Guess What I Did?

I went swimming in a lake. A deep lake!

25 feet deep, to be exact!

I hope that my gigantic balls don't frighten you and you'll still want to be my e-friends. Ha, Ha. I'm going to ignore the fact I was wearing a life jacket and pretend that this isn't something that toddlers do all of the time and just relish my major life accomplishment here.

Vintage Art Score

I wanted to share some quick snaps of some vintage lithographs that I picked up at an antique store in Wisconsin.

 I had spotted them back in May, but they were pricey, so I decided to sleep on them. I thought I'd be safe since stuff sits in Chicago-area antique stores for months or even years. Big mistake. Someone bought one. Booooo! And the prettiest one, of course.

When I got them home, I unwrapped one to show my sister-in-law and, on a whim, decided to search for "vintage paris watercolor" on eBay to see if I could find some other street art that would compliment my set. And, pin this, I found *my* paintings - including the missing one - selling for $149 - $295! Holy smokes. It appears that my prints are designer imposters of some lithograph prints by a somewhat famous street painter named Herbelot. I ended up buying a Herbelot print on ebay for almost the same price as my antique store prints.

My eBay Herbelot:

I was pleasantly surprised when I cleaning them for hanging and realized that this one was also a Herbelot.  Hooray!

My designer imposters by "Christian:"

 

I have a feeling that they're actually have little value, but I am still excited that there is a little story behind them. Right now, they're being test driven on the living room wall. They'll probably live there in their dinged up, mismatched frames until I scrape together the change to reframe them.

Rainy Day Crafting - Personalized Beer Cozies

I'm up in the Northwoods visiting Aunt Ruth and my in-laws and have been rained in for the past two days. Thankfully, I brought my laptop, my Silhouette, and two bags of craft supplies "just in case." I caught up on some projects that I've been tripping over (literally - the bags were sitting near the craft room/laundry room/bedroom door) for two months now.

I was excited to try the heat transfer material on beer cozies. I bought neoprene cozies on ebay and ironed on the design. I traced a google maps screen shot of the lake in Illustrator and imported the image into Silhouette for cutting.

 

2007 Italy Trip Album

I used to be fastidious about scrapbooking and album-making, but fell off the wagon in 2007 when I moved in with Andy. Since then I've had a growing list of "projects" to get out of boxes (or my hard drive) and get organized. I'm slowing but surely kicking ass on the list this year.

This weekend, I finished and ordered the blurb book from my 2007 trip to Italy with a friend. I can't wait to see some of these pix in print.

Italy | 2007 | Make Your Own Book

{Gifts, Paper} Gocco Note Cards

I've been dying to get my hands dirty on something other than a mouse, so I busted out the 'ole gocco printer to whip up a fast, personalized present for a friend's birthday party. I had a more elaborate design planned, but the screen didn't burn correctly. I couldn't bare to waste precious gocco supplies like that, so I cropped out the design for a minimalist set of personalized stationary.

I paired the cards with envelopes in an array of preppy colors.



I also included a white gel pen for writing on the dark envelopes and these cute postage stamps that will look great with all of the envelope colors.

In case you're curious, this was my failed design. Andy said he liked the final result better than the intended design.

I considered playing aroud with some washi tape, but decided to quit while I was somewhat ahead.

Not working with the gocco for a few years seems to have voided my memory of what a pain in the ass it can be. I thought this would take me 30 minutes or, you know, an hour and a half. GOCCO! Click here if you'd like to see my Gocco of Years Past.

Orange Bling

OMG! Where have I been? Hint: It rhymes with "jerk." (And with "Turk," if that's your bag.)

If I were getting married today, this Elva Field's necklace would 275% be in the running for my bling. (Even if it meant getting a different dress.) Damn.

{Source: Elva Fields}