Minneapolis Vintage Sale!

A few shots of the cute tags I made for the Vintage Sale I'm participating in next week in South Minneapolis. (Sneak peek photos to come!) If you're in town, here are the details:

Thursday, March 22 - Sunday, March 25
TH/F/S 11am - 7pm
SUN 11am - 3pm

E's Emporium
3911 Minnehaha Ave S.
Minneapolis, MN

Wrap it up

I was thinking of making some old-school gift bows brooches out of some crazy sparkly ribbon to sell in my hand made shop and came across this DIY from Whole Living [via 100 Layer Cake]. Super cute (and easy)!

be mine, valentine

happy valentine's day! here are the valentines i made to spread the love this year. i had a stack of vintage transfer lettering and vinyl stickers waiting for the perfect project. envelopes are lined with vintage dictionary pages, hearts are rubber stamped in black and scarlet ink, and i used vintage gold glass glitter for one heart on each card.

lots of love!

baby shower for arrow

here are some snaps from abby's baby shower i threw at my place a couple weeks ago. i was excited to help welcome baby arrow (who's due anytime now). what a day!

the weather was beautiful for early october, so we had food, drinks and gifts outside on the patio. we had a potluck, fun decorations and an arrow making activity in lieu of games. guests addressed envelopes (for easy thank you notes after) which were then drawn for little prizes. leftover craspedia in vintage milk glass vases, fantastic cookies by my friend brian for dessert, beautiful joia sodas and cucumber water for thirst quenching, and favors with deluxe chocolate bars and d.i.y memo clips served as a going away treat. i thought it turned out pretty darn cute!

cheers!

wanted to share a quick gift project i made last weekend - infused vodkas! i gave them to friends as new year's gifts during our first game night of 2011. i think new year's gifts instead of christmas presents are nice since you have time to make them after things have settled down. 

the recipes were from the january issue of martha stewart magazine (which isn't online yet). i chose three infusions: lemon + fennel for vodka tonics, celery + bay leaf for bloody mary's; and coffee bean + hazelnut for white russians.

i used 16oz canning jars and papered the lids (with west elm paper they use to wrap up your purchases) and made simple tags with a hole punch and some baker's twine. if our printer wasn't on the fritz i would've printed something cute out instead of hand writing everything. next time.

each jar took 1 1/2 cups of vodka plus ingredients as follows:

celery + bay leaf
1/2 celery stalk + 2 celery leaves + 1 dried bay leaf. infuse for 2 days.

coffee bean + hazelnut
4 coffee beans + 2 tablespoons toasted hazelnuts. infuse for 3 days.

fennel + lemon
2 sprigs fennel fronds + 2 thin lemon slices. infuse for 2 days.

store in a cool, dark place and shake occasionally. strain before serving. can keep at room temperature for one month or in the freezer for two.

it was an easy and cost effective way to make gifts for a large group. i think they were a hit. i had a white russian (or two) last night with my infused vodka - yum!

are you cussing with me?

have we all recovered from the trick or treaters and halloween parties? we went out on saturday night for only an hour, but spent all day thrift store hopping for the elements of my costume: mr. fox from wes anderson's fantastic mr. fox. (sorry for the over saturated photo - struggling for good light over here this morning.)

the whole thing cost me about $25. all the clothing: corduroy blazer, pants, white short-sleeved button up and brooks brothers tie (score at $1.99) was thrifted. the $5 mask came from the zoo gift shop, and originally depicted a red panda, which was close to a fox but i wanted to be more accurate so i painted over it. i made the tail using another thrift store sweater by cutting off one sleeve, filling with packing peanuts (recycling at its finest), sewing the ends shut, then painting the tip white. i just tied it with some yarn to the back belt loop on my pants and it looked great.

then i honed my sound effect craft with mr. fox's "click click, whoo-oo" whistle thing. and said "what the cuss?" a lot.