Freebie Friday!

Here are some fonts I've found from the web, they are all super fun to use, and cute in their own unique ways. :] I hope you enjoy

1. Felix

2. Nature

3. Little Bird

4. Duas Light

5. Always Forever

6. Champagne & Limousines

7. Skinny Latte

Disneyland Countdown

Currently planning our trip to Disneyland in December I was so inspired to make a cute countdown calendar.

I came up with this design using a peter pan theme and the moon cut into a Mickey shape as the backdrop for my numbers.

Its simple to put this design into a frame and use sharpie and magic eraser to change the days.

Don't you love the Peter and Wendy silhouettes? 

TJ Maxx Jewelry Box Find

I was shopping at TJ Maxx today after work when I stumbled upon a whole end-cap full of jewelry boxes. Pretty cheap from about 30-50 dollars depending on what size you need. 50

I spent $40 on my mid sized Red Envelope knockoff one, better than the full retail price of $120 for the real one found HERE. (and mine comes with a lock and key instead of a cheap monogrammed leather piece) :]

They are lined with a nice soft liner and have plenty of storage potential in them. Mine even came with a mini travel jewelry box that has a mirror and place for earring studs, just like the designer one.

Now is the time to go grab one at your local TJ Maxx before everyone else grabs them first. 

I use the box for my jewelry like bracelets and long strands that are too long to hang on my jewelry tree. I bought the tree from target for $20

What neat ways do you have of keeping your jewelry organized and tangle free?

Home Update: Ikea Meets Elfa

I wanted to update everyone on how my loft is coming along. Monday I went to Ikea and bought a ton of furniture to update my closet as well as my loft. The loft looks good so far, but the closet is still a work in progress.

I love my little laptop desk where I can sit around a bunch of inspiring elements while designing graphics.

 

Trev's side is still coming together. we have a lot of things were donating lying around so excuse the mess.

Meanwhile here are some pictures of the progress in the closet:

My handy dandy drill and a bunch of Ikea parts, lets get to work!

Trev's side of the closet is coming together quite nicely

            

I organized his T-Shirts by folding them and filing them, I learned this from Alejandra's brilliant organization skills. His under shirt tank tops I just folded into threes and rolled up neatly and the underwear is folded nicely next to it.

So what are you tips to organize your closet?

Lint Trap Garbage with Portability

Walking around the container store I was looking for a solution to cleaning out my lint trap without the hassle of walking out of the small laundry room and throw away the lint in a garbage can...meanwhile lint is falling from my hand all over the carpet.

Anyhow I found this neat little office organizer at the container store and decided it was perfect!

Its magnetic and fits nicely in between my washer and dryer where I can collect lint until it fills up, and shorten the amount of trips to my garbage can, along with lessening the mess.

Whats your favorite "life hack" that makes your life simpler?

Organizing the Kitchen Sink

I was hoping to post an awesome beautiful post today filled with lots of pictures of container store bins and pretty organization. However that doesn't always happen, lets be real.

My trip to the container store was awesome, however when I got my stackable bins home that I wanted to use for this project they didn't work or fit in the space correctly.

I ended up returning them and keeping one tension rod that I got from target, and then I shopped my house for a plastic basket I could use.

Heres my before and after:

not as epic as I wanted it to be, but a solution is coming my way, I can feel it

I'm also working on a DVD project storage to share(its so exciting) but I have to be patient while things are shipping :]

Happy Sunday and Free Icons!

Happy Sunday! I have work tonight, but I just published a new section to the blog called "freebies"

Right now there is a set of cute icons to download. 

Hopefully my next week will be a bit more filled with some DIY posts. I've been trying to organize my bathroom cabinets on the cheap but to no avail have I found anything that fits the space on the budget I want to spend.

This could possibly require a trip to the Container Store. Yikes...my wallet goes on a diet every time I enter that store.

Anyhow, you can pick up the new icons by clicking on them.
Enjoy!

DIY Botanical Art Prints with Frames for $13!

I was so thrilled when I found these frames at target, I got all 4 for $13.01(with tax here in CA)

these look similar to the ones I bought. Oh how I wish I had money for that camera I've been after. 

Anywho, I bought eight of them and took them home to start on an art project to fill up the space on my staircase wall.

I ended up searching for a dictionary page that looked old enough/discolored enough to print from my home. I needed something that I wouldn't have to print and then age by hand. I ended up finding this one that sufficed quite nicely:

you can find it here at The Graphics Fairy

I then found these botanical prints online scattered through out the web at a mix of websites. I suggest that you search botanical prints at the graphics fairy while your grabbing the dictionary page, they have some beautiful ones.

Once you have all the images you want to use, open the dictionary page into Photoshop(if you don't have the money for Photoshop then Gimp is an awesome free application I use to use)

Re-size the image to 8.5x11 inches(super important since we want it to be the exact size of our printer paper)

Then copy the image of whatever botanical print you like and paste it on top(it should paste centered on the image already)

After it is opened it should look like this:

Half the work is already done for us, now all you have to do is layer them to get the effect of the flowers printed on top of the paper.

To achieve this effect you select the flowers layer(Layer 2 in my case) Then you click the drop down menu above it that should say "Normal". Scroll down to the effect "Multiply" and click it.

Once you have selected "Multiply" it should look almost transparent on top of the dictionary paper just like the image below.

And the rest is honestly just as easy as the first steps. Just print your new image onto a thick matte photo paper with no margins and it looks lovely inside its frame.

Voila! Beautiful art that is cheap, personal, and fun to make.

Home Management Binder

I've been so busy with work this week, however I have made a bit of time to start on my newest project : the home management binder. So far so good, I just have to fine tune the small kinks and finish the trial run I'm having with it.

Here is the front page and calendar so far


I have been using tips from different blogs on how to organize these home binders, and I know that within time I'll find the best methods for my personal organization style. When that time comes expect a lot of free printable goodies that I'll have fun designing. :]

My calendar page is inspired by Ursula's Calendar (its really so awesome to visually see your schedule this way, and I love how she made her calendar boxes the size to fit post it notes

I also got the Clean House page from Christina's Page, I really recommend staying at her site and flipping through some things, shes got amazing printables that she designs

Anyway its a work in progress and I'm testing it out to see how its working for me. Hopefully soon I'll get some printables up to share

DIY Message Board

On my trip to target I found a cheap frame on sale that was 17x11(perfect for two standard 8.5x11 papers). Of course I had to have it, so it came home with me and I got to thinking of how to create a cheap message board that looked cute and matched my style)

I started by finding a design that inspired me for the top half of the frame, I chose the Peace Elephant from Shepard Fairey's line of amazing prints. It is a beautiful photo, and being an artist I LOVE his work so much(he has caused my horrible addiction with his retail clothing line that I'm also in love with) 

Make sure when your printing that you set your printer to print without any white border(my cannon will only do this on thicker paper such as the matte photo paper I'm currently using)

Then find a lovely piece of scrap book paper that is light enough and not too dizzy(we want to write over this part)

Cut the paper down to 8.5x11 and pop it into the frame to enjoy and write on. I am currently using sharpies with a Mr.Clean magic eraser to wipe the messages off, works perfectly. 

I think it fits rather nicely with my decor I already have in the entryway.

DIY Iphone 5 case

So I am finally feeling a bit better and I decided to post two DIY projects I had tackled since I've been sick.
The first one is my Iphone's new fancy case(sorry for the mirror picture, I really need a new camera)

So in essence its a really easy tutorial, I found the design for my case on this amazing design website I love

Credit: Jones Design Company

To start off I bought an inexpensive clear iphone case like the one here

Then I printed out the designs on a matte photo paper and traced/cut the case's camera hole out

Its super simple to do, and its really cheap for the case itself. I have also taken it into Adobe Photoshop and designed a whole bunch of other cases to cut out. But honestly, that anchor design is just too cute.

Still Sick

I thought I would go though some pictures this morning to entertain myself while I'm bed-ridden and I stumbled upon an old project I did.

Upon becoming gluten intolerant I was having a huge mental break down every time I had to find food because I could no longer eat what was comforting to me(for those of you who don't know what gluten intolerance is I will get violently ill if I eat any wheat/flour/breads/pasta unless made with a rice flour or substitute for wheat). Every night at dinner I would feel horrible and wouldn't want to eat anything because I would be depressed about my diet changes that had to occur.

I then decided to create a meal calendar where I could write down food choices which I know are acceptable for me and have my dinners schedules throughout the week, that way come dinner time I wasn't a starving mess that didn't want to eat anything. I had seen a similar looking one at a friends house which inspired me to get creative with it.

Its really a simple project, I bought all the supplies from my local Michael's Arts and Crafts store

The board itself is one of the Elmer's foam core boards(a little bit larger than 8.5x11)

First I bought a large book comprised of different scrap book papers to use

I hot glued the papers onto the board(to clean up the edge between the top paper and the bottom I used that burlap ribbon and hot glue'd that sucker on there)

I then used sharpie to write on the mini clothespins I bought, labeling them by week date

I got that small envelope(holding all the dinner cards) from the scrapbook section as well as all the stickers

At the end of this all I wanted it hanging up, so I hot glued some magnets to the back of the board(probably would have been easier starting off with this)

And its really that easy, all you need is scrap book paper, ribbon of your choice, clothespins, and you can even get creative and make an envelope origami style if you wanted.

Enthusiastically First Post

Like many of us I try to keep busy in my life.
When I get sick or catch a cold, nine times out of ten it drives me stir crazy. That being said, I am currently under the weather and wanted to show you a small life hack I have learned. By taking two tissue boxes and using a few rubber bands(or in my case a cheap headband I got from Target) you have yourself a very portable and bedside tissue dispenser and garbage can.

Each time I run out of clean tissues and the box is empty, I then will keep the box and buy a new tissue box. Using the empty one as the "trash can" so to speak. That way I will always have a place to put used(ew!) tissues and they wont ever have to touch my nightstand.

The Start to an Epic Journey

Living on this earth for 22 years I have gathered a lot of knowledge already. I have also realized that knowledge and craftiness doesn't just come easily. It is a long learning experience of trials, errors, and most importantly shared experiences.

The other day I had the idea stuck in my head to create a blog to not only share my knowledge but to make the lives of everyone easier. I know that we all sometimes spend countless hours throughout our lives attempting to find a solution to every day problems we have.

So here we are. Hopefully a few years from now this place will have made an impact on at least a handful of peoples lives.

I cant wait to start our journey,

Amanda