Cherry Blossom Bliss

Photo by Dan | BeyondDC

Cherry Blossom Season (yes, all capitalized) in my mind is one of the best things about living in the District. I coaxed Dan into leaving the office early to hang out along the Tidal Basin this afternoon, where the temperature was a good ten degrees cooler than in the rest of the city. We spread a sheet out and just lounged about, read books, wrote letters, and people-watched.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could just get everyone we liked here at the same time?" I asked.

I thought the weekend would be crowded, but doable. However, a check of the weather forecast shows it is going to rain on Friday. Rain usually takes out a good chunk of remaining cherry blossoms (I'm looking at you, early spring storms of 2011). The forecast adds a bit of urgency to the timeline.

So! Come hang out Wednesday, April 10, between 2pm and sunset under the peak cherry blossom canopy. Bring a blanket, a snack, and something to occupy yourself (drawing, stationery, reading, knitting, or whatever -- I can't be expected to entertain you the whole time), and hang out with other cool DC folk. I've made a map of the approximate location I plan to lay claim to, so just go and yell if you can't find me. Feel free to bring a friend!

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.

Sunday is the Bust Craftacular!

I'm so excited about this weekend's Bust Magazine Holiday Craftacular! Not only can I barely believe I got in, there are going to be so many other amazing makers there; I'm looking forward to getting all of my holiday shopping finished up.

I know, I know, but as it turns out, when you're hand-making items for one of the largest craft shows in the country, you have very little time to get your holiday shopping done.

Also a casualty: I have left my house twice this week for periods of longer than five minutes. Yes, today is Friday.

Oh right, Craftacular. I've attended as a shopper since 2005, when it was in a comparatively tiny Polish dance hall in Brooklyn, and it is so worth a trip. My best friend and I (and later our fiancé(e)s) made it into an adventure each year, either in day trip or weekend form, and always had an awesome time. You should grab a friend or five and come visit!

I'll be on the second floor of the Metropolitan Pavilion on the left, just as you come up the stairs. Hope to see you there!

P. S. Whisper your favorite tip for cold weather bicycling to either me or Dan and get a free pin!

Crafty Bastards: A Love Story

Photo by kestrel127 at Flickr.

Being accepted to Crafty Bastards had been a dream of mine for years. Fulfilling that dream? Possibly even better than I'd imagined.

Reclaimed Stationery Sets. Photo by Oh So Beautiful Paper.

Gov. Mark Sanford pins. Photo by kestrel127 on Flickr.

I had a couple of new items that I brought out for Crafty Bastards. In addition to Marion Barry, I added the disgraced (but somehow not-yet-impeached) South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to my line of hypocritical politicians saying dumb shit that I type onto pins. Gov. Sanford did better than I thought he would against Mr. Barry in the District, so I'll need to make more of him for the holidays. His "Family Values" collection will be in the shop by the end of the week.

Photo by kestrel127 on Flickr.

I also had at Crafty Bastards my new "this is not a hipster pin" pins. These were inspired by my old roommate Ben (a hipster if there ever was one, despite his professed ignorance of this fact) and by people who have no idea what they're talking about using the word indiscriminately and completely incorrectly wherever I seem to go. Apparently other people feel similarly (or know someone like my former roommate), as they were pretty popular.

My awesome friends Christina and Meigh came in the afternoon to help Dan and I get a break from (wo)manning the booth. A break for me was getting to eat lunch behind my hanging maps about three hours after it was delivered by the fabulous Crafty Bastards volunteers, but hey, I take what I can get. Luckily, both those ladies know the merchandise well enough to speak for me when customers ask questions. (Helping me package the goods earlier in the week probably helped, too.)

Me sneaking food behind the maps as Dan straightens stationery. Photo by kestrel127 on Flickr.

The entire day was amazingly packed. My first sale of the day was at 9:40, 20 minutes before we officially opened, and there was foot traffic in the booth almost constantly until about ten minutes before 5pm, our closing time. I used that lull to go turn some nearby internet friends into real-life friends. It was great to meet Sara from girlscantell and Christy from a bardis, both of whom I've long admired. And it was equally awesome to talk about reclaiming paper all day with so many fabulous customers.

I was so happy to be part of such an awesome event, and am so grateful to everyone who came out to make the day such a success.

Tomorrow, I'll post about the Crafty Bastards aftermath -- I wouldn't want to shock you by having a complete blog post all together or anything!

How'd I get so lucky?

Floorplan courtesy of Dan; text, doors, and Easter-egg-looking radiator placement by me.

As I've mentioned, I'm getting ready to move in a few weeks. My boyfriend Dan and I just signed our lease yesterday for a one bedroom English basement in Dupont. It's very sweet, but as a one bedroom, it doesn't have a built in craft room, and we'll have to carve some space from the ample living room. We were trying different arrangements on the mostly-to-scale floorplan that Dan drew up last night, and I was stressing out, wondering if my extremely large, well-loved craft desk would fit and look right in the space.

Dan busied himself with the plan for a minute and before showing it to me said, "I don't know if I necessarily like or want this idea, but it's a thought."

He had drawn a bed in the living room's craft corner, leaving the entire bedroom open for crafting and office space.

Is it any wonder that I love this man?

I've been on vacation (the charming and lovely and EFFING HILLY San Francisco) and doing an insane amount of decluttering the past couple weeks, so while I treasure the time I get on the Metro to read others' blogs, I haven't had time or energy to post to my own. Silly, I know.

However, I promise a blog post every other day leading up to the Homespun Yarn Party on March 15th, where you will be able to find me, other crafters, and a crapton of fiber artists. How's that for a deal?

However, to buy myself a bit of time before my next-promised post (and because I'm only able to find time right now because I'm waiting for my fabulous boyfriend to finish up a project before we go get dinner), I'm going to let you vote in the comments what you want to see next. Evidence and progressive pictures of my craft area/bedroom's destashing and decluttering? Pictures from San Francisco of all the awesome stores (mostly Daiso)? The evolution of craftgasm's Etsy shop as I retake pictures of products? I'll get to them all eventually, but what do you want to see first?