….cards, that is.

Recently I had new business cards made at a local print shop.

1,500 of them, to be exact.

The folks at Evolution let us check out their printing equipment when we were there, and we noticed that two cards were being cut out of each piece of card stock that they ran through their machines. Each piece of card stock has registration marks printed on it, in the same colors as my business cards. Josh asked if we could take these leftover pieces of card stock with us, and the folks at Evolution said “Sure.”

Meanwhile, I was thinking:

“What the heck am I going to do with 1,500 scrap pieces of card stock??”.

Well, here’s one idea that I came up with:

I cut down the card stock into strips and then small pieces.

(Two random facts about this paper cutter:

1.) It was a dumpster find in college, in perfectly good condition.

2.) If I set it on the floor, within minutes I will bang my ankle on one of it’s sharp corners.

I swear it attacks me. )

Using a corner rounder that I got at Paper Zone,

I rounded the corners of each little paper piece.

Then I printed “Thank You” on each piece with this teeny, tiny stamp

that I purchased from Ali’s Attic on Etsy.

Punch a hole in the tag, thread through some twine and ta-da!

From one scrap piece of card stock - this is all that’s left.

(Now, what to do with the other 1, 499 pieces…. Ha!)

Thanks to Josh for thinking fast and saving this paper from being thrown out!

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This month I am very excited to be advertising on a great blog: Rare Bird Finds.

This blog is really fun - they update often with neat and interesting products.

If you check out the site - you’ll see my ad at the upper right.

Josh put the ad together using four of my product images.

I think he did a wonderful job. : )

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One last thing…

If you look over to the right side of my blog, I recently added a sign-up area for an email newsletter that I have in the works. The newsletter will include sneak-peeks at upcoming projects, fun facts, promos available only to newsletter subscribers, and other fun stuff.

Thanks for stopping by -

have a great day!

Jenn : )

WARNING: The following is not for the faint of heart.

The scene: The sewing table.

The victim: Nina (aka: “The sewing machine”.)

Time: Approximately 7:00 pm June 1, 2008.

Damage: Broken needle and inability to sew.

Prime suspect: Adorable Monster Bath Mitt.

Suspect was last seen looking cute in vicinity of work table.

Victim has been taken to Bernina repair shop. Victim is expected to make a full recovery in approximately one week’s time. Suspect will be under intense observation. Any proximity to electronic devices will result in immediate lock down.

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Hi All!

I’ve been working on bath mitts….up until last night when sewing came to a screeching halt. The nice gal at the Bernina shop tells me that the machine’s timing is off - resulting in straight stitching lines only… and I really need the zigzag and serge. She says Nina’s visit will take about a week - but hopefully it will be quicker than that. In the meantime… I have lots of hand embroidery I can work on, including some new holiday ornaments I’ve started - to use up tiny bits of scrap fabric and wool. Here’s a quick photo of one:

And here are my finished business cards!!! Yay!

I’m very happy with how they look.

We just have to finalize a couple things with the label company

and then my new labels will be in production - whoo hoo!

Hope you have a great day!

Jenn : )

Earlier this week Josh and I went over to Evolution, where my business cards are being printed. We did a press check on the color for the back of the cards. I had to give the okay on the color, and I got to take one of the sheets home with me. The card stock is an oatmeal color that has tiny threads in it. This will be the back of the cards, soon we’ll do a check on the fronts.

Yay - I can’t wait to see them finished!

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If you saw my last post, I’ve been having some problems with uploading photos to my blog. For the last couple days I haven’t been able to upload them at all. Josh and I have gotten around this by using a program called Ecto. Ecto works with Flickr to not only make photo uploading easier, it also decreases the amount of time it takes to publish the entire blog post. Another problem I was having was that, on occasion I would upload my photos, type up all my text and get everything spaced and arranged the way I wanted it - only to discover that I wanted to include one more photo. If I then added any additional photos - all of the spacing in the blog post I was working on would be undone. Everything that I had typed would be mashed together in one big paragraph and I’d have to redo all the spacing. (Blog posting takes enough time as it is without that kind of hassle!) Ecto lets you create your entire blog post independently of Blogger. I can click and drag photos and play with the layout to my heart’s content and then publish. Adding photos doesn’t effect your text. Whew! I think this is going to work out much, much better!

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Since I couldn’t do any blog posting myself, I got to catch up on a bit of blog reading.

I was over at Mrs. Kwitty’s blog and saw that she’s been doing some spring cleaning, which inspired me to do some, too.

Mrs. Kwitty has been reorganizing her rick-rack collection (which is quite impressive, I must say!) and by coincidence, my own rick-rack has outgrown the glass jar I’ve been keeping it in.

Weeks (or maybe months?) ago I thrifted a long wooden box that was filled with projector slide boxes. Yesterday I decided that it would be perfect for keeping my rick-rack in. I lined the bottom with pretty paper and here it is:

Much better!

(Josh is using the slide boxes to keep Legos in.)

Thanks for the organization motivation, Mrs. Kwitty! : )

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Pooh what have you gotten yourself into?

Oh, this baby blanket is very warm and snuggly soft!

This lovely set is for friends of ours who have their first baby on the way.

When I saw this blanket, matching booties and bib in Ginny’s Etsy shop,

I had to scoop them up!

They are so pretty and well made! Right now Ginny has some very cute bibs in her shop.

I’m especially fond of this one !

Cheers!

Jenn : )

Jenn : )

Best,

Jenn : )

Cheers!

Jenn : )

This morning I listed one of my business card wallets in the shop.
Thanks to Josh - who took some great photos for me last night.

It seems that I am enamored with bumblebees lately. I looked around Etsy this morning and found these sweet bee goodies:

This adorable little knit hat from Knittybittyapparel.

These cool gift tags from Prettyful.

This little painting by Pumpkinseedsfolkart.

And this pretty necklace from Puffluna.

: ) Bee nice to one another and have a great day!

Jenn

Good morning! Hope you all had a great weekend.

I was in my studio all weekend sewing sewing sewing.

I’m happy to say that all the taskets that I started are now finished. I ended up with 11 - but I could probably make 1 or 2 more - after I take a break from them.

I want to say a big “Thank you!” to Lisa for her wonderful words of advice about craft fair goodies. She suggested that I make some smaller items to have on hand for “impulse buys”. Business card wallets were mentioned and it just so happens that about six months ago I had an Etsy customer request that I make her a business card wallet. So on Sunday I went through my sketch book and found my notes for that project, gathered together wool and felt and my precious special trims from Superbuzzy and got to work.

Here is what I have done so far (you can click on the photo to zoom). Four little doggie wallets and the rest say “Here You Are” with a little bee decoration. I still have to sew on the pockets - that will be one of today’s tasks. I’m quite pleased with them - Josh likes the doggie ones : )

There must have been something in the air this weekend - a hint of spring, maybe? - because I sold my last two Butterfly pincushion/sewing book sets. I’ll wrap these up and get them in the mail later this morning.

And one more thing I am super excited about: I have joined in on the Spring Fling Swap that I found over at Sweet Goodness Swaps! As I’ve been exploring lots of wonderful craft blogs I keep reading about all these swaps that people are doing…. and seeing all of the gorgeous goodies people are getting in their mailboxes… and I’m thinking “gosh that sounds like fun - how can I get in on the action!?” Somehow one day I found myself at Sweet Goodness Swaps and to my delight I hadn’t missed the deadline for the Spring Fling Swap : )

The color theme is pink and green (yummy). And I have a wonderful swap partner - Rebecca! She has a great blog called Thrifty Goodness - very fun and lots of photos. And from what she’s been blogging about she may soon be a fellow Etsyian - whoo hoo! I’ve almost finished making my first swap item, Rebecca - can’t wait for you to see it : )

Well - I’m off to the post office and then back to my studio. Nina is really getting a workout lately - I’m sure she’ll be happy to have Saturday off!

: ) Jenn