crafty adventures | kimberly ah

Jul 30 2012

celebrations, crafty adventures, Olympics, what's for dinner

an olympic birthday

Our friend Santron turned 30 on Friday, so we threw him a little party on Sunday night–Olympics-style. Santron loves London, so it was kind of perfect.

After making a paper chain out of Olympic flag colors, I crafted up a gold medal out of cardstock, double stick tape, glitter, number stickers and some patriotic ribbon. It was the first time I used my Martha Stewart circle cutter (even thought it’s been sitting in my craft closet for months…) and I found it challenging to use. My circles were not perfect and the end never matched up with the beginning… Is there some sort of trick to it?

Chef Hasegawa made Shepherd’s Pie and it was delicious! To make this heavy dish a little bit lighter, we used ground turkey instead of ground beef and added in extra peas and carrots. So simple & so good!

We also enjoyed gin drinks (London Dry Gin!) and giant cupcakes (not homemade) and then watched swimming and gymnastics together on the tiny TV. A relaxed celebration–the best kind.

Tagged celebrations, crafts

Jul 16 2012

1 Comment

crafty adventures, snail mail

the money card

A good friend turned thirty last month. He has a love/hate relationship with Guy Fieri…as in he loves to hate him. So, who else would be perfect enough to end up on his birthday card???

Do you have a friend who has a love/hate relationship with a celebrity? Maybe it’s Kim Kardashian, or Snookie, or Donald Trump?? Here’s how you can create a card of your own. It will brighten your friend’s day…trust me!

1. Find a picture of the celebrity on the internet. It’s better if you find a picture of him/her doing something obnoxious. This was easy with Guy because he is always making that annoying “signature gesture” of his.

2. Print out the picture and cut around the celebrity’s silhouette with great detail. Guy’s picture made this difficult since he has so many little spikes in his hair.

3. Think of a quote that the celebrity often repeats, type it up (in a fun font) and print it on card stock. It was difficult to narrow down all of Guy’s annoying sayings, but this one seemed to fit the occasion. I used “Star-Studded” font and I chose a dark card stock because I wanted Guy’s bleached white hair to stand out. I also embellished MONEY with my Uni-ball Signo Sparkling Glitter pen. **I seriously love this pen.**

4. Attach your celebrity picture to your card stock. I used foam squares so Guy would pop off the page a little bit.

5. Stick your handmade masterpiece in an envelope and you’re done!

So easy! There is nothing like a handmade card to make someone smile while they simultaneously curse you…

p.s. I got my photo here.

Tagged crafts, snail mail

Jul 12 2012

2 Comments

crafty adventures, summer manifesto

summer minibook update

In my free time (while I’m not sorting mail, working or taking naps), I’ve been slowly working on my Summer Minibook. I bought my minibook here, pre-made from Elise Blaha Cripe. I sometimes feel silly buying a book of paper…I mean, I work at a paper store, I have a huge collection of paper already…but Elise’s books are amazing, the colors are perfect and it’s already DONE and ready for the fun part!

So, here it is…I’ve only made it through mid-June for now, but I think it’s coming together nicely.

I already have a little stash of papery goodness ready to add in for the rest of June and the start of July. I can’t wait.

Supplies used: embellishments from Ormolu, A Life Handmade & Hey Jen Renee, labels from Martha Stewart Avery & Paper Source, stamps from AnnMarie Loves Paper & Elise Blaha Cripe’s (now closed) Pop-Up Stamp Shop, washi tape from Target & Japan

**If you have a question about anything specific, please ask in the comments!

May 13 2012

2 Comments

crafty adventures

happy mother’s day!

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom! We spent Saturday together because Naoto & I both work today. On Friday night, I had a mini craft-a-thon and made my mom’s gift and a gift for my sister’s baby.

My mom is the librarian in my hometown, so I embroidered her a bag with some librarian patterns from Sublime Stitching. I’d never embroidered a bag before…it took me awhile to get the hang of it. I only caught the handle in my stitches once… And I am notoriously bad at keeping the back of my work neat. I tried really hard to keep things tidy so the stitches will stay in tact as books and things are coming in and out of the bag. I folded it all up with a pretty notebook and some lovely bird stickers and wrapped it in this fun “tweets” paper from Snow & Graham.

I made a little tag out of a circle punch of chartreuse paper, a scallop punch of white and a little Amy Tangerine brad. I tied it all up with a sheer pink ribbon. I usually wrap with plain kraft butcher paper, but it was fun to break out the pretty stuff for mom!

Once I finished the bag, I moved right along to a bookbinding project. My sister’s baby, Riley, is only 5 months old and this is his “baby” gift…I had visions of using this perfectly sweet Japanese farm animal paper, but sadly I didn’t have enough and couldn’t find it anymore…so I went with this bright, cheery Japanese koi paper instead.

I used a photo album text block from Paper Source. They are really lovely, and have onion skin between each page to protect the photos…I hope it makes a nice place to put some of the baby pictures of the little guy. As I was working on the project, I was thinking, “Why don’t I make these more often…a little measuring, a little cutting, a little gluing…this is no big deal!” Then, I got to the last step and remembered–gluing the text block into the case (the covered book boards and bookcloth spine) is SOOOO stressful! It’s hard to get it just right, and the perfect measurement and gluing is the only way to make the book WORK properly…but it did and I was cheering. I should build books more often than every two years–I’m sure it would get easier.