Our July so far! (including a July 4th recap)

July is usually a pretty great month for us. We're not exactly fans of hot weather, but we were lucky enough to have some mild days at the beginning of the month. We got out and did some summery stuff, celebrated the 4th with my family, and got a lot of work done. Aaron loves setting up the saw on the sunny deck and cutting out as many plaques as possible in anticipation of the sweltering days ahead. And it isn't so bad that the latter part of the month is crazy hot, since we have all of the detail work to finish in the studio. And as far as our orders go it feels a little different this year. We usually are working on lots and lots of whatever the most popular piece of the moment is. But this year there doesn't seem to be an overall favorite. Our worktable constantly looks like the pic above. And even though there are some advantages to repetition, like never having to change color palettes, we're very happy to have the variety we've been having lately.

Another great thing about July is that on 4th of July weekend we adopted our dearly missed Jack, and a few years later, also on the weekend of the 4th, we brought home Lieutenant Dan! It's our two year anniversary with this little guy! And we're constantly reminded of that fact by our Facebook Memories. Apparently we posted a pic of Dan every single day for two weeks straight in July 2014. 

This is how Lt. Dan spends the majority of his day. I mean, he does like to go out on the deck and lay directly in the hot sun a couple times a day. And he looks amazing when he does it! Aaron says he looks like a "village dog". Like he's lying in the heat on some rural dirt road town in Central America.

 But after a few minutes in the heat he wants to come back inside and go back to being a crank-the-AC-and-swaddle-me-in-blankets kind of guy. 

You know, I had already loaded this pic onto the blog and then realized that I'm posting this on National Ice Cream Day. But it's sorta National Ice Cream Day every day over here. This is the latest addition to my vintage ice cream carton collection. I looked up Moore's Ice Cream, and they still exist in Marlette, Michigan, just like it says on the box. And the place looks like it hasn't changed in many years. I love that!

 As you can see in the background of this pic, my shelf is overflowing. I've got cartons displayed all around the kitchen, but I'm on the hunt for another perfect display shelf or case that I can quickly fill to capacity.

I feel like I can rave about our Fave Craves mugs without feeling self conscious. Mainly because they're pretty much the one thing in our shop that we don't make from scratch. I'm just super happy with how great our paintings reproduced, and the quality of the mugs overall. We use ours every day and every time they come out of the dishwasher they looks absolutely brand new. Again, I'm not saying any of this in an "advertise-y" way. I just really love these things! 

If you follow me on Instagram, @jennyeveryday, or on Facebook, you might have seen that we're doing Friday Specials every Friday for the rest of the summer. The mugs were our first Friday Special item, and I'm thrilled to say that we had to quickly order more to restock the shop! 

We've got a growing list of things that we simply MUST PAINT. Salt Water Taffy and Hard Candy have both been on the list forever. Initially we actually had a couple of other ideas for exactly how we wanted to paint them. But then all of the sudden we thought of these candy jar designs, and that was it! 

The real trick was finding time to paint them. Well that's our main challenge every single time we do a new painting, but with these we happened to be extra busy at the time, and they're also the types of paintings that require a lot of focus...all those individual candies, all piled up in a realistic looking way, and then making them appear like they're behind glass. 

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm totally not. Figuring out the little details is pretty much what every artist lives to do. It really isn't the achievement of a finished painting, or the positive public response of a painting that the artist is working toward. It's more about having an idea, and then throwing down your own personal artistic gauntlet, and then winning the little creative battles with yourself along the way. 

Well, needless to say...candy paintings have been a long time in the making. Besides salt water taffy being our signature little extra goodie in the packages we ship out...vintage salt water taffy boxes, and holiday hard candy tins are some of our favorite collectibles. And if you saw our previous post, you might have read about how much I die for anything having to do with old time candy making! 

Jeez! I'm telling you, I really tried to blog about 4th of July last week, or more like a week and a half ago at this point. I figured Tuesday the 5th I could post, or Wednesday at the latest. But boy oh boy, there was a whole lotta work waiting for us after the three day weekend. And for once we actually kept those three days completely work-free. Well, we did some work around the house, but that's different.

As far as holidays go, 4th of July is always super laid back. There's no pressure to find the right gifts, the food is fairly easy, and I don't know...I guess it's a day that really works for my family. My family can get pretty loud, and being that there are big explosions in the sky all night, it's the one time that we don't seem like the loudest bunch in the neighborhood. ha!

We actually had our 4th of July on the 3rd. The Fam was gathering at my brother Richard's house, and since he had to be at work super early on the 5th, it was way better for everyone if we moved the party up a day.

Here's Aaron with our niece who happens to hold the world record for quantity of cupcake frosting ingested in a 15 minute period. Well, even if she doesn't hold the actual record, I bet she's close.

But she's also pretty good with sharing. I think right here she was actually trying to share with uncle Aaron's beard.

Any of you guys play Cornhole? Here's my dad most likely showing off for the camera. You know...throwing the bean bag with a bit more gusto than necessary. And jeez Louise, do you see the miniature person peeking out from behind his leg?! She manages to be involved in everything going on all at once. It's kinda impressive.

That's my sis' Missy, and future sis' in-law Val.

Seriously, by the time I really starting taking pics of everyone it was very late, and very dark in the backyard. So pretty much every shot is of our bright faces against a completely black background. 

And oh boy...I just remembered that there were some motion capture attempts that were a disaster and completely hilarious. And you'd see them here if hadn't already deleted them. It was three family members, each holding a sparkler, each one squiggling their sparkler in the dark to make the shape of either U, S, or A. Not a single shot came even close to working out. But that was probably way more fun than if it had worked perfectly!

Ok, I guess that's a brief summary of our July so far. But before I go, two more things...First, I'm posting this on Sunday, which means tonight is episode 2 of "The Night Of" on HBO. Episode 1 was so so good! It's one of those story lines where the web gets more and more tangled each second. So get caught up if you're not watching already.



Second thing...it's another show. This one is one Netflix, so that means you can binge the entire season in one sitting if you feel like it! We LOVE this show. It is like one giant tribute to the very best films from the 1980s. It feels like ET, Goonies, and Stand By Me all in one, and with the amazing music and dark overtones of John Carpenter movies.
We rate this one: A+

Ok, now I'll sign off. Thanks so much again for reading! We hope to be back very soon, and we hope your summer has been awesome so far.

Love from the Jersey Shore! xoxo
Jenny...& Aaron

Around here

We had been locked into a pretty tight schedule for the past week and really couldn't find the time to run our usual errands. So this morning we decided to take a trip to Target, which is a great store to hit if you want to do all of your shopping under one roof. Aaron got some tshirts, we got some dog stuff for Carlos, make-up, and a whole bunch of groceries. 

Before we left I realized that I had not yet posted a pic since touching up my hair color. I shared a pic on Instagram the other day showing my hair dye boxes...one pink, one lavender. I figured I could mix the colors to get the exact shade of pink I was looking for.

 Right before me and Aaron left for Target I snapped this Ussie. I definitely like the new shade. It's not a drastic change but I can see it.

I've had pink hair for years. I've tried many many brands and shades. I was platinum blonde forever before going pink, so I was already used to bleaching. I like my pink to be very pale, but there aren't any great straight from the bottle pale pink dyes. So I often will mix a magenta type pink with conditioner to dilute the color. 

I was very happy to find this new dye color at Sally Beauty Supply. The shade is Rose, and the brand is Ion (Color Brilliance). I had used it last month as well, but this month I decided to pick up a tube of Lavender to mix with the Rose. It was exactly like mixing paint. I got the tone I was looking for...making sure to go with a cooler shade, that way the finished product wouldn't have any peachy tones.  

Well, I'm very happy with the outcome you see in the above pic.

I know that in my last post I mentioned that we were having a 20% off sale in our shop...and that the sale code was PIZZAPARTY. But I forgot to actually share our brand new pizza slice diecuts. I had shared them on Instagram and Facebook, and totally thought I shared them here on the blog as well. We've been super busy working on brand new die cuts. We now have macarons, pizza, doughnuts, bunny babies, and a couple new signs as well. The warm weather always gets our inspiration up.

 We offer the slices in plain and pepperoni! And Vegan options as well! (wink wink)

And ready for this... they come in real pizza parlor boxes! So fun right? 

And there is nothing more rewarding to an artist than when other people "get it". And when we went through our latest invoices we realized that tons of people "got it"! So many orders for our brand new designs. Above is just a portion of the die cuts we had to trace and cut out on the scroll saw.

Again, the weather was gorgeous, so Aaron did all of the wood cutting out on our sunny deck. It really was about two days straight of cutting and sanding. As you can see from the above pic...Aar was exhausted.

And today after we put away our groceries and stuff that we got at Target, we decided that it would be an absolute crime not to go out and enjoy the weather. If not for our own good...then at least for the sake of our little old man Carlos. He's been craving a trip up to the beach. 

It was PERFECT weather. There were people swimming all up and down the shore.

I put my feet in the water and it was CHILLY!

Carlos also cooled his heels a few times in the waves. It was great...he'd stand there facing away from the water, and then a wave would sneak up on him and he'd scurry away.

He really loves it up on the beach. I feel like he's so distracted when we walk the neighborhood with sniffing every tree and bush in sight. On the beach he just hangs out.

Ok, just wanted to check in. Tonight True Blood returns for it's final season. We've got some organizing to do before then. And tomorrow it's back to our orders. We hope all of you guys are having a wonderful Sunday!

xo, Jenny & Aaron

Sea of Love

To me it seems like there are times in this life when every emotion rears it's head simultaneously. The wonderful, the good, the bad, and the ugly all show up at the same time, and like it or not...you have to face them all equally.

For me and Aaron these last two weeks were exactly like that. There was the rush to tie up loose ends before we left town for the Art is...You retreat in Memphis. Then there was our week in Memphis, spent with so many amazing people...people you think about in your quiet moments and say to yourself "gosh, I'm so lucky to know them." And also when me and Aar go on these teaching excursions it reenforces our connection with each other. We'll stop throughout the day on trips like this and say "We get to do this...together." We really are very lucky.

And then we came home and within 24 hours we lost the little love of our life...little baby Jack. Our nerve endings were already open from soaking up so much love and friendship all week long in Memphis. And then, everything felt like it was sucked out of us all at once. This loss was so hard to comprehend, so hard to process. We weren't ready for it.

Or maybe we were. 

Maybe those connections we made with others and reconnections we made with each other were exactly what we needed to survive the storm of loss we'd soon face. And then in the following days...the outpouring of condolences, well wishes, prayers, gifts, happy and healing thoughts from our friends everywhere...further bolstered our hearts against breaking.

And of course there was Carlos. Our little old man, who has been with us through so many crazy ups and downs. He was there when we first opened our retail store way back when. He was there when Aaron came home from the hospital after his car crash. Aaron had been in the hospital for a while, and then in a rehab facility for so long that when he finally came home to Carlos he couldn't believe his eyes. Aaron said "I forgot how little he was!" 

We have so many memories with little Carlos. He has now lived with us in three different towns. We first considered looking for another pup because we thought Carlos needed a little brother to keep him active and young. And sure enough, little Jack did the trick.

So in the wake of losing Jack, here was Carlos...still by our side...and he was holding it together very well. We tried very hard to keep the energy light and to keep Carlos as occupied as possible after losing Jack. And in some ways our behavior with him and his reaction to this energy felt a little like old times...it felt like a dozen years ago...playing with puppy Carlos in our small apartment...and making him the center of our universe....worrying about if we were "raising him right." ha!

 Another factor that played into this feeling of going back in time was our anniversary. Right smack dab in the middle of this emotional whirlwind fell our 21st anniversary. So of course this brought up feelings of the beginning...our first years together...as two kids figuring everything out and pretty much living on luck.

Currently we live right up the road from the beach. And of course, we don't go up there nearly enough. But we knew that Carlos needed to get out. Most of his hours are spent here in the house with us just watching us do art stuff. He desperately needed some being-a-dog time. And we needed to share that time with him. We actually outfitted him in little Jack's harness. We had to majorly adjust the straps because Carlos is way bigger then Jack, and miraculously it fit!

Many of you will be happy to know that the army corp of engineers is currently restoring our beach in hopes of protecting us from any future storms that resemble Hurricane Sandy. There are massive pipes way out in the bay that are sucking up the sand on the bottom and spitting out on the shore...building up the beach to be ten feet higher. The project is progressing fast. We hope it's effective.

Ok, so many people told us that we should look for signs of Jack. Everyone seems to have a story about their departed pet sending them messages from beyond. And I don't doubt it for a second. 

But at the same time, me and Aaron weren't looking for signs. We weren't really in that mind space. I remember this day on the beach being so peaceful. It was the first time all week that we were not crying. The weather was perfect, the water was still and flat, the visibility was endless, the sun was going down, and Carlos was having a great time. 

And then we came home. A couple of days went by and I transferred these beach pics onto the laptop. And in doing so I came across this pic and felt it all wash over me. At home...pretty much the only thing I called Jack was Pumpkin Baby....ya know, because he was part Ginger. While walking right along the water that day we came across this pumpkin that the waves washed ashore. It's May...it is certainly not pumpkin season. It's strange to see a pumpkin wash ashore...it's doubly strange for it to wash ashore in May! Upon discovering it we hadn't made the connection with Jack...but Aaron said right away, "you have to take a picture of that." And it makes another appearance in these photos. If you scroll back up to the pic of Aaron and Carlos where Aaron is standing up on the upturned log, if you look right in front of Aaron, down at the edge of the water you'll see a little orange dot in the distance...that's the pumpkin. This second sighting we hadn't even noticed until I was putting this blog post together right now.  Yes, I'm crying as I type this right now.

We know little Jack was with us up there. And the pumpkin was in the exact same spot where he and Carlos played a year ago...they were wrestling like crazy right there at the edge of the water.

Signs don't always present themselves to you at the expected time. For us, this sign from Jack came later, when we were home together, getting Carlos reaccustomed to living with just the two of us...a few days had passed and we were finally ready to see the sign for what it was. 

It was his peaceful reminder that he's still right here with us. It was him letting us know that everything is gonna be alright. The same way he let us know that when he was here with us every day. No matter how dark some days might have been...his sweet face always pulled us out of it...for real. I mean that.

And now he's letting us know that he's alright, Carlos is alright, and we're alright.

With the sun dipping below the horizon and leaving it's pumpkin orange aura behind we left the beach and headed home...the four of us.

ps. this song encapsulates the day so perfectly. 

(click play)

"Come with me, my love

to the sea

the sea of love.

I wanna tell you how much I love you...

Do you remember

when we met

thats the day

I knew you were my pet."

(yeah, that last line absolutely kills me and Aar.)

thanks to all of you.

xo, Jenny & Aaron

Life Lately...

Life lately has consisted of lots and lots of painting...Any and every which way we can but loose. ( My gosh I've been dying to use that line ; ) ) 

Sure, we're doing lots of artful painting, with palettes and detail brushes...but mostly we are Painting. We're painting boards for diecuts and sign orders. We're painting our walls, doors, and trim...and it's coming along so nicely! And we're painting a bunch of other home projects...little signs, shelves, shadow boxes, and other decor objects. Whenever we step back and take a look at the stuff we've been working on in our home, we'll come to the realization that paint is by far, our weapon of choice. It is our crutch...it is our go-to medium. When it comes to art/home/decor/creativity...paint is the one thing we simply cannot live without.

 So yeah...aside from our work we've got a ton of projects all up in the air. I get so anxious when everything is in progress all at once. I'm just wanting to get it all done...but like I've talked about in past posts, we really have to balance it all. We can never take a big chunk of time and focus on just one thing. Instead, we paint maybe one corner of the kitchen while the orders that we're working on are drying. It's all about chipping away at the personal stuff while doing the work stuff. 

We took a trip to Michael's the other day and picked up some cute stuff, including these adorable little polaroid style candy colored chipboard frames. And I LOVE when newly purchased craft supplies magically harmonize with my already owned craft supplies. Just look at how the chipboard frames fit perfectly over the prints we ordered from Persnickety Prints, which I blogged about here.

I've mentioned my sweet friend Kimberlee Edgar before, in reference to how she truly truly gets me. She is of that rare breed of certain "Online friends" who truly understand me. I think we've all got those special online friends. These are friends that we've probably never met in person...and maybe never will. And not by choice really...it's just that we're all too busy doing other things...maybe the opportunity to meet will never arise. And that's OK. Because we find other ways to stay connected. Usually what draws us to one another are our collections...our passions for rare and unique things...all of these things that we "need"...the things that we simply cannot live without...the things that make our hearts beat faster. 

Most likely, these will be things that our family and friends may find a little odd...or maybe even consider them to be a waste of time or money. But our online friends get us completely...and we get them. Well Kimberlee is a jewel among my dear online friends. She's a gal who truly knows. And her heart just so happens to be made of gold. So...just the other day a very unexpected package arrived. It was brimming with the most perfect vintage treasures. Everything in the box was very Jenny! Vintage Birthday candles, party cups, and a tablecloth...a pack of bunny cake toppers that absolutely melt my heart...and a bunch more. This package was enough to make me dizzy. And it came at a perfect time. On that day, at that exact time, I was revisiting all of my favorite things. I'm getting the house back to being a home, and I have been pulling my fave decorations. It's been close to two years since I have been able to plan out my living space like this. I'm setting up vignettes, sketching room layouts, and I'm actually planning right down to the itty bitty details. You know that you're decorating for real once the tiny stuff comes into play. And Kimberlee infused my day with a very healthy dose of the tiny stuff! I am so inspired! 

 I definitely count myself lucky. And in my day to day existence I try to always acknowledge just how grateful I am...and I try to behave accordingly. I appreciate whole heartedly the great people that I am connected with. And here's a prime example as to why I should thank my lucky stars on a regular basis...Another amazing out-of-the-blue package arrived this past week! This one is from my sweet friend Marian. And Marian is and online friend who I've actually met in real life. Me and Aaron were lucky enough to spend time with Marian at the Sweethearts on the Homefront event that we taught at in Atlanta this past October. Once again...this is an example of a package arriving at exactly the right time. And of course Marian planned it this way. She's fully aware of how much Aaron and I have been despising this cold, dreary, everlasting, New Jersey winter. Well, this particular day had been especially gray...I think if you had to name a Benjamin Moore paint after the color of the sky on this specific day it would be "Sorrow", ha! but seriously...what a gross day it was. So...when me and Aar opened Marian's package and found a plethora of sunshiny florals...we both looked at each other and said "wow, she sent us a box full of Springtime!"

It was so thoughtful, kind...and very necessary on that gross day. Included was the sweetest vintage apron with little pink bunnies, also a big pink mercury glass heart ornament, and ornaments for our Christmas tree! Just so so kind! I can't even describe how lucky we feel to have met and connected with such generous and caring people. Although we have met only briefly, or not at all, we truly count them as real deal friends. I mean, I think a fitting definition for "friend" could certainly be: "a person with whom you share very specific passions & tastes...and one whose existence makes your day, and your life exponentially better and brighter."

And all of these friendships are made possible through blogging, art, crafts, and collecting! Wow.

Now like I said, decor-wise we are revisiting our roots. Our kitchen will once again feature sweet vintage bakery vignettes. The jars of sprinkles, tiny ballerinas, vintage recipe cards, aprons, and all that good stuff will finally be back on display. The new kitchen will be all about taking these treasures and making them part of our day to day.

 I ordered some happy things from Bake it Pretty. I just love how they package orders! See those pink sprinkles?...they are tiny pink bunny heads! 

Maybe 7 years ago or more we painted this little Birthday Party vignette on the back of this cute, chippy paint, vintage metal stool. We still love it today, and this will go in the kitchen as well.

And these insanely cute plastic clown toppers needed a bubble bath. Some look like they may have partied with a bit too much chocolate frosting.

Here you can see a tiny peek of the new wall color in the kitchen. I love how calm, soothing, warm, and inviting this color is. It will serve as a great vintagey neutral backdrop to our candy colored collections.

I'm a sucker for wire shopping baskets like this. You'd find them in the old five & dime stores. I remember going shopping with my grandma at Woolworth's, and then we'd take a break and sit at the lunch counter...both of us ordering grilled cheeses! This basket totally conjures up some of those memories for me. This one is actually new and I found it at Home Goods months ago. When I bought it it had an awful neon red handle with black smudges that must've been the maker's attempt at antiquing. The neon red had to go...so I painted it a pale aqua and gave it a little antiquing wash of my own.

I just had to share this! A gal on Instagram tagged me in this photo. She had been reading an issue of NY Metro Parents magazine and came across this article about scrapbooking your family vacation...And the article features our book! Namely, our Down the Shore art journal spread...which is maybe the most fun journaling spread in the whole book...just so many cool techniques go into this one spread. And yes...it's a great magazine article. The writer did a fantastic job!

You know what?...it happens to be National Pancake Day! Yep! It's a thing! Look it up. We've been making and shipping lots of Jumbo Pancake Diecuts! We're so happy that you guys like them so much! We just think they are super fun! And they can fit so many different types of decor! Who doesn't like pancakes?!  

And yes...little Jack is overseeing things as usual! 

If you have had your eye on Pancakes, or any other die cut in our collection, but for some reason you haven't been able to seal the deal...well maybe 20% off will be the extra nudge you needed! 

This sale is good on Diecuts and anything else in the shop. Just use code: INSTALOVE

And last but not least...Here is our Birthday boy! Our little old man Carlos turned 13 on March 1st!  Hard to believe he's been with us for that long! Geez! he's been around for so much stuff! I remember him as a tiny little thing in the back room of our store! One time we were in the store helping a customer while Carlos waited in the back room. Well, after the customer left we went into the back and found that little Carlos had thrown around Aaron's wallet. All of his money was in Carlos' water bowl, there were business cards and credit cards thrown everywhere, and also an entire roll of paper towel was unrolled, strewn all over the back room, and totally shredded. It was hilarious actually. We couldn't figure out how ONE little chihuahua could do all that in such a short amount of time. It was totally like less than 10 minutes! We had him for under a month at that point, and I can remember us thinking 'oh boy...this pup is gonna be trouble.' ha!

Luckily that was really one of the only times he did something like that. He's generally a good guy. Maybe he's a little barky in his old age...but I guess that's not too big a deal. He's our best bud! We'll be having a little joint Birthday party and cake for both boys at the end of the month. Yep, Jack is also a March baby! 

Ok, that's all for now. I'll be back soon with some artful projects and more!

xo, Jenny...and Aaron says hi!