Misty

It's a lovely rainy day here on bull run mountain, and I can't seem to get it together enough to do anything except look through my email and write notes to family and friends. These are the sort of half-punchy notes that come with this sort of thing. One of them I accidentally sent to the wrong Melanie -- Melanie of SugarDoodle blog who posts my visiting teaching printables rather than Melanie of since-we-were-in-preschool friendship. 

Yes, it is that kind of day.

Instagram pic of this misty morning on Bull Run Mtn. Misty. Like my brain.

My New Favorite Thing

Oh, Boy, I want to go to Japan Right now just to see the Konobori -- flying carp! I don't know why, but I just love carp (see my fish paper here). I'd of never known a thing about konobori, had it not been for Tan at Squirrelly Minds and her fun post on how to make these cute flying carp. (!!!!!!!!!!)

Apparently, in Japan, today (the 6th of May) is a holiday called "boys day"(coincidentally, my Dad's birthday. There's a girl's day too -- it would be really funny if that was my mom's birthday) and every home flies a carp outside for each boy that is inside. Tan says it's really beautiful. New on my list of things to see and experience...I bet I'd love it

New and Improved Football Party Pack

Made some improvements today to the Football party pack -- now it's kind of in the same genre as the Foam Finger party pack. I changed things up between the two, but in general I don't think there's anything wrong with sticking to a theme. 

This is a printable, 26 pages of stuff. I made this party pack in Adobe Illustrator. In case you're windering what the Varsity-style script font is called, it is Aktuelle. But, the swoop underneath is called Saloon Keeper Swashes. Took a bit of looking to find that out, some time ago. You can find the football party pack in my shop!

A Different Perspective

I never realized how much our house, and definitly my little studio, is in the woods until I came upon from above rather than below as we usually do. Sometimes 3 times a day I drive up to our house from the road, and from there I just notice what a disaster our yard is. This year we are trying for grass on one side and wildflowers on the other (Update -- they're sprouting!). It'll be pretty if it works. Tonight I took the dogs for a walk, and we came home from up the mountain, through the woods. There was our fence, and the gate, but other than that, still woods. Then down the mountain and to my studio, and I was surprised to realize I was still in the same woods. It somehow seems different to come upon it with the experience of being in the woods immediatly proceeding my arrival rather than being in the house. Only when I got down to the house I felt like I was out of the woods, so to speak.  

(I have a clearer image of bumblebee bottom but he's flying out of the frame in that one so I guess I like this one better).

Every year we've lived here, I've gone in and torn out everything growing on our birm -- the steep slope between our front "yard" and the road. Every year I'm shocked at what grows back. Gargantuan weeds, weeds 7 feet tall, weeds with trunks 2 inches indiameter, prickers a half-an-inch long...This year I'm so thrilled, the birm is just covered -- thick(!) -- with what I've learned is called dead nettle. Many people speak poorly of it but it's low growing, it's covered the birm very well, right now it has little purple flowers, and every afternoon it attracts bumblebees. I can go out there and sit and watch them work, and they have no interest in me at all. I've read that bumblebees are having a hard time with their habitat, so in addition to liking it for it's ground cover, I think it's important to leave it for them, too. Besides, we just planted a whole bag of wildflower seeds (50,000 seeds, probably spread a little thick...) so I don't see what's the difference.

These are another wildflower growing on the birm closer to our driveway. I guess they are violets. How lovely.

Oh, what the heck.

Upgraded Foam Finger Party Pack

I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been asked...

My printable foam finger party pack used to be just the 3 different sizes of foam fingers. Now it has the works. In order to upgrade the party pack, I upgraded myself (my mac...my self) to Adobe CS6 -- the kind that is a subscription and then you download the programs from the entire offering that you want to use. Well worth it, just to be able to work with all of the elements in this project at once. Beofre in CS3 everything here would have been a seperate file. I think it would have taken twice as long, and believe me, it took long enough.

When someone orders it, they can choose all their own wording and color scheme. It'll be much easier to make those edits with everything on the same screen in CS6, too.

This whole thing has been most popular for first birthday parties. I'm sure because there is already a #1 on there...cute. So, we'll see. (In my mind, every time someone buys something from my shop I see Ferris Bueller looking straight into the camera saying, "They bought it." It's a happy moment.)

The two images above are made in Illustrator. They kind of look like photos, but they aren't. Here are a couple of photos, too.

And...I still have to make new Pinewood Derby style awards for our Pinewood Derby...tonight. Not good. Oh, and a little reminder, I have printable sets of free birthday foam finger cupcake toppers in a whole bunch of different colors, here on Cute & Useful. 

Have a great weekend!