Busy day today. Costume parade at the elementary school, with a party for kindergarteners afterward. Then carving pumpkins at a friends house. Then preparing our own house for Trick-or-Treaters (read: make apple votives). Ben will take the kids around the neighborhood between 5:00 and 6:00pm. I’ll make something warm for dinner and our kids will go to bed fully exhausted and with rotten teeth. Ben and I will eat/hide-for-later most of the snickers, twix, kit kats, reeses, etc. while they sleep. And so will end another Spooktacular Halloween.
Pic of vintage Halloween pails via Martha.
They’re oversize for calling cards, and a little undersize for seed packets. I’m happy with where they’re at and I like the unusual size. The client is a florist based out of a family-owned greenhouse/nursery and I think these capture the history and feeling of the place quite well.
Although I’ll also design traditional business cards for the client (sometimes you just need a normal size business card), I’d like to see at least 4 of these oversize ones produced. I think they would be pretty as a series sitting at the register and would be more interesting to hand out than normal business cards. Also, more likely to be kept and displayed somewhere — like on a bullitin board — by a customer.
Feeling Halloweeny with no place to go? See the 3-D version of The Nightmare Before Christmas in the theatre or rent the original version and settle in for the night with a bowl full of trick-or-treat candy.
This movie came out my sophomore year of college and the whole Design Department organized a group outing and saw it opening night. I loved it. I still do.
My favorite part: when Jack is trying to describe Christmas to the Halloween Town folks and they just don’t get it. So he gives up and makes it sound creepy (like Santa Claws) so at least they’ll be enthusiastic.
Keeping with the handcrafted theme I started earlier today, introduce yourself to HUT up. Bek sent me a link to their site and their stuff looks fantabulous (thanks, Bek!). All handcrafted. All made from raw wool. It’s got me all itchin to try a wool project.
But mostly I just want to look at their gallery and drool. Clothes, desk stuff, table stuff, pillows, some kind of elephant cozy that makes me cry with happiness, and on and on.
I’m such a sucker for this kind of thing.
I can’t say enough thanks to Emily for Guest Blogging. What great ideas!
My desserts will never be the same now that I’ve been introduced to Chocolate Toppers. And don’t even get me started about marshmellow shooters. . .
Emily rocks!
Earlier I posted on keeping an eye out for soft toys that might work as comfort objects. Then Kathryn C emailed me a link to BlaBla and I realized they were the company making the dolls I had posted about — plus they make a ton of other beautiful things. The colors are terrific. The ideas are consistently dynamite. Super creative, wonderful stuff.
Looking for beautiful and unusual gifts? Toys for your tots? Definitely explore their site. Don’t miss the veggie rattles and the birdie bank.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working with my brother and sister-in-law to design their home and it has been so fun. It’s really coming together — only a few accent pieces to go. The major items we added were a new sofa and area rug. The very ones featured in the pic above from CB2.
Last Tuesday, about a week after the sofa was delivered, I got a call from Erin and her voice was shaking. Apparently, her darling 2 year old (really, he’s darling) had just written all over the couch with Sharpies. (Why were there Sharpies hanging around, you ask? Erin, like all mothers, is diligent about hiding the Sharpies. This was a total freak accident and not even worth explaining.)
I immediately called everyone I knew with microsuede furniture and had them call Erin with cleaning instructions and the instructions were universal: just scrub it. Just scrub and scrub and scrub and it will come out.
Amazingly, it worked. There is no sign of the Sharpie. I was there and participated in the scrubbing and am a witness that microsuede is the ultimate “family” fabric.
I am way impressed.
On a related note: I know it all worked out, but I’m still wondering, what kind of world is this, when a new couch can’t remain Sharpie-less for even a whole week?
We finally have a mantle after 7 years of hanging our Christmas stockings on our entertainment center.
But now I face the dilemma of how to hang the stockings? We have a wood mantle that is painted white so it’s not really something we want to poke holes or nails into. I have seen these ideas for stocking hooks over the years but now I think I will have to make a purchase. I like these very simple ones from Pottery Barn but I also think these natural wood ones from LL Bean are nice too.
Yesterday, I was dropping off Tania’s two-year-old son after preschool and commented on his super-awesome wellies. (I couldn’t find a pic of his exact boots, but I like the ones above, too.)
Very wise Tania mentioned she bought them a size too big — not so he could wear them an extra year, but because then they were easier to put on and he could do it himself. And because he can do it himself, he likes putting on those boots. She doesn’t need to tie laces (she has a baby to hold) and he feels accomplished and is happy.
We should all sit at Tania’s feet and learn.
Bonus: Tania used to get her favorite (unmarked brand) boots from a little boutique in Brooklyn. When she moved away she was sad to leave that boot source but happened upon the same unmarked boots recently at Walmart for $10.
Saw these fantastic bags in Lucky and can’t get them out of my head. Recycled from decommissioned sails.
See more here.
