a lucky girl

(from Kari and Eric-- does no one else see how awesome this is? i will be building the color scheme of my studio around this now, yes i will)

dear friends,

you are the best. thank you for my "27 on the 27th" birfday party.
:)

some of the best b-day gifties ever!

(from Seth and Sylvie via Hats and Jewels in Lee, MA-- represent!)

(from Jaclyn via Magpie in Somerville, MA-- i think it's shrinky-dinks and i love it!)

this is my grateful happy face. can't you tell? or else maybe it's an "i'm really tired but still rocking out cuz i'm 27 years young" face? you tell me. :)

(heheh you all are so cute!)

mr. grinch

took the year off!

what a great holiday-- and it's really just getting started, as tomorrow is my B-day-- 27 on the 27th!!! yeehaw! i think some friends have sumthin up their sleeves for tomorrow.... should be a fun time. and then new year's eve with a few of the best friends-- not sure what we're doing yet, but that's part of the fun.

santa brought us a vacuum, which i believe is the highlight of my year. John reminded me that i don't really ever vacuum, but i promised that this new one will make me a vacuuming madwoman. in a good way.

we also came home with all sorts of tastey treats that will be eaten by you if you're comin' to the b-day celebration, all made with love by moms and grandmas and aunts and cousins and even brothers.

we ended up sleeping at my parents' house on christmas eve, even though we only live about 15 minutes away-- it was really late after partying down at grandma's, and we were gonna be back again at 9am (ok well, it ended up being 10 that we all finally were roused, but that was after staying up way too late because we didn't end up going home) anyway-- it was fun to be able to wake up there x-mas morning to the yummy smells of breakfast being cooked for us, and Happy-the-dog was thrilled to be able to play with her best friend Mickey all day for three days straight. fun times were had by all. and all my brothers and sister-in-law were in town for the festivities which made it extra special fun.

hightlight of the present-receiving was a brand-spankin-new off-the-boat Gocco screen printer for lil' ol me--- i picked it out myself but John made it happen and i'm eternally grateful. I will be printin' up a storm come the new year. You just wait. and watch lauriecoyledesigns.etsy.com for more fun things to buy for your very own self!

the highlight of the present-giving had to be Thom's Bear-Feet slippers-- they were all he ever wanted his whole life. at least that's what he said. and the dogs didn't even try to eat them, which i was a little afraid of. Oh and i got john the Bartlett's book of quotations, which is the one Kirsten Dunst has in Eternal Sunshine, and we all know John loves quoting. but doesn't want to be quoted, ok?

i'll post pictures later. yay for presents!!!

wrapper's delight

here we go again.

i love wrapping presents. but i always end up wrapping them too well and they're a pain for my recipients to open! oh well. that won't stop me. i love doublestick tape!!!

I also get a little depressed when they just get torn into, as i spent, well, a whole day wrapping them. yesterday, all day. oh my. well i did a little homework, too-- done with school until end of January. yay for minibreaks!!! maybe we'll even do a little roadtrip. who knows? (yeah, right)

a little craftiness

been busy busy.... making a few holiday cards for some friends to send out-- what fun! It's been a great learning experience, figuring out how to get them all printed, folded, cut, etc. I hope their recipients like 'em!


and this here is my "Visual Concept Book" for one of my classes. It was a final project, and I had it printed on big 'ol paper and cut it down and bound it as an accordion book, adding a simple bookcloth spine. I wrote and curated the content, all about Creative Reuse. It's only 24 pages, but took about 2 months to design and create. yikes!

winter wonders

crafty's birthday...

yes. buy it for me now.

Birds; ornament swap 07

Birds; ornament swap 07, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

I made 14 little paper birdies-- cut from bristol board, stuffed with recycled tissue paper, sewn on a machine, and modge-podged for posterity. then embellished with a sparkly faux olive leaf, cotton lizi boyd ribbon, sparkly embroidery floss tails and embossed silver wings. oh and don't forget the sparkle sticker for a cute little eye!

Jane Says

"aren't you done with your homework yet?"

"don't forget to have a good time"

no, i can't stop listening to this new(ish) song from ani difranco-- performance here--

Present/Infant

lately i've been glaring into mirrors
picking myself apart
you'd think at my age i'd of thought
of something better to do
than making security into a full-time job
making security into an art
and i fear my life will be over
and i will have never lived it unfettered
always glaring into mirrors
mad i don't look better

but now here is this tiny baby
and they say she looks just like me
and she is smiling at me
with that present infant glee
and yes i will defend
to the ends of the earth
her perfect right to be

so i'm beginning to see some problems
with the on going work of my mind
and i've got myself a new mantra
it says: "don't forget to have a good time"
don't let the sellers of stuff power enough
to rob you of your grace
love is all over the place

there's nothing wrong with your face
love is all over the place
there's nothing wrong with your face

lately i've been glaring into mirrors
picking myself apart

hard partying

mikey had a looong day of thanksgiving antics, overeating, boardgame-playing and hard partying. and still manages to be super adorable.

Friday we went on over to Club Helsinki for an AMAZING show by the Amity Front, which featured Lyon Graulty (brother of Sarah, see below) on Clarinet, Harmonica, guitar and maybe more..... really great bluegrassy folky fabulousness. We did some tipsy dancing, too, which is a testament to the wonderfulness of their music, since both John and i can rarely be convinced to get up and strut our white-people-dancing awkwardness. what fun!

then Saturday we had some friends over for what was billed to be a 'thanksgiving leftovers' party, but as it was saturday instead of the original friday, so we had to make some new yummy treats. over-indulging at it's finest. more pics here.
please be careful when opening the champagne. or Andre, as the case may be. $5 bubbly is classy, with clear instructions of what NOT to do:



be careful, sarah!

what the?

dogcatsnow...turkey?

books

yeah, i'm super cool and drew that. it's for a class-- 2D abstraction of a 3d object, er whatever.

crazy trying to get work done before the holiday... lots of old friends rolling into town in the next few days, so i need to not have homework to do so i can play and enjoy the company.

took a hike with courtney and gerrit and happyDog and john sunday up Monument Mountain... i'm still feeling it in my knees, but in a good way. should do that more often.

oh and we had our first 'real' snow of the season-- slushy and pure white, pretty fun, if treacherous.

contentment

soooo.... i just became overwhelmed with happiness and contentment with my current life and such.... not that it's all that great, really, and i'm always thinking about ways to change and improve everything.... BUT i saw my former boss earlier today, and after absorbing that experience for a few hours, i came to realize how fortunate i was to escape that path... i was working in such a draining workplace, and had such a demanding job with no appreciation or breaks or joy. So now i'm living my own life, with eyes toward the future, rather than living in a hellish present.

I always think i should live more in the moment... and today, this moment, i'm happy. excited by the prospect of creating more artwork and stationery of my own, take some interesting classes, enjoy the exchange of ideas with coworkers and peer students.

and, it doesn't hurt that Mickey is sleeping below my chair-- sighing in a cute puppy way every few minutes, just generally being super-cute, as is his station in life.

Fuchsia Home Postcard

FuchsiaHome_W07_front.jpg, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

since i stopped working at the art school i haven't had much of a reason to design anything that would actually get published. no more! This is the front of my first (and hopefully not last) postcard for Fuchsia Home. It was fun and i learned a lot about printing-- well, we haven't even seen it printed yet, so we'll see if I learned what i needed to. cross your fingers!
here's the back:

yeah i did it. and durn proud of it!

deskwork

what i say to myself is "self, either DO work or relax, but don't pretend to do work and then slack off and make yourself mad by not getting anything done while pretending to do work for hours and hours."


that's what i say. but do i listen? nope. i even have myself a new desk from which to do work, but i have this DUMB paper to write that's not even hard and i've had weeks that it's been needing to be written and i just can't get myself to do it. and there's lots of other stuff to do, but if i do that first then the other work never gets done and keeps being forgotten. or not forgotten but pushed aside. dig?

wo is me.

wedding memories

Us with Coyles/Dewketts, originally uploaded by Crafty Maven.

came across some wedding pics today.
some day i will make us a wedding album. not today tho. not even this week. or month probably. going on one year and one month since the day.... but like i said, someday.

well pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs!

"...Even the first manuscript of On the Road by Jack Kerouac was made with a scroll the famous beatnik assembled with glue so he would not have to stop typing."

more

i swear they're best buds!
(you ask for more, i give you more....)

glory shots

yup, we live here. many a city-ite make a pilgrimage up here to The Shire each fall to see 'the colors'-- and we get to enjoy it for free! Took the pups on a nice afternoon hike on recently discovered (as in, I found it today!) Nature Conservancy land in Stockbridge-- it was gorgeous, if a little odd because you could hear the highway. It was really warm and sunny and they loved splashing in a little brook/waterfall. I was a little worried to be out there alone with them because the trail wasn't marked and pretty much covered with leaves, but we made it home safe and sound, and my reward is two tuckered out pups. (we are taking care of my mom's puppy for the week while she's away-- he's a terror but super cute so we have to love him!)
[and yes, i was driving while i took those above. it's one of my hobbies, steering while photographing. the one below is from our back yard]

history of photography

Been working hard hard hard on school work-- just finished a group project on the History of Phtography... click here to see it! I did the Historical Examples slideshow (collected the images, but no, i don't know how to make a flash slideshow, i'm not that cool...yet!) and edited all the text and helped design the layout/flow of the site.
(Pepper, by Edward Weston 1930)

was fun to learn how to collaborate long-distance with 4 other people flung around the country-- a great learning experience for sure. i think it came out pretty nice.

Fall-ilicious