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Folding and tying vintage fabric into these sweet little packs.
Making labels from a paper grocery bag. (I love recycled packaging!)
And getting someone with sweet little hands to help me with marketing.
I just added 44 chubby fabric packs to the supply shop--my biggest update ever!
I couldn't let the end of February go by without sharing what Donnie got me for Valentine's Day. He and I have had our share of drama when it comes to gift giving. He is inclined to buy lavish, expensive presents, but as I may have mentioned before, that comes with some anxiety for me. I prefer the understated, yet "I truly know you" gift. Not an easy task, I know. Sometimes the low-maintenance girls are the most difficult, I guess.
But, Donnie has hit some serious home runs in this area of our relationship, and this Valentine's was no exception. He told me later that he went to my favorite flea-market/vintage store and walked around 'til something made him think of me. This was it:
I didn't know there was a home movie magazine in the '60s, but now I want them all! I've been a little obsessed with the idea of editing and playing around with our home movies, and even trying out some stop-motion animation, so this magazine was right up my alley. The yellow book is full of stories, and it's called "Wonder and Laughter," which he said just reminded him of me. Aww.
And under that was this book, picked out by Ethan since he was along with for the ride:
A cool old book full of vehicle illustrations. I've already made plans to use this as inspiration for a line of wool toy cars, like this one:
I've given these as gifts a few times, and they are always a hit. Little boys don't seem to notice that the wheels don't turn, which is a relief! All in all, Valentine's Day was full of surprises and love--and a little chocolate. Hope yours was, too!
I'm a little under the weather, so I'll just leave you today with these pictures of last week's snowfall. A record-breaking 12 inches in the Dallas area. The perfect easy-rolling snowball kind of snow. It's gone now, but we'll always have these to remember it by:
Every year our church youth group holds a Valentine banquet as a fundraiser for future youth activities. Everything is done by the students in junior and senior high. They help decorate, serve the food, clean up, and provide entertainment. Each year they also chose a theme, and stick as closely as possible to that theme. This year the theme was "My Funny Valentine" so they focused on the funny things about love.
I had been involved before as a student, singing in the show part of the evening, and I had also taken on the talent part as a whole several years as a college student. But those roles were already taken when I was asked to help out this year. And when they mentioned that no one had yet volunteered to decorate the tables, I thought that would be a nice fit. The event was a great success, even though it had to be postponed due to huge snowfall. Here are some highlights:
Unlike the hand-cut circles in the original tutorial, we opted to use a flower-like punch since we had a large number of tables (24+) to accommodate. We then folded them into 8ths to give the petals their shape.
An army of paper flowers. We used paper that I already had on hand, since the plan was to sell the centerpieces as part of the fundraiser. Along with this grid vellum, we used pages from an old German novel I had, and pages from a 2007 road atlas.
Since I estimated that we needed more than 400 flowers for all the tables, I enlisted the help of my friends, Carisa and Lauren. They assembled almost every flower at the banquet. Thanks, ladies!
Instead of vases, we used cylindrical drinking glasses, which we found for a steal, and wrapped them in patterned paper and twine.
Each place had a place card with the name of the banquet on the top and a surprise inside.
We folded 200 of those origami hearts from the Martha Stewart website. I was really disappointed in the instructions on the site, since there were only verbal steps included. I might have to do a visual tutorial since I pretty much have it down now.
The only photo of the room that turned out since it was so dark with mood lighting. Overall, it was a huge success. We raised almost $2700, which was amazing with the postponement. The bottom line is, our church loves its youth ministry.
And I'm already getting ideas together for next year's tables.
When I agreed to design the table settings and centerpieces for the youth group's Valentine fundraiser dinner, I didn't realize that the event was this Friday! (She said in a high-pitched, panic-y voice.) Nothing like a deadline to get you moving, right?
Looking for inspiration.
Last week in church there was a presentation about a local thrift store called Soaring Eagles. The company employs adults with intellectual challenges, and the much of the proceeds go toward Special Olympics, and other organizations along those lines. I love a good thrift store and hadn't been there yet, since I'm new in town--so I went the first chance I got.
The store was clean and well-organized. I found lots of vintage sewing paraphernalia and some sheets in great condition for the shop. They were having a great sale, and almost everything I found was 1/2 off.
These containers will be a big help in setting up my work room, which I really need to get around to. And that roll is my favorite find of the day. It is yards and yards of orange-grid drafting paper. I can think of so many uses for this. In fact, I've already put some of it to work as pattern paper on the project I started yesterday.
Overall, the store is a great find. Head over there and check it out, if you are local. But not all at once--leave me something good for next time.
Now if I could just find my sewing machine...
XO, Anna
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