Wine Corks for Sale

My husband thought he'd tap into his creative abilities and make a bath mat out of wine corks for our bathroom. "What a great idea!" I thought. As did he. But several weeks went by and there was no bath mat in sight. Months went by, our house started overflowing with wine corks and still no bath mat.

Sigh...so we figured we'd give someone else a chance to get their little hands on these babies and show us what they can do. Because apparently, all my husband was able to do was collect them.

Wine corks are great for making wedding place cards, key chains, succulent planters, trivets, bulletin boards, holiday wreaths and more! If you're interested, visit my website to purchase to purchase. We have 600 wine corks available at this time.

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TGIF

I'd much rather be at Disneyland today, but since I can't, I brought a piece of Disney to work with me today. And I doodled. Yes, I beautified the back side of some old business cards during my breaks. Made the work day go a lot faster. 

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Paisley In Paris™ on Society6

I'm happy to announce that I opened a Society6 store today! I'm still in the process of adding artwork and trying to get familiar with the back-end of the site, but so far so good. The site is easy to navigate, all the artist galleries are very clean-looking and there's a lot of quality content in this community. Makes me very excited to be a part of it.
While Zazzle allows me to create an array of gift items and stationery, Society6 is geared more towards prints and patterns, a path I've been exploring a little deeper in the last few months. Speaking of patterns, take a look at the tote bag I created with my "Land of Love and Color" illustration. Pretty cool, heh? I just might have to purchase one for myself!

Hope you have some time to click the link below to take a look around my shop. You will receive free shipping and $5 off on any purchases until December 8th at midnight, Pacific Time.
http://society6.com/product/land-of-love-and-color_bag?curator=paisleyinparis
Happy shopping!
*Excludes framed art prints, stretched canvases and throw pillows with insert.

As I turn the pages that lead to a new chapter

Today I donated my complete collection of graphic design books, cook books and lots of graphic design and crafting magazines to my local public library. It's definitely a bittersweet experience. It feels good to donate and pass things on to someone who will appreciate and use them. Perhaps it wouldn't have such an impact on me if I wasn't getting rid of most of my belongings in such a short period of time. I'm okay with it, but it is a process. Not just a physical process, but an emotional process as well. I went through each and every single one of my HOW (graphic design) magazines before placing them in the donation box. I sighed. Some I was tempted to keep, but after contemplating the idea for a second or two, I came to my senses. When would I actually read them again? I remember how excited I would get when my subscription arrived in the mail, or each time I picked up a crafting magazine from the shelves at the store. I remember thinking "I need this!" Perhaps I did. I bought many of them before the Pinterest and blogging era, before inspiration was so abounding on the internet. I thought about all the money I invested in them, and what I could have done with that money instead. Regret? No, I didn't feel regret. They served their purpose. I did however feel, wiser. Wiser about how I choose to spend my money at this point in my life. Wiser about how I will choose to use my space from this point forward. I felt good about myself, for being able to let go, for having taken such great care of my books and magazines, to the point where they still look brand new. It put a smile on my face to think that someone else, perhaps a design student, or a paper crafting enthusiast like myself, would find these little treasures and be struck by inspiration from the images, articles and recipes found within their pages. Inspiration that will lead them to create, to enjoy the creation process, to further discover their capabilities, inspiration that will uncover dreams and the motivation to make those dreams come true. In fact, that's exactly what these books did for me. That's how Paisley In Paris™ was born.

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Update on my 6 week decluttering challenge

Instead of enjoying a relaxing evening last Friday night, unwinding from the hectic week, I dove into sorting out many of our belongings at home in preparation for a yard sale the next day. I was looking forward to it all week, actually! Most major items sold within the first hour. Lots of new-ish kitchen items and a few pieces of furniture. The rest was basically an abundance of nothing, if that makes sense. Mostly purchases I've made over the the past decade, without really thinking. You know, when you go to the store and buy something just because the price is right, it caught your attention, you know you don't "need" it, but it won't break your bank. Amazing how much you can acquire even when you don't consider yourself a shopper. I don't go to the store for fun. I see no fun in it, actually. I only go to the store when I need to, but it never fails. I get distracted by all the pretty things, and sooner or later I grab a thing or two that I don't quite need, but it's too cool of an item and very reasonably priced to leave behind. Well, this is exactly the type of habit I'm trying to change. Not because it's a financial burden, but because of the physical burden we know all know as clutter. Every new item you bring into your home competes for space with the things we actually do need. We then have to find a place to store new items, and make sure they stay there when not in use, or else the house begins to look messy. I am so done with that! Well, mentally anyway, because physically, I still have a long way to go. Aside from my latest 6-week decluttering challenge, I am also committing to keeping the clutter out once and for all by removing an item from my home for every other item that enters from this point on. This should help keep the clutter under control as well.
So how did the yard sale go? Well, in an effort to sell as much as we could, we priced everything fairly low, and our yard started looking empty rather quickly. I spent Saturday evening gathering more stuff to continue the sale on Sunday, but with the time change, we lost an hour and both my husband and I were too tired to get up in the morning and setup again. Instead, I made two trips to Goodwill, and you know what? Donating my stuff felt much more "liberating" than selling them. Granted, the extra cash we earned will help with my husband's upcoming auto repairs. I am thankful for that. But being able to create more space within a couple of hours by simply boxing everything we didn't use and driving it to Goodwill, gave me a sense of relief that the yard sale didn't. For one, the yard sale was far more work. I invested much more time and energy, but I did enjoy it. However, by donating twice as much as we sold, I know I am still recycling (which is important to me), I know the proceeds will benefit a good cause, and I regained territory in my own home in less time, with less effort. I'm so happy to see the progress, but I'm not quite done yet...the process continues.

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Reusable Snack Bags

Only a few more weeks and my little girl begins 1st grade. I'm so excited, yet nervous for her. What can I say? I'm a mom, I worry. It's as if mommyhood suddenly activated a worry chip in my wiring that has no "off" button. Prayer will always pause it, but sooner or later life kicks in and activates the worry feature in my mommy wiring. I know she'll love it though, she's very social and was at the top of her class last year in kindergarden, so I guess all I really have to worry about now is purchasing a few uniforms, shoes and school supplies. I've also added these adorable and reusable snack bags to my shopping list. I'm a sucker for fun eco-friendly products that help me save money along the way. You may pay more upfront, but you'll save in the long run by being able to reuse them.

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Weekend Project: Artsy Labels for Storage Jars

I'm going to spend some time this weekend creating cute little labels like these. I already have all I need: empty jars, blank labels, rubber stamps and a variety of ink colors. For several years now, I've been reusing jars to store left over food in the fridge, to store dry grains, and even for storing craft items in my office. They're my favorite thing to reuse and recycle, for many reasons. (1) They're easily accessible! You pay for them when you purchase your groceries, throwing them out is like throwing money away. (2) You can see right through them. If you're storing food, you know how much you have left and what condition it's in before you even open the jar - no green surprises! (3) I just love to reuse and recycle as much as I can.

If this is a DIY project you want to tackle, remember water will ruin the paper labels, so don't use this labeling method for the kitchen. I have another idea for labeling kitchen jars, which I will share in my next DIY post.

(Photo by Jenny Hallengren, found via Lotta Prints: How to Print with Anything, from Potatoes to Linoleum)

Hand made flower hair clips

Packaged this one of a kind, handcrafted, fabric hair clip yesterday. Off to Arizona it goes!

Most of my hair pieces are made from left over fabric scraps, never-used clothing items or repurposed fabric. In the same way, I'm making something very special for my family this Christmas.

We had a very dear uncle pass away a year ago. He was like a father to us, always the life of the party, always ready to give advice and make us laugh. My uncle had a few favorite shirts that he wore quite often. After he passed, we asked my aunt if we could have some of his clothes to remember him by. I kept a couple of shirts that I will be turning in to hair accessories and brooches for my sisters, my mom and aunt. They are turning out sooo cute! I'll be posting pictures up after the holidays.