Treetopia Valentine's Day Wreath Blog Hop and Giveaway!

I don't know if I've mentioned it lately, but we've been super duper busy. And despite that, we still jumped at the chance to participate when we were asked by our super talented friend Jennifer Perkins to be a part of this Valentine wreath blog hop sponsored by Treetopia. We just love all things Valentine's. It's one of our fave times of the year...one of the most visually appealing Holidays. And the whole concept of this blog hop is great. We got to have some fun with this giant pink wreath from Treetopia, and get crafty alongside a star studded lineup of super talented crafter/designers. And in the end, you readers will have FIVE chances to win a wreath like this of your own! 

So…we stole a few hours out of our busy schedule and made our Charlotte Sweetheart wreath.  

So, like I said, the wreath is giant! When it arrived we were like yowza! We had only seen a pic online of the wreath and we couldn't discern the actual size. When the box arrived and we slid the wreath out we were thrilled at the size. What a room maker it will be! 

I immediately had the idea of the wreath acting as a frame for one of our wooden Charlotte plaques. She's our mascot and we love to see her sweet face up on our living room wall. 

We are big time sketchers. Pretty much everything we ever design starts with a crude pencil drawing like this. We'll just jot ideas on the paper and slide it back and forth across the table to each other.

Since we were going to have the matte black, chalkboard type elements, I grabbed these vintage wired pink balls and some other ornaments for pops of shiny color.

And then we started cutting out mat board hearts, and also added some glitter.

The arrow that we had sketched came together "in real life" fairly simply. We cut a wooden dowel to the right length, and then cut the arrow tip and end feathers from mat board. 

We painted all of the elements with gold acrylic paint, attached the tip and feathers to the dowel with hot glue. Then we glittered the tip and the end feathers. 

We love black! We always use it to balance our pastels and candy colors. And we love chalkboard art and lettering. So we decided to go with a black chalkboardesque banner to bear our wreath's "statement". 

The banner is cut from a cardboard box, and then we painted it with black acrylic craft paint. The lettering and line work is done in white acrylic paint. 

The first things we added to the wreath were the balls…some little pink ones, some slightly bigger pink, glittery gold, and a few white fluffy snowballs.

Our Charlotte plaque is actually hung right on the wall. To balance out the banner up top we added the arrow and the X O to the bottom portion of the wreath. And the big pink glitter heart was so so necessary. 

The X O and the black hearts were also just cut out of mat board, which we painted black and then decorated with sketchy chalk details.

We just added some bakery twine to the back of the banner and hung it on the top branches…this way we could always remove it and use it for something else. 

The whole wreath came together in just a few hours. It was really fun to do, and it looks so so fun hanging in our living room! 

We hope you guys enjoyed this little show and tell! We love the quality of this Pretty in Pink wreath. There are pre-lit wreaths & garlands available too! You can find them here. 

 Or, like I said up top...If you'd like a chance to win your very own wreath! Entering is super easy! You can enter below on this post, and also visit the other posts to check out their amazing creations, and enter on their posts as well! 

Monday: Jennifer Perkins

Tuesday: Crafty Chica

Wednesday: Amy Anderson

Thursday: Us! 

Friday: Vickie Howell 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And be sure to visit the Treetopia blog to continue the blog hop tomorrow!!

Happy Creating!

xo Jenny & Aaron

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

It's Giveaway Time! Who wants to WIN an OttLite?!

It's that time of the year again for us artists and makers. A whole lotta long long days and late late nights spent locked away in the studio. We're busy as can be working on holiday orders…tons of diecuts and signs, but it's our ornaments that take up the majority of our time. When we debuted the ornaments a few weeks ago the immediate response was amazing, and since then the orders have been coming in steadily. As I said in a previous post…we're immensely flattered and grateful. So happy to be on the same page with so many of you guys. 

Anyway, this blog post couldn't be more fitting to the situation at hand. We happen to be doing the exact type of work that requires an OttLite, and it's also the season of giving! So yes, you read the title of this post correctly…we're giving away an OttLite!!! 

    Very recently OttLite contacted us to ask if we'd like to try out one of their lights. Of course we were super excited, because we had wanted an OttLite for years. I know many of you fellow artists and crafters are probably shocked to learn that we hadn't already owned one…or several of them. But I've always been terrible when it comes to buying things…I have so much trouble making specific choices when it comes to making an important purchase. Seriously, at least a dozen times me and Aaron were in either Jo-Ann's or Michaels, standing in front of the display of OttLites, but we were unable to pull the trigger. We are weirdos.

But we got lucky this time around. The gal from OttLite who contacted us took matters into her own hands. She asked us what type of work we'd be doing mostly, what type of studio we had, how much available space, all that stuff. And then she made the decision for us. She thought a tabletop model with an attached magnifier would be very helpful when it came to making our ornaments. And she was totally right! 

We also told her all about how concerned we are with color, and that we do a majority of our painting early in the day because nothing beats daylight when it comes to seeing colors correctly. And this is where OttLite comes in. As far as artificial lighting goes, this lamp is the closest thing to actual daylight we've ever worked with. Most other lamps give off a yellowy glow, but the OttLite casts a cool even pool of light directly on our work surface…no glare, no flicker, no heat. We seriously Love it! It has made our late nights in the studio much more pleasant.  

All of these ornaments were made over many of those late nights...and there are plenty more of those late nights still to come. I believe we'll be working non stop right up until Christmas Eve!

Ok…this is where it gets good! Up at the top of the post you probably noticed the pic of Aaron holding a brand new, still-in-the-box, OttLite. It's the exact same model that we own, and we promise…it's fantastic. We can't believe we get to give this away to a lucky Everyday is a Holiday blog reader. The people at OttLite are awesome!

Below are all of the product specifics from the OttLite website: 

13w DuoFlex Magnifier Lamp

The perfect tool for seeing details easily and colors accurately, the 13w DuoFlex Magnifier Lamp couples the benefits of OttLite Illumination™ with optical grade 3x magnification in this sleek and flexible design. Two flexible arms extend from a sturdy base so you can individually and easily position the light and magnifier exactly where you need them. 

Product Dimensions:

Max. Height: 21.5"

Min. Height: 7.5"

Base Diameter: 9" x 7.125"

It's perfect for artists, crafters, makers…perfect for art journaling, scrapbooking, sewing, embroidery, sculpting, and wow, it would be perfect for miniatures. For us it makes precision cutting a lot easier. It's great to have a light directly over the project so that there aren't any weird shadows to throw you off. And the magnifier makes for a safer experience when using an X-ACTO blade.

And now…here's how you can win it: 

Entering is super Easy! 

Just be a follower of this blog, and leave a comment below telling us what type of crafting or art making you will be doing with your OttLite!? For an extra entry like OttLite on Facebook , and leave a separate comment below letting us know that you did! 

That's it! Good Luck! And a very big THANK YOU to OttLite!

xo Jenny & Aaron