You and Me, Baby…

I made this collage for my sweetie, and then reproduced it so you can all share the love. Because nothing says “I love you” like a ransom note.

It is available in my Etsy shop as a greeting card and as a 5x7 print. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

Happy Valentine’s Day!! ♥

 

Tutorial: Add a “Pin It” Button to the End of Your Blog Post

Anyone else out there in love with Pinterest? If you haven’t discovered it yet, let me shout praises of its awesomeness. I won’t go into specifics here, but it is essentially an online bulletin board. You can “pin” anything from anywhere on the web to save for later, and it totally rocks. Love, love, love it. Have I mentioned that I love it?

Since I’m so in love, I tried(!) to put pin-it buttons on my blog posts so that others could share my photos on their own boards. After the most frustrating morning ever, I have decided to write my very first tutorial. I spent HOURS trying to add a (seemingly) simple button to my blog posts.  I tried, it didn’t work. I tried again, still nothing. Got the button to appear, but the link wouldn’t work. Got the link to work, but it wouldn’t post an image.

Pain. In. The. Tush.

Turns out that the process is quite straightforward – if you do it the right way (which I obviously didn’t). In an effort to save you the torture that I went through, here’s a step by step guide to what I figured out. **Disclaimer: I am NONtechnical. While this worked for me, it might not work for you (although I hope it does). I post on blogger, so I cannot comment on any other platform.**

• Write & publish a blog post: The post needs to be published before you can add a pin-it button. You will edit it later. Make sure you include a fantastic photo to pin!
• In a separate window in your browser, open Pinterest’s Goodies page. Scroll down until you see “Pin It Button for Websites.”
• Go back to your blog and click on the title of your published post. Copy the URL from your browser by highlighting and hitting “Control + C” but make sure you are copying the URL for the specific blog post. Don’t copy your blog’s home page. You want the pin to point to the page with the picture on it!
• Go back to the Goodies page and paste (Control + V) the URL into the field that reads “URL of the webpage the pin is on.”
• Next, go back to your published blog post and right-click on the image you want to pin. Select “View Image Info.” A new box will open with the URL already highlighted. Copy it (Control + C).
• Go back to the Goodies page and paste (Control + V) the image’s URL into the field that reads “URL of the image to be pinned.” This is where my first attempts went wrong. I kept trying to grab the URL from the blog, not from the image properties. Oops! Next, Type a quick description of your image in the “Description” box. Then highlight all of the code in the blue box and copy it (Control + C).
• Go back to your blog and enter the editor for the already published blog post. Click “Edit HTML.” Go to the very end of the text and paste your new code (Control + V). This will place your Pin It button at the bottom of your blog post. If you prefer to see it at the top, paste the new code before the text instead.
• Publish your post and enjoy your new button! It will even keep track of the number of people who use it to pin your image to their boards. Fun times.

Twilight Stationery Sets

Team Edward? Team Jacob? All Twilight fans will love this stationery set. Each envelope features a page from "Eclipse" and comes with coordinating flat note cards.  Now available in my Etsy shop.

 

Pin It

Wine Glass Charms – Upcycled Newspaper

Don’t you just hate it when you go to a party and lose your wine glass? Is this one mine? No. Wait, I think I left it over there… Nope. Darn.

It is apparently rude to use a Sharpie to label your name on your host's good glasses (I've been reprimanded more than once), so the next best thing is a set of wine glass charms. Just remember your color and you're good to go!

This set of six charms features bits of newspaper crafted into sturdy beads, accented with colored glass bling. Fantastic as a hostess gift or for use at your own party (assuming you aren't serving wine in Red Solo Cups). Cheers!

   

Never Had One Lesson!

My sister gave me the most awesome Hanukkah gift this year: A cross-stitch pattern featuring the characters from Ferris Bueller’s Day off, complete with canvas and threads to complete the project! As you may know, I have a love for all things ‘80s… so this was absolutely perfect.

It came from weelittlestitches on Etsy and they have tons of adorable pop culture patterns. Right now I’m eyeing up some super-heroes for my son’s bedroom.

Here’s the finished product – I can’t wait to frame and hang it!

Resolutions

Happy (almost) New Year!! ‘Tis the season of making plans and promises. Eat better, exercise more, have endless patience with the children, yadda, yadda, yadda.

My professional goal is to be more free and flowing with my shop. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I tend to get bored easily. I’ll spend a couple of days furiously making tons of upcycled stationery, only to find that I’m bored by it. Then I’ll move on to wrapping pencils with my scrap stationery paper.  Fun for a while, then – Whammo! Bored. Newspaper coasters? Cute, but tedious. Custom painted picture frames? Lovely, but they take an enormous amount of time to do for the amount of money that I charge. For some strange reason, I feel like I need to stick to painting and upcycling because it says “An eclectic mix of handpainted designs, custom pieces and upcycled eco-art” on my facebook page. Um, HELLO!? Why don’t I just rewrite the tag line on my facebook page? Or, even better, I could go with it and embrace the phrases “eclectic mix” and “custom pieces.”

I hereby vow to make 2012 the year of my creativity. I’ll make what feels fun at the time, and see what happens. Maybe if I write it down here in cyber-space for all to see I’ll actually do it.

It Wasn’t Me

If you have kids like mine, you hear this all day. “It wasn’t me!” or “He did it!”

My appliqués are embroidered by hand on hand-cut felt and hand-sewn onto shirts. I designed these for twins, but this set would be cute for any siblings…