Creative Bits | 4

Happy Halloween! And welcome to the latest installment of Creative Bits! I'm going to be a rebel and not post about Halloween today (I know, I know. Boo. {pun totally intended}). Instead, I'm posting about a birthday cake today! Why? Well, I'm not totally sure why, but I'm thinking it's because my sister-in-law's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and because she and my brother were in town, we got to celebrate in person. That's pretty rare since they live far, far away!

So, I've got this cake to share with you today that I found and just LOVED when I saw it. It's so pretty and you could DIY it if you've got some patience and the right materials. Or if you don't, you can also buy the supplies for it on a lovely website that I'll mention at the end.

Here it is:

Look at those gorgeous letters! How awesome are they? They jazz this simple white cake up beautifully.

The source of the photo is the Urban Grace Interiors blog, which is written by an interior designer I really admire - Erika Powell. You should definitely check out her blog and her work if you aren't familiar with her. This cake was for her daughter, Sloane's birthday. She bought the letters from a company called Signe Sugar. They're made out of gum paste, which is why they hold their shape so well. I'm wondering if fondant would work in a similar way? I do not profess to be any sort of baking professional, so I have no idea. Maybe you do?

Did this leave you with a sugar craving? It did for me! I'm hoping to snag a little bit of Halloween candy today to satisfy my taste buds. Enjoy your Halloween!

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Creative Bits is a semi-regular series here on May Richer Fuller Be where I share little tips, tricks and simple do-it-yourself projects from other creative bloggers' minds. I figure if it makes me say, "wow," it's worth passing along to you! And remember, if you want to pin any images that don't belong to me, please click through and pin from the original source!

Click the "Creative Bits Series" tab at the top of the page to see more posts like this.

Christmas Party Invitation

First off, thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers during hurricane/superstorm Sandy. We are safe and sound and very grateful it wasn't worse in our area. Our prayers go out to all those who are and will be dealing with this for a long while yet. It's going to be quite a road to recovery from what I've seen on TV.

I had a half-day off from work yesterday due to the storm (and today, yippee!), so I spent much of it designing an invitation at my mom's request for my parents' upcoming Christmas party. It seems a little crazy to start talking about Christmas this early (it's not even Halloween yet!), but getting a jump on things like Christmas cards and invitations is important so they go out in a timely (and non-stressful) way.

A little backstory about the party: my mom and dad have had a neighborhood party for the past several years and it has become a tradition that many of their neighbors look forward to. Each year, the party looks a little different, but one thing they've done each year has been to have a rousing rendition of "The Twelve Days of Christmas". The way they do it is fun and creative too. They have each person draw one of the twelve days (i.e. "two turtle doves") so that party-goers are grouped together randomly. Then they surround the piano in the living room and sing it together. It's awesome and silly at the same time. Lots of laughs to go around.

Anyway, back to the invitation. I wanted it to have a fun, casual vibe, so I used varying fonts, sizes and colors to create a bold, graphic invitation. Here it is!

You'll have to imagine it without the grayed-out sections - had to protect my parents' privacy!

I kind of love it. 

You'll recognize the background as the same that's on my blog. I guess that means I'm a big fan? And in case you're curious, two of the three fonts I used are free to download. The fonts (in order of appearance) are Sketch Block, Avenir Next Condensed (this one came with my computer and isn't free), and Freebooter Script.

Playing amateur graphic designer is really fun for me. I get so much joy out of creating!

Boston!

Hello! Sorry I've been MIA for the past few days. I've been in Boston for a work conference that kept me inside in a large convention center with 2,000 other genetic counselors for 4 days :). I did learn a lot, and got to see classmates, former teachers and mentors. I didn't get to see as much of Boston as I would have liked, but I did get out to explore a bit. Instagram (again) helped me document my journey. So here's a view of some of my non-conference-related highlights:

I was pleasantly surprised to find I had a lovely view of Boston from my hotel room...look at all those beautiful, old brick buildings!

I had a grad school reunion at a place called Max Brenner. If you don't know what it is (which I didn't before going), it is a restaurant centered around chocolate. Yeah. Chocolate. Um, amazing! I had a drink that I would describe as a martini that tasted like yellow cake with chocolate icing. Dessert in a glass? Yes please. Is your mouth watering yet?

On Friday I took a run from the Back Bay area to Cambridge and stopped on the bridge going over the Charles River because the view was spectacular. There were probably about 50 sailboats and crew boats, and I could see the downtown skyline in the distance.

Once I got to Cambridge, I took a stroll through Harvard's campus. This is their gorgeous (and huge!) library.

On Saturday, after the conference was over, I walked from my hotel in the Back Bay area to Beacon Hill by way of the Boston Public Gardens and Boston Common. I love that Boston is such a walkable city - even if I was hauling my luggage with me to stay with a friend that night :).

Here's a shot of the Boston Public Gardens:

Fun fact of the day: I saw not one, but FOUR weddings happening there as I walked through. Popular site for a wedding I guess! I can see why. It is lovely.

Beacon Hill was my final destination for this trip before heading home. If you love old, historic neighborhoods with cobblestone sidewalks, this is a dream. I. Loved. It. I would have taken a million photos of the neighborhood if I had had my real camera. But alas, I didn't. Here's a sample of the architecture you find there:

Pretty, isn't it?

Boston, you treated me well. I will revisit you again someday without a conference so that I can see more of you. Thanks for your hospitality!

I headed home Sunday to beat out Frankenstorm Sandy that is coming our way today. I'm praying everyone in her path will be safe and that the damage will be minimal. Additional prayers would be much appreciated!

Burlap Bunting

If you've been a regular reader, you'll remember that last week I talked about my love affair with burlap. At the end, I told you I was going to take on one of the pictured projects. And I did! (Nothing like putting it out there in blogland to keep you accountable, huh?) I made my own version of the burlap bunting seen here:

{Proverbs 31 Girl}

I made an abbreviated tutorial of sorts, so if you want to create your own, you can get the idea from these basic steps. If you don't plan on making your own, you can just skip to the bottom to see my finished product.

I started with some burlap purchased from my local hardware store.

Got out some newspaper, scissors and a ruler to cut out a template so that all my little bunting flags would be approximately the same size.

I then laid out my template on my burlap and cut around it to create a series of little flags...

...like this one:

Then, I missed a few steps of photography. Oops! But the next steps were easy. I used an old oxford shirt (that I accidentally bleached) to cut out letters spelling "autumn" and pasted them onto the flags using glue dots. I wove some embroidery floss through the little holes in the burlap to string it up. And voila! I had myself some burlap bunting.

I love it. It's just the touch of fall I wanted for our house. Simple, and certainly not perfect. But that's how burlap is meant to look, right? I'm definitely planning on using more burlap for other projects around here. I do have about 25 more feet in my roll to use up... :)

Yay fall!

Creative Bits | 3

This week's Creative Bits is slightly more, shall we say, involved than the last two. But it includes a fantastic tutorial, so it should be too hard to follow even if you wouldn't classify yourself as "artistic" (I'm talking to myself here...).

Kate over at Centsational Girl created a tutorial for making digital abstract art. No paintbrushes required. No fancy software to buy. Sounds good huh? And this is what she created:

Awesome, huh? She used a free, online software program called Pixlr that's similar to Photoshop. I think I may try this sometime.

For the full tutorial, click here.

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Creative Bits is a semi-regular series here on May Richer Fuller Be where I share little tips, tricks and simple do-it-yourself projects from other creative bloggers' minds. I figure if it makes me say, "wow," it's worth passing along to you! And remember, if you want to pin any images that don't belong to me, please click through and pin from the original source!

Click the "Creative Bits Series" tab at the top of the page to see more posts like this.

Fishing Adventure

This past weekend, I headed down to my parents' river house for the weekend. My brother and sister-in-law were in town, so my parents and I headed down to spend the weekend with them. You know what we spent most of our time doing? Fishing. Yep. And we loved it! Such a simple pleasure. There was plenty of relaxing, eating, football-watching (my poor, poor Auburn Tigers just can't get it together this year. Major sad face.), and board-game-playing too, but I thought I'd share a few pictures of our fishing adventures with you. (Hey, that rhymed!)

We got started with some lovely bloodworms and hoped the fish would catch a whiff...

Watch out for the scary lady with the fishing knife! (Love you, Mom :))

Got started casting a few lines...

Then my sister-in-law had the catch of the day with a huge fish! (Relatively - I mean, we were fishing off the dock in shallow water...) It was awesome!

We put it in the cooler to save for dinner that night...

Then guess what happened? That fish was so strong, it wriggled its way OUT of the cooler and INTO the water! That big stinker got away! We were not. thrilled.

But we carried on. Most of our other fish from the dock were more like this:

So we headed out on the boat to bigger waters that promised to bring in many fish. And many fish were caught. But, they were all about the size of this:

So we (nicely) let them go. Hopefully they'll grow up to be big ole fish, and then we'll get 'em again in the future :).

One fun little surprise was a dolphin sighting. There were three right next to our boat. Too bad I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to get them up close. But see that fin in the distance? That's one of 'em.

All in all, it was a grand adventure with a spectacular sunset at the end of it. Here's to more fishing (and bigger fish?) in the future!

Burlap DIY Roundup

This fall, I've been kind of obsessed with all-things-burlap. There's something about the warmth that the texture brings, the soft brown color and the versatility of the fabric. I started thinking about all the different projects I could do with it, and pulled up some of my favorite projects from other bloggers to share with you today.  Take a guess about which one I'm planning to conquer over the next couple of weeks...if you guess correctly, well, I don't have a prize for you, but you can give yourself a big ole pat on the back! How's that for a reward?

First off, we have this gorgeous table skirt with Greek key trim on the bottom. (On a side note, check out the rest of this porch from Dixie Delights. It's beautiful, huge and inviting - I'm sure they spend all kinds of time out there. May she'll let me visit sometime?)

{Dixie Delights}

Next up are some adorably simple placemats. It's amazing how the addition of a single word really makes these placemats. And who says you even need to use them as placemats? Emily A. Clark framed them and put them in her eat-in kitchen!

{Cottage and Vine}

This burlap-wrapped plant is maybe the simplest of all, but what a great idea. Maybe I'll add something like this to my succulent pots when I'm ready to change things up. Oh, the versatility of succulents. Love 'em. :)

{Amanda Carol at Home}

This ruffle wreath has always been a favorite of mine. Emily did a whole tutorial on how to make one (and several other wreaths). Her tutorials are the best.

{jones design company}

And last but not least is the "give thanks" bunting. It's such a nice touch to this fall mantle. I love the casual, handmade feel of the whole thing.

{Proverbs 31 Girl}

Ok, now let the guessing games begin. Which one am I going to take on? Drumroll... The last one! The burlap bunting! I think I'm going to make one that says "autumn" to hang on a mirror in our living room. I'll report back in the next week or so with the finished product.

Did any of these projects inspire you? Let me know in the comments!

Sneak Peek: 2013 Desk Calendar

Last year, I created a desk calendar and a monthly calendar - mostly for my own enjoyment - but I did sell a few on Etsy, which was super fun! This year, I decided to do it again. I've loved having one on my desk and am looking forward to having a new one next year. Also, I found them to be easy gifts to give out at Christmas.

Here's October's design from the 2012 calendar sitting on my desk:

Please excuse the crappy iPhone photo - I wasn't about to bring my good camera to work!

I had them printed through Zazzle, which worked well, despite being a tad expensive. The quality is good and they print them out on shiny cardstock in a postcard size. I would like to find a source to print them inexpensively on matte cardstock, too. Anyone know of a place? (Not FedEx Office though - the quality isn't great for this kind of printing.)

This year, I'll probably sell the same designs again (with some tweaks and 2013 dates), but I've started a new design, and I thought I would give you a little preview today. Warning, I tend to change my mind while designing, so don't hold me to this!

Here's January's design for 2013:

A little fun. A little festive. Simple, but pretty.

Last year, I sold them in my Etsy shop - CSW Designs - as a digital download that you could print yourself. I'll likely do that again. The shop is currently closed, but I'll be opening it up again soon with the new design as well as the old one (with 2013 dates). I'll let you know when that happens!

Creative Bits | 2

Welcome to Creative Bits 2! Here's the first one, in case you missed it.

6th Street Design School by Kirsten Krason is one of my regular blog reads, and this week she wrote about a little happy gift she made for a friend to brighten her day. I thought the idea was adorable - and easily recreated. She called it a "little bag of sunshine."

Inside, the contents are all yellow (Sunshine theme. Get it?!). She included a vanilla candle, chewing gum with yellow packaging, Werther's candies, and lemon drops. Of course, you can customize it to the taste of the lucky recipient. (If it were me someone with a sweet tooth, a yellow package of Starburst might do the trick. Just saying :). ) Next time I have a friend who could use a little pick-me-up, I'll definitely keep this idea in mind.

To see Kirsten's post in its entirety, including the original inspiration behind the gift, click here.

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Creative Bits is a semi-regular series here on May Richer Fuller Be where I share little tips, tricks and simple do-it-yourself projects from other creative bloggers' minds. I figure if it makes me say, "wow," it's worth passing along to you! And remember, if you want to pin any images that don't belong to me, please click through and pin from the original source!

Click the "Creative Bits Series" tab at the top of the page to see more posts like this.

Weekend Trip

Last Thursday, we escaped to Boca Grande, Florida for an awesome retreat/conference. I'm still not exactly sure how to describe it, but the purpose was to learn how to integrate faith into work/family/life well (is that vague enough for you?). The target audience was emerging leaders who are in "demanding" career tracks, and they encouraged spouses to attend too (if applicable). We got a chance to hear from some great speakers and "mentors," have discussions with others who are in a similar stage in life, and simply hang out with interesting people from all over the country.

Oh, and we did spend a little bit of time basking in the glorious Florida sunshine on the beach. :)

And watching sunsets like this:

We came away from it with lots to chew on and digest, and hopefully some new friends. I'll leave you photo of us from the poolside dinner we had on Friday evening.

Shoutout to Instagram for making photo-taking so easy on this trip! Is anyone else as obsessed as I am?

DIY iPhone Case Inserts

Ever since I got my new iPhone I've wanted a snazzy case to give it some personality (although it is quite a beautiful piece of machinery all by itself). Being the amateur graphic designer that I am, I decided I would get a case with a clear back so that I could make a custom insert for it. So today, I played around with a few designs and created three that I'm pretty happy with. I'm thinking about making them into a printable to add to my etsy shop at some point in the future, so I'd love to hear what y'all think. {Be kind, it's my first stab at it!}

I haven't tried them out yet, but my plan is to print them on cardstock, cut them out (including a little hole in the top corner for the camera), and stick 'em in my case. I'll update you on how they turn out!

Creative Bits | A New Series

Confession: I read many, many blogs. I love them (maybe a little bit too much). In fact, I currently have 35 blogs on my Google Reader. Most of them post once day, some twice. Needless to say, that is a lot of blog-reading every day. Does this mean I have a problem? Yes, you say? Ok, maybe I do. There are just so many creative people out there doing so many creative things! I can't get enough.

And that doesn't even include Pinterest. Let's not even go there. Yet.

Because I can't keep these creative-people-doing-creative-things to myself, I thought I'd start a little irregular series to share them with you. It shall be called - drumroll please - "Creative Bits." I'll post some of my favorite finds that made me go,"Hey! Look at what they did! Impressive." Plus, they'll often be things that you could replicate if you so desire. Nothing like a good DIY project.

To start off, today's Creative Bits come from a house tour of one of the blogs I read - Caitlin Wilson Design. 

Those slipcovered dining chairs are regular ole IKEA. Caitlin snazzed them up by drawing those polka dots on with a Sharpie (yes, a Sharpie!). Don't they look like fancy patterned fabric?

Caitlin hand-painted that ampersand on a simple white canvas. It makes for a fabulous, inexpensive, graphic piece that anyone could do.

Customized mason jars. How easy would it be to paint the lids and hot glue a fun little something on top?

That's it for today's installment of Creative Bits. If you liked what you saw, check out the rest of the house tour over on Caitlin's blog and Design*Sponge. It's all beautiful. 

{all images in this post are from here}

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Creative Bits is a semi-regular series here on May Richer Fuller Be where I share little tips, tricks and simple do-it-yourself projects from other creative bloggers' minds. I figure if it makes me say, "wow," it's worth passing along to you! And remember, if you want to pin any images that don't belong to me, please click through and pin from the original source!

Click the "Creative Bits Series" tab at the top of the page to see more posts like this.

Well They're Comin'...To Your City

Anyone catch the Big & Rich reference in the title? Or you might recognize the line from the College GameDay intro video? I know, I know. Nerdy, but I couldn't resist.

Last week I got some very exciting news from one of my very favorite blogs - Young House Love. They've been writing a book called Young House Love: 243 Ways to Paint, Craft, Update & Show Your Home Some Love for the past few years and I'm so psyched it's coming out on November 6th. Although the book release is very exciting, the news I received last week that I'm REALLY excited about is that they announced their book tour and their coming to DC! And not only to DC, but very close to our house! I can't wait to go, meet them (!) and have my book signed.

If you're not familiar with these two DIY-blogger-extraordinaires, they live in Richmond and write about their adventures in updating and making their house a home. I've been following their blog for the past several years and have loved getting to "know" them through it. Of course, since they live in Richmond, they have a special place in my heart (we miss you RVA!). I had always hoped to meet them at some point there since we had similar favorite places around town, but that never happened (whomp whomp). Well, I finally get my chance now that they're coming to my neck of the woods. I'm pumped. Anyone want to go with me?

{source}

The Jackson Files

Jackson is our almost 3-year-old poodle/lhasa apso mix. He's quite manly and athletic for only being a 17 pound, white and fluffy dog (don't tell him I called him white and fluffy...he'll be offended). I think he's pretty awesome and hilarious, so I'll be sharing photos and updates about him periodically here on the ole blog in "The Jackson Files" (maybe more for my sake than anyone else's!).

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I got a new camera lens for my birthday and on Sunday, the weather was beautiful, so the husband, Jackson and I headed out to the park to enjoy it and try out my lens. Jackson was kind enough to be my model.

He loves being outside. When we go to the park, we take a 200 foot clothesline with us as his "leash" so that we're obeying the leash law (we're such rule followers), but he can still run around.

This one is hilarious. It looks like he's laughing, hard.

He also loves his tennis ball. He's always up for a game of fetch.

It was a great way to spend our Sunday afternoon. I'm trying to soak up these last days of brilliant, warm sunshine before the real fall and winter set in. Even though I love the coziness of the coming seasons, I know I'll miss being able to walk outside in shorts and a t-shirt!


P.S. In case you're curious, the lens I got was the Canon 50mm f/1.8. I love it so far!