A little Holiday recap…and Happy New Year!!

Oh geez! Where has the time gone?! We had no intention of taking a nearly month long break from blogging, but as soon as we listed our handmade ornaments in the shop and posted a few pics of them on Facebook and Instagram, it was off to the races! The orders poured in, and literally overnight we found ourselves working 17 hour days. Next thing we knew, weeks had passed, Christmas showed up out of the blue, and in that blur of weeks this poor little blog sat here all alone…not a post in sight. 

 Hundreds of ornies took over our lives. 

Cutting and cutting and cutting. You'd be surprised at how physically demanding it is. Oh man were our necks sore! And our hands had blisters and cramps. I'm sure many of you fellow makers know all about it. We're all guilty of "hand abuse" for sure. 

 The ornies you see above are in the "rough cut" stage. We use scissors for this stage, and then use an x-acto for the final fine cuts. Then each is hand sanded like crazy, and some even get hand painted details to finish them off. 

We are so happy when we get to this stage…all wrapped up in their cellophane sleeves, with pink shred and shimmery stars. 

All set and ready to be shipped off to all corners of the globe. 

Our tiny studio quickly overflowed, so we set up a big folding table right in the middle of our living room. 

And it wasn't just ornaments. There were lots and lots of diecuts too. 

The end of each day looked like this.

And this.

And this.

So we were surrounded with all this Christmas cheer, but by the end of each day it was packed and shipped off to other homes. We honestly thought we wouldn't have the time to decorate our home for the holidays. But little by little we started to pull it together…starting with our fave wreath vignette.

And we simply couldn't imagine not putting up the tree. We pulled out our vintage ornaments, and stole as many decorating minutes as we could each night.

We woke our sweet pink haired angel girl from her year long nap…and she took her place of honor atop our tree.

We didn't hang as many ornaments as last year...but I think we still managed to achieve our ideal balance of magical and sweet.

Honestly, our studio, kitchen, dining room, and half of our living room was absolutely overcome with work stuff. So we made sure to reserve this one corner of our home as our own personal magical holiday refuge.  

We love the addition of our falalalala banner.

Our fave decorations of all…first up, our little peanut, Lt. Dan.

And our little old man Carlos, the copycat…I mean, dog.

So we worked hard right through December 23rd, and then spent Christmas Eve cooking and baking. Our families depend on me to provide the Red Velvet cupcakes. And I love baking them. 

We spent Christmas day over at Aar's parent's house, and as always, we had a super great time. And on the day after Christmas we went to my brother's house. My parents drove all the way down from upstate NY, but my brother Jason had to stay up there because he had to work. It was a bummer not seeing him for Christmas. : ( But we will make sure to make it happen next year. We had a great time. Our niece Olivia has grown so much. Like all girls her age, she's Frozen obsessed…and oh boy, do you see that frosting up above? Well, lets just say Olivia had her fair share of it…and she was absolutely zooming on sugar…hilarious! 

A video posted by Jenny Holiday (@jennyeveryday) on Dec 12, 2014 at 11:10am PST

This is a Flipagram summing up our year. 

2014 was definitely a year we will remember. We launched our first paper collection, got to see our book in stores everywhere, we made a whole lot of new artwork and shipped it all over the world, worked on some important home projects, traveled to some awesome teaching events, and made lots of new friends! We also will remember the year with both sadness and joy...we lost our beloved little Jack, but then we turned utter heartbreak into pure happiness when we adopted Lt. Dan. And our old man Carlos is thrilled to have his new baby brother. 

We like to keep our holiday decorations up until New Year's day. But we'll make little changes here and there…like changing our falalalala for this Happy New Year banner.

I guess we'll bring this blog post and this year to a close. It really was a pretty special year, but we look forward to making 2015 as awesome as possible. 

Thanks so much to all of you for sticking with us, and reading this blog, and keeping up with everything we've been up to. We hope to see you lots more in 2015!

Happy New Year!

xoxo, Jenny, Aaron, Carlos, and Lieutenant Dan!

Friday Favorites

Oh my gosh, excuse me while I take a deep breath. I have been buried under piles of ornaments-in-the-making for the past week or so. Cutting and pasting, cutting some more, trimming and sanding, stringing and sealing…all of this over and over and over again. We are deep in that holidaze! Days are just totally melting into one another. Of course we are thrilled beyond belief to be creating these pieces that will be sent off to happy holiday homes! And of course we're making stuff other than ornaments. Lots of in-progress diecuts and signs are lying around on any available flat surface, and Aaron has been perpetually coated with a thin layer of sawdust. We'll be sure to pop in and blog a little behind-the-scenes stuff at some point in the next few days. 

But for now, while I pause for a big glass of seltzer and some puppy cuddles, here are some Friday Favorites! 

I've been a fan of Dottie Dollie brooches for a long time. And I'm embarrassed to say that I have yet to purchase one. I guess I've been waiting for the perfect little gal to come along. And I think I may have found her! Her name is Rose.

 She's handmade from paperclay, and handpainted with acrylic paint and soft pastels. Dottie Dollie has so many darling pieces to choose from! You have to check out the shop! 

I just adore these latte mugs from NS Pottery. I just love simple designs…basic stripes and polka dots in classic black and white. And I love the roughly hewn paint strokes. Mugs are sorta like intimate objects and we have a very up close and personal relationship with them, so it makes sense that the patterns bear so much of a "human touch".

I am such a sucker for old photos, cabinet cards, tintypes... We've been collecting them for years, and we especially love old portraits. We have a fabulous photo portrait pillow that we found at IKEA a few years ago.

Recently I came across this fellow while browsing on Curious Sofa, and I just had to add him to my holiday wish list! He'd look pretty great in our living room .

I honestly can't remember the last time I shopped at Gap, but the other night I was just clicking around the interwebs and I ended up on Gap's website, and there was this outfit. It is just sooo cute! So classic! I love the fair isle oversize turtleneck paired with the all black skirt, leggings, and shoes…perfect! Too bad the sweater is sold out. 

I love this black and gold Starry Skies cross body bag by Milkhaus Design, available from Moorea Seal. I think it is kinda perfect for day, night, and all year round! Oh, and Moorea is having a Secret Sale! Take 15% off all bags and scarves With code: SECRETSANTA Sale ends today!

This free DIY Printable Christmas Village from "Thoughts from Alice" is so incredibly charming. It's childlike and sophisticated at the same time, very much like a Hilary Knight illustration. 

It comes as a nine piece set including a church, town buildings, a city hall building, a cozy house, two little carolers, a snowman and lamppost, a decorated town tree, and two vintage cars taking their Christmas trees home! 

It's so cool of "Thoughts from Alice" for sharing these so you too can make them part of your holiday display. Just click the link above, and print them out on card stock! And if you do… she'd love to see pics! …so would I!  ;)

If you're reading this blog, chances are you have browsed our shop. But to get to the shop you probably just click the link and don't really pay attention to the actual address. Well, our shop is over on BigCartel.com, and there is a Big Cartel directory where you can browse categories, or search key words.

 Well the other night, in my five minute break from work I was browsing other shops on Big Cartel and I came across the awesome Georgie Peachez Wreaths. It turns out Suzy of Georgia Peachez is an old friend and long time collector of our work. It was so great coming across her shop out of the blue! Her wreaths are some of the best vintage ornaments wreaths ever! This one here makes my heart beat a little faster! Wow! You gotta go see more of her work. Amazing. 

Ok, guess what??…it's time to get back to work for me! I hope you enjoyed my fifteen-minute-break-Friday-Faves.

xo, Jenny…and Aaron says hi!

And the winner is...

We LOVE hosting giveaways, and it's such a thrill when we finally get to pick a winner! We truly want to thank EVERYONE who entered our OttLite Giveaway! We seriously enjoyed reading through your comments and hearing about what you guys create, and also hearing about all the ways you would put your Ottlite to use if you were to be the big winner. Honestly, we wish that we could send each and every one of you an OttLite…but alas, our name is not Oprah. 

But here's the good news...the folks at OttLite informed us that they have lots of fab new products hitting the market soon…

Annnnd we will be hosting ANOTHER GIVEAWAY in the very near future!!!

How cool is that?!

We really love our OttLite and use it daily! So if you are in need of a studio or workspace light, look no further…OttLight is the way to go. Aaron and myself both give the brand two very enthusiastic thumbs up! 

Ok…so let's get down to the business at hand…in case you didn't see the name up above in the heart!

Our winner, completely chosen at random, is:

 Martha Moore Porter!!

Congrats Martha!! We will be emailing you tonight for your mailing address!!

Once again friends…Thank You so very much for taking part in the giveaway! There will be another one in the near future…so keep your eyes peeled.

Wishing all of you a super Happy Weekend!!

XO Jenny & Aaron

Join us for CJS 2015 an Online Mixed Media Event!

I'm so excited to announce that me and Aaron will be participating as artists in Creative JumpStart (CJS) 2015, which is run by Nathalie Kalbach. Creative JumpStart features online video tutorials from 23 featured mixed media artists, called "JumpStarters", and we are so excited to be among these fantastic artists…what an amazing lineup! Throughout the month of January, 25 video tutorials will be posted, and as a participant you'll have full access and can watch them again and again. We're psyched about our particular project, (hint…it involves cake!) and this is actually our first time teaching an online video course. We were thrilled when Nathalie asked us to be a part of it.  

The holidays are such a busy and hectic time, and come January I think we'll all have earned a bit of "me time". Why not spend that "me time" creatively? Make some fab art, learn some techniques, discover new materials, connect with other artists and crafters! I think you guys will have a lot of fun with our project…there's paint, assemblage, collage…all sorts of fun techniques! This is a brand new project…it's not in our book, and we've never taught it before.

And check out this video to see some details and the awesome lineup of artists!

You get 25 videos for just $25 (USD).

Such a great deal! So treat yourself, and head on over to Nathalie's site for more details, and to sign up!

And the deal is even better if you sign up now. Sign up today and you’ll get $5 off. 

Just use this coupon code during checkout:

cybercjs

*This is a limited offer valid from 9:00 am Dec 1, 2014 to 8:59 am EST on Dec 2, 2014.

CJS 2015 is proudly sponsored by Liquitex.

Making art and making friends in 2015…we love the idea of starting off the New Year this way! 

Make sure to sign up today! We can't wait to get creative with you!

xo, Jenny & Aaron