Even though I ignored them all season long, my cherry tomato plant pulled through and produced a crop of sweet fruit all on its own. Having too much for a single family to eat, we always share our harvest with friends. For one package, I created a gift box packed full of cherry tomato goodness. These little guys are sweet like candy. Fittingly, both metaphorically and physically, I found an old bright red candy tin to use as a container. The ribbons are book headbands and the card is a vintage miniature playing card scavenged from eBay. The embossed overalled girl licking her lips on the front of the box is too cute for words. Delicious sweetness, indeed.

For my birthday, Nerissa made me a Terrarium Kit with all the parts needed to make a terrarium: rocks, charcoal, soil, decorations and a glass vessel. It’s an awesome gift because I’ve been wanting to make one of these for a while now. You can find lots of instructions on Google and many how-to videos on YouTube. The only tip that I’d add is that an oversized pair of chopsticks works really well for placing objects neatly where hands can’t reach. I put the arrangement below together in half an hour, racing against time as the sun set. For a first attempt, I like it. It’s pretty rewarding to design your own miniature eco-system. I can see why it turns into an obsession for some people.

Recently, we went to my friend Janice’s birthday party for her little boy Kai who turned 1. The party was filled with little packages of popcorn for everyone to help themselves with, party favours in blue packages filled with their favourite teas, water bottles with custom labels, cupcakes and other yummy treats. I like how everything was cute and on-theme. It was lovely how it all came together. With a little imagination, it’s not really that hard to do. It’s mostly finding readymade packaging and re-imagining it by dressing it up with some ink jet stickers and nice simple designs. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Janice is a professional graphic designer (we both worked together at Kevin Louis Design before we went on mat leave). Kids birthday parties are a fun way to make and experiment with DIY projects. And, it’s also an excuse to treat yourself with all the sweets you wished you could eat everyday. Happy Birthday Kai! Thank your mom for a lovely party.

Photographs taken by Jason & Lena from Jaylena Photography.

Yay, I received my bakers twine in the mail today and i’m so excited (my simple pleasures in life)! I found a fantastic site where you can get them super cheap ($8.95 each + shipping). Each twine is a 2-pound cone – that’s approx. 3,400 yards! I got a red and white one and a lime green and white. I’m so loving them!! These should last me for many years.

You can order them here. Happy twine shopping!

Our Weekend Art Project has been making the blog rounds including mentions at Apartment Therapy, How About Orange and Craftzine. Welcome, everybody! Even more exciting is the fact that others have been inspired enough to create their own versions of the painting. Neat to see DIY examples from: A Late Afternoon, Hanna Kim, Holley Simmons and Tabitha Pacheco. Nice work, folks! More to come…Have fun and send us a pic of your creations.

I share a birth date with our friend, Anita Modha. We’re birthday twins, as we like to say. I made this card a couple years back to honor the co-celebrant. The stenciled letter “M” was painted onto a window envelope with neon acrylic paint. The envelope acted as the gift wrap. Using pencil crayon, on a sheet of Eames paper, I filled in a few of the cirles to form an “A” onto the dot pattern. An oversized paper-clip held a couple of Vancouver Art Gallery passes to the sheet. A note was hand scribed onto the back. This formed the card.

When the card was slipped into the envelope, part of the letter “A” is framed in the envelope’s window while the “M” appears to the right forming an abstraction of Anita’s initials. The package was finished off with a thin black ribbon. I still really like this one. It’s simple, graphic, and personalized with just a touch of clever craftiness.

I can never seem to have enough tote bags. Peter’s mom came to visit and stayed with us for a week so I was able to find some time on Friday to sew myself a new tote bag while she happily entertained Luna while she was awake (a nice break for me!). It was really nice to get back into sewing again and having that time to myself.

For those of you who are looking for amazing hand crafted bags and scarves, Breanna Musgrove from Scout & Catalogue who I went to art school with makes the most amazing bags. Each piece is dyed, hand studded and all made with love. Check out her etsy store here.

Glass beer or soda bottles can be used as vases for tall slender cuttings. The weightiness of the bottle keeps it upright and steady. The tapered neck and small mouth gathers the stems snuggly together while keeping the arrangement neatly in place. Look for bottles with a nice shape and labels that are easily scrubbed off. To dress it up, drape some pins over the neck. To get extra sparkle, you can loosely fill the bottle with clear glass marbles. This tends to make water changes and rearrangements a bit fussy, though. So, in this case, we didn’t bother. All that was needed for a finishing touch was Pee Wee Herman.

Finding imaginative vessels to display our garden clippings is always a joy. We found these vintage-looking glass bottles at Ruby Dog’s Art House, near Kingsway and Fraser. They were in a section with test tubes and petri-dishes, so I assume the little bottles are for pills or medicine. In any case, they were a steal at 35¢ a piece. The only catch is that vessels this small, even when filled with water, are really light. They’ll topple over if the clippings they hold aren’t as light as a feather. Pictured from left to right are: (1) a sprig of mint, (2) buds from an unknown shrub, (3) bamboo leaves, (4) chive flower, (5) berries from an unknown shrub. Thanks in advance, if you can ID numbers 2 and 5 for us.

Aoi, daughter of our friends Doni and Genevieve, celebrated her 4th birthday today. We wanted to get Aoi something creative for birthday gift. We found a wood box at Rudy Dog’s Art House and filled it with various activity items from the store such as letter puzzle pieces and sticker sets. One door down from Rudy Dog is Collage Collage where we filled the rest of the box with crayons, necklace beads and little toys. We glued some of the letter puzzle pieces to the front of the box spelling out A-O-I in a crossword pattern. The box was tied up with a red ribbon and we attached a wooden gift tag to the ribbon with a mini-clothespin. We love the wood box. It’s only $3 which is cheaper than a sheet of wrapping paper and it’s reusable!

We’ve been on a lookout for a high chair for Luna the past weeks. Instead of buying a brand new high chair, we decided to go for a used one and customize it. I found this wooden high chair on craigslist for $25.00. It had a nice shape to it so I bought it, sanded it, primed it then painted it red. A small can of paint was $20.00 so all in all, her high chair only cost us $45.00! It’s a great looking high chair for a small price tag. And, it was customized especially for her.

We made a painting this weekend! We’ve been wanting a large scale art-piece to go up on our dining room wall. We had a large framed photograph up but, at 26″ x 32″, it didn’t have the right scale for the room. We wanted to go big. Like, 60″ x 36″ big. Now the last time either of us did any painting was in art school. Back then we didn’t enjoy it much, mostly because neither of us were particularly good at it. Undeterred, we gave it a try. Things tend to be more enjoyable when you do them for yourself and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Inspired by color field paintings, I made a sketch in Illustrator and we tried different color combinations til we were happy. Then it was off to the local art store to buy the acrylic paint, the canvas and some 1/4″ painters tape. A few hours later, we were done and it was up on the wall. We’re enjoying it. It’s the bold, large-scale signature piece the room has been waiting for. We call the piece………“Untitled.”

Update: To complete the dining area, we painted a high chair red to add another splash of color to the room. View the post “Red High Chair” for the full room view. And, check out the DIY/Make section for more project ideas.

Spring is here and the flowers are starting to bloom. However, none of our flowers right now are big enough for a regular size vase. So, I created a mini-centerpiece using a spare spice jar as a vessel. The flowers are crocuses which were the first to sprout up in the backyard. Our rosemary bush stays vibrant all year long and I added a sprig for color & contrast. The cut crocuses opened wide shortly after hitting the water but the delicate, paper-thin petals are starting to expire after only a few days. No worries. We have lots and they’re all free for the picking.

I wanted to put together a special package for Valentine’s for Nerissa. While searching through our hard drive, I found a photograph of scooters and macarons Nerissa shot in Paris. It’s a beautiful image and it was a shame it only existed in our digital archives. I came up with the idea of printing and framing the photograph and packaging it with a set of macarons. Unfortunately, sourcing macaroons in Vancouver was more difficult than I anticipated. There was none to be found near home or near work. With a little one in the house it’s hard to sneak out on long secret missions and I wasn’t able to put all the pieces together for the 14th. Luckily, the next special occassion, Nerissa’s birthday, is soon after Valentine’s. Perfect timing since I figured I would need one or two more weeks to get everything together.

I sent a message out on Twitter asking where in Vancouver I could find macarons. I was told La Baguette et L’Echalote on Granville Island or Thomas Haas. I chose Thomas Haas. I then packaged the macarons in a Ladurée souvenir box we bought in Paris; fitting since Ladurée started Nerissa’s macaron obsession. The framed photo and box of macarons were stacked together, tied with a ribbon and, viola, there it is. Bon Anniversaire!

Peter gathered all the green chilies we had growing out in the garden and I was surprised to see almost a full bowl of chilies! There was no way the two of us could use that many chilies so we decided to share some and give them away as presents. We gathered bunches of peppers together and created custom packets for each. We experimented with simple paper/tape techniques, different ways to tie thread and finished it off with an ink-jet sticker label.

(Updated: Jan. 30, 2010 with new photos.)

How time flies…I can’t believe it was 5 years ago when Peter and I were making journals which we called Bricolage. I had a lot of fun making these journals. I would spend my days searching for great fabrics in the city then would excitedly go home to start making. We were living in a tiny condo in Downtown at that time (I think it was 550 sq ft!) so I would practically use the whole space as my working studio. I had fabrics all over the floor, ironing board in the middle of the living room and stacks of journals in every corner of our condo. It was really great fun! Peter’s job as soon as he got home from work was to make all the pins with the little hand-held pin maker we bought.

When I started making these journals, I honestly didn’t think anyone would buy them. But as soon as the orders started coming, I was really excited that people wanted them. I had orders from Europe, Canada & the States plus I had a store in Belgium that ordered a few dozen. I was happily busy!

After a few months, our journals were sold-out and I was ready to start something new. That was 5 years ago! Now that I am on maternity leave, and spend my days at home, I am ready to start making products again. I am so excited! I’ve started working on it already but things just take a little longer to do now with a baby in the house. As soon as it’s nap time, I quickly run to our studio and squeeze in as much creative time as I can get (vacuuming and other household chores have been ignored…they can wait!). I hope to launch our new products in late Spring or early Summer. They’re not books this time. Stay tuned!

On another note, our DIY Place Cards have been featured in a design and style blog called Paper n Stitch. Thanks Brittni!

I had a housewarming dinner party with my friends from work last year and I decided to make it a little bit more special by making everyone their own place cards that they could take home with them. I chose my favourite origami patterns and created little envelopes by folding the origami paper in half and stitching the side for a more hand crafted look. And to make it even more fun, I put random goodies inside each envelope which everyone excitedly opened to see what they got. It was like Christmas all over again!

I always like dinner with friends to be more interactive and add an element of playfulness to it. These are super easy to make and your guests gets to take home something special that you personally made for them.

Our DIY Eames chocolate bars has been featured in Modern Findings – a blog that features all things mid-century modern.

Girls day with my neices Sarah-Jane and Isabelle meant a chance to spend quality creative time together. We took turns making throw-pillow covers. It was fun, easy and they both get to bring home something memorable to decorate their rooms with. See you soon, Sarah and Izzy.

I was able to squeeze in another sewing day for myself so I took the opportunity to make myself a tote bag. I’ve had the book Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter for quite sometime now but I just never had the time to make anything from that book. It’s such a wonderful book with so many easy and fun sewing projects for the home. I’m obsessed!

We often like to wrap presents in newsprint or butcher paper. It has a nice raw texture and neutral palette. All you need is some nice ribbon to finish it off but sometimes you just want a splash of pattern. A couple months back, YouWorkForThem was clearing out their book collection. They were practically giving away their newsprint zine, “Sentence 01“, for 95¢. A different artist designed each page of the 16 page zine full of abstract black and white imagery. At the risk of offending the artists and author, I bought three copies not to read but for the sole purpose of using each sheet of the zine as wrapping paper. And it works wonderfully. Rissa put the package above together for Doni, Gen & Aoi. Inside is a loaf of home baked cinnamon raisin bread (Rissa’s go to gift for 2009). Newsprint ink tends to run, so if you don’t want ink on your gift, you’ll want to wrap your gift in an additional layer. In this case, Rissa wrapped the raisin bread in cling wrap before wrapping it in the newsprint.

Below is a gift given to Luna by my sister also nicely wrapped in newsprint with a simple pattern of chinese characters. So simple. So lovely.

Fifteen more days until Christmas. Yay! I usually like to make something festive every year to give to friends. In the past, I’ve made cards, notebooks, baked goods etc… This year, I’ve decided to make Christmas cards to send out to our lovely friends. This is the most realistic task I can do as lately, Luna decided that she wanted to be in my arms ALL DAY! So the idea of baking Christmas goods have been scratched off my list including other crafts that needed cutting and gluing. There’s only so much I can do with one arm!

So I’ve been sitting in front of the computer designing these cards the past few days. As I am designing them, Luna is laying in my arms fast asleep & snoring away. But having a baby at home also means that things just take longer to get done which is something I am still getting used to. When she cries, I have to get up and cradle her to put her back to sleep. When she’s hungry, she cries for milk so I have to move to the couch to nurse her. But having her always so close to me is really so special. She will never, ever be this small again.

When I started designing these cards, I wanted to stay away from the typical Christmas shapes, ornaments and colours used to design anything for Christmas. Though, I still wanted it to look fun and festive. The base pattern shapes are taken from Kids & Toys Petite Pattern Book which is full of fun patterns you can customize or use as is. The colours I used are inspired by what I see outside my window. The chilly winter air, smoke from chimneys, fallen branches, pine cones… Yes, this is winter!  These cards have been printed using my epson printer on card stock.

I hope to send out these cards within a day or two so it can soon find it’s new home. Happy Holidays everyone!

The day I started my maternity leave, I had a list of personal projects I wanted to work on like making throw pillows, designing posters, cards etc… But I guess Luna had enough being cooped up in a dark watery world in my tummy and decided to come out 2.5 weeks early. We were shocked but super happy to meet her early!

Having a baby at home means doing as much as you can while they are fast asleep. While Luna was snoring away this morning, I finally was able to make her throw pillow. I love how easy and fast it is to make one. I plan to make a few more but I’m on the hunt for nice fabrics. Next task on my list: finishing up her birth announcement cards!

Rissa and I are currently working on Luna’s birth announcement. We sketched up some ideas together on the weekend. Rissa spent yesterday reformatting some of them into InDesign files to print out and mock-up on paper. Other than posing for cute photos, Luna wasn’t actually too helpful on this task. Her favorite activities continue to be eating, sleeping – I think she dreams about swimming in rivers and oceans of milk – and something new: stretching out and exercising her limbs. Maybe one day soon she’ll have fun putting stuff together with mom and dad. We’re hoping to finalize the design and production this week and send off the announcements asap.

Peter and I wanted to make something special as giveaway presents at our baby shower. We were constantly bouncing ideas with each other on what to make, or what to bake… So after days and days of coming up with different ideas, we settled on something so special – chocolate bars wrapped up with our collection of Eames paper!

This is a simple project anyone can do. We headed to a grocery store after work and bought organic chocolates with hazelnuts. But we made sure these chocolate bars were wrapped with aluminum foil as it would look nicer once we customize the packaging. We removed the outer paper covers and replaced it with nice bold prints. Peter was in charge of designing the tags and I voted to be in charge of choosing which Eames paper to use and carefully wrapping them individually and got creative with the ribboning.

Our friends loved them and we were happy to have made something special for them. The joy of making and giving things to friends!

Peter and I always have so much fun making things together. We had music playing, pieces of ribbon & paper all over the table and floor… It makes me realize even more how much I love our studio space as we are able to make things together!