november 06, 2009 :: tintype

family friday :: hand-written font

i did a little test for my friend mari to see if the little dude was old enough to do the create-your-own-font-thing. the little dude is 4. he'll be 5 in december. i'd say that while he did an ok job it was a little tough for him. luckily, since i have photoshop, i was able to manipulate things a little. i never changed the look of any letter, but sometimes i had to make them smaller to fit in the box. the boxes are a little small for a new writer. luckily he has amazing patience beyond his years and was able to complete all the capital and lowercase letters before wanting to be done. so, we have no punctuation or numbers, but that can come later.

he thinks this was the coolest thing ever and when he saw his writing come up as i typed the letters on my computer, his smile couldn't have been wider.

november 05, 2009 :: two 'fer

honest scrap

i was nominated for an honest scrap award by cathe of feterie and i'm going to do my best to try and come up with something interesting. i'm never really good at these because i really, truly lead a pretty boring life. so, here are the rules i need to follow:

1. say thanks and give a link to the presenter of the award. 

thanks for making me wrack my brain, cathe! ;) 

2. share 10 honest things about yourself. 

1. i belonged to my local 4-H program for 10 years....from 2nd grade, through high-school graduation. of course, i entered many drawings, paintings, and other crafty wares in our annual county fair. i have a million ribbons stuffed away somewhere. 
2. my first job was waitressing at a ponderosa restaurant. 
3. i've always known what i wanted to do in life. i have a cassette tape of myself at 2 years old talking to my mom about what i got for christmas. you should have heard my excitement over a set of paints and a paintbrush! 
4. i can't stand bad kerning....ask my hubby. i have him so well trained that he now points it out to me when he sees it! 
5. i'm a horrible, horrible liar. 
6. i'm cheap. there are very few things i splurge on. 
7. when i met my hubby it was love at first sight....for both of us! we're so cliché!
8. i rarely drink alcohol. 
9. i really believe i can do anything. i'm one of those people that thinks: "what's the worst that can happen?" 
10. i used to read a ton until i had kids and my business. now i can't remember the last book i read. i miss it.

3. present this award to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged me.

ok, i suck at this part, so i'm nominating 3 people here and whoever else wants to participate, consider yourself nominated as well! 

1. my very talented personal friend mari from small for big. mari and i actually know each other in "real life". we met through our geek husbands so i'm sure there's a lot about her younger years, before we met, that i don't know about! 
2. one of my fin+roe customers, kelli, just started an amazing blog called delightful. i love delving into her finds everyday because i think we have very similar style/taste. (plus, we both have 2 little boys, each of us with one named fin/finn!)
3. i'd love to learn more about hannah from yes you maigh. from reading her blog she seems like such a fun person to be around and i'm sure we'd be fast friends if we met outside of the computer. i recently did a swap with hannah for a lovely necklace from her shop. 

one lovely blog

seems that there are a slew of these blog posts going around again. i've been "nominated" by two recently and am finally catching up on them!

sorry to mari from small for big who nominated me something like 2 weeks ago! i've been meaning to do this every day since the, but, well, you know.

here are the rules i'm supposed to follow: accept the award (with only a dash of modesty ;) then post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and their blog link. pass the award to 8 other blogs that you've recently discovered.

so here are a list of my recently (or maybe not so recently) discovered blogs. i wish i had time to write a little something about each one, but alas, work is calling:

blah, blah, blahg
simple blueprint.
missed connections
junk garden
design vagabond
mustard and sage
design is mine
mod eco kids

scoutie girl preview

my newest post is live on scoutie girl
check it out!

november 04, 2009 :: burning crimson

november 03, 2009

things i want tuesday :: coat

i really, really, really want this coat. 

november 02, 2009 :: stowaway

fin+roe bookplates

i'm so excited about our new fin+roe line for 2010. i'm slowly clipping away at it. today i uploaded some new bookplate designs. we've never done bookplates before so i'm excited to see how everyone likes them. they're self adhesive and come in 6 designs ranging from $12.99 - $15.99. here are a few samples. you can check them all out at fin+roe. 

november 01, 2009 :: fallen fungi

october 31, 2009 :: sea of gold

my halloweenies

this year the hubby volunteered to make the boys' halloween costumes. the boys loved them and we got loads of compliments on them....especially the little dude. one teenage boy even said: "whoa, that robot costume is tight!".

october 30, 2009

family friday :: pumpkin carving

this year we got a large family pumpkin instead of each boy getting his own. we planned on carving "carol" from where the wild things are since we had just seen it in the theatre. i sketched out a quick template and the hubby went to work on the inside of the pumpkin.

once the hubby got inside to take the seeds out, we realized that carving through 3" thick walls probably wasn't going to be much fun. we had no idea it was going to be so thick! i got out my trusty linocut tools from my college days and started carving away!



here's our final "carol". the hubby had to scrape the inside with an ice cream scoop for quite awhile just so the light would glow through. oh, and no candles here, that's a full-power garage light in order to be able to see anything!

october 29, 2009

scoutie girl preview

my newest post is live on scoutie girl. check it out!

thrifted :: canisters

sorry for the horrible, horrible photos, but the lighting in my studio is unfortunately florescent and scarce which makes it hard to get any decent photos.

today's thrifty finds are a set of 4 canisters that i found on a recent thrifting trip with my awesome friend hailey. the base of the canisters are metal but the tops are plastic. while it makes it feel a little cheap, it's nice because they actually fit. often times with metal tops and bottoms they get so warped that they don't fit properly. the little wood-turned tops had me at hello! much to my delight, the shop was having a 50% off sale that day on EVERYTHING in the store, so i scored this whole set, marked at $15, for a mere $7.50!! they now reside on a shelf in my studio and hold bulk items like glitter and other embellishments we use on our products. 

october 28, 2009