Lord of the Rings Inspired Graduation Gifts

My one and only cousin (yes, I only have one!) graduated from college last month!  :)  I made her a two-colored puffy ribbon lei, just like the one I made my brother, but in her school colors.  Turns out Michael's doesn't have a maroon colored ribbon in the same texture/size as the yellow, 50 cents a spool for 3 yards kind.  It was slightly wide, half sheer (WHAT, WHY?!) and $1.50 a spool for like 1.5 yards.  MADNESS.  Which is why I spaced it out the way I did.  I think it turned out okay.  :)

 

And apparently it is not the thing to wear leis at graduations in Minnesota... so she didn't even wear it afterwards!  Though she did bring it and took pictures for OUR SAKES... but... still.   {sniffles}  My mom made her the other spiral lei.

 

My cousin and her mum!

 

For instructions on how to make the puffy ribbon lei, visit Penga's blog and see here for tips from me!

 

 

 My cousin is a huuuuuuge Lord of the Rings buff!  Like seriously, knows all the lines and watches the extended versions of the movie for fun.  Multiple times.  haha.  So while this is sort of Hobbit-y, it's kind of all the same to me.  :)  So I made her a card of Bilbo's house!  I was inspired by this on Pinterest.

 

I don't really have instructions or a tutorial since... I just made everything by hand!  I used the one I saw on Pinterest as a guide, especially since the only thing I knew was that Bilbo has a round door for his house.  I freehand cut the door parts/layers and grass.  The flowers were made with a paper punch I got from Daiso.  :)  Tim helped me draw the woodgrain on the door.  I would've liked to include a fence (as in the one Pinterest had) but I felt like it would've covered up my door too much.  And it would've been more intricate cutting I didn't want to do.  :oP

On the inside... I used a Hobbit-esque font!  It's actually called Bilbo Hand from dafont.com.  On the left I wrote a message and on the right, Tim helped me find this graduation-relevant LOTR quote!  It says:

 

"It's a dangerous business Sharon

Going out your door

You step onto the road

And if you don't keep your feet

There's no knowing

Where you might be swept off to."

On the back I put "Condon Productions" since it was a joint effort.  :)

I couldn't find an envelope big enough for the card, so I just used a brown paper bag I had.  It fit perfectly, actually.  :]

Sealed it up with an owl sticker!

 

I got her this LOTR-inspired "Prince and Lady of Ithilien" necklace from Etsy since Éowyn is her favorite character, I think.  :)  And of course, there was also a monetary gift since... those are the best, right?  ;)

 

 

 Do you ever do themed gifts?  What was your favorite graduation present?

                                               

Valentine Cards 2013: Fish, worms, and bears, oh my!

Sorry so laggy with my postings!  We had an unexpected (but pleasant, haha) house guest last week and it's been quite the busy weekend.

This is part two of the Valentine Cards I made this year.  (I need to hurry up before it becomes St. Patrick's day... or Valentine's Day 2014!)  You can see Part One here.

Fish, worms, and bears, oh my!

 

I originally say the fish Valentine Card below on Etsy and knew I wanted to make them! However, I waited until the night before to go to Target to get my Swedish fish. :oP While standing in the gummy aisle, I saw other gummy shapes and was inspired!

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The clear bags are from Daiso ($1.50 for 25)!  Swedish fish and all other gummies from Target.

I found some fish bowl shape online, colored them in Photoshop and added some text.  These two say, "You're Fin-tastic" and "You're a great catch!"

The brown is supposed to be dirt and this one says, "You've wormed your way into my heart!"

This one says "I love you beary much!"

I printed out the shapes/bowls and cut them out.  (Maybe I'll get those templates on here sometime soon!)  Put the cut out in the clear bags, filled it with candy, and done!  :)  I did tape the bottom corners to the back to help hold the cut out bowl/shape in place a little better.  (I heard you can buy round bottomed bags from Michaels.)

Here are the final products!  I gave 'em out to my co-workers, my brother, and a couple of friends.  :)

 

"You're Fin-tastic" and "You're a great catch" I borrowed from the Internets, but I came up with the worm and gummy bear sayings all on my own.  While standing in the candy aisle of Target.  :D

 

Which one is your favorite?  :)

                                          

 

Valentine Cards 2013: Teacup!

Valentine's Day crafts! Sorry didn't get to post these before Valentine's Day, but that was partly due to the fact that I made some of them the night before. :) And some inspiration struck while I was standing in front of the candy at Target. The night before. :oP

 

I made two kinds of Valentine's for friends/coworkers and a book Valentine for Tim! Today, I'll cover the first one I made today.

 

 

The first Valentine was a "teacup" with a teabag. This was originally inspired to be sent to my college friends in LA. When we lived in the dorms, we would have "tea parties" together in the evenings. (The wild, wild college kids we were.) :oP So I was thinking we could have a "virtual tea party" since three of them are in Southern California and one of them plus myself are in Northern California. :)
 

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This Martha Stewart teacup valentine was my inspiration. I think I could've jazzed mine up a bit, but I used what I had and people seemed to enjoy them. :) I also drew some red hearts floating next to the teabag, so it wasn't as boring as it looks here.

 

The base was white cardstock and a pink piece of piece

I free-handed the teacup and then traced a few copies to cut out by hand, since I don't have those fancy-pants shape cutter machines. ;)

 

I'm usually worried that glue will come loose later on, so I used double sided tape to adhere everything together.

 

TIP!  Before gluing/taping the teacup down, place a teabag inside, and then press down around the edges of the teacup!  That ensures there's enough space to insert the teabag.

 

Did you make Valentines this year?

                       

Instagram-ing!

Lukas Van Dyke, a photographer, recently posted about his "new Instagram photo policy." He wanted to "put more effort" into his pictures. It could be from his work, from life, from his dslr, from his phone, could be edited, could be not, etc. It got me thinking about MY Instagraph photo policy. You know. If I really had such a thing. As a photo policy. o_O

But I do. It's not written and it's most often not said or stated. But I mentally do have "policies"! (For a lot of things in life, actually.)

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Bringing it back to Instagram... I like to use Instagram for capturing life... which sometimes takes a lot of effort and sometimes doesn't. Which also means some pictures are great and some aren't. I am one who thinks Instagram photos should be taken only with the phone! That is because when I see someone else with a beautiful photo -- it gives me hope that I too can capture that on my phone too -- when I happen on it in life -- without a lot of fancy camera equipment or set up time/effort. I understand that some people may see Instagram as their photo gallery so anything is fair game, but for me it's like... oh well, if you took that on your $2,000+ DSLR and spent 5 hours editing it, of course it'll look THAT AWESOME. I just love it when someone uses just their phone to capture something super awesome and it's like, "Yes... 95% talent, and 5% equipment."

 

Come be my friend!

 

Do you Instagram? If so, do you have a Instagram photo policy? What is it?
                             

Blanket the World in Love - Recap

So I posted about the *Blanket the World in Love* event a little over two weeks ago. It was a day to basically bless other people! To make someone smile or to make someone's day by doing something unexpected.



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Since I only found out about it the night before, I didn't have too much time to hash out something brilliant or creative. And sadly, my plan of treating two particular co-workers actually fell apart! Well, I ended up treating another co-worker to a Jamba Juice, but I was disappointed I wasn't able to treat everyone! (There was a battle at the register.) Next time! And I must say, sometimes it is even more fun to bless a stranger. :)

Fun finds about making a more generous, awesome world:

1) I recently found out from this coffee-lovin'-site that there is a coffee shop in South Carolina where people pay it forward and pays for the next person's drink. All the time! :)

 2) This YouTube video, "A Pep Talk from Kid President to You," has gone viral lately. It's pretty cute and my two favorite lines, that I think are quite relevant to this post are:

"I want to be on [the path] that leads to awesome!"

"You've just been pepped talked! Create something that will make the world awesome."

 

 

Did you participate in *Blanket the World in Love* day? Was there a time someone blessed you unexpectedly?
                     

Pinterest

I dids it. I held off for SO. LONG. But I did it.

I joined Pinterest. :)

I knew that I would love it. And I knew I would probably spend too much time on it, which is why I've been holding off on joining! But I had dinner with a friend a few weeks back who was totally selling it for me. (As if I needed too much help thinking it was fabulous.) :) I've really enjoyed it because... I have hundreds of bookmarks for crafts and recipes, AND... a million random email drafts with random links to "cool stuff"! So I've been transferring all these random links and deleting all these drafts. It's been great. :)

I have also had to enact some NO PINTEREST DAYS, to help prevent too much time lost. :oP

Here are some of my favorite pins for Valentine's Day!  (It's not too early to start planning, right?)  Some of these I pinned from things I've found online and others I've re-pinned.

 

Source: diycraftyprojects.com via GoodRecipesOnline.com on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Alvina on Pinterest

Source: marthastewart.com via Alvina on Pinterest

Source: blog.makezine.com via Alvina on Pinterest

Come be my friend!

So are you on Pinterest?  Is it a worst time sucker than Facebook?  What are some of your favorite things to pin?  Recipes?  Random funny things?  Clothes?
                       

*Blanket the World in Love*

 

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I thought I'd share this since the event is... TOMORROW and I said I would do it! I kinda wish I had more time to think about it (though I actually had an idea -- that involve the words, treating - coworkers - lattes, before I even heard about this!), but here goes in case you want to participate. Then we can participate together! :D

Ellie Fun Day (they "design baby blankets that change the lives of marginalized women in India"!) issued this "challenge" for tomorrow, January 18.

The pitch?

 

"This is the day where LOVE prevails and people are surprised by the simplest act. Can you imagine someone cheering you up in a totally unexpected way? Can you imagine that YOUR simple act of love bringing a smile to someone's face?"

Details here and suggestions by Ellie Fun Day:

"Blanket with a Gift”

• donate a blanket to Project Linus
• pay for someone’s latte behind you
• gift someone in need a bag of groceries
• buy a dozen balloons and hand them out to kids in the park

“Blanket with Words”

• compliment a stranger sincerely
• write a letter of appreciation to someone that had a meaningful impact in your life
• send an encouraging email to someone you haven’t talked to in a year
• tell someone at work/school something they do well
• write words of encouragement with chalk on your neighbors’ driveways/sidewalk

"Blanket with Fun”

• invite a friend to have an indoor picnic
• take a hike, even a short-walk at lunch with a friend
• Go to a matinee with a friend

I've got a busy night tonight with more new-parents meals (lasagna!), but hopefully, in addition to treating coworkers to lattes, I'll be able to find ways (cards?  postcards?  emails?  secret notes?) to "blanket with words"! Which is one of my favorites. :) I'll let you know how it goes.

Got any nifty, creative ideas to *blanket the world in love*? What are some ways you've been blessed by others before?
                           

Easter Brunch

As I mentioned before, we co-hosted an Easter brunch for our community group (aka small group, Bible study, cell group, etc.) on Easter Sunday.  I decided it was the perfect time to do some useless crafts that I will probably give me greater joy than anyone who sees them.  :)

The Easter banner!  I found an egg shape online, plunked it down in Photoshop, put in letters and printed them out!  I actually wanted them to print in color but forgot to change it from the default B&W setting, so I did have to color the letters in hand, so the lines weren't as clean.  But I don't think anyone noticed.  I used some cute clothesline clips with little floral egg shapes on them I got some Ikea to clip them to some baker's twine.

The flowers (daisies?  sunflowers?) were made from coffee filters and some construction paper.

Brunch was preeeeetty awesome and reeeeeally delicious.  :)

Tim concocted what he calls "strawberry cheesecake" waffles.  :)  The "spread" is sweetened cream cheese and we bought strawberry syrup!  (Who knew they made such a thing as strawberry syrup!)  You drizzle the strawberry syrup onto the cream cheese and it's supposed to taste just like strawberry cheesecake!

I made a menu!  Just because!  haha.  :)

See my tri-fold menu!  The cute little icons are from Kevin & Amanda, "best bite doodles"  That was probably my favorite part of the menu.  Except Jesus and Easter and Matthew 28:19-20.  ;)

A couple people did comment on the decorations so not all was lost.  :oP  And I made Tim look at them of course.  :)

Do you do crafts even if you feel like you're the only one who sees or appreciates them?
                           

Amazing "Tron Dance"

Amazing "Tron Dance" performed by Wrecking Orchestra.

Amazing, amazing, amazing!!  Remember, it's a LIVE performance on a stage.  Crazy lights to music sync.