Pink and Red Galore

Ahh February! Also known as the month that contains Valentine's Day. This is the holiday that makes this pink loving gal expand her color palette to include red. Well, from time to time I will add a tiny pop of red to our pastel palette, in the home and in my fashion. I see red as the oh so necessary maraschino cherry placed atop a neapolitan sundae or cone. In our decor I feel like red makes the pastels pop…like if there are red accents on a hand painted pink sign, then the pinks look even pinker. And when it comes to my wardrobe, all it takes is some deep red lipstick to totally set off an all pastel ensemble. So yeah, red acts both literally and figuratively as the cherry on top. 

And at this time of year red appears in great abundance around here. Lots of vintage Valentine ephemera is heavy on the red, and with us nostalgia wins big. So instead of sticking to our tight palette of pastels, we'll cast red in a starring role. 

As I said on Instagram earlier today, if you accompanied me to the grocery store and I happen to wander off…you can find me in one of two places...the baking aisle or the floral dept. 

And yes, this most recent trip to the grocery store was no different. I wandered off and came back with this bouquet. I simply couldn't pass it up! It made me so happy, and it was only $5.99!

It actually came with double the blooms you see here. The rest are placed in other vases around the house. 

I love the pink, red and white paired with the aqua-turquoise hue of this vintage ball jar. It is one of my favorites! 

 This time of year means pulling out some of my all time favorite decorations, including my Magpie Ethel assemblages form our friend Laurie Romanaggi. We have been collecting her creations for years.  I was looking for more pieces from this collection, rummaging through some boxes I had stacked way in the back of a closet, when sadly I was reminded that I lost the pieces I was looking for to Hurricane Sandy…that complete jerk. 

Ah well…it's senseless to lament...I'll just have to add more to our collection! 

So, not only is it nearly Valentine's Day…we've also got Galentine's Day on the way! For those who do not know what Galentine's Day is…it is a Parks & Recreation reference/episode that kinda took on a life of it's own. 

Here's a little clip to bring you up to speed. 

I love the whole concept of Galentines, so I jumped at the chance to participate when I was asked by my friend Kristen to take part in a Galentine's swap among Instagram friends! This swap works in a way that's unlike a traditional swap, in that the person we send to is not the person who sends to us. So that means no one knows who has who! 

We all filled out a little questionnaire and then the info was passed on to our would-be partners. We all mailed our packages out in time so that we could all open them on Galentine's Day…Feb 13th! I was joking the other day to Aaron that I sorta feel like a grown-up, because there is a box here full of gifts for me and I haven't opened it yet. ha! I'm in awe of my adult-like restraint.  

Above are pics of the gifts I sent off…if you focus reeeaaly hard you can indeed see a name on a tag. oops! ; ) Still lots of surprises.

Oh and this. Just a typical scene around here. 

Hope you guys have been having a great week! And thanks so so much for all the sweet words about our Sweetheart Valentine's Day wreath! And for entering the giveaway! We are LOVING reading all about your fave Vday memories!! Some are so funny, and some are just so sweet! You still have 2 days left to enter if you haven't already! 

Thanks for popping in!!

Love from the Jersey Shore!

xo Jenny…and Aaron says hi!

Friday Favorites

I'm definitely in a bit of a Valentines state of mind, and you'll notice that some of the Vday vibe has rubbed off on these Friday Favorites. Valentine's Day is fabulous all around. I love it for so many reasons…first, it's a great pick-me-up holiday…it comes just in time to brighten us all up after the big post Christmas and New Years lull. Second, me and Aaron have been sweethearts for a million years and it's great to have a day to focus on that. And third, it is aesthetically perfect. All that pink and red and plenty of hearts and glitter and chocolate. I love going to the store, any store really, and looking at their Valentines offerings. Everything is so sweet and fun. 

Me and Aar have been so busy catching up on orders, so we haven't really had a chance to do any Valentines crafting…well, except for the giant Charlotte Sweetheart wreath you may have seen in the previous post. But we hope to do more this upcoming week. Even if it's simple little things…even if me and Aar just make cards for each other…that would be fun. 

Ok, so now for the Favorites! My feelings for this duffle bag from ban.do kinda bring me back to junior high. This is a bag I would have begged my parents for, or I probably would have ended up saving every dime until I had enough. I was fairly good at saving back then.

For some reason this bag reminds me of this store in upstate NY called Book & Record. I remember buying those stackable pastel plastic bangle bracelets there, and one of those pastel string mobiles that you hung from the ceiling. Geez I loved that thing! 

This is like the ultimate sleepover bag. It just looks so late 80s or early 90s to me.  

And yes...it also comes in this red heart pattern! 

I love this article on London's 30 most instagrammed restaurants. The above place is called Sketch. And I can attest that more than a handful of my fave instagrammers have indeed eaten here and posted pics to prove it.

I think I need this…both for it's practicality in this frozen tundra they call Jersey, and also as a daily reminder to myself. Maybe I'll have a better chance of actually receiving the message if it's hugged right to my skull. It's from Marc Jacobs, which translates to - not in my budget. But I love it all the same.

I don't have plans for cutting my hair anytime soon, but lets say there was an accident involving a wad of chewing gum and I had to have an emergency hair-ectomy, I think this gal's color and cut are beyond cute.

As you know, we are big fans of donuts over here…the edible kind and the painted kind. So you know that I swooned when I discovered these adorable donut valentine's! Sooooo cute!

You may already know that I have a soft spot…ok it's maybe closer to an addiction, or an obsession for rolling carts. They are one of my all time fave things! Especially when they are aged and industrial looking. This one from Urban Outfitters is killing me right now! It would be so incredibly perfect in our studio! And yes I already know what I'd keep in each section. 

This pic has been making me laugh all week. I came across it on pinterest. This cat kills me. And the second I saw it I immediately thought of a certain actor. You may not agree…but I simply can't not see the resemblance every time I look at this kitty. 

I wanted a little confirmation about my opinion on the resemblance, so I texted my friend Beca the pic above along with the pic below. I'm not sure if she agreed or not…but she did call me a kook. 

So I'm putting it out there, and I don't mind at all if you agree with Beca. She's often right. 

I hope you agree…because it makes the cat even funnier if you consider that he's Kenneth McMillan's feline doppelganger. You may not agree. But I'm sticking with it. HA!

Ok…hope you guys had a great week and I hope you'll have an even better weekend! Do something fun! Maybe some Valentine's Day crafting! 

Thanks for popping in! 

xo Jenny…and Aaron says hi!

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

Crazy cold beach day

I know that I'm always talking about how crummy the cold weather is here in Jersey, so the fact that me and Aaron walked up to the beach today and touched the toes of our boots to the freezing cold breakers either makes me look like lunatic or masochist. I guess both are slightly true.

We had just walked a load of packages to the post office, where we also picked up some packages. So we walked back home, unloaded our boxes, and we were just about to plan dinner. But then I said "hey, you wanna walk up to the beach?" And Aar immediately said yes. 

It was a chore getting there. There isn't one stretch of consistently shoveled sidewalk, so you're constantly having to step out into the street where cars are driving way too fast on the icy, slushy roads. 

But when we got up there it was so worth it. All of the trees and bushes were encased in ice. The pics really don't do it justice. It was magical and barren, and the lighting was sorta eerie. Earlier in the day it was snowing, so the sky was still overcast. We were up there right before sunset but like I said, it was overcast, so instead of a sunset there was just a warmer glow to the grey sky in the west. 

We had quite a bit of snowfall over the past week but the snow didn't really accumulate on the beach. It looks like the wind whisked most of it away. Oh boy it was windy up there!

Our view across the bay is of Staten Island, some of lower Manhattan, the Verrazano Bridge, a little bit of Brooklyn, and Coney Island. In the pics the horizon looks a million miles off, but in person we can make out the shapes of houses in Staten Island. The visibility was excellent today. 

The water was super choppy and sand colored from the bottom getting churned up. We saw a boat out there, because ya know, fishermen are crazy like that.

So yeah, the whole top layer of the sand is frozen. When you walk on it it cracks into pieces like this.

And check out these slush balls that the waves make!

Pretty cool.

All of the dune grass was coated in ice.

Just as we were leaving it was past sunset and the street lights had gone on. With light shining through it this ice coated dune grass looked like it was made of copper. In the background you can see some other branches glowing in the light.

Ok, so yes…we hate the cold. But this outing was one of those "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" moments. And it was worth it. First off, when we arrived back home our house felt kinda warm for about an hour. Of course this was merely a mind trick, because now we're totally freezing!

We're about to take our work upstairs where it's warmer, and work until quittin' time (whenever that is). And then since we forgot that yesterday was Sunday, we get to watch a couple of our current favorite shows tonight instead…Girls of course, and Togetherness, which is the great new show from the Duplass brothers.

Ok, that's it for now. Maybe I blogged this just so that I could provide a visual example of how cold it is here. ha!

Hope you're staying warm!

xo, Jenny…and Aaron says hi! 

Hello February!

This is one of the best times of year for eye candy. Aren't you just totally in love with Valentine's stuff?! Even the kitschy cheap things at your local drug store are super charming. I love all of the hearts, the roses, the endless shades of pink. And I really really love vintage Valentine's…the ones that kids exchanged in school. I have a ton of 'em. If you've read this blog for a while then no doubt, you have seen a bunch from my collection. The vintage Valentine's imagery is much more beautiful than what's on contemporary cards. And wow, kids had amazing handwriting 50 and 60 years ago. 

So, me and Aaron designed this Valentine painting with a vintage sensibility. And we also made it distinctly Everyday is a Holiday by making the focal point a gorgeous cake. This painting actually features almost the full range of our favorite things to paint…we absolutely love painting roses and don't do it enough, and it goes without saying that cake is sorta our thing…but mainly it's the color palette that inspired us. On Valentine's day you will be inundated by pink and red. We wanted our main color to be this perfect pale shade of aqua, so that our Valentine would stand out in the crowd.

Ok, so we painted this piece on an 8 x 10 canvas and we wanted to do something special with it. One day we showed it to our friend Beca, and she suggested that we make postcards. Of course we thought this was a smashingly good idea! Right away we got them made and rush delivered. The quality is outstanding. The colors are bright and true to the original. 

We designed them to look like vintage postcards, and we wanted to offer them in a set of four so that you'd have the option to use them in a few different ways. The quality of the print is certainly worthy of framing. You can see all of our brush strokes and the texture of the canvas. 

You get four in a set and they come with white envelopes.

We announced them the other day and got a ton of orders right away…which we have already shipped out. That's definitely a plus with these postcards…our other items are made to order and therefore take some time. But we've got these postcard packs all set and ready to ship. We don't have many, so get them while they last. They're in the shop now!

The other day we got one of the most amazing gifts ever in the mail from a friend who took a class with us way back in 2007 at Silver Bella. This gift came as a total surprise, and the thought and care put into it is jaw dropping. Ok, do you see this little container of personalized m & m's?….well, there are nearly 50 of them!! Each one has a special scallop cut label that says "J & A", and the m & m's are adorable. They are our exact color palette…I especially love the generous amount of black.

And yes…besides all of those individual containers, Becky also included this giant jar full of 'em! So amazingly sweet! 

This is a just a few of the custom designs! I love the pics of Lt. Dan and Carlos. And Jack makes an appearance a couple times. That's a tiny illustration of me and Aaron on the one next to the pink Carlos m & m. And yes…that one does indeed say "ol man Carlos"…ha! So great. 

Seriously, what a special gift! We are so lucky to have a gal like Becky in our life. Thank you so much Becky!!! We love them! 

Ok, it's still chilly as heck here in Jersey. I think we're going to retreat upstairs where it is much warmer. We've got a makeshift mini studio set up in the corner of our bedroom specifically for cold nights like this. Thanks so much for reading…and don't forget about the Valentine postcards…they won't last very long…and they are all packed up and ready to ship!

xo, Jenny…and Aaron says hi! 

January…aka: the fastest month of the year.

How on earth is it Jan 22?! No seriously, how? Somehow Christmas came and went, and I'm nearly convinced that New Year's lasted for about three seconds. For a couple months we have been in this cruise control mode…and not the slow kind of cruise, just the constant kind. We've been almost exclusively working on orders. So many orders came in right up until Christmas and truth be told we are still getting some out. We are really lucky to have super awesome customers and collectors that are willing to wait for handmade items. Also, this was our first year offering gift certificates, and they seemed to be a hit. So we are filling lots of those orders right now as well.

 One thing that we love is that we had a bunch of post-holiday custom orders for more ornaments! A lot of folks subscribe to the "celebrate everyday" lifestyle, and will be displaying their ornies all year round! We've been seeing pics on instagram of donut, cupcake, and ice cream ornies being used in Valentine's Day vignettes and we love it! 

We have some really fun new designs coming very soon! But to be honest, there are only so many hours in the day, and we just can't take time away from orders to finish up new paintings just yet. But very very soon! We'll be sure to share some sneak peeks as soon as we can! 

We haven't seen much or done much outside of the studio, except for a few quick trips to Target, which happens to have some great stuff in the dollar bins right now! Lots of minty, sea foam green, office-y stuff! Like this adorable file folder seen above! For $1!! Oh, and that sweet pink lidded vintage style jar for only $3!

I couldn't pass up these little plastic bins either! Perfect for holding invoices! (picture a New Yorker cartoon with an overworked guy at a desk…the "out" basket is empty, while the "in" basket teeters like an advanced game of Jenga.) And also from the dollar bins are these cute jars, pencil holder, and that to-do list pad has a magnet on back. It's on our fridge and quickly getting filled with lots of ink. I really don't think I've ever gotten through the dollar section without putting at least one thing in my cart. 

We definitely are getting a bit of cabin fever due to this studio lock-in, but seriously it's been so cold that I don't feel like I'm missing anything out there. We had a frozen pipe a week or so ago, and we're lucky it didn't burst when it thawed. For the coldest of days we put together a mini makeshift studio upstairs where it is way more warm. 

Our days are spent working, listening to music, cooking yummy meals, and burning candles. Party right? When I put the above pic on Facebook and Instagram I got a lot of questions about that candle. It's called Sweet Tobacco and is from Candelles. It's definitely more masculine than most of the scents we go for. Definitely earthy, woodsy…and to quote straight from the description on Candelles: "it begins with top notes of mandarin orange and tarragon; middle notes include rose, honey, and osmanthus; base notes are caramel, amber, musk, and hints of patchouli."

And I'd say that's fairly accurate.

Well, I wish I had more new stuff to share. We will very soon. I really just wanted to pop in and say hi! And let you know that we are still here! Hope 2015 is treating you all well!

Love from the Jersey Shore!

xo Jenny… and Aaron says hi!