Watercolor flowers and modern calligraphy table numbers

My church's women's ministry is organizing a women's retreat coming up in a few weeks and I'm looking forward to a weekend of fellowship, reflection, and hopefully some rest even though I'll be bringing my 2 month old! The retreat coordinator asked me to make table number signs for the small groups that included watercolors and lettering. While the little one was napping, I made these table numbers using Tombow brush markers and watercolors.

I'm thinking these can easily be repurposed into signs for monthly baby birthday photos or wedding table numbers!

Farewell music-themed card

Tomorrow our church is having a farewell party for our worship pastor and his family, who is transitioning to a new position and moving away from NC. I used my Cricut machine to cut out the music note for this farewell card. His family and worship ministry will be greatly missed! 

Materials used: Kraft cardstock, scrapbook paper, Daiso brush pen, and Tombow dual brush pen

Next up on the blog will be the 2 orders that I'm currently working on--a baby shower banner, and a quilled Golden Gate bridge! 

Calligraphy with Quilling and a weekend St. Louis visit

We visited old friends in Saint Louis this weekend and visited all our favorite places of nostalgia--Forest Park, St. Louis Zoo, our old church, Tortillaria. We also stopped by a couple of new additions to St. Louis that arrived after we left: IKEA, Jeni's Ice Cream, and Lonas Lil Eats. It was the best way to spend 3 short days in St. Louis!

B & T were our amazing hosts and fed us/cooked for us/drove us and let us play with their adorable kids! B ordered a custom quote of Joshua 24:15 embellished with quilling, inspired by a previous project. I hand-carried the framed print onto the plane and was quite relieved when I was able to deliver it safely to St. Louis. This was another collaboration between Karmomo (the brushlettering) and me (quilling).

Since I'd made gifts for B&T's 2 boys in the past, I decided to be fair to their 3rd child and make her a personalized gift---another log branch slice ornament! B&T plan to use it as a door sign for her room.

Thank you card for B&T's generous hospitality during our lovely St. Louis weekend visit!

Easy patterned pencil cup organizer

Recently I've been feeling motivated to organize my office and craft supplies, partly because Andrew returned from his out-of-town rotation. This meant clearing out all the paper and pens and markers and half-finished craft projects invading his side of our shared table area.

In the process of organizing and labeling everything, I decided to jazz up my pen/pencil cup organizers with gold and white chevron leftover wrapping paper. This was literally the easiest less-than-5-minute DIY project ever and I would do it again a heartbeat!

Supplies needed:

• Spray adhesive (or glue)
• Wrapping paper or wallpaper of your choice
• Tin cans--washed/cleaned and dried. I used cans from my clam chowder soup obssession

Step 1: Cut the paper in a rectangular shape to wrap around the can

Step 2: spray adhesive all over the exterior of the can

Step 3: Carefully press the paper down onto the can and smooth out any wrinkles

 

And...that's it! 

This can is the perfect size for my Tombow dual brush pen markers!

Embroidery hoop & modern calligraphy

I finally took the leap and tried embroidery + handlettering as a Christmas gift for my friend K, who teaches workshops on mindful brushlettering.

 I was worried that the letters would turn out all shaky or crooked but am pleased with the final result! K had mentioned that the combination of embroidery with calligraphy has been a rising trend this year. I've been practicing brushlettering with brushes, Tombow dual pens, and Daiso pens recently, and Andrew also gifted me with this calligraphy set that I'm excited to try out soon.

 Mindfulness is a practiced discipline of just noticing and describing events so as to process them more carefully instead of automatically repeating a script or mantra. The Mindful Brain, by Dan Siegel

Click below for the tutorial!

Personalized wood slice ornaments with calligraphy

Now that I've given all my Christmas gifts away, I can finally post them up here! When I asked my sister what she wanted for Christmas, she told me, "anything you make!" She is my biggest fan and I love her for it! I decided to make her a personalized wood slice ornament because she really liked the monogram wood slice coasters I made for my brother-in-law.

I also made my friends a personalized ornament for their first Christmas together as a married couple.

For my friend's daughter. They ended up using this to label the door to her nursery!

Click below for the tutorial!

DIY Christmas gifts: dip-dye, marbled paper, and stenciled stationery

Now that Thanksgiving has ended...let the Christmas festivities begin! Christmas is my favorite holiday and I am grateful that we have the freedom to openly celebrate Christ's birth.

A few weekends ago my friend Liz and I made stationery as Christmas gifts. We tried out 3 methods: paper marbling, dip-dye, and watercolored stenciled hearts.

Read on for the how-to's!