balloon wreath.

happy friday everyone!

i saw this balloon wreath idea over on amy atlas's design blog and thought it was so cute! a great idea for birthday decorations! she had linked to a tutorial for it...which you can find here!

nuts and bolts.

so my friend ms and i both saw this diy project awhile ago...and finally got around to making them the other night. and if i do say so myself, they turned out awesome! we saw this hex nut bracelet on pinterest...all you need are some different colored strings (we used heavy duty yarn) and some hex bolts from the hardware store. i personally don't look good in gold, so i went with the standard silver color...but ms decided to buy some that were gold colored and they looked pretty sweet as well! here is where we found the instructions ---- here! they were super simple to make (as long as you know how to braid) the only part that took me a little bit of time was to get the nuts to stay nice and tight, but once you figure it out you can breeze through it the next time! below are some pics of the ones i made...i am very excited to wear them!

post-its.

i saw this the other day on one of the many martha stewart blogs and i thought it was a simple idea. and since i hadn't gotten a new 2011 wall calendar, i thought i would give it a try! i made mine with a few slightly different supplies...instead of spray painting masonite board, i just used white foam core, and i also used ribbon instead of the paper tape (though i wish i had used the tape - it probably would have made this go a lot faster, but my tape order hadn't come in yet!) oh and i also just recently bought some calendar stamps, so i thought i would use them some too...except there aren't many holidays in january... but i am sure throughout the year i will be able to use them more!

(and sorry these photos aren't that wonderful - it started to get dark as i was working on this, so i just took a few quick photos as i went along to show my process)

birthday wishes.

tomorrow is my good friends birthday - happy birthday jaw!! but since we are celebrating it today, i thought i would share with you some things i made for her birthday! first off is her b-day card...i love this new cupcake stamp that i recently found - for a $1 no less!

and secondly is this birthday bag that i made for her out of newspaper! i found a tutorial for how to make this the other day over on a blog i read regularly and i thought that this was the perfect opportunity to try it out! i think it turned out pretty well - the only thing i think i would have done differently would be to attach the eyelets before i finished assembling the bag only because it was a little tricky to hammer the eyelets down without messing up the bag. but otherwise i think this project was pretty successful!

stamps.

these calligraphy stamps are just amazing. i am working on designing some of my own custom stamps at the moments and these serve as some great inspiration!

papergraphics.

yulia brodskaya makes these amazing pieces and they are some of the most creative things that i have seen recently. they are all made entirely out of paper, mostly out of those strips that you can buy at the craft stores (i think this is called quilling). i would love to learn how to do this. i sometimes like working on things that are real tedious like this, i just feel i would have a hard time getting each letter as perfect as she does! but it is definitely something to look into.

i think the reason i enjoy them so much is because it is something that you rarely see. i have seen images like this making flowers and such, but not really any that make up words. my favorite is celebrate mainly because of the intricate work inside each letter, but also because of the beautiful colors (i wish i could find a better, closer picture - but this is the best that i got)! i also really enjoy the bon appetite, because the colors are so simple that it makes the image so beautiful! but all of these are really amazing.

you would have to have serious patience to make these! here is a link to more of her work. there are lots of other good ones on her website as well - i really like the one for london.

woolies.

man its been a long week.

currently i am taking an animation class. and while i absolutely love it, i also hate it at the same time. i have so much fun creating different things and working on each detail on the timeline. but it is also very frustrating because it takes me about 4 hours to animate 15 seconds. i don't know if i am just slow at it or it takes everyone that long but i just feel as though i never accomplish as much as i want.

plus it doesn't help that i have to go to the lab whenever i want to work on it and the lab hours are NOT at convenient times for me. i just recently bought adobe cs4 (!!) and i was excited because i figured we would be using flash - which i already knew and now had on my laptop. but what are we using...adobe aftereffects...uhhgggg. i am always happy to learn new programs - especially design ones - but it is just frustrating because i can't work on things when i want to.

our current project isn't due for a couple weeks...but i only have about 20 seconds of at least 90 seconds. sooo when i am done i will post it but you will have to wait a little bit longer!

anyway...i came across these little woolie creatures when i was looking at some graphic design portfolios online. i still don't quite understand how these are made...but they are kind of a creepy cute! this first one is my favorite.

Meg Hunt created these (she is mainly an illustrator but created these for fun) and here is a link to a few more pictures on her website.