A new etsy!

Well, the same etsy, just prettier and with new things.

I'm so excited to finally have my wedding invitations up and running. It's just the beginning and I have a lot of work to do yet, but it's really fun and I'm happy to be sharing that process with you.

Oh, and I have a new blog banner too.

AND! I have a clean studio. After filling at least 4 garbage bags full of all sorts of stuff I never needed.

Living and working in the same space can be a challenge, but it works!

emruth.com

Holiday Making

Christmas is such a pretty time of year - and the perfect pretty crafting excuse.

I happened to be at my parents house when they bought their tree this year, so I snagged one of the extra branches - perfect for my tiny apartment. And then decorated it with all three of my christmas ornaments that i own. Maybe not a christmas tree, but a Christmas branch is festive enough for me!

One of my favorite christmas activities is wrapping presents. Ok, it's one of my favorite anytime activities. merry christmas, family!

that tiny box in the middle?  animal butt magnets!

:)

And I made this cute bag.

Matt and I had christmas this past sunday, so I made a fancy dinner and decorated my table with all the christmas-y ish things I could find in my house. I think that was mostly a procrastination method from work I should have actually been doing, but it turned out nice! 

On an unrelated note, my etsy shop reached 100 sales before new years!  Here are 3 packages ready to ship to Singapore, Israel, and Norway! It's fun to know I have my work all over the world.

Here's to a wonderful new year full of making!

Laszlo

Exciting news from the studio (also known as my apartment) - I gained a new helper!

Meet Laszlo, a tiny ball of fur and crazy. This is kind of big deal, I may have been known to be a bit of a cat disliker in my past.

And he is never far away when I have work to do. I've got some super exciting new projects coming soon, and Laszlo is doing an excellent job of quality control. So be excited!

Lurking.

Being quality control apparently gets pretty boring. 

If you don't think cats belong on every blog, take that up with MelissaPeterson. Just look at that face! He's a keeper.

NPR is my best friend.

When people ask me what my dream job is, my answer is something along the lines of 'cutting things with x-acto knives.'  That's what i've been doing for the last 2 weeks, and I still think it sounds like a great idea. Which is impressive considering that I pretty much haven't left the apartment for these 2 weeks, but npr has been doing a great job keeping me company! This is exactly where I've been, enjoying the unseasonably beautiful weather from the comfort of my studio/bedroom, x-acto-ing and designing like a crazy person:

I've been working on a project with Hyde Creative, and I can't wait to show you our finished results! For now, here's a little taste of the awesome that has been (happily) taking over my life:

I've also been working on 3 wedding invitations, which are all coming together really wonderfully. I'm super excited to see all of them printed, put together and ready to mail. Congrats to the 3 awesome couples!

Coming Soon!

Sneak preview of some new headbands that i'll be posting to my etsy store soon!

I love these! I get to mix and match all my lovely fabrics. And they barely make a dent in my unnecessarily large collection of cotton... which is probably a bad thing.

geometry! vintage fabric! tiny pieces!

Yay for crafting in tiny apartments...! The floor is such a handy surface.

Custom printed bags

I just finished up the second batch of custom printed bags for a New Zealand Etsian! She requested bags bags like the ones in my shop with her shop's initials.

Printing in a tiny apartment presents a few challenges, thankfully, we have a big coffee table.  Although sitting on the floor is only comfortable for so long.  Here are the bags post-printing and pre-sewing, accompanied by a little WBEZ.

I would like to make a shameless plug for the Pilsen post office: I've only shipped envelopes like the one below from the Pilsen post office twice, but the lady working greeted me cheerfully and and said "it's the stitch lady! I was just telling someone about you the other day, we haven't seen you in a while!"  I shipped envelopes like this from the Uptown post office a few times a week, and no one ever seemed to recognize me.  I love Pilsen!