top and then some text directions and phone number for questions on the bottom fold. The registry card speaks for itself. Cute little logo and a website. Can't go wrong with that. :) Below, you will notice the complete package.

This whole package falls neatly into a cute little arrangement. The two cards fit into the pocket on the bottom, that bottom parts folds up, and then the band with the monogram slips over the whole invite. Voila!

And that's how it's done. I'm so excited about going! It's a tea party, man. I'm so ready for the gloves and the sundresses and the crumpets... It'll be great! Anywho, off to craft something else. I'm attempting to make myself my own style of sundress for this shindig. We'll see how that goes. I'll let you know. :)

Twilight is coming out on DVD soon, and I need your help!

2009-03-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, now that I probably have your attention, I'm having a really hard time deciding what to do about this Friday/weekend. I know this isn't really craft-related, but it's going right here anyway. So there.

So here's my dilemma... I thought it would be really fun to go to one of the Twilight DVD parties that are happening on Friday night. Borders is having one at their stores at 10pm. Their schtick is that they'll have lots of Twilight-themed activities, including Vampire Baseball Trivia (complete with lightning round! :)) and they'll be doing drawings for free stuff. Everyone loves free stuff. :) The not-so-fun part is that, in order to buy the movie there, you have to have either pre-ordered it with them or be one of the lucky crazy people who's going to line up outside their store all dressed up or something to receive their magic wristband. I added the part about dressing up, but that's what always happens at these things. I don't want to be that person.

Option 2 is to go to Wal*Mart's DVD party. It sounds like they'll have tons of Twilight gear, and you don't have to show up ridiculously early or wear vampire teeth to receive a copy of the movie. Admittedly, wearing vampire teeth sounds kind of fun, but I try to keep that stuff at home. :) I would hate to embarass Scott. :) It might be a fun excuse to wear my cat ears, though, not that I need one. Anyway, the point is that I would be able to get a copy of the movie without waiting in a line that has a predetermined starting time. That's always kind of freaked me out. I can handle everyone for themselves, though.

Where all you guys come in is right there at the top right of my blog. There's a poll there where you can all help me figure out what to do. If any of you are going to be attending a Twilight DVD party, please let me know! If any of you are in the area, we could go together! I'm not influencing, though... please, I need your help!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Etsy Owls!

2009-03-04T05:39:00.000-08:00

The Etsy Owls are at it again working on another challenge! The object for this month's challenge is to create something in any medium that illustrates your very favorite part of St. Patrick's Day. Mine was easy. Green beer is fun. :) We may have to think of other holidays where we can dye beer other colors. For Christmas, we could have red mugs and green mugs. For Easter, we could have pastel beer. :) For my birthday, I think I would want purple beer. Anyway, since the challenge is St. Patty's Day-related, I had no choice but to make a green beer mug. My point, though, is that I think beer would be fun in any color and why don't we dye it for other holidays? I may have to change that.

I ended up making a felt brooch. This is my first time to delve into the world of brooching, but it was really fun. There's some pretty fine detail work depending on how detailed the object is you're trying to replicate, but I had some really sharp scissors and just a tad of patience. I think it turned out pretty nicely. I may be doing more of this. I just thought of another one I could make! Watch out for that one... :)

In any case, there is voting happening and you should get in on the action! If you like my mug, please vote for me! I'm pretty proud of myself, I can tell you that much. :) If you like any of the other entries, my fellow owlettes would also love your support.

You can vote in one of two ways. You can either go straight to the Etsy Owls blog and vote here. Or, if that doesn't work, you can go to our voting website at Votigo. Vote for me or just support the Owls in general. Happy St. Patrick's Day and thanks for voting!

Hurray for Cricut!

2009-02-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to posting all the things I cut out with my Cricut. :) When I got it, I literally spent the next two or three days just cutting stuff out. Most of it didn't really have a purpose so I gave all the cute cut-outs to my husband. It was Valentine's Day so I was making cute hearts and name tags and stuff. He thought they were awesome. :)

First of all, I have to say that I bought this Cricut off eBay at half the suggested retail price with free shipping so I had NO idea what it was I might be getting. I was kind of expecting the worst since I've had such horrible eBay experience. Anyway, it came in an official Cricut box that was taped with Cricut tape, and everything was there! It looked so perfect and beautiful! Brand new and in the box. It restored some of my faith in eBay. Then I actually watched the included DVD and wrote down some notes. I wanted to make sure I did everything my Cricut could possibly do. So here are some of the things I made.

These are some random shapes I made for my hubby. I made name tags for just about everyone in our house. :)

Then I made some fun shapes. I really like the leaf there. I don't think you can see it very well, but there's a larger brown shadow underneath it that I also cut out. I LOVE its shadow cutting option.

That's my dog's tag. I even let her wear it around for a little while, but I took it off before she could tear it. After all the tag-making, I went for the big guns and made an envelope! Watch as I amaze you!

Is this envelope not way cool? Not to mention, I used some wicked paper. It turned out wonderfully. :) The things you can do with this thing are basically boundless. There are limits to everything, of course, but this comes pretty close.

I bought an additional cartridge about a week after I got the machine. I was pretty much set with the 2 cartridges that came with the machine, but I heard about one that made just cards. It makes all these crazy wicked cards. So far, I've only really had time to make an argyle card, but it's awesome! The cartridge also came with phrases and an owl card!!! I think we all know how much I like owls. :) Yay, Etsy Owls!

Anyway, I'll have to get some pictures of the new cards up soon. I've been a bit of a slacker in my duty (hee, hee, duty...) to update my blog. I will not ignore it! I'm going to sort of promise!

Ehle Custom Stationery has new products!

2009-02-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

I have been searching high and low to find ways to expand my shop, and I think by trying the book binding thing, I may have done that. I bound a couple books from scratch this weekend, and they look great! I even handcovered the book covers. I'm pretty proud of that one. :) I've only listed one of them because I haven't sewn the other one, yet, but the one I listed is definitely my favorite.

The cover reminds me of my favorite storybook character, the Cheshire Cat. I ended up calling this one the Purple Cheshire Grin Sketchbook. I have another book that's almost done. I just have to sew the pages to the cover. :) Let me know what you think of this! I hope they do well. I really enjoyed making the two I worked on this weekend.

On a sidenote, my husband started brewing his own beer about a week ago. He asked me if I would make the labels, and they came out really well. We thought they did, anyhow. :) We should be bottling soon, and when we do, I'll be sure to take a picture of one of our labeled beer bottles. Check back soon!

The Chronicles of Book Binding

2009-02-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

I did it! I bound my own book, finally, and I actually didn't do a bad job. This weekend, I spent a lot of time getting my supplies and my notes together on the process. I found a really good video on YouTube that took me through the whole process. Hurray, YouTube!

Anyway, I had a small chipboard shelf that had two doors on the front. The shelf got a bit smushed, so I decided this would be a great opportunity to have a book cover! I cut the doors off the front, which actually work really well for a book since there's a wrap closure and pockets on the inside of the doors. I used some modge podge to seal the cut edges of the doors so they'd be a tad more durable, but I liked the unfinished edge so I didn't cover them.

As you can see by the designs on the "cover," this is a great cover for a sketch/ideabook, which is exactly how I will be using it. Then, I had to make all the signatures (booklet sets of pages to be sewn to the cover) and make a jig so I could evenly punch holes in both the covers and the signatures. I put eyelets in the cover holes to reinforce the chipboard so the thread wouldn't tear it when I put it through. After the jig was made, I punched holes in the signatures and got my thread ready for sewing. I couldn't find any bookbinding thread so I went ahead and got some rayon embroidery floss (industrial strength and really pretty :)), and I waxed the thread myself using a chunk of beeswax. So now the thread looks good and smells good. Yay, beeswax!

When I was done putting off the inevitable (I was really, really nervous), I finally got my head in the game and started sewing my book. I tested out the technique by sewing the cover to the first signature.

It worked! Then I got all excited and did a whole bunch of sewing...

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I used the coptic stitch for my binding. I really like how this stitch leaves the spine visible because it's so pretty! It's pretty much awesome. PS - Use a curved tapestry needle if you're going to do this because it makes going between the signatures super easy! Anyway, not much happened after this except for lots of monotonous and tedious sewing. It was worth it, but still kind of boring. I'm not a person who likes to wait. Once you get the hang of it, though, it goes pretty quickly. To make a long, boring story appropriately short, I finished the book and took more pictures.

Is this cover not perfect? Besides the neat stitching, I think that's my favorite part. :) Here are some pictures of the stitching.

Here's a close-up of the stitch. The braids are what make the visible spine awesome! I also just happened to find some paper that was lined on one side and graph paper on the other side, which, again, makes the case for a killer sketchbook. :)

I told you it had pockets. There will be a mash of notes and random drawings in there in no time. They will all be post-its. I'm obsessed with post-its, and they are my muse. Seriously.

And this is how it looks in my craft bookshelf. It looks great, and I can't wait to use it! And, just so everyone knows, yet another great thing about the coptic stitch is that the open spine and stitching allow a book bound in this way to open flat. Sketchbook central. :)

NOTE: So I've been thinking about the fox tail all day today. I decided I couldn't very well have a fox tail without fox ears. Hence, I need some fox ears also. Let me know if you happen to run across some.

And for my next trick, I will... CRAFT!

2009-02-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

So I have this shop at www.raynae.etsy.com, and it sort of showcases my paper crafts. I say sort of only because I have a tendency to write ideas in several different notebooks. Then I misplace those notebooks, and I'll find some random drawing months later. Or I'll print off a sample, and I'll misplace that sample. In any case, I end up misplacing something, and only rarely does something end up on my site. :) So I have tons of stuff hanging around my room. I'm trying to clean up my room, and I want to get some of my favorite stuff on my shop this weekend.

Did you see my Unicorn Barf Bag? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I have random drawings like that stuffed everywhere around my room, in my purse and in my pockets. My favorite one that I haven't listed yet is a picture of a sandwich holding a person's hand. It's samwich love. :) Okay, it's hard to explain, but I LOVE it! And I LOVE my samwiches!!!

Anyway, I also want to use this blog to track some of my crafts that don't get showcased on etsy. I like to knit, crochet, and hmm... Well, I like to make lots of stuff. This weekend, I'm going to try my hand at book binding. I'm attempting to use the coptic stitch to make a bee-au-tiful book. I'm taking pictures, but if my book ends up sucking, I may not post them. I will have to think about that. Wish me luck!

Oh, and I had a really fun thought today. Whilst watching Demetri Martin's stand-up (he's super funny), there was a guy in the show who was wearing a fox tail. I have a pair of cat ears that I like to wear all the time, and this made me think how fun it would be to wear a fox tail all day. Part of me thinks that people would think I was trying to be "foxy," but, for one thing, Foxy by Jimi Hendrix is a super awesome song, and I'm not trying to be "foxy," I just want to wear a fox tail. So, there.