See? I have NOT been slacking!

So I haven't been posting regularly for a while. But check it out! I AM getting stuff accomplished! This is a blog design I did for my newly-pregnant sister. Haha, get it? Bun in the oven...?

crickets chirping...

OK well it's cute anyway.

And here's one that I'm ever so excited about. Pro Digital Photos asked me to re-do their blog and it was such a fun job. I loved working with them!

In addition to the blogs, I've been doing some business cards, like this one for my singer/songwriter brother-in-law.

And searching for this image made me remember that in the middle of all this busy design work, I somehow managed to SAVE OVER MY CUSTOMER WORK FILE and completely lost a bunch of designs. Including this one. Excuse me while I go punch myself in the face.

Calling all home-decorators

I have a dilemma. Perhaps you can help me with it.

Minnie and I have been discussing how we will re-decorate her room. After several months of negotiations and unrealistic expectations and viewing-of-internet-photographs, we have settled on the following color scheme:



Cute, yes? She already has a black metal bed and vanity so I will stain or lacquer her dresser black to match.

I kind of love the white wainscot along the room in the upper picture. I think that with white along the bottom of the room, we could have a darker shade of pink (and a happier Minnie) without it feeling overwhelming. Also, instead of the beadboard, I would really like to do the wainscot in wide strips, like in 1x4s or something (like this but without the cap at the top.)

And my Great Idea is: spaced all along the top board I could put old fashioned drawer pulls where she could hang coats, backpacks, flowers and all manner of cute things.

OK, on to my dilemma.

The problem is this - we have DARKISH WOOD TRIM throughout the ENTIRE HOUSE!!!

I don't mind the wood trim. I've gotten used to it, it looks nice and I'm certainly not going to pay a hozillion dollars to switch out all the trim and doors in the entire house. So, how do I reconcile these two things? Is there any way to put up painted white wainscot and have it not look stupid with wood doors and trim? I'm not opposed to painting the entire room a pale pink, I just really want to find a way to have the strip around the room with the hangy-knobs because I think that would be a fun and functional accent to the room.

All thoughts/ideas appreciated!

Assistant to the Princess

Minnie was invited to the birthday party of a girl in her kindergarten class. The invitation asked them to come dressed up like a Princess. Minnie was so excited and had lots of specific requests for her attire.

I love to do hair. When I was younger my mom gave me books to teach me to French braid. And because I learned to do tight, even braids, my mom had me do her hair for work every morning. I also loved to do Karin's hair, until she butched it all off to prevent any sort of cute style being attached to her head. (Oddly, she's currently the most fashionable of sisters, with a brand-new hairstyle almost every day.)

Anyway, when I was blessed with a cute daughter with lovely, straight, thick hair, I was excited to bring my skills back into practice. I must say that little-girl hair is the most fun to do because you really can't go too overboard with bows, curls, braids or flowers. In their mind, the fancier the better.

Even though this particular blogger isn't posting regularly anymore, I still use her blog for hair ideas all the time. I highly recommend the She Does Hair site. There are lots of others but this is my favorite for fancy-but-not-unrealistic style ideas. This is where we got the idea for Minnie's princess up-do for the party.


I wish I had a picture of the finished product with her makeup and teeny tiny crown - she was ever so lovely. But you get the idea. She loved that the ringlets were bouncy and flouncy and she hopped around for half an hour before we left for the party, insisting that everyone watch her hair. I love little girls!

I'm still blogging!

Just not always over here. If you're looking for cute Valentines, check out my free printables over on Simply Handmade.

Introducing this season's favorite toy!

The combination of brain-numbing cold and 80's-inspired fashions might delude you into thinking leg warmers are a good idea. If so, I have the toy for you!

In my defense, I purchased this from a clearance bin, because Minnie was really excited about it, without actually reading the box. The lack of clear instructions makes me feel OK saying that it did exactly what it was intended to do. Simply load your yarn into the little spaceship and...



Viola!


Leg-warmer-esque globs of yarn! All the extra holes and tangley bits are perfect for fingers and toes if you want to use your Yarn Glob as socks, vintage trashy gloves or even hang it from doorknobs or the Christmas tree that hasn't been put away yet.

I assume the point of the machine is to use up perfectly good yarn and keep it out of the hands of your son, who would otherwise string it about the living room to make pirate booby traps.

See how it creates a lovely, dense wad of yarn? Way better than the rolls and balls that are cluttering up your knitting basket. Again, the lack of instructions makes me assume it worked exactly as intended - complete with grindy, straining-plastic noises and the melodic ping ping of little plastic teeth popping off and rocketing towards unprotected eyeballs.

Yarn Wadder 2.0 (yes, my mother-in-law purchased an extra one) produced a slightly more tubular leg warmer with less shooting-out-of-plastic-teeth. It's so snug it might cut off the circulation to Minnie's ankles... but that doesn't seem to matter.

I'll find a link online so you can purchase one of these for yourself. It's a must-have!