no, the other jill

jill sent me HER friend jill's cute blog called show and tell and i love it! not only are her designs super cute and happy, her writing style is fun to read too. it's always interesting to hear what other people think of their end results knowing everything they went through to get there. isn't it funny that no matter how much thought and energy you put into something that when someone else sees it in its final state they just say "cute!" and then you feel like "oh...really? that's it?"

since i LOVE cupcakes, i had to post this design she just put up. SOOO cute!

spool sewing

my friend elisa A! (that's how she's in my phone since there is more than one elisa) showed me this CUTE blog today called spool about fun fabrics and sewing. it's also really neat because on the left hand side they have have some PDFs of free patterns you can print out--including a little bird and even a sewing machine cozy! here's a picture of their workroom with all the covered machines (so cute):

ps. it was really funny because when elisa was telling me the name of the website, she accidentally read it as "spools ewing" since their website is www.spoolsewing.com but doesn't that make you think of sheep then? haha.

craft swap beta!

yesterday i finally emailed my secret friends who will be testing out a craft swap i'm organizing based on this intelligence group email. project #1 is a tote bag, and the only specifications were: minimum size, liner or sturdiness requirement, minimum 1 embellishment, and i made an inspiration board to get everyone motivated too.

i'm SUPER excited!!!!! more to come...
etsy crafters row 1, left to right: loopd, gutentag, (i looked through over 200 etsy pages and cannot find this gray & yellow tote bag anymore...if anyone figures it out i will update the post!!! sorry!!!)
etsy crafters row 2, left to right: YuriMiku, vitamini, reiter8
etsy crafters row 3, left to right: acajou, sarahminshall, MissPixley

cute stuff

this morning i bought the book cute stuff: let's make cute stuff by aranzi aronzo and i'm excited to make some cute tote bags and crafty things! the book itself is great because it has all these hand drawn steps and wording, so it feels like you're reading someone's fun doodled sketchbook.

i looked up aranzi aronzo, and their website is super cute [stuff] too. here are some of my favorite things you can buy in their store and also the cover of the book (which i actually bought at borders, but barnes & noble had a visual so i linked to them instead...)

robot paper

i forgot to take a picture of the lil yellow bunny i made dana as part of her belated birthday present, but here's the wrapping paper i designed for her gift...i think it turned out pretty cute :) i'm really excited to have a weekend with almost no plans. hopefully i can find time in between doing nothing to post more soon.

twin pops photoshoot

tomorrow is the last day of the ponoko contest, and here are some photos finally of the real real real thing! if you haven't voted yet and would like to, the link can be found on this previous post.

it was super fun seeing it in person, i would definitely like to learn more about how to create more intricate designs. plus, it comes in a package that says "yippee!" in giant letters so why wouldn't you want to constantly receive mail from them???

anyway, i realized that 75% of the last 4 posts (including this one) are about twin pops and as cute as they are...i DO have interests in other things too. like i finished making bff's belated bday present finally! and i did a pretty great job on my final screenprinting project! so i promise to post about NON twin pop related news next time...!

ya cottonanni

today is chris' and my 2 year wedding anniversary already...craziness! i looked it up on wikipedia and 2 years is the "cotton anniversary." we decided to get each other t-shirts but unfortunately with work being insane (always) and me needing to finish my final project for my screenprinting class it's going to be a belated present on both ends.

this shirt from the onion has nothing to do with 2 years of time, anniversaries, love, marriage, or even chris as a human being so i'm not buying it...but i still thought it was funny:

lucky #17

exciting news!!! twin pops made it to the next round and got picked for the top 20! ponoko will be sending me a free sample of the charm so i can set up a sweet photoshoot and post actual pictures of it. i can't wait to see it in person!

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME!!! assuming you read this blog because you feel some sort of affection towards me, you'll want me to feel loved and get lots of votes to move onto the final 3, right???

go #17 twin pops charm!!!

twin pops

i found out about this design contest on ponoko that was only a 10 day long event...but to my disadvantage i didn't actually see it until the last day, and only had about 2 hours to get something submitted. i quickly read a 30 page PDF of how to use their website and created a laser-ready design, created a showroom, opened a pay pal account, and re-drew my design semi three-dimensionally to post it. (i am no industrial designer)...it was a stressful 120 minutes but i think it would be pretty neat if i moved onto the next round and got to see my design actually made!

proposed material: 0.12 inch thick red transparent acrylic with etched design and laser cut charm hole.

don't these guys look familiar???

riddle

WE ARE SO HAPPY FOR YOU KIDS!!! pj will be such a fun big brother. i hope it's a girl so i can dress her up super cute and teach her how to play rock band. i wonder if hair police has specials for babies...like an "i am an infant" discount sort of thing.

happy birthday robot (cont.)

baby???

today my "co-worker" mike became an uncle, yay! kait and zack had a CUTE baby boy named fin(n)ian maxwell. (kudos to kait, who was in labor for over 24 hours--i cannot even fathom) we placed bets on when the baby would be born and i kept IM-ing mike to see if there was any news. i feel like if i ever meet finn, i will forever think of his name as "baby???" said in an anxious tone.

i ended up winning the bet--i was off by less than 10 minutes, and also correctly guessed it would be a boy. maybe there is money to be made with this skill...at least i won a coffee out of it. if by "win" you mean "will let you use a coupon that was free from target."

red, white, and blue

while our friends in minneapolis are lucky enough to bike around the lakes, we are blessed with suburbia heaven and took advantage of our day off to bike to walgreens for some tums. along the way we DID find out that the bike path connects all the way to lake calhoun, so that was a pleasant surprise. our goal is to get to minneapolis [without my legs turning to jelly] by the end of the summer.

we got rockstar parking in st. anthony RIGHT before the show started and had a great night out watching the fireworks. no bugs, pleasant weather...plus my "freedom franks - 100% american beef" shirt.

happy birthday america, indeed.

happy birthday milo (fyi, you're two)

happy birthday robot