I’m sure by now everyone has seen Amy’s amazing Be Joyful embroidery. I am so inspired by her attention to detail and amazing skill with a needle and thread.  Amy kindly sent me a copy of her pattern and I was/am dying to stitch it up, but to be honest I am a bit intimidated by Amy’s amazing work…afraid mine will fall flat. So, I decided I wanted to do a “trial run” before stitching the real thing.

Enter a heart to heart and joke between my husband and I.  We were having a talk about some parenting frustrations we were having.  We decided to take a new approach to the problem, I read the following quote to my husband- “Life by the inch is a cinch, life by the yard is hard”.  We both liked it and thought it would be a perfect approach to our problem. My husbands response was that we needed to have it displayed somewhere we would see it often.  I jokingly said that I would embroider it on a pillow- he took me seriously!!

So, I set about creating a pattern, and decided that really it was a silly phrase (good sentiment, but wrong for a pillow).  I found another quote I liked that also reminded us of the same sentiment.

“Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved”-Thomas S. Monson

I decided to stitch it up and let this pillow be my trial run for Amy’s pattern.  I am really tickled with how it turned out- and my husband of few words (and fewer compliments) has commented multiple times about how impressed he is!

I was absolutely inspired by Amy’s work, I just loved her flowers!  Here is my pattern (free download) in case anyone else wants a trial run before staring Amy’s gorgeous Be Joyful pattern.  The pattern shows only the green vine and words, I made the flowers up as I went along.  I really liked the blackeyed susan at the top and wish I had done a few more.

Believe it or not, I started working on these in mid January.  I was so proud of myself for being so ahead of the game, that I put the *almost* finished design on the back burner for a while.  Now, here it is 2 days before the big day and I just finished the photo shoot for you!  Sheesh!

These printable valentines have a sewing theme (seemed appropriate over here, no?!) and can be made with a variety of candies.

I chose a variety of small flat (ish) candies to use as my buttons.  All candies are adhered using Corn Syrup.  It is very sticky and will hold tight, but most important- it is totally edible.  I just used a Q-tip (you could also use a paint brush) to dab some syrup to the back of the candy and stuck it to the paper.  It is a bit gooey to work with, similar to hot glue- but no burns!

A review of the candies I tried:

• Sprees- they looked good, but were bigger than the guide dots I placed on the valentine cards, so they looked a little off.
• Sweetart Heats- these looked really cute and tasted good!
• Buttons- These were by far the easiest to adhere.  I simple trimmed the paper and stuck it down with Karo, but since the candy is on paper, you could even glue it down.  I also think washi tape would be a good way to stick it down.

I suppose if your children’s school was anti-candy you could add a small sticker sheet.

Download the valentine pdf HERE and Happy Valentines Day!

I had really high hopes of getting these up last week, you know so people could actually use them THIS YEAR?!  Well, you can always pin it for next year!

These were relatively easy, I think the hardest part was cutting them out, but maybe they would be easier if I had one of those fancy pants cutter machines; instead of the ruler and exacto knife I used.  I filled these with small packs of sweetarts, just stapled them right in!  I put bands of color strategically on these to help me know where to fold them (so glad i did!).  Two of the Valentines feature vintage images, to heighten the cuteness factor, of course.  These were easily assembled while I watched Parenthood on netflix.  How have I not known about this show before?!

You can download the Valentine pdf right here, enjoy!  Hope your Valentines Day is filled with people and things you love!

Jaylee asked me to whip up a Holiday Gift Certificate (coupon thing-y) for her, and it turned out so cute I decided to offer it as a printable for all!

I think I’m going to have my kids give coupons this year…nothing would warm my heart more than a coupon from my kids granting me one day of no fighting, or a whine free trip to the grocery store, or 2 hours of uninterrupted reading (for me!), or the gift of being able to use the facilities without conversation or interruption…sigh…

You can download the pdf here.

Earlier this week I dined at Cornish Pasty Co, with two very fun, wonderful women!  While the establishment is English (and the pasty’s were really good), the decor was a very nice black and white.  For whatever reason- probably because I have yet to visit France-the colors and clean lines have made me think of France.

So, I bring you (yet another) free printable Valentine.

You can download the pdf here.  There are six 4×3 cards to the page, and they don’t have my french chicken scratch on them!  Enjoy….

These are each 4×6 valentine cards, available in a combined pdf file that you can download here.  Enjoy!

Front & Back, separate pdf’s so you can print one side, flip over your paper and print the other. Make sure your printer margins are set for 1/4″. Each sheet prints 12, 2″x3″ valentine cards.

It occurred to me today that I don’t have to BUY valentines for my kids, I can design them. Being bright as I am, it took me 3 years of designing professionally before this idea occurred to me!

Enjoy- and expect more to come…maybe some of the “cutesy” variety!

1. Aurora, CO Riviera Motel sign, 2. Canton, Stark County, Ohio, 3. Motel, 4. Yreka, California, 5. Hiway Host Motel (up close and personal), 6. Starlite Motel.

I just started gathering images on flickr of old Motel signs.  Then I decided to re-create them in graphic form, for fun.

I created a 4 page .pdf file of high resolution (300dpi) motel signs for a free download.  You can do whatever you want with them- EXCEPT- sell them.  Download the file HERE.

While I was creating them I was searching around for MCM styled fonts, oh my, look at this drool worthy site I found……

If you use the files I’d love to see what you do with them, so send me links or pics please.