Amazing Artist Transforms Daughter's Work Into Paintings

Isn't this amazing!? Canadian artists Ruth Oosterman takes her daughter's drawings and paints over them to transform them into beautiful works of art. I wish I could do something like this. People are so talented and creative.

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The Lonely Bouquet Project

When my sister got married down in LA we used the fabulous florist, Twig and Twine, for her bouquet. I've followed the shop on Instagram since then and noticed a wonderful little idea she posted about a few week back. It's called the "Lonely Bouquet Project" and involves simply creating a bouquet and leaving it in a public place with a note for a stranger to find and take home. Then you can hit their website and track the bouquets that are being left and received. How sweet, simple and lovely.

Work Better: Break Time

Welcome to a new series we will be doing from time to time, all about work!

For a little background on my perspective...
I work with my husband, Jason, we have our own company. I'm not gonna lie, working with the person you're married to can be difficult at times, but overall, we really enjoy it. We definitely have a bit of a non-traditional work environment, we have an office in our home and we spend a lot of time shooting on location and traveling as well. All in all, our unique work situation and my inability to stick to a routine has lead to some interesting experiments in how we work and some creative solutions to getting things done.

And now for our first topic!

A Creative Take on Break Time...

A few months ago, when I was feeling bad that Jason was spending soooooo much time staring photoshop and I had been doing a lot of reading about how bad it is to stare at screens for hours on end, I made him a game.

This cute little bunting, made of a repurposed Free People catalog, hangs over Jason's desk.
Each time he needs a break, Jason can take one down and he has do what it says, I made him promise! They say everything from “Call a friend you haven’t talked to in a long time” to “Do 17 jumping jacks” or, on of my personal favorites, “Make Jenny a snack”. Basically, anything and everything that would take his mind off of work and get him out of his chair and away from the computer for a bit.

It didn’t start out very well though. You see, there was one pretty strange one I put on there. One thing that I thought would be really, really funny one day in the future after Jason had been getting lots of good ones. Somehow, out of all the little colorful papers to choose, Jason randomly selected the oddest one first. Oops. It said, “Take a shower with all your clothes on”! I let him choose another, but for a while, he was a little afraid to take one, thinking he’d get something else equally as weird.

There were days when I’d be upstairs and suddenly, Jason would run up and give me a hug, because a paper had told him to. Or I’d be sitting in the office with my back to him and suddenly he’d be barking like a dog. Seriously, a great way to make the work environment more entertaining!

Doily Wreath

When I needed decorations for the vintage themed baby shower I threw a few months back, I was looking for all things old-fashioned and ended up stumbling upon TONS of things made from doilies on Pinterest.

I found this Martha Stewart doily wreath, which I LOVED. But then, I realized with the special supplies it called for, it was going to cost me over $100. Yikes. No thanks. So with that vision, I continued to scour Pinterest for other similar ideas and I came across this much simpler doily wreath.

In the end, I came up with my own creation, somewhat in the middle of the two. I used the technique from the second one, but added a lot more doilies than it calls for, shoving them a lot closer together.
Instead of using a metal frame as suggested in that tutorial, I used a straw one. When I realized I needed to wrap it in something and hadn't prepared for that, I whipped out a white sheet and tore it into strips, all the while pretending I was a WW1 nurse, caring for sick officers at Downton Abbey.

With the help of a couple of friends, we wrapped the straw wreath frame and proceeded to take a couple of hours of scrunching and hot gluing doilies. I recommend doing this with the friend for the entertainment alone.

When it was done, I used a bit more of the ripped sheet to make a bow to hang it from my picture rail.

Ta-Da! Doily Wreath success!

Make Your Own Lip Balm

My friend Daisy taught me how to make lip balm during our impromptu girls night last weekend. It's super easy and in the end, you have this wonderful product, nourishing for your lips, made with all natural ingredients.
Basically, it involves melting things in a pot, stirring them together, pouring it into little jars or tins and letting it set. Anyone can do it, really. Here's the recipe we used for Honey Mint Lip Balm.

Daisy purchased all the ingredients at Whole Foods, but found that they didn't sell large chunks of Bees Wax. It can be hard to find unless you're willing to make a trip to a specialty store. 100% bees wax candles are much easier to find, so we used those and took the wick out once the wax had melted. We used less peppermint than the recipe called for. Daisy used the full amount on her first attempt and equated it to dabbing Vick's Vapor Rub on your lips. Also, the recipe says to mix the honey in once you've taken it off the heat, but she found the honey was a bit clumpy that way. It is much easier to stir it in while the pot is still on the stove.

I'm now obsessed with my new lip balm. It works so well. It would be a really easy gift for a group of people. You could just make a large batch and put it in cute little jars. It would be a perfect party favor for a shower AND it's the type of thing that people think you're super cool and crafty for being able to make. You don't have to tell them it took you five minutes.

Telling My Stories: Inspiration from Anne Lamott

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of hearing author Anne Lamott speak about her life, books, spirituality and family. A large part of her presentation focused on writing; her own process, methodology, struggles and advice for those who have just begun to write. It was fortunate timing for me as I’ve been doing more writing lately than normal with the launch of our blog in January. One of my hopes for this blog is to get more comfortable with writing and to begin to own my voice. It was inspiring to hear Lamott say that she still (after 12 best sellers!) “has no confidence in her writing.” She calls the critical voices in her head the “boo” voices who are telling her she isn’t a good writer, has nothing to say, and no one wants to hear her stories. But she said there is another voice in there that says “give it a shot, I want to hear what you have to say.”  Her motto is anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Lamott is dedicated to making her gift for storytelling a reality by disciplining herself to getting them down on paper...and for every paragraph that is published in her books, there are 2-3 pages of writing that don’t get included. She advised us to write A LOT in a draft and then do an updraft and take out all the extraneous info that people don’t need to hear (at least two thirds).

Anne Lamott challenged me to own my stories, the big ones and the little stupid ones. To be confident and disciplined enough to write them down and share them. And really this is what our blog is all about: owning our stories, the things that happen to us, the moments that we enjoy, that bring happiness and laughter to our lives. We want to share with the world all the things that make life good, whether that’s a night out with the girls, overcoming insecurities, fresh spring grass between our toes, or the simply joy of a cup of tea.

Lamott wrote a book called, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, that I’m now eager to pick up. Have any of your read it? Seems like it could be instructive, and she is hilarious.

At the end of her talk, she gave all budding writers in the audience one piece of advice, always carry a pen! I've got a few in my purse, along with my trusty iPhone which I took copious notes on during her presentation. Thanks for the inspiration, Anne!

(Pietro Rotari painting from Art Experts)

Linking up to Finding Beauty in the Ordinary

T-Shirt Scarf

We are on Mr. Kate! And here's the story of how it happened. Way back at Thanksgiving, my sister and I wanted to do a craft project together. We thought it would be nice to do something creative while we are all sitting around and staring at each other in a trypotpaen induced haze. We decided to try the t-shirt scarf tutorial from Mr. Kate. It was super fun and easy.

The finished product definitely wins the prize for oddest variety of people complimenting it. The first day I wore it a woman who appeared drunk on the street stopped me to tell me how much she liked it. It was also approved of by a very stylish friend and the guy bagging my kombucha at Whole Foods gave me a , "Whoa, cool scarf!"

I typically stick to crafting projects that don't involving sewing or anything too complicated and this is one of those: an old t-shirt, some broken jewelry, scissors and and a glue gun is all you need. It's a great option for a present too!

We ended up sending a few pictures in to Mr. Kate and she just featured us on her blog! Check out the tutorial and pictures here.

Monday Motivation

I hope you have a wonderfully creative week!

(image via Piccsy)

Making Reading Fun!

Here's a little AM entertainment for you. A video of a working Rube Goldberg machine by Joseph Herscher, starring himself and his hamster, Chester. The New York Times wrote a piece on it too. 

PS. Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who drew designs for crazy, over-engineered machines to do simple tasks.