3-D paper town

With the current stay at home situation it can be difficult to find new, different, or interesting things to keep kids busy. I stumbled across a set of printable 3-D house templates and tried them out with our daughter. It was an immediate hit and before I knew it, we were on the way to creating our very own 3-D paper town.

An aerial view of our town with the city on the left and the neighborhood houses on the right.

We don’t actually have a name for our town yet, other than it being referred to as “our town” right now. We started by creating fun modern (dream) homes and slowly added things like a barn for a farm, a hair salon for her Nana, a music studio for her Dad, and most recently a school.

The neighborhood with both modern and traditional style of houses, the Niffler Academy, and the pond at the farm.

craftiness all around

Tony, Renee, and I cruised around between Cambridge and Somerville yesterday to check out a couple of the local craft shows. It’s amazing to see how many wonderful local artists there are in our area. It truly creates this sense of culture that I think we would really miss if we ever moved out of this area. A friend of mine (Jenne) calls the area “Camberville” – too funny!

Anyway, we began the morning with coffee and pastries at Bloc 11 in Union Square as usual. (Must look into getting stock in this place – seriously!) Had my usual egg sandwich and large latte – yum! Then we drove over to the Design Hive Market to see our friends Libby and Bren. Libby (Whistling Sparrow Designs) is a very talented sewer (is that a word?) and makes the neatest things like aprons, dresses, and cute little brooches. Check out this pineapple apron she made, complete with a recipe for pineapple upside tucked in the pocket!

Renee commissioned this tomato painting from Bren Bataclan. Isn’t it cute?! Our friend, Kristen, bought an eggplant from him a couple of weeks ago so we told him that he should do a whole line of veggies. Tony and I are thinking that it would be so cool to have Bren come paint our baby’s room in the future.

We also saw Saya of Saya Studio and her beautiful bags. She is going to do a custom order for me because the bag that I photographed here was a little too big for someone my size, and she didn’t have her across-the-torso sling style in the green, blue, and brown color theme that I like. Isn’t it gorgeous, though?

Then we drove across town over to the Joy Street Open Studios in Somerville to see our friend, Rebecca of Jewels Fabulous and her studio mate, Lydia of Quiet Jewelry. I ended up buying myself 2 necklaces and 1 pair of earrings from this excursion – check them out:

One of the pieces that I got was a “chubby bird” necklace from Kelly of Tulips to Kiss. It’s so fricken cute! She has a whole series of various animals with little bits of food carved out of their bellies called the “Ate” series — get it? The food is what they ate – too clever!

The Joy Street studio houses so many talented artist. Here’s a little shot of Rebecca and Lydia’s space where they make such gorgeous pieces of jewelry:

We walked around to check out the other artists and came across this interesting piece of art on a wall. It appears to be eyeballs made out of ping pong balls.

Anyway, it was a fun day checking out various artists and their wares. A cold day, for sure! But definitely worth it!

may fair + more cards

After we had breakfast at the Bloc 11 Cafe in Union Square, Tony and I walked over to Harvard Square to check out the May Fair (thanks to Liz for suggesting it last weekend!). It was pretty neat how they had parts of Mass Ave, Church, and Brattle Streets blocked off for the various vendors and restaurants. We got to meet artist Bren Bataclan, I bought a really cute dress from LF Stores for only $28 (originally priced at $236 – no joke!), and we saw some great sidewalk chalk art. Crazy to think that this fair has been going on for 25 years and this is the first time we’ve ever been to it.

I managed to make a few cards lately too. And I’ve started something called my Track Back Project. Check it out here.

This one is just like the one I made for my mom and sister for Mother’s Day.

I just love how blue and brown go together so nicely. I used my QuicKutz tool to punch out the flower petals, and my new “word window punch tool for the “congratulations” message from Stampin’ Up.

I couldn’t think of a way to incorporate a sentiment on the front of this card after I was done putting it together. It would be useful for just about any occasion, so I think I’m just going to leave it blank on the outside.

Ever since Liz’s Stampin’ Up party, I’ve wanted to try the scalloping technique that Amy Corr taught us. So I went to AC Moore last week and bought one of these corner rounder tools, took off the guard, and voila! LOVE how easy it is to make a scalloped edge now! And to think, I’ve been handcutting them all this time.

I had this sentiment stamp made through Impress Rubber Stamps because I like the quote so much. I used a lot of scrap pieces of paper on this card.

My mom has been able to sell a lot of cards at the salon lately so she needs me to send her more. Gotta go work on some Father’s Day and graduation designs. But before I go, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all you moms out there! 🙂