Tale of the Multi-Tasking, Craft-and-Design-Loving, Mother-of-Two, Singaporean-Living-in-US, Corporate-Working Mom Named Grace Hester

WE Heart Handmade Art Columbus

Past Event Poster from the Atlanta, GA WE Heart Handmade Art event.

It is not common news to those outside of the etsy community but West Elm has been highlighting the work of artisans on Etsy in their catalog and on their website.  They also collaborate with a select group of Etsy sellers to create a series of pop-up marketplaces called WE Heart Handmade Art.  Drinks, snacks, and tunes are served during this in-store event while the artists display and sell their creations that can be integrated into the room setups  – sort of like a gallery-fair for home and lifestyle goods.

I am so excited to share that I will be one of the local designers participating in the West Elm and Etsy We Heart Handmade Art event in Columbus Ohio.  When I saw the invitation, I was floored because West Elm is one of Noah and my favourite home décor inspiration source.  I just hope we don’t walk away from the event with more purchases than sales. *wink wink*

Event Details (so far):
WE Heart Handmade Art Columbus will be held December 1 2011 at West Elm Easton store from 6pm to 9pm.  Judging from other events, the event is free but reservations are required.  Once I have more RSVP deets, I will share!

Just Called to Say Card (The Greeting Farm and The Twinery Blog Hop)

Welcome to our combined Blog Swap/Hop today featuring two fantastic companies,  The Twinery and The Greeting Farm!   If you're just getting here from Denice Bartucci's blog, WELCOME!  If you have yet to begin the hop, please visit the TWINERY BLOG to begin!  Hooray!

We are so excited to bring you a fun hop, loads of inspiration when the world of TGF Rubber stamps collides with the quality baker's twine we've all come to know and love, and some of the most talented designers in the industry with new and fun projects to share!

Did we mention PRIZES? There are definitely a few of those too so you'll want to check out our event today! Thank you so much for coming!

The Greeting Farm first sprouted into the stamping world in 2008 as a small dream and has cultivated into something wonderful because of wonderful customers like you! With three years of farm-fresh images under their belt, TGF is going strong and love brings you fun-loving, animated characters, including the best-selling "Anya" line. The Greeting Farm brings you cute, charismatic images that are LOADS of fun to COLOR! There is truly something for EVERYONE on the Farm and we are so glad to be teaming up with the Twinery today!

As for the Twinery, twine is made from 100% cotton, it's eco-friendly and made in the USA. Whether you're gift wrapping, crafting or tying up baked goods to give to a friend, this TOP quality baker's twine adds a fresh, yet nostalgic look to any project at hand! The Twinery twine comes in 14 delicious colors and is uniquely twisted against a bright white hue, creating an eye-popping burst of color and a creative embellishment! It has lots of color which lends to a fun, candy-striped look.

I was provided the Cheeky Chat rubber stamp for the project contribition and made a simple "I Just Called to Say" card that tied-in with the fun graphic.

I also used The Twiner's twie to tie the note to the front and then sewed around the box to anchor it a little better on the card layout.

Now...I DID mention something about PRIZES, didn't I? ;) There are TWO prize packs up for grabs and you will have until Sunday, October 23rd at 5pm CST to comment on ALL the blogs and enter for your chance to win one of them!

The Greeting Farm is giving away their ENTIRE November release EARLY to one lucky winner- that is four stamps in all and EARLY nonetheless!

The Twinery is giving away one “COLORFUL BUNCH” sampler pack!

That's TWO great prizes, TWO chances to win...and endless inspiration beginning HERE:

The TWINERY Blog

Julie Ranae

Jessica Diedrich

Emily Leiphart

Lori Craig

Caroline Stender

Carisa Zglobicki

Angelica Suarez

Tracey Pickersgill

Tifany DeGough

Denice Bartucci

Grace Hester <=  YOU ARE HERE

Kim Yu

Becca Fabozzi

The Greeting Farm Blog

Thank you SO much for stopping by today!   Now it's time to head over to Kim Yu's blog, thanks so much for sharing in our SUPER fun event today!

Spanish Counting Album (Sweet 'n Sassy and The Twinery Blog Hop)

 

Hello visitor!  If you have arrived from Monika’s blog, then you’re staying on-track on today’s The Twinery and Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps blog hop!  But if you did not, and would love to get started from the first stop, simply return back to The Twinery’s blog for the full list!

For this blog hop, The Twinery’s Design Team was challenged with creating something using Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps and The Twinery’s baker’s twine.  I chose the Polka Dot Silhouettes Clear Stamp Set from Sweet ‘N Sassy stamps to create a Spanish counting book for Gianna, my 3.5-year-old. 

I started with an American Crafts 6 X 6 mini album.  On most of the 6 X 6 pages, I repeated the stamps to match the number for the page and printed some tags (using Fei-Fei's Coming Home digital kit) with the number and object name in Spanish.  I also distressed each page by shaving the page edges using Tim Holtz's Paper Distresser, and then using his Distress Inks on the raw edges. 

But to add a little peek-a-boo element to the book, I punched a hole in each page and reinforced it with kraft hole reinforcements.  Then I threaded The Twinery’s baker’s twine through it to create a string “pull”. 

When you pull the page up, the page underneath reveals the Spanish number and word that corresponds to the picture.

To give the stamping a more dimensional look, I stamped the [motif] is a light solid color first, then inked the edges in Versamark black, and stamped it for a “screenprinting look”. 

I really love the versatility of this stamp set.  You can’t go wrong with polka dots on silhouettes!

Now the details on the giveaway:

There will be TWO prizes awarded for those who leave comments on all participating blogs.

The Twinery will give away to one winner:  One Ultimate Color Sampler Pack (retail value $25)

Sweet & Sassy Stamps will give away to one winner:  One Season of Change Stamp & Die Set (retail value $28)

You need to comment on ALL BLOGS to be eligible to win.  The deadline to hop/leave comments is 11:59 EST, Saturday Oct 22^nd.  The Twinery’s winner will be announced on The Twinery’s blog and Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps’s winner will be announced on their blog on Sunday Oct 23rd. 

Your next stop is Taylor’s!  Enjoy her lovely creation!

Two New Colors for Keepsake Date Prints

 

Two Favourite Looks from Lands End Canvas Fall 2011

Photo from Lands End Canvas's Fall 2011 Catalog

Canvas Motorcross Jacket USD 79.50 (Now USD 49.99!)

Emerson Demi Wedge Boot USD 198

Merino Poncho Sweater USD 140

Paxton Wedge Bootie USD 98

Project Heart - Calling for Heart Contributions!

I am working on an large media collage with my 6-year-old for a visual arts competition and need 1" to 2" heart-shaped trinkets/embellishments in all shades of pink. This can be in the form of chipboard, (heart-shaped) buttons, paper cut-outs, felt cut-outs, wood, altered/raw, any format. As long as it is 1" to 2" max in width or height. Please consider helping us out with this project - international contributions especially welcomed!

Please mail your contribution with your first and last name, and the city/state you are in, to

Grace Hester
P O Box 74
Westerville, Ohio 43086

By October 26, 2011 Monday.

Any help is appreciated!

Baker's Twine Rosettes for Operation Julie's Smile Blog Hop

Thanks for joining me today for Operation Julie's Smile Blog Hop! If you arrived from Hera's blog, you're on the right bloggity-train to "Craft-ford station" *ha ha ha I crack myself up*.  If not, you can start from the beginning at the Sweet Stamp Shop Blog and work your way through the 120+ blogs participating this weekend.  (Wow right?)

So who is this "Julie" and what is Operation Julie's Smile?  Well Julie is Julie Ranae Murray and for me personally, I got to know Julie through being on the same The Twinery Design Team.  Julie is our DT Coordinator and wears that hat for many other design teams as well.  Despite having to juggle so many teams and the work that comes along with being a Coordinator, she has been so sweet and encouraging to a rookie DT member like me. 

Unfortunately, Julie has had to have some pretty major dental surgeries in her lifetime due to medication she had to take as a child.  You can read the full story here but in summary, due to a recent chipped tooth incident that was not fixable by the dentist, Julie agreed to have her two front teeth removed only with the understanding that the $4K quote she was given would be for the services of removing teeth AND included putting permanent teeth in post-removal.  Come to find out POST-REMOVAL that the quote they provided were just for removal!  So poor Julie is now without her two front teeth and is "forced" into a situation of having to live without them unless she has $7K to return and finish the process.  So the blogosphere is rallying around Operation Julie's Smile starting today and ending October 9th to help raise money for Julie to receive two front teeth and to help her to be able to smile confidently again.

"Please help Julie smile confidently again" Donation

So if I could ask that you kindly consider giving towards this effort by clicking on the Donate button.  There are a variety of companies and design teams who are participating in this hop and there are over $2500 worth of prizes to be won.  No amount is too small!  Prizes will be drawn for the following:

1.    from Blog Comments left
2.    from PayPal Donation list
3.    for Blog Hop Hosts

Now for my contribution to the blog hop, I was inspired by Julie's story and her plight and was also reminded as to how often we take our ability to smile for granted.  So I started a mini album titled "smile" and the idea is to take some of my favourite smiling photos of my family and friends and add them to the mini album.

I collected scraps of paper, fabric, cardboard, chipboard, and whatever I could find.  Then I covered some chipboard I had with pearlescent paper from Colorbok's English Moss collection, sanded down the sides, then layered glitter cut-outs and chipboard letters on top of the paper.  Once I sized down the other elements that would go in as pages in this album, I used my trusty Cinch binding machine to bind the stack together to form a mini album.

Here is a page in the mini album where I incorporated some of The Twinery's baker's twine as the key design element.  The page is shorter in width so as to let the previous and following pages peek through on the side.  I took some Stone baker's twine and added them as "flower stems" to the page.  Then I rolled some Carribean baker's twine (since the palette was turquoise, grey, brown) around my index finger, slipped it off to loosely form a rosette.  Each rosette was then pasted onto the paper using a glue dot.  Where the middle of the rosette was open and showing the adhesive beneath, I added a matching gem for the center of the flower. 

Here's a closer look,

I also added a glitter dragonfly and a small paper tag that I printed from Fei-Fei's Coming Home digital kit that says, "SMILE EVERY DAY" in line with the theme of the mini album. :o)

Here are some other work-in-progress pages.  The left page was made from corrugated cardboard that I had set aside from a package I received.  The blue chevron page on the right is actually one of the many paper goodies from Linda & Harriett's outlet & craft bin sale awhile back.  Love their craft bin sale!

Another page and to show you some of the colors and materials used.  (Black die-cut paper from Colorbok's English Moss collection, Kraft Resist paper from Tim Holtz's Paper Stash collection - I applied a distressing effect here, American Crafts tags, The Twinery's baker's twine, and washi tape from Kawaii Goodies.) 
 

I am looking forward to sharing this album once it's completed!

Thanks for visiting today and your next stop on this blog hop is with,

Monique Hanson

But before you go, please please considering donating so Julie can share a brand new smile with all of us soon.  Also, leave a comment to earn 2 entries to win and don't forget to be thankful for your SMILE!

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