I'm busy pinning....

Although I am not a mother I have been thinking lately about how busy mothers find time to pin. Sounds like a silly question I know but if you are addicted to pinning you will understand that becomes a necessity to maintain one's sanity. I started to think that one day, in my huge house with slab granite countertops, clawfoot tubs, delicious textiles and cute little munchkins I will need a sign to put on the front of my craft room door to establish some me time. In assistance to my future self (and hopefully mothers everywhere) I whipped up a quick little 8.5x11 inch PSD file that anyone with the link can just print up themselves, frame and call it a day. Good luck fellow super pinners! I hope this may help you get in a few pins everyday!

Click here to download the freebie!

Custom Tartan? YES PLEASE!

Wondering where that cute plaid flag pattern on my signature came from? No, I am not some sort of wizard pattern maker, you can make your own too using TartanMaker! It's super easy and you can completely customize your colors, yarn size and the width of each band. Such a super tool for a quick background or pattern of any kind! Love it!

I Received a {pinterest}ing E-mail This Morning....

I have been hearing through Facebook, StumbleUpon, bloggers and other sources about this new site called Pinterest. And before I blab on about what Pinterest is I'm going to cut to the chase: It's a new site, one you can't just sign up for. You must be invited to join and I received my golden ticket to my new favorite website this morning and I couldn't be anymore stoked!

Original Day One Screenshot

Now I don't know about you but I am incredibly visual person and when I love love love something, I want to remember it. On my desktop, I have a folder titled "Inspiration" that is filled with categories of all my favorite images that I have been dragging and dropping or snapping with my iPhone for years now. It's a fantastic compilation of my favorite things and images that capture my personal style and personality. Now Pinterest lets us do this type of archiving in a social way, where you can connect with your friends and share ideas while keeping all your lovely ideas and inspirational items in order!

Basically, Pinterest is a site where you login and upkeep your assortment of pinboards with all of your pictures on them. They can be categorized (and even further sub-categorized.... I feature that I love) labeled, tagged and shared with friends. Pinterest is a bit like Twitter or Facebook by how you choose to follow your friends or their specific boards and how you can "like" or "comment" on any of their pieces. It's quite the crafty social network! And though I'm sure it is not as cool as I think, I know how the power to invite whomever I would like so let me know if you want to get in on this craziness! Prepare yourself, it's addicting!

UPDATE!: I'm in love with the concept of naming your own board and I'm probably getting a bit silly and kitschy for my followers but I have 41 boards now with names ranging from "i wanna DRESS you up" and "for the tiny humans" and to  "shut the FRONT DOOR" a board made just for cute front door wreaths! Ah I can't get over how in love I am with this website. Forget Facebook or Stumbling. I pin and I'm proud of it!

If you would like an invite be sure to ask me for one here!

Places In Our Hearts Tutorial {FREEBIE}

I saw this stinking adorable heart shape map in a frame the other day on StumbleUpon and I thought I just had to make a whole collage for myself! Well, I actually made this one for my lovebug on his birthday of all the places we have been together. it for I decided to do the whole thing in Photoshop. Sure, I could have found or printed different maps and cut them out into little hearts easily but I hope in the future to keep adding to the document and printing out bigger and bigger heart collages of all the places we visit together. 

Found on Modern Parents, Messy Kids from Not On The High Street.com

I have included a link to the PNG (Portable Network Graphic) file of this Hearts Overlay below. Feel free to use it for personal usage only. Once you download follow the steps listed here to make your own little places and pieces of your heart. This is a very step by step tutorial so don't let the length of it scare you. It is not very difficult, especially if you have experience using Photoshop. 

You will need access to Adobe Photoshop CS4 or a program like it and an account to submit the finished piece for printing to an online print order service. I used Costco (Just $4 people!) but you can use Kinkos, Walgreens or wherever you would like. Where ever you can find someone that will make a 12x12inch printout for you (or larger, you can always trim it down).Afterwards, you can frame it or mount it onto something with a little bit of Mod Podge (Sidenote: I always call it Modge Podge? Does everyone else do that?)

I know this looks like a blank sheet of paper when you first download it but just TRUST me! Go ahead and go to the site to download the page FOR FREE by clicking here!

Look for maps online of the places you would like to use in your hearts. One thing you have to know about images on the internet is that they are formatted as 72 PPI (pixels per inch) for viewing on a computer.

I am going to show you how to take your images and make them 300 PPI so they will not be blurry when you print them. Your images will get larger like the example I have here so do not fret!

What's That Font?

Have you ever seen a font online, in a logo or in an ad and fallen in love with the font only to walk away thinking, "There has to be a way to figure out that font!" (Ok, so maybe I'm the only one who has actually done that) And now there is!! Delightfully titled, WhatTheFont.Com allows you to upload and identify close matches to a font you are on the look out for. Take for instance this sample logo I uploaded from Etsy.

You identify the letters the generator sorts out for you and BAM! It gives you the name of the font used and even a link to the place to download (sometimes they are pay sites, but many of them are free)

What a nifty little tool! I guarantee the next time I see a cute font I'll go straight back to WHAT THE FONT?!?