our reader allie made this awesome free people inspired painting from cut up flowers and butterflies that she found in free people and urban outfitters catalogs! love it allie, thanks for sharing :)
flower girl
lola by isby
yesterday at the home office we had a visit from isby lubin, a very talented young lady who is designing her own line of tshirts, called LoLA, and she’s only in her sophomore year of high school!
all of isby’s shirts are handmade – she draws the designs, burns them into screens, dyes her own plain white shirts, mixes her own custom inks and prints the shirts herself. t love the print with the little family and dog! she says that this first collection was inspired by her family, specifically her brothers and how they helped her and are still helping her become the person she is today.
i love the colors she chooses! isby just moved from california to nyc where she is pursuing her dream of designing shirts.
awesome work, isby! we love your shirts!!
check out isby’s blog here.
special wednes-diy guest blog post!
not too long ago some friends from work told me about the site nice package, and ever since i’ve been hooked…they use very simple, pretty materials to create packaging ideas that are so unique and creative. i was on their site recently and saw they had a new product – an inspiration kit called “i left my heart in paris.” i thought it was so cute – and they were nice enough to put together a guest blog post about where they draw their inspiration, just in time for valentine’s day! please welcome the lovely ez and marichelle!
Hi everyone! We are Ez and Marichelle, the fun-loving duo behind the creative packaging line Nice Package. We’re so excited that we were invited here today to share a little bit about what went into one of our newest products: I Left My Heart in Paris.
In one of our brainstorming sessions last month we started talking about Inspiration Kits and how great it would be to make up mini collections that include bits and pieces of our favorite things to inspire our customer’s creative projects. We both adore Paris, Air Mail envelopes, love letters, and vintage inspired ephemera and decided to group all these ideas into our first limited edition kit: I Left My Heart in Paris.
We like to think of our DIY Inspiration Kits as the perfect go-to sources for an instant pick-me-up. The creative possibilities with our kits are as limitless as your imagination. We used ours for Valentine cards, gift tags, and scrapbook pages.
Some ideas:
Come visit us on our site for more great products, and be sure to check out our blog for some fabulous freebies and DIY projects.
xo Ez + Marichelle
eiffel tower image source.
thanks so much ladies!!!
eggs with love
how cute is this for a valentine’s day breakfast?!
instructions:
heat up a pan with a little bit of oil. set your cooker to a low heat or you will burn the eggs. place your heart shaped cookie cutter in to the center of the pan, with the smooth side down or you might end up scratching the pan.
crack an egg and pour it in to the center of the cookie cutter. a bit of egg will probably slip under the cutter so hold it down to ensure that most of it doesn’t.
use a spatula to remove any excess egg from the outside of the cookie cutter. remove the cookie cutter and let the egg cook for a few more seconds before removing it with the spatula.
you can use this same method for heart-shaped pancakes too!
winter wonderland…
i am in awe of these sculptures…the timing is also pretty appropriate, seeing as we’re expecting a bit of snow here in the northeast this weekend…
they’re from the sapporo snow festival, an annual event in japan that attracts about two million people who come to see incredible snow statues and sculptures like these. this year’s snow festival actually starts today and lasts through thursday february 11.
these snowmen were made by festival-goers, who tied messages of good luck around their necks.
paper hearts
ok so these are kinda similar to the butterfly DIY i posted last week (here) but i wanted to share them because i think they’d be such a cute project for valentine’s day! as decoration or a gift for your loved ones…and it doesn’t seem like it would be that hard to do. you could follow the instructions from last week’s post, or if you want to make something that looks more like these, i think you could just glue the hearts right onto the backing paper, leaving some flat and some only glued on one side to get that cool fluttering effect :)
these images are from sarah and bendrix’s etsy shop – check out more here.
wednes-diy
this is an old pair of jeans that i love, but they’ve got three holes in them. i was okay with that for a while but now – maybe because it’s so cold out – i decided it was time to patch them up.
here are some images i found around the web and saved as inspiration for my project:
i really liked the idea of using different shades of denim and prints with blue in them…
this patch of fabric is actually the inside of a pocket from an old pair of jeans, but i love the way it looks – and it fit perfectly over the large hole in the knee of my jeans!
i used scraps of old denim for the other patches:
and here’s the finished product!
i think they look much better. the only thing i’m not sure about is whether i should do something to the bottoms or not – i might attempt something like this (the genetic patched flare):
…but i can’t decide. what do you guys think?
wallpaper downloads!
something in the air
last week i was over in the area where our visual display team works on the amazing creations that you see in our stores, and i spotted boxes and boxes of these colorful little creatures…
so what are they? our new store displays for spring! here’s a look at the installation in our king of prussia, pa store:
i love it! our visual display team always does such an amazing job :)
not just any book
after today’s DIY post, an fp girl here at the home office showed me a project she did, also involving butterflies. at first glance, it’s a normal book…
…but then you open it:
isn’t that amazing? she cut out the inside and created this beautiful little scene. i love it!
wild goose chase
lately i’ve really been loving the work of scotland-based artist fiona watson, using feathers, flowers, and other found items…
these are from her series called “an unwritten book”
“i used to be a scientist but have always been an artist.” – fiona watson
the feathers and wishbones are so awesome. check out more of her beautiful work on her flickr page or website.
wednes-diy
i really want to try and make a rag rug. i’ve been looking around online for tutorials on how to do it, and i’m so inspired just by pictures of them! i think they’re so beautiful and a perfect way to use up any fabric you might have lying around.
these images are from the rag rug flickr group (yes, there is one)…check it out here…believe me, you will be inspired.
apparently there are several ways to make a rag rug…some tutorials involve crocheting, like this one on vintage chica. but if you don’t know how to crochet (like me) you can still make a rag rug just by braiding the fabric!
moda bake shop has a really great tutorial showing you step by step how to do it. once you’ve picked out the fabric you want to use, cut it into long strips and just start to braid! start at the center of the rug and work your way outwards, forming a circle with your braid as shown in the images above. once you’ve finished, just sew the rows of braids together! for the full tutorial click here.
i can’t wait to try it!