Showing posts with label gifts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gifts. Show all posts

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Graduation Book

Last weekend my little sister Margaret graduated from Mt. Holyoke. Congratulations!


As I graduation gift I asked our family and life long friends to contribute any words of wisdom, advice, or meaningful quotes. I took all the input (40 pages worth), designed it up real pretty in InDesign, threw in a few illustrations, printed and bound it into a pocket-sized encyclopedia.

Here are the results, and if I do so humbly say so myself, it's one of my best books to date.






And a great big shout out to Margaret for taking these pictures herself, what a pro!

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Coming Soon...

Next month my books and butterflies will be available to buy at the MassArt spring sale, running from May 4th to 10th. Below is a sampling of what will be available for purchase.




Your very own small butterfly collection. Each butterfly is hand painted in watercolor and pinned into a handmade box lined with cork. Every boxes lid contains the name of the butterfly as well as a carved indent of its shape.



These blank sketchbooks are inspired by old furniture from auction catalogues. Each book is wrapped in hand drawn paste paper and decorated with a  cut paper piece of furniture. Pages of soft drawing paper are sewn into a durable spine of bookcloth.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Let's Shop Some Independent Artists

Recently I have adopted a new shopping vice. Before it was mostly books. I buy books like women are stereotypically supposed to buy shoes. But really, can I complain? There are worse vices, worse expenditures. I could be buying porcelain baby dolls...or drugs. My new vice is also really quite harmless but super addictive...art.

Not in the framed landscapes, silent auction sort of way. But thanks to Etsy and craft fairs I can get doses of little pieces of affordable art (or crafts). Some recent additions include:

Laura Berger's Feel Better Now Zine, $10
Image from Laura's Etsy
 And boy, did it ever work. I was having a pretty rotten week last week. The USB port on my tablet was broken (solution acquired though!) and my seltzer machine, light of my beverage life, was on the fritz. All my accessories were failing and I was cranky. Then I opened my mail box and found my package containing this adorable zine. How can you stay upset with images such as these:

 You can visit Laura's Etsy shop here: www.etsy.com/shop/laurageorge


Okay, so that one was kinda cheating, it's still a book but the next one isn't, promise:

Owl Rattle from Free Ramblin' Folk, $18
Massachusetts College of Art and Design hosts a spring sale every year offering a variety of work from students and alumni with a percentage of  proceeds going the artists and the rest to student scholarships. In all my years as a student, alumni and staff member I have never purchased anything from the sale, till I saw these fine fellows by Fashion alum, Katie Cavacco. I didn't actually realize it was a rattle until I picked it up to bring to the cash register, but I still don't think I would actually let a child sully his wise facade constructed of upcycled felted wool sweaters. He will be the guardian of my books. 

See more in Katie's Etsy shop, here: www.etsy.com/shop/FreeRamblinFolk

Monday, February 4, 2013

Birthday Banner Book-Card

I love love love making people cards. Birthdays, holidays, valentines, thank you cards, I love them all. You may not know this about me because I usually don't take pictures of them before I send them out, but this time I did. I was inspired to make these based on those birthday banners people hang on the wall at parties, the ones like this:


So I took that idea and I wanted to make a banner that you could hang that would say 'Happy Birthday' but at the end of the week when the festivities are over you could take it down and fold back into a book. Here was what I came up with:



And here is another one, just with different colors and a bit bigger (the first one measures 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches) this one is about 2 x 2.


 just went to Micheal's and bought about 10 rolls of ribbon so I expect to pretty crazy with making a bunch of these in all different colors and styles.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Repurposed Christmas Gifts

Around Christmastime we all realize there are lots of people we would like to get gifts for but can't really afford to do so. This year I decided to make something quick and easy to give to the people I couldn't afford gifts for. So I made ornaments and nice little boxes for them to go in.

The boxes were made out of (very seasonably appropriate) Trader Joe's bags wrapped around card stock to make them more durable. 

Inside were ornaments made of old Christmas cards and 
homemade paste paper.

Yay! Instagifts!