All posts filed under: Celebrate.

yay may.

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Apparently, May is all about celebrating creative space anniversaries! This month I celebrated back-to-back weekends with Mischief (they turned 2!) and Craft + Work (they turned 1!). Happy creative space anniversaries to you both! Here’s a recap! Mischief owners Laura and Julien are big on creating a space for their community – they live and work and raise their kid (and puppy!) in the neighborhood. I love being part of this space! At their two-year anniversary celebration there was cake, a free finger puppet craft for the family, a drank bar, and a few Mischief Makers (get it?). For my set-up I brought my felt-lettered decor, flower crown bar, and surprise packs. And I met two fellow Mischief Makers – Tiffany of Paper and Scissor and Chelsey of Facet Handmade. It was a sunny day – perfect for outdoor hangs, and a styled, collaborative photoshoot. 🙂 Craft + Work owners Roberta and Abby opened their doors to creative workshops last year, and they invited some of their workshop instructors (that’s me, too!) to set up …

what’s good in the ‘hood.

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For our third wedding anniversary we made sure we kept our weekend free to celebrate, but then we were so busy with Craftcation (me), tennisings (Hubby), and Japan travels (more on this soon!) that we didn’t actually plan anything until the last minute. Whoops! But lucky for us, we live in the Bay Area where everyday can feel like a vacation and we thought up some last minute plans. On Saturday, our anniversary eve, we picnicked at our wedding park (Live Oak). I prepped some snacks: roasted cauliflower and potatoes, dill cream cheese to go with the cutest heart-shaped lavash crackers, a cucumber dill yogurt salad (we had a lot of dill…), and leftover dumplings from breakfast. Plus beverages. It was beautiful out and there were many people enjoying the warm weather. We admired the trees, Hubby rested in the sunshine, and I painted a little. Afterwards, we went to a favorite Japanese market (Tokyo Fish Market) because it’s fun there and I love markets. On Sunday, our anniversary day, we hung out at one …

the tissue issue.

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I recently refreshed my memory on how to make tissue paper flowers. It’s so easy and the results are so pretty I had to share! These would pair nicely with some piñata crafts, too. Here are a few: burro, piña, hearts. Materials: tissue paper, string or staples, scissors Layer 6-8 pieces of tissue paper. If starting with a large piece of tissue paper, fold into sixths or eighths. Cut all the folds. For larger-in-diameter flowers, use more layers of tissue paper. Accordion fold the stacked tissue paper. Snip two small triangles out from the middle. Secure with cord or staple. Cut the ends with your desired flower petal shape (e.g., curved, pointed). Gently separate the tissue layers and fluff. If you rip the tissue, no worries; just fluff a little more to hide the tears. Attach to a piñata with cord or hot glue, or secure to walls for a fun backdrop. Oh! These would make cute Christmas tree decorations, too. Try it out with different colors or sizes of tissue paper, or attach two …

sunny side up eggs.

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Ok, now this is just silly. Sunny side up eggs for an Easter morning breakfast egg hunt. How cute would these be as Easter brunch table scatter? All you need for this craft are yellow plastic eggs, white felt, and scissors. Glue is optional. Open up the plastic eggs and cut off a piece of felt to fit the “yolk.” Cut a squiggly circle-like shape for the egg white. Press the half egg onto the felt to “stamp” on the circle shape. Fold the felt in half to cut a slit in the felt. Cut out the middle circle using the impression as a guide. It doesn’t have to be a perfect circle, but try to stay within the circle outline (if you cut around the circle the egg white might not stay securely on the egg yolk). Insert the “egg yolk,” fill with treats, and close. Sunny side up! Happy early Easter! And happy Easter breakfasting/brunching!  More Easter egg ideas here, here, here, and here.

pineapple eggs.

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Here’s another Easter egg decor idea. You can use a similar concept as my cactus eggs to create pineapple eggs. Materials: Plastic eggs in shades of yellow (you can also spray paint your eggs) Permanent marker in brown or gold Felt in shades of green Hot glue Scissors How to: Create pineapple crowns with felt. Start with a rectangular piece of felt, ~2” tall by 4” long. A longer piece will result in more leaves. Cut out triangles from one side to form a zig zag pattern. Roll and glue to seal. Hot glue pineapple crowns to the tops of eggs. If you don’t like the positioning of the crown, allow the glue to cool completely, pull off the crown, reposition and re-glue. Draw ‘v’ shapes with marker to resemble a pineapple pattern. Allow to dry. Separate the crown leaves for more volume. Then fill with sweet treats and gift. Hurry, name the best pineapple you’ve ever had! Mine is Maui Gold ‘imported’ from Hawaii! Juuiiiicy…. There’s one more Easter egg post comin’ soon!

prickly eggs.

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I’ve been traveling to Palm Springs over the last year for work and have found a love of cactus! I love looking at them, especially in the wild – even though they’re so prickly! And since Easter is just a few weeks away, here’s a fun way to bring the desert in without risk of getting stabbed: Cactus Easter Eggs! And they are so simple to make. Materials: Plastic eggs – You can pick any color egg for this. All shades of green work well; so do purples. If you don’t see plastic eggs in your colors of choice you can spray paint ones that you have. Permanent white marker Felt in bright, warm colors of your choice. Hot glue Scissors How to: Create a desert flower with felt. Start with a circular piece of felt ~ 2in in diameter. Cut a spiral, leaving a small circle in the center (this will be the sealing “flap”). Roll along the spiral, starting from the outside of the circle, and glue the flap to seal. Hot glue …

retirement.

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My old coworker remembered that I do crafty things and she asked me to help create some decor for her husband’s retirement celebration. She requested signage, a guest book station, and party favors.  They planned to have a garden party so I kept with greens for the garlands.  I lettered some chalkboards for a welcome sign and the dessert table. And a sign for the guestbook station, too. To keep the garden theme going, I found botanical postcards for guests to use as guestbook note cards. And for party favors, I found a seller on Etsy that sells retire-mint Tic Tac labels to match our chalkboards. Brilliant! This was such a fun project to work on! Happy Retirement, Roland!