hand lettering on Etsy

After receiving a good deal of feedback about people willing to pay good money for the kind of hand lettered addressing I did for my sister's wedding, I've decided to make a go at earning a bit of that money in my Esty shop.

 

To get the ball rolling and earn some Etsy street cred (sales and reviews) I'm marketing the same skills for the holidays, and will be offering some discounts on addressing holiday cards. Yay!

So if you aren't always pleased with your own handwriting but think address labels are too impersonal, or perhaps if you just want to add some craft to your holiday cards without putting in a lot of your own time, visit my online shop! </shameless plug>

pumpkin stuff

This year we went to the pumpkin patch with Atlas' preschool class. We came home with four pumpkins and a craving for some yummy pumpkin bread. 

We used one of our pumpkin patch selections and one that was given to us to start our baking project.

Atlas did some real helping with scooping and sorting seeds, and some pretend helping with an empty spice container.

The seeds turned out great. After drying them (then peeling them from the paper towel and rewashing and drying them without paper towel) we sprayed them with olive oil cooking spray and used Trader Joe's everyday spice grinder before roasting them. Yum!

Unfortunately I can't say the same for the pumpkin. One was too yellow and had an odd texture when it cooked. It probably wouldn't have hurt us, but I tried a little once it was cooked and decided not to eat it. The rest of the pumpkin flesh went in the blender, but when I tapped my spoon on the edge, the blender chipped, leaving tiny glass shards in the puree. Thus we resorted to Libby's.

I modified a coffeecake recipe to include the pumpkin, and it turned out rich, moist, and delicious. All's well that ends well, right?

fall baby quilt

signs and lettering

As you can probably tell, these were for a wedding. They are made from dollar store foam boards with chalkboard spray paint for a nicer surface texture. I used a chalk pen from Michael's for the lettering. There was one for the bar about cameras and shenanigans, but I guess I didn't get a picture.

wedding ferns

There were several DIY projects I helped with for my sister Cory's wedding, but by far my favorite was a fern stencil. We bought it to make signs for the road leading up to the wedding venue. It was outside an already-small town and there were several turns on back roads that could get guests lost. So we made it a family project with these lovely directions as the result.

Cory got the wood from work (she's a log accountant) and her groom cut the rounds. My dad constructed the signs, and stenciling the arrows and ferns was a group effort.

When we finished the signs there was still lots of paint, so we decided the cake stand needed some fern love.

There was still lots of paint, so my aunt said "I want one!" and took off her sweatshirt so we could stencil it. Cory was next to offer up the sweatshirt off her back, and it started a trend. Pretty soon everyone had a fern shirt.

Now they are lovely reminders of a beautiful wedding! Here's to Matt and Cory!