Happy Friday... enjoy some weekend awesomeness!

I recently discovered the website 1000 Awesome Things and love it. Nothing crazy like winning the lottery is listed, just those everyday little victories we've all experienced. Just read through the list... there are sure to be tons that make you say "yea!" when you come across them. Some favorites of mine:


#995 Finding money you didn’t even know you lost
#959 Planning for snoozes
#953 When cashiers open up new check-out lanes at the grocery store
#840 Popping Bubble Wrap

Picture from Elizabeth Green on flickr

Wishing you an awesome weekend!

Loving It: Snarky Wine Tags

'Tis the time of year for holiday parties and wine is a common gift to bring your lovely host/ess, but you need a way to make your bottle stand out... enter these hilarious tags from PoppTags:

Originally found via swissmiss

Love the unexpected combination of snarkiness with gorgeous letterpress. Plus, its nice to have a sense of humour around the fact that, while its not the most creative gift in the world, its likely one your friends will enjoy getting!

Chandelier Love

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday (love a 4-day weekend!), I met a friend for lunch at Sepia, a restaurant here in Chicago. Not only do they have yummy food, but I couldn't stop staring at these gorgeous chandeliers they had hanging in the middle of the restaurant.

If I ever have the kind of home with a Dining Room, I may have to steal this idea...!

Craftiness: Handmade Holidays

Every year I intend to make homemade gifts, but rarely am organized enough to make it happen.... but I am determined to make it happen this year! Some items on my to-do list:

• Rag Quilt Letters
  
• Bath Bombs/ Fizzies
  
• Corner Bookmark
  
• Rag Dolls
  
• Memory Game
  

Friday Funny

I came across this funny picture over at Wonderwall & it made me giggle... I always think its so funny when you see a big strong man walking such a fluffy little dog! Not that anyone in our house looks super intimidating walking our munchkins...!

Letterpress at Home

Yesterday I received an email from PaperSource (and my lovely friend Mara- hi!) about their new QuicKutz L Letterpress Machine... it's essentially a tool that will do for Letterpress what Gocco did (sob!) for Screenprinting.


You can read some great reviews all over the web: I liked this one from One Little Spark and Craft Critique (includes a video). You can also see a promotional video of the machine in action here.


From what I am seeing the tool looks very easy to use & seems to produce a nice finished product. Negatives are that they claim you need to use their ink (though I always bought gocco ink & was ok with it...) & that the process seems a bit tedious, especially if you were trying to produce a lot of prints. Thinking of a letterpress wedding invitation, with all the different pieces... yikes!


There are a bunch of plates you can buy (some come with the kit), but because that would be way too straightforward simple for me, I'm really interested to see if the tool would support custom plates (ex: those made by boxcar press). The question seems to be getting echoed throughout blogland, so I am hoping that means we'll have some testers and answers soon! I also found this thread on the QuicKutz forums that seems to indicate that they're planning to also provide a plate-creation option-yay!

Loving It: Isa Form Prints

I adore these super-cute prints from Isa Form, designed by Swedish artist Isabelle Norman Sällström- these first two would be great housewarming gifts & the final one is great for anyone who loves a little motivation. Most prints can be customized with your own text and/or colors.

No Place Like Home

Welcome

Sky's the Limit

You can find all them on her website here.