family, woodworking, photography, K-pop
My friend Linnie is an artist and her and some other artist friends are having a “yart sale” (art yard sale) in Salt Lake tomorrow. They’re cleaning out their studios and selling pieces at discount.
If we can swing it I definitely want to stop by. I love art (and sales!) and like supporting local artists.
I featured this little bird painting by Amy Ruppel back in December. I liked it quite a bit but didn’t feel right about spending the money on myself around the holidays.
Well, the universe must have decided it was meant to be mine because no else bought it and Amy included it in her recent spring cleaning sale.
So I snapped it up! I can’t wait until it comes in the mail. There are still a few pieces left if you’re interested. This is the only time I’ve seen Amy discount her work, so it’s a great deal.
Back in the day Martha Stewart used to sell a family tree kit that included a die-cut tree and leaves to write your ancestors’ names on. I was interested in it but at the time I was a poor college student so I shamelessly recreated it on my own by tracing it in Illustrator.
I had ambitions of making several for Christmas presents but ran out of steam after just one (no big surprise there). After we had E I wanted to put one together for us but by then I had lost the original files (I think they’re on a Mac zip disk somewhere in my basement) and I wanted to make mine bigger than 8 1/2″ by 11″ so I basically dropped it.
Until I saw these family tree kits for sale at the Beehive Bazaar. They closely resemble the tree kit I saw before and knocked off myself but they are a bigger size (18″ by 20″). They’re nice and come with instructions, the tree, leaves, etc… I bought one for $20 at the bazaar but you can order then for $15 online (d’oh!). If you want to get a bunch of them for gifts the price drops to $10.
The main thing you’re paying for is the 18″ by 20″ piece of paper with the tree itself printed on it. If you’re crafty you could put together the other parts on your own (i.e. draw your own paper leaves and cut them out, buy a glue stick, etc…) but it’s a hassle to draw a tree in Illustrator and find a way to get it printed at such a large size. Besides, the kits are well made and having everything together already together in a kit makes it much more likely that I’ll actually get it put together.
A couple of weeks ago my friend Emily and I had a girls’ night out and went to the Beehive Bazaar and then to dinner. It was a lot of fun and I picked up a couple of things at the bazaar.
I love this card by Sycamore Street Press. Looking at it just makes me smile. I don’t know if you can tell from the photo, but it’s letterpress printed and really lovely.
They have a lot of nice pieces in their Etsy shop which is definitely worth checking out.
I have a dress watch but lately I find myself preferring to wear cheap digital watches. Life with a toddler and having hobbies like woodworking don’t mix well with wearing a nice watch everyday. And I also like being able to use my watch as a stopwatch and alarm.
My current watch is getting pretty busted so I took a quick look around for other options and I found these. All of these are around $25 except for the green one which is $45.
I’m having a hard time deciding which one I like best. How about you–do you like one in particular? 
1.Blue Casio Pop Tone Watch 2.White Casio Pop Tone Watch
3.Red Casio Pop Tone Watch 4.Orange Casio Square Watch
5. Green Datamat Watch 6.White Calculator Watch
I had a fun weekend. On Saturday I went to the Overstock.com warehouse store with Elaine. It was packed but we both found some shoes that we liked. I found these leather boots by Kenneth Cole priced at $28. They were cute and seemed to be well-made so I decided to get them.
We had to stand in line for half an hour to check out but it was worth it when the cashier informed us that all shoes were actually on sale for 50%. So I got these boots in black for $14(!)
That evening was fun too. We went out on a date that was my belated Valentine’s day present from N: we tried out a nice restaurant, Forage and saw Daniel Tosh perform stand-up. It was great hanging out with N; after all this time together (nine years in May!) he still makes me laugh. Yay for date night!
I’ve been eying these shoes since last fall and now they’re on clearance for $12. Yay!
While browsing Etsy last night I stumbled upon John W. Golden’s “By Order of the Management” print series. I think they’re great AND he’s currently having a buy-one-get-one-free sale (you could get two for $20)!
This weekend was somewhat of a mixed bag. I had planned to get together with my friend Erica on Saturday and check out the Overstock.com store and grab some lunch but when I went to get E out of his crib I discovered that he thrown up and wasn’t feeling well. I gave E a bath and he seemed to be feeling better but then he spit up some apple juice he drank. I considered canceling my outing but N assured me that he could handle it so I ended up going.
It was a lot of fun to hang out with Erica and catch up. We were college roommates but don’t get the chance to see each that often. I’m always a little nervous to drag people all the way up to the Overstock store but it was a lot of fun to chat in the car and Erica scored a nice down comforter and a board game.
I found some cute bronze leather Nine West flats and this London Fog trench in red. I’ve always wanted a trench and it was a good deal ($27). My other big find was a copy of Famouz
On the way home I called to check on E who, as it turns out, had thrown up three more times–poor N and poor E! But N was a sweetie and gallantly insisted that Erica and I stop for lunch as planned. When I got home I found E cuddled up with N watching kids’ shows. For the rest of the day E spent most of his time draping himself over us or the couch and whimpering. He woke up at 3:30am on Sunday morning and threw up again so we stayed home from church. E was so wiped out that he lay down on the floor of the family room and fell asleep there. It was pretty pitiful but cute.
I think E’s stomach is feeling better: he ate some animal crackers and drank some juice this morning which so far have not made a second appearance (knock on wood). But he’s still feeling pretty puny so it looks like we’re going to have another stay-at-home day.
Except for E having a nasty cold and the miscarriage, our Christmas was very nice. N. received an unexpected Christmas bonus and generously used it to spoil me which was very sweet of him.
On Christmas morning I was shocked to unwrap this amazing camera lens. It’s the 35mm f/1.4 L series lens which means that it’s great for closer shots, excels in low light situations, and is basically professional grade. There’s a Flickr group devoted to it if you want to see what type of shots it can take.
I was also thrilled to unwrap these: Adobe’s Web Premium creative suite and Adobe Premiere.
And no, we’re not crazy posh. While the web suite is super pricey, N didn’t pay near full price. We’re fortunate to have a member of the family who works for an Adobe company and he has a small number of software licenses he can purchase at a steep discount. He was kind enough to donate some of his licenses and help N get these for me (Thanks, J!).
I took a couple classes in college in Photoshop and Illustrator and really enjoyed working with them. I don’t really have much formal training in it but I like graphic design in addition to photography so I’m excited to be able to muck around with this software.
Hopefully these gifts will help me kick my photography up a notch in 2010.
