"A party without Cake is just a meeting" Art Journal page

The past few days have been so incredibly gloomy. We've had a whole lotta rain! I can gauge the amount by going into my laundry room and measuring how full all of the various buckets are. Yep, we're still without a ceiling in there. But repairs are imminent. (waiting on the Insurance Co.)

This weather is just plain crummy. It's nearly April but it's looking like February out there. We want Spring to arrive so badly, and while we patiently wait we're doing whatever we can to prepare. Lots of cleaning and organizing in anticipation of Spring afternoons full of creating with the windows open and warm sun beating on our work table. We pulled out our Canon Selphy while dusting and organizing, and realized it had been a very long time since we last used it. We had to smack ourselves for neglecting this wonderful little tool for so long, and we refused to put it away without first putting it to use. My Art Journal was close at hand, and within moments a plan was hatched for a pretty page that would have a Selphy print as it's focal point. The rest of the day's Spring cleaning would have to wait. ;)

What is a Canon Selphyyou might ask? Well, it is an incredibly cute tiny little portable printer! Which also happens to be wireless. You can print directly from your phone or iPad! It is so perfect for scrapbooking, art journaling, or just printing photos quickly. And being able to print photos perfectly, and at a moment's notice is awesome. We are big fans of printing photos for inspiration boards, or for quick handmade cards...and for Art Journal projects like this one. Using the Selphy wirelessly with your phone or other devices is as simple as downloading the free app. It prints on 4 x 6 paper, and it's so fun to watch it print...the way the paper feeds into the front and then peeks out the back, each time it passes through the machine it picks up another color, yellow, then pink, then blue, etc...Like getting to see the inner workings of a tiny print shop. 

I wanted to print an instagram photo, which is square, so I also used the app Afterlight to resize it, which gave me room on the top and bottom to trim. You can also use apps like Picstich to print two photos side by side.

I love this photo! It's so sweet. A fave faux cake of ours on top of one of the papers from our paper collection. This made for a good starting point...and made it pretty easy for us to gather corresponding papers for the page. I started with a fresh page from my Art Journal and then laid out some supplies, including papers from our collection...the pink striped paper is the b-side of our paper titled "Ballerina Cupcakes", and the other is called "Hooray For Cake" (for obvious reasons!). 

paper info: 

 Melissa Frances, The Sweet Life: "Ballerina Cupcakes"

Melissa Frances, The Sweet Life: "Hooray For Cake"

It's awesome to have your very own paper collection to work with. But what's also awesome is making your own patterned papers at a moment's notice. I had a very specific idea in mind and it was easy to execute. On a piece of plain white watercolor paper (you could also use cardstock), I watered down some acrylic craft paints, and splattered my page. 

Then when it was dry, using a sharpie pen, I wrote my quote. It is one of my favorite lines ever from the incomparable Julia Child. It just might be the truest sentence ever spoken in the English language. ha!

 I made sure to position my letters so that I got speckles of color in and around my letters. I then cut out the words, leaving a good amount of space around each word so that I'd get more of the speckled paper. 

I added some photo corners to my trimmed cake print, and cut out some doilies from a favorite paper. 

paper info:

Crate Paper, Style Board: "Vintage Charm" 

Next, for the main background I adhered the pink striped paper to my page. I used matte gel medium, but you could use whatever you like. I then cut out a frame/border. To get it symmetrical I used a piece of tracing paper, drew a quarter of the outline shape, then folded in half to repeat the image, just like we did as kids when cutting out a perfect heart. I then traced the shape onto the patterned paper, reversed the tracing, and traced the other side on. So I had the left and right portions of border. Having it divided into two pieces made it easier to adhere to the page. Again, I used gel medium to adhere it.

Next, to add a bit of depth and vintage feel, I watered down some tan paint and used a small round detail brush to float the wash around the edge separating the border from the background.

Next I adhered my doilies, photo, and words. 

Distressing with paint is one of our favorite go-to additions to pages, even though this is more of a clean scrapbookish type of page. I wanted to add a little bit of messy to it...just a pop of color to the edge of my page. With my finger tip I just rubbed a bit of aqua paint on the edges...the perfect amount of pretty imperfection.

Next I used a paint brush to coat my foam Thickers with a thin layer of mod podge, and then poured on one of my favorite accents from Martha Stewart Crafts...Luster Glass Microbeads in "Feldspar".

 I could have just left the Thickers plain, but the microbeads felt as if I was sprinkling sprinkles on a cake or cupcake. Plus, more texture is always welcome! 

I love how it looks! I also added a few pink sequins, which sorta resembles tossed confetti at a party.

I felt like the page needed some flowery bits. So I grabbed another one of our papers from The Sweet Life collection titled "Bits & Pieces". The paper is a patchwork page with a bunch of pretty handpainted bits that can be cut out individually. These classic floral clusters can be used in so many ways.

They are similar to the tiny florals we painted on our Hooray For Cakes paper...they also perfectly mimic the roses on the cake in the photo! To fancy it up a bit more, and to add some always welcome texture, I added a little bit of gold thread, which I adhered to the bottom right of my photo, and then glued the floral cluster on top of it.

I also added some tiny wood veneer dots here and there, which I covered in chocolate brown glitter and more of my aqua beads.

It's a simple and sweet page. Very often I like to get very messy and free with paint, like in my abstract paintings. But sometimes I like things to be cleaner...just neat, fresh, and bright.

Here it is finished. Just a sweet little journal page, which came out of nowhere really. The mundane act of dusting shelves lead to pulling out supplies, and next thing ya know...a few hours later, I've got a sweet spread in my Art Journal. And the main elements are from our very own paper collection! 

Oh, and it goes without saying...but I'll say it anyway...We are just so so excited to be seeing our paper collection showing up in stores! If you've purchased it and have created anything with it, we'd LOVE to see pics! 

If you enjoyed this project you may love our book!

Happy Sunday friends!

xo Jenny...and Aaron says hi!

Friday Favorites

So, as you know, me and Aaron work side by side each day. Or if not exactly side by side, at the farthest, we're one room away from each other. What I'm trying to say is that my day is his day, and his day is my day. The energy that propels us is shared. And as an artistic duo, the idea of sharing energy can either be a gift or a curse. It's just as easy for one of us to bring the other down as it is for one of us to inspire the other. 

But after all these years together we've learned a trick or two for keeping things light and staying inspired. I guess if I had one criticism for Aaron's artistic process I would say he doesn't take enough time for inspiration. Just today he was working on a new painting and adding finishing touches to a kit that we're making, and he was lagging a bit. So I told him to stop, put all the work aside, and take some time to just look at stuff. We then spent the next half hour flipping through old photos, stacks of scrapbooking papers, all sorts of supplies, old books, and then we pored over Pinterest. After all that he said he was totally psyched to get back to work. Very often I will take the time to just set everything aside so that I can look at the things I love. Aaron doesn't do this enough, and from now on I'm going to make sure that he does. It's a vital part of the artistic process. It works as a little reminder. It tells you "See...this is why you do what you do. You make things that are inspired by these other wonderful things. And hopefully you'll make things that will inspire others to make things." ...maybe not those words or thoughts exactly...but something along those lines. The whole artistic process is cyclical and fluid. We're inspired and we inspire. 

And by the way...all of these Friday Favorites are things that Aaron and I looked at today when he needed a boost in his artistic process. I think the above print from Artist Courtney Blair perfectly illustrates the mood of the day. It's available at Help Ink, which is an awesome site if you want to buy amazing art and donate to charity simultaneously...and why in the world wouldn't you want to do that!?! Help Ink has a list of worthy charities on their site, and when you spend $5.00 Help Ink gives $1.00 to the charity of your choice from that great list. So cool. 

I recently found out about Dot & Bo  and it didn't take long for me to fall in love with their handpicked items from all over the world. Dot & Bo is free to join and they offer new and fantastic sales daily! I am loving the locker cart above.  Yes, I know, I'm a bit of a cart addict...but this one isn't just a cart. It's half-locker for pete's sake!

And this clock is also from Dot & Bo! I love it...all caged and industrial. Such a great look. 

You gotta check out this incredibly adorable tutorial for making kitty planters. Made from...ready for this??...soda bottles! Yep, I think this will be one of our first outdoor Spring projects.

This seriously speaks to me. I talk about this so often with Aaron. Just working hard, getting the most out of your day, and sleeping heavy when your head hits the pillow, because you know that you did every single thing that you could have done. And then waking up again and knowing that you'll do it all again. That type of existence would make me proud. 

The Gingham's Up jacket  from Hello Holiday is my idea of the perfect Spring jacket. I like those Spring nights that are cool and slightly breezy. Down the Jersey Shore all the boardwalks open on Easter Sunday. The weather is usually a bit chilly, but after such a long harsh winter you'll take what you can get. On Easter Sunday people hit the boardwalks en masse. The scent of boardwalk french fries drifting on the cool ocean breeze is heavenly. Anyway, in this particular daydream I'd be wearing this jacket. ha! 

Oh yeah...so this is this is my internet kitty crush of the week. I found him on pinterest. I may have to play detective to track him down and see if he has an instagram or you tube channel.

Isn't this Rose Buttercream Cake just so pretty. I mean, I would eat it and all...but first I'd have enough reverence to actually look at it for a little while. I'm no heathen! But seriously...this is precisely why me and Aaron paint cakes. 

Ok, thanks again for checking out my Friday Faves! I hope you found some inspiration!

xo, Jenny...and Aaron says hi! 

A little peek at our work-in-progress kitchen

Our kitchen makeover is beginning to feel like it should bear the title "the never ending story". And it's not that we're slow workers, or that there is an insane amount of work to be done. The reason this project has been dragging on and on is because we've got so many other things in the works. But that's the best way to keep things interesting.

 Right now we're in the final stages. Tightening up the little details, arranging, and then rearranging. One of the little details that makes a huge difference to the overall look is the scallop border that we added to our half wall of tan. Last week when I had shared a tutorial for my Mixed Media Cute Girl Ornaments, I included the below pic of the finished ornaments hanging on our tabletop tree, and you could spy the incomplete half wall in the background. And truth be told...I can't stand seeing pics with unfinished projects. I find myself wanting to time travel so I can fix things to the way they should be. So, there's the half wall of tan...plain, boring, without flair. ha! 

My plan was to top the half wall with a scallop border...very much like we did with the walls in our studio. We shared a tutorial for that, and it's pretty much done exactly the same, except the scallop that's on the studio walls is much larger.

For the kitchen we wanted a small cute scallop to soften the line between the top and bottom portion of the wall. The little scallop trim transforms the half wall. Without the scallop, a half wall can look institutional or industrial. With the scallop, it can look like Grandma's vintage kitchen.

Aaron is the technical guy. For the most part, when we do stuff that is symmetrical or requires a ruler, Aaron will handle that part of the project. I believe he used the lid of a jar to trace the half circle shape for the scallop border. He used a yardstick to draw a long line on a piece of poster board, then repeatedly traced a half circle with the jar lid, and then he cut it out...voila: scallop border template complete. 

Next, he went around the room and with a pencil he traced the scallop border all along the top of the tan half wall. And then after that he handed me a 3/4" round paint brush and said "get to work little lady". Yep, we had to delegate...while I painted the scallops, Aaron was sanding die cuts.

I know...when you see those hundreds of little scallops it might appear as if I got a raw deal. But honestly, it looks way more difficult than it actually was. It's all about using the right sized and shaped paint brush. The scallops were easy to paint...just one curved stroke...repeated hundreds of times...but simple nonetheless. Kinda the same strokes as painting your nails.

I love the way it turned out. It just completed the look we were going for. Soft and sweet. And you may notice that some things that were hanging on the wall have changed locations. Namely, our new shadow boxes. We found a better spot for those, and we'll share those pics when that part of the kitchen/dining room is complete. I was happy to give our "Cakes" chalkboard a central spot on the wall. We've had this piece going on 15 years.

And we've had these adorable oversized Fork and Spoon candle holders even longer than that. I love these. When picking paint colors for our kitchen I kept pulling these out to make sure that the paint that we picked would coordinate nicely with them.

And yet another little paint project. This awesome shelf! It needed some lightening up. 

You may remember it from our kitchen decor, pre hurricane Sandy. When we first moved into the house we painted all the walls bright white, and painted most of the fixtures and accents black. So...here is this corner of the kitchen as it was prior to hurricane Sandy. And you can see the new incarnation of this exact corner below.

Here it is. Now with a chalkboard wall and stainless shelves. Everything but our "Eat" sign has changed.

And here's the newly lightened up shelf. It looked great when it was black but it simply did not work with the new decor. I'm going for a softer look overall. I love the way my creamy, crazed, and cracked platters look hanging on this wall. And the shelf, now that it's creamy white with aqua spindles, is the perfect place to display my little vintage baking items.

And having the black paint underneath worked out great when I lightly distressed the edges of the shelf. 

These are new to my collection and I love them! Got them on ebay. Funny story...I was trying to get them with a last minute bid but I had forgotten all about the auction and totally missed out. And the opening bid was 99 cents! Well, it turned out that nobody bid on them. So, the owner re-listed them...and when they did I contacted them and asked if they'd consider putting a buy-it-now price. They said "make me and offer."...So I said, "how about 2 bucks?" (since they were listed at 99 cents).

But then I never heard back from the seller. Maybe the 2 buck suggestion was an insult? ha! Anyway, long story short...this time I didn't forget to bid...and I got them for the cool price of 99 cents! yessssss! 

Clearing out our cabinets and came across so much vintage melamine. I'm a sucker for this stuff!

I love these vintage Baileys teacups. They were a gift from my mom many years ago. They crack me up.

And as we clean up, redecorate, and rearrange, one thing becomes apparent...We've got a whole lotta faux cakes hanging around! I caught this group just chillin' on this old bench, acting like they don't have a care in the world. Seriously, people are secondary citizens in our kitchen...you must give up your seat to cakes. I think this is just a temporary home for these guys. They'll find proper spots soon enough.

That's it for the mini tour of our work in progress kitchen. Once Spring hits for real we'll be re-painting our kitchen cabinets and sanding and refinishing the wood floors. We're waiting for warm weather obviously so that we can have the windows open for those projects. Ok, thanks again for checking in! 

xo, Jenny...and Aaron says hi!

Meet our Feature Sponsor: Pei Li the Miniature Patisserie Chef

One of our very favorite things to do is to share. Share art, art techniques, vintage finds, recipes, favorite blogs... And what's most rewarding is to share the work of our talented friends. Every once in a while we come across an artist who's work is right up our alley. And currently, that credit goes to miniature artist Pei Li! Her work hits me on several levels. First, the sheer cuteness of her miniatures absolutely tickles my heart. Her choice in subject matter is exactly what the doctor ordered...I love the itty bitty macarons, and the diminutive cakes and cupcakes with their icing and frosting that looks tastier than the real thing. The next thing that grabs me is her color palette...so soft, dreamy, and enchanting. And then, what completes my love for her work is the admiration I have for her technical mastery. As a lifelong professional artist I have firsthand knowledge of the effort that this type of work requires. (though my work isn't even a fraction as demanding) In looking at Pei Li's art, and seeing the attention to perfect detail, the pieces come alive...they are physical embodiments of her passion and dedication.
We are honored to have Pei Li as our Featured Sponsor this month. It's a thrill to be able to share all these adorable pics of her work. And she was sweet enough to take the time for a little Q & A so that we can all get to know her a little better. Enjoy! 

What is your name and/or business and blog name?

    Hi, my name is Pei Li and my business name is Pei Li Miniatures. I'm also known as the Miniature Patisserie Chef.

What do you do? ...and when did you start?

     I started making 1:12 scale dollhouse miniatures after taking a class teaching paper clay in 2005. I never looked back since and have been making miniatures. I opened my Etsy shop in 2008 and after a few years, I also started to turn some of my creations into cute jewelry items. After another few years, I had my own website where I slowly started to sell some supplies and teach individual workshops locally in Singapore. 

What/Who are you inspired by?

   I get a lot of inspiration in real life....such as shops that I visited, or photos and pictures that I see on Pinterest, or in magazines. I love the zakka style, as well as the shabby chic, feminine style. A lot of the creations that I create are a reflection of the things that I love in real life: desserts, pastries, home decor, flowers etc.

Where do you create? home studio? kitchen table? sofa?

   I currently live with my family in Singapore. All my crafting is done in my own bedroom. I have a long work desk, and I usually craft while listening to music or videos! I really do listen to videos more than watching them as I need to pay attention while I'm crafting. When I conduct classes, depending on situation, I will do that in my kitchen or dining room. 

What are some of your fave movies/shows/bands/music?

   I listen to a variety of music, and what I like listening to largely depends on my mood. Sometimes I like classical music, or flute pieces combined with nature sounds. I find that really relaxing! On most days, my music playlist is comprised of songs by Samantha James, Sade, Blue Six and Urban Humming Stereo.

 Do you collect anything?

  When I was a kid, I used to collect stamps, post cards, stickers and letter pads. I outgrew that, and then before I started making miniatures,  I collected cross stitch magazines, charts and books. As for miniatures, I am more selective and do keep a few items that hold a special place in my heart. 

 Favorite art/craft supplies?

  My favourite craft supply would have to be air dry clay, which is what I use mostly in my work. I'm also a fanatic of paints, from acrylic paints, to oil paints to watercolours. I have quite a large collection when it comes to paints as it is also one of the important supplies that helps to transform my work. I experiment with different kinds of paint and am always excited to try different things.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

  I don't really have a long road map. All I know is that in 5 years time, it will be a blessing to be enjoying what I'm still doing, continuing my creative journey, being happy, contented and healthy! 

Three favorite websites/blogs/shops...etc?

  Pinterest is definitely one of my favourite websites, I get so happy and inspired when I see beautiful things! 

Another one of my favourite websites will be Zita Elze. From her website, you can find other resources to view her fantastic flower work. My work has no resemblance to her style, but it is her dedication to artistry that inspires me to strive for the same in my course of work.

Is there anything else you'd like to add? 

  Being able to share my love for dollhouse miniatures on the internet has been one wonderful journey. Having people telling me they smiled when they see my creations brings an unexplainable sense of happiness. And oh, I don't have a dollhouse, if you ask me (due to tight space constraints), but it doesn't stop me from making these mini accessories! 

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Isn't she great?! We'd love for you to pop over to Pei Li's blog and say hi! And it would be extra sweet if you let her know that Jenny & Aaron sent you. Thanks so much again. We hope you love what you see!
xo, Jenny & Aaron