Things I wouldn’t mind finding in my stocking…

(I’m talking about my Christmas stocking...just thought I’d clarify.)

There are only 4 days left ‘til Christmas, and I’m sure Santa has already done all of his shopping, but if he hasn’t, here are a few suggestions, all from Etsy. 

The porcelain pieces from kimwestad are absolutely stunning.  You can check out a video of her process right here.

I love this vintage fish dish from twostringjane. It would look great on my little entry table.

Mariforssell makes lovely bags, wallets, and cases for things like ipads and iphones. I have a weakness for anything plaid and this little case is no exception. It also looks like it would keep my iphone nice and warm for the winter.

I've had my eye on this little retro tv brooch from VectorCloud for a while. It has a spot for you to add your own photo!

These labradorite stacking rings from KiraFerrer are so pretty I've added them to my favorites twice! They look like they'd be really versatile pieces. I love how the stones seem to change colors. 

The trailer and retro house prints from LeahGiberson are so cool. I'm having a hard time choosing my favorite!

This Moka Express tea towel from mengseldesign is super cute. I think it would really bring the coffee theme in my kitchen full-circle.  :) 

Well, those are my suggestions for the big guy at the North Pole. If he doesn't pull through, I might have to break down and get some of these for myself. I hope Santa brings you everything on your list!

A house of bread and ginger.

Every year, for the past few years, I've made a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve. It's so much fun coming up with a design chosing candy decorations! I've decided to make it a tradition to make a gingerbread house from scratch every year. 



Here is my "MINI Garage" from 2008, complete with gingerbread crumb driveway and snowman.

Here's my retro, mid-century house from last year, complete with sugar windows and color-changing lighted interior! The windows were tricky, but not as difficult as you might think.  I used Juicy Fruit gum for the siding, Junior Mints for the chimney, and Lifesavers and Skittles for the roof. And, of course, there's a MINI in the driveway. I was thinking I'd do something along those lines this year, but I wasn't sure what my "inspiration house" was going to be. Then I saw the cover of the current Sunset Magazine: 



(photo from the Sunset Magazine website) 

I must do something on stilts! My sister, Annie had the idea to use chocolate-covered pretzel sticks for the supports. Sounds effective and delicious! I'm still working on the design sketches, but I'll post project photos here when it's all done. I will begin construction on Thursday, so stay tuned!

Best Snowglobe, EVER.

MINI USA has just debuted the MINI Countryman – the first 4-door, all wheel drive MINI! I can imagine many outdoor enthusiasts (with lots of stuff and passengers) are excited about this. MINI USA is pretty excited, too and has been ramping-up advertising in the recent weeks. I’ve seen 2 new tv commercials and have heard the new “boot-gate” radio commercial a few times. I’ve always enjoyed MINI’s clever, unique advertising, and this, my friends, is no exception:

(photos from Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners website)

How awesome is this?! This snow globe just popped up yesterday in NYC. Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, the agency behind MINI USA is the mastermind behind this and all of MINI’s other advertising.  Funny enough, a few years ago my landscape architecture office relocated from Healdsburg to Sausalito, CA into a large warehouse space that was too small for the previous tenants. The tenants were BSSP and moved just a few doors down into a larger space. I was so close to these guys I had a chance to witness a few MINI photo shoots (with the bulldog and everything)! One of their creatives even gave me one of the first prototype “MINI CONFIDENTIAL” medallion in exchange for letting him measure Max for a few interior accessories. :)

I’m happy to see they are still keeping up the incredible work! So much fun!

December!

Seriously, how did that happen? I can't believe it's the end of the year already, but I've been in holiday mode since about October, so I was so excited to finally get going on some holiday crafts. The first one that I had to tackle was this yarn and felt wreath. I discovered a very helpful tutorial for it on the take heart blog. As soon as I saw it I knew I HAD to make one. So pretty and so simple! I decided to go with burgundy, teal, and cream for my color palette. The yarn wrapping took a bit of time and a little bit of work to make sure everything was covered, but it was so worth it. The felt flowers were the most fun - I had to keep myself from making more! Here's my little beauty on my front door.

As for the inside of my place, I just set up my first Christmas tree the other day! Its a sweet little Fraser Fir. I have it decorated with a few felt circle garlands I made last year, some MINI ornaments I made a few years ago, and some sparkly starburst ornaments.

I snapped this shot on my iphone when the sky was blazing blue right after the sunset. I didn't have a topper in my meager ornament collection so I picked up this big, sparkly, bow at Target and it works perfectly! Check out this awesome trailer ornament:

That reminds me - I'd better start drafting up my plans for my this year's gingerbread house...

Special Holiday Sale!

Hello friends! In honor of the holiday season, I'm offering a special sale on everything in my shop! Take 10% off your entire purchase, today through Monday, 11/29. Just enter VITAMINIHOLIDAY2010 in the coupon code box at check-out. Happy Thanksgiving!

Busy Bee.

I've been quite the busy bee lately preparing my Etsy shop for the holiday rush. In addition to stocking my inventory with my usual items, I've whipped up lots of new products as well! I'm really excited about them! I've got new pillows listed in the shop, with both Classic and new Mini prints:

 

 

 This lime green polka dotted number is my personal fave. I also have new holiday cards!

I don't know what I would do if I got a MINI for Christmas, but I know I wouldn't be mad. And speaking of cute MINIs and busy bees, here's a shot of my almost 2 year old niece posing with Max on Halloween. :)

Four years ago, today...

...I went car shopping.

At the time, I didn't know how to drive a manual, so I sat in the front passenger seat during the test drive. The next day I took it for a few jerky rides and we've been rolling ever since. We've come a long way, baby!

I had an auto interior sewing project planned to commemorate the special day, but am currently pretty overwhelmed trying to get my Etsy shop ready for the holidays. Hopefully I'll get to it soon, and I'll share it with you, too!

Cool Clocks.

My faithful kitchen clock died last week. It was nothing particularly special, just a nondescript clock that I got from Target about 5 years ago. After replacing what I thought was a dead battery twice and still getting a perpetually wrong reading, I realized that its time-telling days were over. On my hunt for a new clock, I immediately thought of my dream timepiece: the George Nelson ball clock. 

Designed in 1948, it is a major classic that I hope to own some day. Unfortunately its it is a designer piece with a matching price tag, so I'll be saving my pennies until I can afford one of those bad boys. To occupy my kitchen wall in the meantime, I've decided to make something similar myself! Ok, so that's one more item on my to-do list...Who knows when I will get around to that project (I still have my foot stool to reupholster and my retro side table to refinish) so in the meantime, here are a few of my favorite choices from Etsy!

Vintage Retro Green Wall Clock by christolphe

Burnt Orange Recycled Bike Clock by 1byliz

Wood Panel - Wildflowers by decoylab

Small Doily Clock from andfurthermore

Vintage Russian Alarm Clock from ClockworkUniverse

Green Splat Bamboo Wall Clock from pilotdesign

I would love to have any one of these beauties in my home. And I'll keep you posted on when I finally get around to my own clock project.

Twenty-eight.

It's official. Yesterday was my first day as a 28 year old. I decided to spend the day doing the most mature thing I could think of: playing arcade games at the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. It ended up being so worth it because I hit the 100 ticket jackpot on a delightful game called "Speed Demon." An additional 250 tickets later, we cashed our loot in for 2 Santa Cruz bottle openers, a whistle, and a candle holder. Sounds like a lucky day to me. The rides were closed, but I finally got a chance to take pictures of the Sky Glider.

It was built in 1967 and is actually a compact ski lift! With it's candy colored seats it is surely the cutest ride at the Boardwalk. Maybe next time I'll get to take a ride.

I love lamp.

A few weeks ago, when I scored my dear Elna, I also found this awesome mid-century lamp:

 

It has a white ceramic and teak base with brass fittings. It's 30" tall! At first I thought the shade that it came with was terrible and would have to be replaced, but it's growing on me. It needs to be cleaned, but is actually in pretty good shape. I like the cross-hatched texture, too.  Not bad for $7!

Moo Mini Mini Cards.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent a few nights coming up with some Mini Cooper patterns for my new Moo Mini Cards. I decided to turn them into gift tags. My Mini patterns are printed on the front, and my website is printed on the back, with plenty of room to write "to" and "from." They are going to make great little freebies for my etsy orders. I plan to punch holes and tie them with my new black and white baker's twine. After an agonizing few days wait (so impatient) they were waiting for me in my mail box last friday. I'm thrilled with the way they came out!  I'm having a hard time picking my favorite. First, here are my MINI Argyle cards in candy colors:

Here are my Little MINIs cards with all sorts of sporty MINIs lined up to race!

Ok, fine. I think I know which are my favorites:

Mini and teardrop trailer cards printed in fall colors!  These all came out so cute!
The tiny Mini and trailer doesn't hurt, either. I'll take a full-scale version of each, please.

New MINI Products

I've got a few new products in the works including these new Boot and Bonnet MINI Cooper tea towels. I'm printing them in teal, velvet red, and black and they're coming out great! I'll have them up and listed soon.

I also just found out that my new business cards and gift tags are waiting for me in my mail box at home. I can't wait to see them! I had the tags printed with 3 different Mini designs in so many different colors. I'm ichin' to get home - is it 5 o'clock yet?

*Update: I've listed the black Boot and Bonnet Tea Towel. The other colors are on their way!

Kitchen Plate Wall

I've been planning for a while to put up a plate collection on my big blank kitchen wall. The problem was I didn't have a plate collection. I had a few cool plates that I picked up here and there, but nothing worth hanging up.  So I decided to really buckle-down (and by buckle-down I mean go to thrift stores as frequently as possible in the search of cool plates worthy of my wall). All of this laborious hard work paid off and now I have a pretty decent bunch. 

 I went with mostly a green/blue color scheme with some gold mixed in. One I found a couple of weeks ago says “Carmel By The Sea, Monterey, California.” I grew up in Monterey County, so I had to have that one. The little gold one is Japanese and has a cool landscape scene with Mt. Fuji in the background. There’s a tiny souvenir plate from Reno, a little Limoges saucer that I got for $1, a sweet starburst plate with a big, gold “50” that says “on your golden anniversary.” Here's the wall:

Wow. When I see it like this I wonder why it took me an entire year to put something on it. I think I just got distracted by the rest of the apartment. Yeah...that's what happened...

I started out by laying all of the plates out on the floor in different arrangements. I took pictures of each of them, so I could keep track of all the different combinations I had tried. It also made for a good reference when I was starting to hang the plates up - I could just check my camera and make sure they were all going in the right spot. I ended up choosing the bottom left arrangement. It is balanced, but not totally symmetrical, and is almost mirrored from one side to the other. I measured and marked the centerpoint of the wall with tape, and marked the top and bottom limits as well.  

I started with the dancing coffee plate in the middle and worked my way outwards. I used plate hangers on the large plates and 3M removable picture hangers for the rest, since they are pretty lightweight. Here's the finished product! I'm really happy with the way it came out. Maybe it will keep me from sticking emergency pieces of tape there while I'm screen printing.