making—random craftiness

for christmas i made a few random crafty things. i didn't get a chance to snap photos of everything, but here are two. the first is one of the sets of handwarmers (pinterest reference), and the second was a doll made out of scrap fabric i had up in my studio.
sometimes i wish i could just sit around making random, one-off crafty projects for a living. i don't really have the attention span to a lot of the same thing over and over, but i really find that i enjoy making things so much more than formatting type (which seems to be mostly what i'm doing at work these days). maybe one of these days i'll get the courage (and enough time) to do something like that (that's what sites like etsy are for afterall, right?)

making—dishwasher magnets

while i had the paints out, i painted up some clean and dirty dishwasher magnets for mike's brother's new kitchen. they've got two dishwashers, so required two sets (don't you wish you had two dishwashers? though to be honest, i just wish i had a kitchen large enough for two dishwashers...and an island work area...and an under-counter trash/recycle bin...*sigh*)
anywho, i had a good time painting these up too. it's really relaxing to sit down and paint. plus, lucy enjoys sitting in my lap and napping while i work, so it benefits the both of us.

making—alice's cafe signage

when i asked missy about what sorts of things alice would like for her birthday this year, she said that they were getting alice a melissa and doug kitchen, so food toys would be a good gift. well, knowing that the jones clan already has a pretty well stocked pantry (i got to see it in action last time we visited), i wasn't exactly sure what kinds of food toys alice might need/want. so after looking at some different options and thinking on things, i happened on a couple of blog posts here that got me inspired (post 1, post 2, post 3), and i decided that i should make something that (i was hoping) no one else would duplicate. hence, alice's cafe.
i bought a wood plaque at michael's and painted it up. it took me a while to settle on fonts, and then a longer time to decide on the tea cup (missy said that alice has been serving her lots of flavored teas, so i thought this might be appropriate), but i really like how it turned out.

i also thought a cafe wouldn't be complete without a menu board (i got to use chalkboard paint for this one—i've been dying to have an excuse to get some chalkboard paint!)

lastly, i felt the cafe would probably need a sign so that customers would know when it was open for business. i got two little wood rectangles and painted them up and then stuck them back to back with the ribbon in between. 

i hope alice enjoys them. i really had a good time painting it all, and sam really enjoyed going to the store and helping me to pick out the wood and paint colors. he was quite excited by the time we got home and is hoping to visit soon so he can help out at the cafe. in fact, he was so enthusiastic about it all that i've decided to create some "sam's diner" signage (he's quite the imaginary chef around here, in case you were unaware), so stay tuned for that post later in the month!

more stencils!

i'm attending a baby shower tomorrow at work, so i whipped up a few freezer paper stenciled onesies for the mama-to-be. it definitely makes a great go-to project because it's not as time consuming as sewing up bibs or the like, but it's still "personalized". so this is what i was doing instead of crafting fun halloween projects with the kids (my poor kids!) though sam and i did manage to make a couple of ghosties for the front door.

one of sam's ghosts (who, according to sam, has been eating blue cotton candy—on its lips and in its left hand—and is holding a toy—black thing in its right hand). he drew the faces on both ghosts all by himself and i think he did a great job.

halloween preview—sammy luke skywalker

the corrpro company halloween party was yesterday, so we took the opportunity to photograph sam in his finished costume for the event. this costume was by far the most involved i've done so far (i broke out the sewing machine for this, which is a big deal in our house). i don't think mine is quite as fantastic as what missy is constructing for oscar, but it was about as fancy as i could manage. missy posted reference material here, and i downloaded photos for my trip to the fabric store. i bought a pattern for the top (a karate uniform), but the pants were way too big for sam, so i had to make my own pattern for that. the belt is brown webbing with a prachute buckle (something sam could put on and take off himself), and has small pleather "tool pouches" for sam to put things in that he might need while fixing a droid, or some other task. the boot covers didn't exactly happen the way i thought they would partly because i couldn't figure out exactly how to construct them so that sam would be able to put them on by himself and partly because he decided at the last minute he wanted to wear his "work boots". of course, sam was completely satisfied with the outcome. to tell the truth, i think if he had just gotten the lightsaber, his imagination would have filled in the blanks without all the sewing and such. the highlight of the party for sam was the boy dressed up as a clone trooper. he thought that it was ultra cool to have another star wars character there and is already plotting for me to make him a red clone trooper costume next year.
sam has definitely been enjoying his very own lightsaber and takes it just about everywhere he goes including bed (and i believe he's had at least one reminder that it's not a bath toy). lucy has gotten a few clonks on the head (and assorted body parts), but i suppose that's to be expected when bad guys are peeking around every corner (you can't have a war without casualties). she's handling it all very well though.
lucy also wore her costume yesterday, but i didn't get a chance to photograph her before she got upset and needed a diaper change and a nap. i'm hoping to get a few photos on wednesday, so stay tuned for that reveal.

sam's previous costumes can be found here, here, and here.

crafty endeavors

finally got two kids busy/quiet at the same time long enough to do something fun.
hurrah for freezer paper stencils. now i just need to come up with a design for lucy.

model child (har har)

you can get a pdf of the stencil here.

making—father's day

sam and i cooked up a few projects for father's day. we made some wrapping paper and decorated this frame for grandpa. we also took a photo to put in it.

i particularly had a good time coming up with phrases for the wrapping paper like "i love you more than garbage trucks" or "i love you more than star wars", and sam really enjoyed getting a chance to use markers for a change. i love crafting with my little sidekick.

i don't know if you remember this post, but sam was the inspiration for one of the figures on this book cover (he's quite the little model of cuteness for TPP recently):

well, the authors are now working on an upcoming "sequel" and i got to work on the cover for that too. here's the sketch (it's going to the shooting squad today, and i hope it survives!):

i'm sure you can spot the sammy—happy hair and all!

in the vroom vroom room

mike was kind enough to hang sam's frames in his new room during today's nap. so the last thing to tackle is the issue of book storage.

the sammy relocation project

today during naptime we moved sam's bed and rearranged the furniture in the spare room so that it's now officially sam's room. luckily everything seemed to fit just the way i'd imagined it, so it didn't take long to get it all into place. the only things left to do are finish up his new artwork for his frames and hang them, and then figure out how we're going to handle the lack of bookshelves. 
right now all of sam's books are still in his old room, which is fine for the time being, but i think sam ought to have some book storage of his own. since floor space is at a premium (even in the "big" room), i was thinking something like this or this to hang over the futon, though maybe that doesn't put them well enough within reach. i also thought something like this would be super clever (and cute!) i guess we'll just have to see what we can come up with. i am currently wishing that the rest of the house was as put together looking as sam's new room, because it is most certainly NOT.
in the meantime, we still have another room to tackle, and it's in a state of real wreckage (even worse than most of the rest of the house, if you can believe it). it has become the storage area for all that is waiting for the little lady to appear, and none of it (except for the lovely labeled bins of clothing from aunt missy) is organized whatsoever. i have a feeling that the fresh coat of paint and this new rug will help put it in a more pleasing light. i've got new curtains on my mind, and some ideas for a bit of artwork for her walls. i'm also thinking about testing my spray-painting skills. of course, i'll have to find the time to fit in all the craftiness that is on my to-do list, which means i really ought to get off the computer and tend to the project at hand.


oh...i nearly forgot to tell you about the big reveal. mike woke sam up from his nap telling him there was a surprise waiting for him upstairs. sam said, "is it a cookie?" well...no, but he still seemed mighty pleased, and if his bedtime was any indication, we have successfully transitioned this boy into his new big boy room. (huzzah! and a HUGE sigh of relief!)

making—mother's day tote

sam the ham

the artist at work

"hand painted" with love

the finished project

i thought we'd share a little project sam and i cooked up for gramma h for mother's day. i thought this tote bag would be the perfect showcase for one of sam's paintings. so we went to the craft store where sam picked out some paints, and after a little coaxing he got down to work. it didn't take long before his hands (and at least one ear) were covered in paint and he declared this work of art complete.

i think he did a rather nice job, but my favorite parts were definitely watching sam ham it up for the camera and declare "that was fun!" while i helped him scrub his hands (mostly) clean.

i hope gramma likes her tote (though i know she's got a plethora of bags, i also know that they do wear out after a while...)

happy mother's day, mom! i am more appreciative of all your amazing skills and patience every day, and i'm not sure how you managed to (more than) survive the four of us. one of these days i hope my kid(s) will think i'm as cool as i think you are. you rock!

making—freezer paper stencils

i've been dying to try freezer paper stencils for ages (i swear i've had this roll of freezer paper stacked away in my cupboard for more than two years), but i was recently trying to figure out ways to make sam's old white onesies seem a little bit more special (before they get handed down) and decided that this is the perfect opportunity to finally give this stencil thing a go.
i'm still not quite sure what i want to put on the onesies (can't do initials because she hasn't got a name yet, don't want to do hearts or flowers or other girlie stuff because that's just too, i don't know...the word boring comes to mind), so i thought i'd just experiment on my own t-shirts first (and even this was a stretch when it came down to it, hence the triangles).
i think the end result was okay. you can totally see places where i should've pressed harder with the iron when ironing on the stencil (or been more careful with the paint, or both), but now that i've done one, i'm totally hooked. i want to stencil everything!
i love this inspiration, and i pinned a tutorial here.
now what are you waiting for? i'm sure you've got an old, boring tee with a stain on it just waiting to be upgraded, don't you?

work—faith in... signage

another big project we're working on is the "faith in..." campaign. the idea is that this campaign will eventually go nationwide, but we're starting off in cleveland, and that's where my piece of this puzzle comes in. 
part one of my job was to design window clings that reflect the theme. the top image is the layout i came up with for the windows on the east end of the building, and then an image of what this might look like in place.
the second piece of this was to design sets of street banners (using the same, or similar, images that we're using as part of the ucc theme banners in the store), and a mock-up of the 20 foot wide banner that will be hung on the side of the building. 
it's fun to be working on something so big and visible to so many people, but all of this has a deadline of being hung/implemented by the end of may, so i've been working like crazy trying to get everything done (things have to be to the printer(s) next week!)

work—the store identity

we've got a lot of big, exciting projects coming along at work right now. one of the projects i've been pulled in to work on is to re-brand our store (formerly known as "the book nook"). the biggest point marketing wanted to emphasize was that we're not just selling books anymore, and we want people to think of this as the place to shop for UCC "stuff".

to that end, i designed the logo above using words and icons that highlight the kinds of things that will be available for purchase. below that is an example of the store signage, which will focus on categories of items, and then we'll have two "generic" store banners with icons and the logo.

the marketing team is still working on pinning down the size for the banners and signage, but my designs were shared with the group, and the direction was basically approved. *insert huge sigh of relief here.*

the store banners will be hung on tension rods so that they can easily be turned around when the store isn't open for business. this is an example of how i designed the back sides of the banners using established UCC images and themes, with a design that compliments the store identity.

re-decorating

i've been thinking about doing some new artwork for the frames that will move to sam's new room. the original stuff i put up was done so long ago that it doesn't really reflect him much, and i was thinking that some trucks might be the perfect thing for my vehicle obsessed child.
i had some doodles in my sketchbook that i thought i could translate into something decent. and now i've got more than a dozen to work with (and about five frames to fill). i'm not precisely sure what i've got in mind, but (as everything in our house) it's a work in progress. and i'm pretty sure he'll be happy with it, for the time being at least.
though perhaps i should incorporate some space ships...


i also think i need to come up with some kind of decoration to make the girl's room special for her. i have some thoughts, but nothing concrete yet.


in other news, i had my 24 week visit to the doctor on friday and the report was that so far, so good with the little bean. i'm always glad to hear that everything is alright, and that i'm not just getting beat up from the inside for nothing. this kid is definitely related to "ninja", and apparently is a bit of a night owl as well.

switch swatch

one of the dilemmas currently on our to-do list is figuring out how to get sam happily moved into the spare room (the bigger bedroom) and sam's old room ready for the little sister. ideally, we'd like to have sam moved into his room at least one month before the girl arrives on the scene, and the first step in that process is getting the room repainted.

sam's current room is a denim-y blue that (after the room had been fully painted), i really decided was way too dark for my liking. so this time around, i picked out some much lighter blues, and we're going to let sam have a say in what the final choice is. i narrowed it down to four choices that i can totally live with, no matter what sam picks, but i'm still a little bit worried he's going to feel displaced (despite the fact that he's really getting an upgrade here). we shall see how it all works out, i suppose.

for the little girl's room, i picked out a bunch of grey/tan swatches, with the intention that the wall colors should be neutral, and as she gets bigger (grows out of all sam's baby hand-me-down stuff), we can re-decorate with color accents and accessories that are more girlie. mike and i both seem to have agreed on the most neutral grey, and i think it will be fine.

there will surely be updates as the rooms progress, but for now, we are (as usual) setting a leisurely pace.

making—wrapping paper

last month mike rescued a huge stack of ginormous paper from the recycling bins at work. since then we've been making giant pictures (mostly of trucks and rocketships), big paintings, robots to sword fight with (because chopping mama up while she's doing dishes is NOT recommended), and truck stop signs.

this week we made some personalized wrapping paper for the cousins having birthdays in march. i drew some basic birthday-type stuff (balloons, streamers, confetti, party hats, and candles) with a sharpie, and then sam and i colored them in with crayons like a giant coloring book page. it was sam's idea to add the truck, which i turned into a cake truck (because that seemed more birthday-like than a garbage truck—his original request).

i do believe that we're going to be rather sad when the giant paper runs out. however, in the meantime, we're having a blast.

making—baby shower bingo

my sister-in-law got put in charge of planning the games for an upcoming baby shower she's helping to throw, and since she knows i kinda do this sort of thing for fun, she asked me to design some personalized bingo cards for the mom and dad-to-be. she told me the information on where they're registered and sent me this photo via cell phone as reference:

after three or so hours at the computer, i was able to come up with this:

i'm pretty happy with the results, and i hope that she will be too. not too bad for a sunday afternoon's worth of goofing off, huh?

making—bookplates

i originally had all kinds of good intentions to get these bookplates printed up and get one into the book we got for alice for her birthday, but i didn't manage to get them done in time. i did, however, design them. so as soon as i can locate my sticker paper, i'll print some up and send them down. i'm sure alice's mom can apply as necessary.

if you're interested in making a few of your own using this design, you can get the download here.

making—wall art on the cheap

i made this flower out of scraps that i'd brought home from a project at work. the paper was a sort of pearlescent cream color, and was so nice that when i ended up with a large supply of 1" x 8.5" strips of it, i couldn't bear to throw them in the trash. so i gathered them up and shoved them in my bag, and they've been sitting around waiting for something to happen to them. i did make a few simple christmas ornaments from a few of the strips, but i still had such a quantity left that i knew i had to make something bigger. i also found a bunch of green paper amongst my paper stash, so i added some leafy bits underneath. and this is what i ended up with. not too bad for something that originally would've ended up in the garbage. now i just have to find a home for it.