Duh. I Forgot Something. You Sew!

I made these sewing themed cards, and I totally spaced and forgot to put them up in the etsy shop. Duhhhhhhhhhh.

I think they're kinda adorable, with sweet vintage sewing machines on both the front and back, (See any you recognize?) and the cheesiest compliments you can give. What can I say, I love me a good pun.

Since I was such a fool, I'm offering free domestic shipping on all of my greeting cards, in addition to the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales...

Sooooo, for the rest of the day: all prints are buy 1 get 1 free, all tea towels are buy 3 get one free, and until Wednesday, free shipping on all cards!

Doot-doo-doo-DOOO! That's all I got. As you were.

A Sale, Black-Friday-Style.

 Well, first off, Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Americans! And Happy Thursday, other humans! I hope you are all having a fun and hopefully relaxed day with people you're fond of. It's a day for gratitude and thankfulness, so I apologize for the following semi-commercial interlude, but I wanted to tell you, reaaaaallllll quick-like, that I am going on sale. And, well, it won't be TOTALLY Black Friday style, because there will be no mobs or human crushings or cheap electronic devices or throwback TV series DVD sets, but, you know. I'm not that ambitious.

Ok, so. Here's the deal: I haven't been able to sell fabric for a while now, and so of course! some of the prints have made the rounds on pinterest and I am getting requests for them and it KILLS me to say, oh, yeah,  sorry, can't, no. Firstly, because I desire the approval of EVERYONE ON EARTH, and secondly, because I like trading goods for money. It's kinda what I do, I guess?

BUT. What I can do is sell finished goods, made of my fabric. And remember how I mentioned, not too long ago, that I love me some tea towels? Yeah, you know where this is going.

ASL tea towels, my friends! In 7 happy colors! I tweaked the design to make the hands stand out and add a bit more color,  and I kind of love it. Not that I'm biased or anything. (I am.)

And I didn't forget the boats, or ships, or whatever you call your sailing vessels... All of these are printed, like the calendar, on Spoonflower's linen/cotton blend, and squish up and wrinkle in that perfect way that only linen can. Both ASL and boat tea towels are $18 each.

But I digress. Not only are there many new goodies in the shop, but from this Friday, (November 23rd, also known as Black Friday, also known as the Worst Day Ever to Need Thread at JoAnn), until the end of the day Monday (November 26th, also known as Cyber Monday, also known as the only day of the year my husband buys video games) I will be sportin' these dealzzz:

All PRINTS, buy 1 get 1 FREE! (same size or smaller)
All TEA TOWELS, buy 3 get 1 FREE!

This includes the 2013 Quilt Love Calendar Tea Towel, so if you want to pick some up as gifts, this is the best time to do it!

How the Game is Played: Buy the amount of items that will NOT be free, and then in the "notes" section of check-out, tell me which items you want for your freebies. Please, please, please don't buy all the items and then send me convos saying one of them was supposed to be free, or etsy-refund-technicalities will hasten my gradual descent into madness. Por exemplo: You want to buy two prints, and get two free. Put two in your cart, buy them, and then tell me which two you would like for free. Cheers! Or: You want to get a free tea towel- put three in your cart and then write in the note what you would like your fourth to be.

(I apologize for getting all second-grade-teacher on you just then, I know everyone is probably like, "duh, wegetitalready." I'm paranoid, though, and just want to make sure everything goes smoothly and no one ends up paying for stuffs they don't have to.)

(Oh, and, sorry about the delay on these, but tea towels are made to order, and will take approximately 1-2 weeks to ship out. Just so's you know...)

H'anyways. Commercial end, Lauren out, celebrate!

Tea Towel Calendar, Quiltystyle.

Dudes. I made a tea towel calendar. I have a crush on it.

But I'm really sleepy, so I'm going to be THE LAMEST BLOGGER and paste some of the copy from the etsy listing, because I am out of words.
Commence the shameful copy+paste-ing...

  Guys, I love tea towels. Or kitchen towels, or dish towels, or whatever you call them, I AM A FAN. And I've always been fond of tea towel calendars, because, the idea of it amuses me: 2013! How quaint! How specific! How worthy of commemoration, that another year has passed! Let's all dry our dishes with it!

And quilts, who doesn't love a happy little quilt? Maybe some people, but those people also do not love tea towel calendars, I bet. I like them, so I drew one, and then put it ON a tea towel, WITH a calendar, so the aforementioned haters can just put THAT in their pipe and smoke it! I think it'd be great for a gift, too... Even if you yourself do not enjoy quilts or tea towels, surely you know someone who has wet things that need to be dried off, right?

Because your dishes need to get dry, folks. I might be doing you a favor.

Say Yes to Michigan.

Today's post is a three part story, and kinda long-ish, but it's a story I'm fond of, so, yeah. Hereitgoes!

So, about a million years ago, (meaning 4 years), I randomly purchased these postcards from etsy because they were cheap and pretty and I thought they were funny. 

Thus concludes part two of the story. (I never promised they'd be in chronological order.)

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went on vacation. We had meant for it to be the Vacation of all Vacations, and we spent, like, 9 months "planning" it. Why the quotation marks, you might wonder? Well. Our planning process is highly theoretical; we are EXCELLENT at browsing and discussing and obsessive-compulsive-googling, and we are HORRENDOUS at decision-making. Just awful.

See, we have commitment issues when it comes to vacations. I had never really analyzed why all our previous vacations had been meandering road-trips; I thought that we could just book a cruise and buy plane tickets and chill until the day arrived, like normal people. Yeah, no. So after months, long, LONG months of constant deliberation, we were three weeks out from the Official Vacation Week, and we had nothing. No passports, no plane tickets, no hotel rooms, no ideas.

And then I saw photos on someone's instagram, (I can't remember whose, unfortunately!) of Holland, MI. My ideal vacation had included a beach, an Brian's had included sub-90's temperatures... Could it be? Michigan? Fast forward through another sleepless night of airbnb browsing, and the next day at work I met a woman from MI, and while we were speaking, another woman came in, and also started raving about Fabulous Michigan, and the switch in my brain, the broken decision-making switch, dusty from neglect, was flipped. I went home, texted Brian, booked a condo, and basked in the glow of decision-made-ness, as the gloomy cloud of planning-anxiety and exhaustion and uncertainty and googleoversaturation drifted away. Happy sigh!

So we went to Michigan. It. Was. Amazing. I think it was only our second day there, in Holland, (so Dutch!) that I found my new favorite t-shirt. "Just like the postcards!" I thought. "How funny!"

By sheer dumb luck, we ended up being there in the brief time between the summer tourist season and the fall foliage vacationers. We had entire beaches to ourselves (so what if it was a bit chilly!), and we never had to wait to get a table at any of the H'AWESOME restaurants we ate at. (Thanks, Yelp!)

Go to Michigan, people. Or don't, whatever-- it leaves more Michigan for me. I could go on for DAYS; it really truly is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Photodump!

At some point during our trip, Brian mentioned something about "the last time we were in Michigan." "Whaa??" my brain's atrophied geography skills said; "We've never been to Michigan, have we?!?"

End part three of the story.

So here's part one:

There are two pieces that make up the Michigan pie, one on each side of the lake of the same name. Once upon a time, I took a train with my boyfriend to that "other" Michigan, to visit his sister and go to an apple orchard, and it was lovely.

And seven years ago today, that same boyfriend asked me to marry him. It was one of the easiest and best decisions I've ever made.

So I said yes. (In Michigan.)

Some Days.

All my drawings stink today.
And 75% of the clothes we own are on the floor of the sewing room, which is soon to be merged with the office, from which two bookcases (AND ALL THEIR BOOKS) and a couch need to be removed.
And before that happens, a piano needs to be moved, but only after a set of 3 lockers have been relocated, but only after everything has been taken out of them and has new places to live.
And there are other things, but I can't even remember what they are; but they add up to Dumb But Overwhelming.

I wish that every day was all sunshine and bluebirds singing and I am eternally super-productive and that every doodle is golden-sauce, but, UGH. Life ain't no ponyfarm. And with you, I am sharing my whine.

It's ok, though. If everything were always awesome, then awesome wouldn't be awesome... Lame days are just prep for sunshine/bluebird/farts-come-out-as-rainbows days. Actually, lame days are SECRET rainbow-fart days that I'm just too dumb to notice.

You can quote me there, friends. Make an inspirational poster, perhaps.

I philosophize deeply!

Whatcha doing' tomorrow?

I'm going to be at Katz Midtown Market, with loads of paper goodies that aren't even for sale on etsy yet... New cards, prints, and 13"x19" poster prints, my lovely printbox has been busy this week, earning it's keep.

Aaaaaand, they will all be at discounted local market prices, so, yeah, cheep stuff! There will also be a bunch of other awesome vendors, everything from local produce to baked goods to crafties to new and used books, all inside the historic Katz Pharmacy building, which is currently being transformed into artists' studios and gallery space. It's going to be kinda awesome, methinks?

Anyway, do stop by if you're so inclined, and I can talk your ear off abou Michigan, which may very well be the most beautiful place in the world. I'll be forcing vacation photos on you at some point, as soon as I find the old slide projector...

Posted with Blogsy

Winning! And Cat Lovers.

Thanks for entering, internets! The winners, randomly chosen by another section of the internets, are Raych and Sarah and Sarah! Sarah squared, I guess? H'Anyways, congrats, I shall email y'alls shortly.

So, we have a friend named James. This is him with Baxter and Rufus, who are fighting for his attention; small animals flock to him, enchanted by his pied-piper-pipings. Or... something like that.

James and his lovely wife, Estrella, have a cat named Henry. He is small and gray and adorable, and they are quite fond of him. This is the back of Henry's head (photo stolen from J's instagram):

At some point the four of us.(James and Estrella and Brian and I), were discussing how much we love our cats. I said that only the manliest men were willing to openly talk about how much they loved kitties, and James responded, "I LOVE my freaking cat!"
I think I said I was going to make a t-shirt out of that quote, or maybe I just thought it. Either way, I done did it.

Because, I love my freaking cat. 

And if you are so inclined, print/phone cases/tshirts/cards/ipad skins/etc. are available here:
http://society6.com/auntjune