sprinkles, sprinkles, & more sprinkles

This past weekend I hosted a party in celebration of my 22nd birthday! The party was good, but the preparation was even better. I decided on a confetti-sprinkle theme and may have taken it a little too far, but it was worth every second because I really enjoyed  planning , decorating, and baking everything for it.

I baked confetti-cake cookies, mini cupcakes, and dipped oreos in white chocolate and coated them with sprinkles.

I even made some white chocolate 2s covered in sprinkles for a cake topper.

I baked a vanilla cake and covered it in sprinkles as well.

I bought pink-striped paper straws and then cut hearts out of some white and gold glitter paper to glue on.

I placed the straws in mason jars with sprinkles for an extra touch of cuteness. : )

I also had some rock candy laying around, so I put it in some wine glasses.

I cut circles out of tissue paper and put them inside clear balloons to create confetti filled balloons.

I had some confetti/sprinkle shaped garland hanging on the wall behind the balloons.

Setting up the table was super fun as well.

I rimmed some of my glasses with white chocolate and sprinkles and then made homemade butterbeer to pour in topped with whipped cream.

Favorite shot of the night. I have the best roomies in the world. : )

I had such a wonderful time planning and baking and a lovely time enjoying it with some of my closest friends. I hope this will inspire you to do something special for your next gathering, all it takes a little effort and an teeny tiny bit of creativity.

Caroline : )

practice makes perfect

Late last week I ordered a new calligraphy pen. I’ve been wanting to start working on my lettering and thought a shiny, new pen would keep me excited and motivated to keep going. Well, it came in the mail today! It’s an oblique calligraphy pen, so it’s a little more comfortable to hold and write with. I also bought some new ink. I was able to get a set of 10 colors for under $15. (Blick was having an awesome sale : ) )

I’ll only say that I’m just starting out so I’m a little shaky and hoping to get better with practice. I wanted to document where I am now to be able to look back and see my progress. Tonight, mostly I was just having fun writing phrases. Enjoy! : )

mean girls anyone? …it is Wednesday, after all. ; )

Happy Wednesday everyone, have a great rest of the week!
Caroline : )

a christmas card

So I’ve been on winter break for a week now and after about 6 days of being really lazy, I started putting together most of my christmas presents. I decided I wanted to attempt to create a watercolor christmas card to go along with a few of my presents. So after getting the feel for writing with a painting brush and watercolors I gave it a shot. I’m fairly happy with my first result and hope to make one for each of my lucky gift recipients. : )

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and spend lots of time eating with your families. : )
Caroline

the wonders of watercolor

As you may have been able to figure out by now, when I paint I usually head straight to the canvas with some acrylic paints. Lately though, I’ve been really interested in trying to work with watercolors. The last time I used watercolors must have been when I was…7 years old? I thought it was time to break them out again. I am just in love with the lightness watercolor brings to a painting. I headed over to Blick earlier today and picked up some paper and watercolors. When I got home I couldn’t wait to break them open, they were so beautiful. Here’s what I stocked up on:

I bought these at Blick. They were pretty inexpensive in comparison to some of the others.

While I was shopping elsewhere I stumbled across this entire watercolor kit. Complete with tubed watercolor, brushes, and even a small pad of paper. I’m not sure about the quality, but I figured it was a sign and bought these as well.

Since it’s been such a long time, I just started playing around. I’m hoping once I get the hang of them again I’ll be able to create some beautiful pieces. I was mostly experimenting with colors and shading this time around, but I wanted to show you what I was able to come up with tonight!

Now I only wish I’d painted this larger (it’s only about 2 inches wide) because I’d love to hang it up in my room. Maybe I’ll recreate it some time. I’ll make sure to keep you all updated on my watercolor adventures!

Caroline : )

fetch friends with flair

A little over a week ago I hosted a small get-together  with three of my best friends. We made yummy drinks, cooked fun snacks, and played some hilarious games. : )  I didn’t plan anything too fancy, but I added a few fun things to spice up the night and wanted to share them with you! 

I had some plastic Martini glasses lying around so I set those out. While I was at target collecting some goodies for the night, I stumbled upon these adorable candy necklaces in the dollar section, so I just had to get them. I didn’t know how I would use them immediately, but as I was setting out the glasses I thought they would make great accents for the glasses!

Since there were only four of us, I decided to add a little more personalization by writing place cards for each of us. I got a bit carried away and added some pink confetti at the last second just to add something extra. It’s not the most elaborate or cute thing I’ve ever done, but it was fun and added some flair to a normal get-together. 

Caroline : )

 

skyline themed card

A few weeks ago was my roommate, Neha’s,  birthday. I made a cute sign to hang on her door, so I thought I’d share that. As well as a Chicago skyline themed birthday card I made. (Her boyfriend actually commissioned me to make it for him to give to her, haha) Either way, I think it’s a pretty cool card and wanted to share!

Neha’s birthday door decoration!

: )

Here’s Neha’s skyline inspired birthday card.

: )

For both the door decor and the birthday card, I only used a sharpie. It really shows how little you need to be creative. All you truly need is passion and inspiration. 

Caroline : )

she believed she could, so she did

My sister’s birthday was just a couple weeks ago, so I wanted to share the gift I gave her with you. I knew I wanted to paint her something, but I didn’t know what. We were in Hobby Lobby about a month ago browsing the aisles and she came across this canvas with the quote “She believed she could, so she did.” She commented on how much she loved it. I knew I wanted to do something with that quote but was a little stuck on how to make it more personal. I decided I would paint some floral themed things around the edges of the canvas to frame the quote in the center. I don’t know if you remember, but my sis and I painted one wall in her room mint chevron this past summer. I have a blog post all about that here. Since then, she’s started adding some magenta accents. She bought some really cool magenta chevron pillows, so I knew I wanted to have some pink to make those accents pop. I hardly ever get things right on the first try, and this is no exception. I started to work on a 16×24 canvas. I painted the quote first and then got completely stuck. After a few days with no inspiration, I decided I didn’t like what I had come up with and wanted to started over. I went back to the store and bought a fresh canvas, this time an 18×18. After the first mess up I wanted to make sure I had it all planned out before I started painting. I also bought some white paint pens, which worked much better for the lettering than trying to paint the thin lines of the letters with a paintbrush. Anyways, here’s the finished canvas:

Here’s a close up of some of the details. : )

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It looks great on her wall and brings out the other pink accents around her room perfectly!

Have a great week,
Caroline : )

24th Unisource Paper Show

I know it’s been a little while since I posted and I apologize for that, it’s been a crazy couple of weeks full of family visits, school projects, and presentations. Earlier this week, instead of going to class, a couple of my friends and I decided to attend the Unisource Paper Show.

May not sound too exciting to the average person, but for a graphic designer, it’s pretty much one of the coolest places. Not only do you get to geek out with a bunch of people over paper products, but you get so much free stuff! I just want to take a moment to show some of the amazing things I got to take home. : )

The sheer amount of stuff I brought home was ridiculous. I had 2 full bags, double-lined. Here is just one of them.

There were some incredible posters. This pink one is my fave.

I also got a few really neat swatch booklets.

I grabbed almost everything I saw just because of how well it was all designed.

Even though there’s no use for this, it is one of my favorite things I picked up. An adorable wedding invitation suite for Enve & Lope. How cute, right?

To go along with the whole Enve & Lope story, there were notes to and from each of them that were brilliantly designed as well.

Some blank cards.

This was fantastic. The outside is adorable.

And the inside holds about 8 different blank cards with corresponding envelopes.

These were incredible.

So many blank cards! This is a box full of awesome comic-book inspired cards.

I’d say it was definitely worth missing a class for. ; ) I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Caroline : )

 

cupcakes & craft fairs

Today, I want to tell you about the wonderful weekend I had. On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to make it up to Wicker Park to check out the Renegade Craft Fair.

There were over 300 venders from all over the country! It was a crafter’s paradise. Luckily, I was able to snap a few photos of some of my favorite items I stumbled upon. Enjoy! And if you weren’t able to make it, you can live vicariously through these photos!

The first thing I saw when I walked in were these amazing aztec-inspired necklaces.

I absolutely want this floral mannequin for my room.

These were very interesting. They are handmade guitars, but the bodies are in the shape of a square. Some were made of wood and others of tin. They sounded very incredible too.

There was this amazing piano that people were playing. Even better, this kid was playing Daylight by Matt & Kim.

I think anything with maps is super cool, so naturally I was drawn to these mini-journals.

An entire set of wooden alphabet stamps.

Amazing ‘message’ tape.

I was in love with these wooden gift tags. So great!

There were cards upon cards upon cards. Everywhere I turned, there were adorable hand-written, letterpress cards. ❤

Thank you cards.

These wallets are made from vintage book covers. How cool is that?

These bracelets are also made out of vintage book spines.

He also made necklaces and rings from book covers. They were very interesting.

I also saw a lot of art prints. Typographical or otherwise.

These are hand-carved wooden magnets, incredibly neat.

And what better way to end my weekend than with a Maple Bacon flavored cupcake from Sprinkles? The best.

Have a fantastic week!
Caroline : )

p.s. check me out on facebook if you’d like!

a floral fascination

Tonight, I needed a break. Time to myself. I had a fairly stressful couple of days. Long story short, my hard drive crashed. Luckily, I was able to recover almost everything and had it replaced, which is more than most people can say when their hard drives have crashed. Either way, still a pretty stressful situation to be in. I came home from class today with an urge to paint. I just bought some fresh canvases this past weekend and they were really in need of some paint. I wanted to paint something different, more challenging than what I usually paint. I don’t know if you’ve figured it out by now, but I have a huge fascination with floral, so I decided I would try to paint a flower of some kind. I’m not going to go into as much depth as I usually do with my process, and this is because once I got into the grove of painting, I completely forgot about documentation. Anyways, here’s a very condensed version of my process. : )

My canvas is 18″ by 18″ but I like to plan and sketch before I jump right into the paints, so I cut a square of paper to start.

Then I sketched out the flower I wanted with inspiration from different photographs.

Once I had it all sketched out, I started transferring it onto the canvas.

Very lightly, I sketched out the final design onto the canvas.

And then I just sort of went for it. After a few of the petals I got the hang of it and trusted myself to paint.

Here’s how it turned out!

I have to say, one of my favorite parts of painting is looking at the final mixing palette. So beautiful how the colors melt together.

Have a wonderful night,
Caroline : )

p.s. you can follow me on facebook if you’d like!