Anywhere near NYC this weekend?

I'll be selling the perfect gifts for your family and friends at Bust Magazine's Holiday Craftacular this Saturday the 10th (11AM - 8PM) and Sunday the 11th (11AM - 7PM) at 82 Mercer Street in SoHo. There's a $3 admission, but it's worth it to check out the 200 vendors!

I'll be at table 187 towards the back of the first room you come in -- there will be three rooms of awesomeness! (Let me know if you're a reader to get a free little something.)

Click through to Bust's post about the show. I hope to see you there!

o! tidings of comfort and joy!

I'm really excited about the holiday cards I made this year. A friend asked me to design her annual holiday postcard, and I loved how they turned out so much that I wanted to make them available for everyone.


The image was collaged by me using some of my favorite materials: vintage ledger paper, maps, and canceled postage stamps. Add in some ribbon, a doily, and some typewritten words, and you've got the makings of an eclectic, vintage-y holiday note. (Of course, the actual cards don't have a watermark on them.)


I had the collage professionally printed onto FSC-certified, eco-friendly cardstock. Each set of 6 comes with white envelopes in a white stationery box with a clear lid (which are also great for packaging up small Christmas gifts once you've sent out all your cards). The ledger paper design wraps onto the back of the card, and each card is blank inside so that you can personalize them however you wish.


Order your set in my Etsy shop! All orders placed this week will come with a strip of coordinating vintage postage stickers made from canceled stamps, which will go nicely with your cards. Use them to decorate the envelopes -- or keep them to yourself. (I won't tell if you decide to do the latter.)

Nana's Handmade Holly Mart

I'm excited to announce that I'll be selling in person at Nana this Saturday during their first-ever Handmade Holly Mart! If you're in the DC area, swing by to shop from ten local makers, not to mention the usual fabulous inventory one can find at Nana's.

Nana's is located in Mt. Pleasant at 3068 Mount Pleasant Street, NW, and will be open from 11AM until 7PM. Shop local this holiday season!

Crafty Bastards is this Saturday!

Remember how I'm getting married in less than a fortnight? Apparently I am not busy enough with that, because I'm also selling at Crafty Bastards this weekend!

As always, Crafty Bastards is in Adams Morgan at the Marie Reed Center on 18th Street north of California Street. I'll be in the tennis court section from 10AM until 5PM selling stationery and Gocco prints. Come find me in booth #165!

P.S. I miiiight just have a new print that will interest those of you who loved the Marion Barry pins.

a personal project

If you follow me on Twitter (which you should, because I post on there faaar more often than here), you probably already know that I'm getting married this fall. We had been having issues with our venue, though, so we needed to wait a while to send out any official notices for the wedding. Plus, I had about 382 ideas for what to do for a save the date mailing, and I needed to work out which was actually realistic-yet-pretty and in keeping with the handmade feel of the wedding we want to have.

Why hello, vintage postcards.

I contemplated typing up the information on my Electra cursive machine, and then also contemplated myself going mad from frustration, so that fantasy only lasted about twelve minutes. However, stamping could still give a vintage look in keeping with the gorgeous fronts without sacrificing my sanity. I had spotted this DIY stamp kit at Staples before for about $30 and looked up some other projects people had used it for. The font was in keeping with our aesthetic sensibilities, so we picked one up. I bought the vintage DC postcards in several eBay lots, sorted through them for the blank ones, and stacked them like so. Aren't they gorgeous? I almost didn't want to send them out.

I would've been perfectly happy framing these instead.

A close-up of amazingness.

And of course, being a huge postal nerd, I didn't want to use boring stamps. I've been amassing a small cache of DC-related stamps for about a year now in preparation for this moment. They didn't lend themselves to easily fitting onto pretty vintage cards, which caused some frustration, but they're SO nice.

It was worth it.

Where possible, the stamps match the fronts of the postcards. There are White House stamps on postcards of the White House, Jefferson stamps on postcards of the Jefferson Memorial, Smithsonian stamps on postcards of the Smithsonian. You get the idea. (See also: Melissa enjoys making things more difficult for herself.)

There are also some library stamps mixed in, but there's a reason for that (besides them going with the Library of Congress postcards).

And after only 125 handwritten addresses and 250+ vintage stamps licked, here is the finished project. The date itself wasn't stamped with the kit, but with a library date stamper I have.

Why yes, I AM the type of girl who has a library due date stamp. Thank you for noticing!

Did you know that if you are a regular at your post office and ask super nicely, the lady you talk to every time you buy stamps will graciously hand-cancel your vintage postcards to preserve the look you spend hours of work creating? True story.

your weekend plans

...you know, if you aren't raptured.

I'll be at these two awesome shows.

Spring Thing

15th and P Street, NW - WDC
Saturday, May 21
11AM - 5PM

AND!

Handmade Mart

Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland
Sunday, May 22
10AM - 5PM

You should swing by. Mention the rapture for your choice of a free pin!

Vintage Valentines

I picked these up a few months ago, intending to send them out for Valentine's Day. Instead I forgot about them until this week, meaning only one (a duplicate) found its way to anyone. To make up for it, I'm going to share them here with you.

You can find all seven designs here, available for you to download and use in any medium you like. There's a dragon one that came with these that I don't think is quite as vintage as the rest, but otherwise, they're all a similar style to this little lady. Fit four on a sheet of cardstock and they'd be perfect as last minute Valentines for a classroom -- or anyone you'll be seeing on Monday.

If you use them in your own design, please share a picture of it - I'd love to see how it turns out!

(Of course, I'd appreciate if you continued to keep them free and available and didn't sell them. That would be kind of crappy of you.)