I’d love to be the kind of aunt who sends cool cards and awesome little gifts to my nieces and nephews on their birthdays, but unfortunately, I’m the kind of aunt who rarely sends anything, and when I do, it’s usually late. In typical fashion, I created this card on the day after Simon’s 7th birthday. But instead of scrawling “Sorry this is late!”, I embraced the lateness and made it into a joke.

The classic knock-knock joke with the “orange you glad” punchline can easily be adapted to fit a variety of situations. In this card, we said, “Orange you glad we didn’t forget your birthday?!” Orange is Simon’s favorite color, so of course he got a kick out of it.

I was aiming for a bit of a comic strip vibe, so I used the font SF Cartoonist Hand. The door knob is a brass fastener, although I suppose it would be more accurate to call it a brad, since it’s actually silver in color. You can find those at a craft store like Michaels.

Do you send birthday cards or gifts to your nieces and nephews who live at a distance? I have all of their birthdays on my calendar, but somehow they always seem to sneak up on me and I don’t get things mailed in time. If you send fun little treats (other than money), I’d love to hear your ideas!

A long table runner for a big Thanksgiving dinner doesn’t have to cost more than the turkey! This 14-foot table runner is simply a strip of kraft paper I cut from a big roll. Two years ago, it survived Thanksgiving dinner without any cranberry stains on it, so I saved it to reuse in the future — and this year I decided to fancy it up a bit.

The hand-stamped leaves were completely inspired by this table runner you can purchase from Minted. The leaf motif is very similar to this one (there’s a printable pattern!), but I drew my own by hand on an index card.

I bought a thick sheet of craft foam at Joann for $1.49 to use as my stamp. I traced around my paper pattern with a permanent marker, cut out the foam shape with an X-Acto knife, and glued it to a piece of sturdy foam core for stability — and to give me something better to grip. Michaels only carries thin sheets of craft foam, so if you can’t find thicker foam, you can just cut out several identical versions of your stamp from thin foam and stack them together.

Then I just grabbed a white stamp pad and stamped away! I used Frost White pigment ink by Color Box because that’s what I had on hand.

I love how the table runner turned out, and I’m already dreaming of other simple stamps I can make with the rest of the sheet of foam. Oh, and those candles are fragrance-free soy candles I made in my crock pot. I’ll be sure to get any little wax bits out before I fill it with mashed potatoes next week!

My baby sleeps in an IKEA crib, keeps his clothes in an IKEA dresser, and gets his diaper changed on an IKEA shelf. But little by little, the bedding, artwork, and other decorative items in his room are being lovingly handcrafted by his mama.

This giant canvas was a deeply-discounted impulse purchase at Michaels back in 2011. I had no idea what I would paint on it, but for twenty bucks, I couldn’t resist buying a blank 3-by-4-foot canvas. The man behind me in line was convinced I was a painter (who else would buy such a huge canvas?), and even though I denied it several times, he persisted and even asked if I do commissions. Ha! He must have thought I was being modest, but I was being honest. I don’t paint!

Fast forward two years, and this giant canvas now hangs on the wall of Ethan’s bedroom, adding a big, bold splash of color. I still would never call myself a painter, but I did successfully paint the alphabet onto a canvas.

Here’s how to make your own painted canvas alphabet art:

STEP 1: Design the artwork.
I created an image in Photoshop Elements, moving and resizing the letters until I was satisfied. I wanted ultra-bold letters, so I used a free font called Bemio. This is also when I decided which color to paint each of the letters and which ones should be on top when they overlap.

STEP 2: Convert your design into a traceable pattern.
I hate to say it, but this step was clunky. If you have access to a video projector, just project the image onto your canvas, trace the outlines of the letters with a pencil, and continue to step 3. If you don’t, you can do what I did.

I added black outlines to my letters in Photoshop, then hid the colorful letters. (If you don’t know how, try following this quick tutorial.) I then divided my large image into 28 smaller 8×10″ images by selecting/copying a portion of the original image and creating a new image from the selection (File > New from Clipboard). I printed out those 28 images onto 28 sheets of white 8.5×11″ paper and then taped them together to make one large image. It’s not difficult, it’s just repetitive and somewhat annoying.

If you prefer, you could also have a 36×48″ image printed as an engineering print at Staples, but that would have cost more than $7, and that seemed too expensive for an intermediary step in a project. However, your sanity may be worth it.

STEP 3: Trace your design onto the canvas.
Now that you have a large, unwieldy, taped-together paper with your pattern on it, lay it on top of your canvas, center it up properly, and tape it directly to the canvas in a few places. Slide a sheet of graphite transfer paper between the pattern and the canvas. Use some kind of stylus (or pencil) to trace the outline of each letter, pressing firmly as you go. Depending on the size of your transfer paper, you’ll need to move it at least a few times as you trace. Try hard not to shift the big paper pattern on top!

STEP 4: Paint!
Finally, the step you’ve been looking forward to the most! Paint the letters! I used a 1/2-inch wide flat brush and four different colors of acrylic paint. I saved a picture of the design on my phone so I could refer to it often while I painted the first coat. Not only did I need to see which colors to paint the letters, but I had to keep checking how the letters overlapped, since I had traced the complete outline for each letter. I ended up painting two coats of most colors and three coats of the navy blue.

The paint colors (and brands) I used are Laguna (Apple Barrel), Real Navy (Apple Barrel), Citrus Green (Folk Art), and Neutral Gray (Americana). The colors coordinate with Ethan’s quilt… which is currently a stack of triangles stitched together to make squares.

STEP 5: Outline your letters.
I wasn’t originally planning to do this, but the edges and corners of the letters weren’t always as crisp as I would have liked, and I thought the added definition would help. It was absolutely the right decision for my project. I used a 1/8-inch flat brush to outline the letters in black.

STEP 6: Seal your painting with ModPodge.
I accidentally bought glossy navy blue paint, which was very obviously different from the other paints, so I brushed a coat of ModPodge over the entire canvas to even things out. I’d recommend this even if all of your paints have the same finish — it gives the project a nice finished look.

—

The canvas has been hanging in Ethan’s room since Saturday, and I’m still afraid I’m going to look at it one day and realize that I missed a letter. I didn’t, did I?

The timing of this afternoon’s power outage couldn’t have been more perfect for me. My older two kids were still at school, my baby was ready to be nursed and put down for a nap, and I had a burst of creative inspiration.

I’ve been wanting to create some new art for our walls, so I decided to embrace the “done is better than perfect” mantra and just go for it. I sketched out the phrase “you are so loved” onto white paper until I was satisfied with it, then traced it onto a sheet of black paper with white transfer paper. Then I just painted over the lines with white acrylic paint, framed it, and — right after the power came back on! — hung it in our dining room.

It’s not perfect, but neither are any of the people I love. And I love them anyway.

I love most holidays, but I’m not a big fan of Halloween. Costumes and jack o’ lanterns are fun, but witches and skeletons and cobwebs just aren’t my thing. But last night I was craving a quick creative outlet, and came up with this happy little Halloween-themed card. I just cut out the word BOO from orange card stock, glued the letters and two wiggle eyes onto a black card, and taped a white insert to the inside for writing a little note.

BOO!

Since August of last year, I’ve been one of the leaders of the Girls’ Club at our church, which means I plan monthly activities for a fun group of third, fourth, and fifth grade girls. This school year, I’m sending birthday cards to each of the girls when their big day rolls around. I already sent the first card a few weeks ago, and then I created a bunch more last week so that my cards are all ready to be personalized and written in throughout the year.

I cut the balloon shapes from textured polka dot paper made by Bazzill Basics (on sale at Michaels).

I glued each balloon to a piece of white cardstock that I had already cut and scored for folding.

Next I punched a tiny hole on each side of the “knot” part of the balloon and slipped a piece of bakers twine through the holes. (The twine is from The Twinery.) I still haven’t learned how to tie a bow that really looks right, but I fiddled with each of these until they looked good enough.

All stacked up and ready to be personalized!

Madelyn’s birthday is next!

My bow-tying needs a little help, doesn’t it? Can you tie a perfect bow? If so, please tell me how it’s done!

When my husband hit the big four-oh a few weeks ago, I presented him with a little gift that combined two things I’m obsessed with: the man himself… and paper.

I created a 40-page mini-book for Tim called “40 Things I Love About You.” I cut the pages from white cardstock (3×4″), rounded the corners, punched a couple grommets in the cover, and held it all together with two metal book rings. Then I got out a pen and filled the pages with things I love about Tim.

It was easy.

One of the best things I did to get ready for our week of vacation this summer was make vacation journals. The night before we left, I decided that we should have a way to record our memories throughout the week, so I made journals for each of the kids — and then made one more for myself.

I printed our destination and the year on a sheet of cardstock and stapled it together with six sheets of white paper. Then I folded it in half and called it done. It wasn’t fancy… but it was the night before we left.

The kids and I had a great time writing in our journals during the week — and they also enjoyed drawing pictures of some of our activities, like eating ice cream at Mister Whippy.

We wrote about the places we went, the food we ate, and how we felt about being on vacation — from the first day…

… to the last.

And while I was looking through our vacation photos to find these pictures, I decided to finally print out a bunch of photos from our trip to put in a big collage frame in the hallway. Great vacations are worth remembering often!

I’ve dabbled in the art of papercutting for more than a decade. Initially I used patterns I found online, but later I made a few of my own designs. My original work tends to be very simple, such as this tiny papercut I made a couple months ago.

The frame holds a picture that is less than three inches square, so I chose a very short inspirational phrase. I cut the words out of a sheet of white cardstock with my X-Acto knife, making the words and white frame all one continuous piece of paper, which I then mounted on a kraft background.

And now this little papercut sits on the shelf in our laundry room, serving as a frequent reminder to love, love, and love some more. Because really, no matter how much you’re loved, who wouldn’t benefit from more love?

The beginning of a new year is a perfect time to start a new daily project, especially one that involves both a calendar and a journal. Over the holidays I spent some quality time with 366 index cards and a Sharpie pen to create this perpetual calendar micro-journal.

My perpetual calendar micro-journal was directly inspired by a very similar project I saw on Design*Sponge more than a year ago. At the top of each index card, I wrote the month and day, and then each day I write one line about something I did or thought that day. A year from now, it will be fun to look back and remember what I was thinking and doing a year earlier. By the time the cards are filled up, I will have recorded a decade of memories.

It’s tempting to wish I had significant things to write each day, but for now I’m really enjoying jotting down simple notes about everyday activities. It’s helping me to notice the small things, and I’m intrigued by the opportunity to record moments that would otherwise slip away and be forgotten.

While I certainly can’t capture much depth or detail, right now this micro-journal is a good format for me. It only takes a moment to jot down a memory before I crawl into bed each night.

What about you? Do you keep a daily journal or diary? Is it handwritten? Electronic? Do you leave it on your nightstand, or keep it under lock and key? I’d love to know.

In spite of the fact that I already have plenty of little notepads and tablets, I wanted something new and special to jot notes on during a conference/retreat that I’m attending this weekend. So last night I sat down and whipped up this little silver striped notepad.

I made a lengthwise cut right down the middle of an 8.5×11″ sheet of kraft cardstock to make the cover, and then did the same with three sheets of printer paper to make the interior pages. I drew stripes on the cover with a silver marker, folded everything in half, and then stapled it all together at the top. I trimmed a little excess white paper off the bottom and then rounded the bottom corners with a little corner punch.

My notepad only has 12 pages, and I hope to fill them with lots of great ideas this weekend.

Happy weekend, friends!