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wendy’s flowers

Posted on 03. Sep, 2009 by admin.

My friend Wendy asked me to create a flower for her sister’s birthday party in Las Vegas this weekend. I made a big set of nine and let her choose…

…the rest of them will be in the Princess Lasertron store later this week.

birthday flowers

Posted on 30. Aug, 2009 by admin.

One new thing that I am doing that you will see in my shop after the Silver Bella paper arts event in November is big, fat, felt peony-shaped flowers with long stems.

I’ll have these at Silver Bella’s vendor night event and then I will start building my inventory for my online store.

If you want, you could go check out my set of last year’s Silver Bella photos on Flickr…I’m not sure that booth can be topped!

This week one of the websites I sponsor, Taza and Husband, is giving away one of my felt notebook covers. It’s a heather grey cover with blue and white felt flowers, and a little felt label that says “love.”

To enter, go to Taza and Husband and leave a comment on the giveaway post! The giveaway closes on Friday.

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turbo the mouser

Posted on 09. Aug, 2009 by admin.

I’ve never seen my cat Turbo catch a mouse or a bird or anything. He came to us about three years ago, abandoned, clawless, and totally emaciated. Before I realized he was starving, I tried to ignore him, hoping he would go home on his own. But he sat on our porch outside our window crying all night for a week. One day I brought him a bowl of scrambled eggs and he started purring and rubbing on my leg. Then we adopted him.

He’s like me. He’s a city cat. He likes to be inside. He hates nature. He sleeps in a rainbow bed. And he loves cute shoes.

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clean plate at the empty room

Posted on 08. Aug, 2009 by admin.

I’ve been feeling kind of out of gas lately. I’m falling into a routine balancing work and play and having that consistency has me living on autopilot. That’s okay once in a while…I can’t run at Mach 5 all the time.

Today is the last day to enter the Princess Lasertron felt flower kit giveaway, so make sure you do that before the time is up today at 5pm eastern. I’ve been having fun reading all of the comments. When was the last time you felt glorious?

It is NOT the last day to vote for me to win Martha Stewart’s DIY wedding crafts contest. The shameless promotion isn’t over either.

Now that housekeeping is over, I want to talk about how much fun I had today.

Tonight was the opening of Clean Plate, a 30-day raw food restaurant that is part of Omaha’s Empty Room project. From the Clean Plate blog:

CLEAN PLATE is an opportunity to share with others my belief that the act of eating is an everyday expression of our most deeply held values. It will serve the kind of food that is close to my heart, not fussy or complicated, but full of deeply good flavor.

CLEAN PLATE is part of the Empty Room experiment. Empty Room is the creation of real estate developer Christian Christiansen of Bluestone Development and the graphic design teams from What Cheer and Secret Penguin. They asked the question, “What would you do with an empty room?” Their six favorite responses to this question are each receiving a month, rent free in a retail space located at the Slowdown/Film Streams complex. CLEAN PLATE takes up residence this August. Hope to see you then!

At the opening event, tons of Omahans showed up to sample some of Elle Lien’s raw food offerings in the beautiful Empty Room space.

“. . . I try not to use the words vegan or raw, because I feel like they’re alienating. I’d rather people just eat the food. It’s not just hippie granola food. It’s normal, real, delicious food.”

-Elle Lien

The huge Parsons-style dining table was handmade by local furniture maker Peter Cales.

For those of you interested in checking out Clean Plate for lunch or a late-night snack, maybe we will see you there! Dave is beyond excited to go there for lunch all month.

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Who wants to take this free Princess Lasertron bouquet kit off my hands?

Posted on 07. Aug, 2009 by admin.

Andrea Chamberlain, the hilarious and insightful woman who blogs at The Creative Junkie e-mailed me a few months ago asking if I was interested in doing some sort of giveaway on her site. We talked a lot about what kind of goodies would be best for her readership, and agreed that giving away a felt flower bouquet kit would be fun for everyone!

Okay, these things are valued at $130 and include everything you need to make a 16-stem Princess Lasertron bouquet–lots of brightly colored thread, pre-cut flower shapes, cards and cards of beautiful vintage buttons, all of the extra notions needed, instructions with detailed stitch diagrams, and of course a few other surprises. Of course you could use the materials and instructions to make the full bouquet, but those of you who are not looking for a wedding bouquet will love it too. There is a lot of versatility in the springy color palette:

…Wouldn’t a felt flower craft kit be a fun surprise for the child in your life who is languishing in boredom during these last few summer days?
…Couldn’t you modify these blooms into headbands, pins, scrapbooking embellishments, or even copy the pattern to create more using your own fabric?
…Shouldn’t you do what all the cool kids are doing and head over to Andrea’s blog to comment and be entered to win?

The giveaway will be open on The Creative Junkie until Sunday afternoon at 5pm eastern standard time and a random winner will be chosen out of the comments.

I’ve gotta say, I couldn’t buy better advertising than the kind post Andrea made about me–it makes me blush.

Princess Lasertron is a creative spirit, an entrepreneur, a designer, a blogger, a supporter of other local Omaha crafters and the walking personification of quirky adorable.

Thank you Andrea for hosting this giveaway and to all my readers, stop wasting time on my website and rush over to The Creative Junkie and enter to win!

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blatant materialism

Posted on 30. Jul, 2009 by admin.

This is a list of things I want to spend my money on this year. Maybe if I write it all down, it will seem more real and I will be less likely to nickel and dime it all away:

1. Weddingbee party in New York in September!
2. New website redesign (Almost done with that one, and it’s raddddd. It looks like a website for a magazine! I think it will be ready to launch in the next few weeks.)
3. Paying my employee Hollie more than I am now–she deserves it, she is so helpful and wonderful
4. A condo in downtown Omaha with a rooftop garden.
5. SXSW interactive
6. Tons luxurious fabric for next year’s dress line
7. A tiny human
8. A dishwasher
9. A new custom dress (that I will hopefully wear on Martha)

Looking forward, things I want eventually in the future:
1. To spend 6 months in Berlin as a family
2. An offsite workshop space in midtown. I had a great location that ended up falling through last month, and I now have my eye on a few coworking spaces coming soon.
3. Starting an organization that throws six public parties a year with lots of different themes
4. To write a book about planning weddings as parties
5. A craft teaching world tour
6. This room (found on mary ruffle)

What are some things you were hesitant to spend money on, and ended up being glad you did?

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a princess lasertron giveaway: new felt book covers!

Posted on 24. Jul, 2009 by admin.

Today I am really excited to give away one of the new felt-covered notebooks I’ve been making. I’m doing a schoolhouse theme for my booth at Silver Bella this year, and I thought that with back-to-school time around the corner, it’d be a good time to start showing the things I’ve been working on.

This reusable felt book cover is part of the Please See Me line of Princess Lasertron design that is inspired by the schoolchildren I see walking past my house every day and their bright colors and animal-shaped backpacks and frilly socks and stained knees. For my Silver Bella vendor booth, you will see many more of these whimsical products and I will have some in my Etsy shop for those of you who won’t be at the event! (I’ll let you know when I get those uploaded.)

Each reusable felt book cover one fits a standard composition notebook, about 9.5×7.5”.

To win this book cover, leave a comment below….
A) with a question for me
OR
B) a link to another one of your favorite websites!

I’ll choose a winner on Sunday night at midnight (so technically Monday morning I guess) using the random number generator. This giveaway is open to international readers, so wenden sie sich bitte einen kommentar hinterlassen!

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princess lasertron on martha!

Posted on 23. Jul, 2009 by admin.

Well….almost. Not quite. But that’s one of the subject lines I have been longing to type for years. And it’s within my reach, but I need your help!

Martha Stewart Weddings is hosting a contest to find the best DIY wedding crafts out there. The winning designs will be featured on an episode of The Martha Stewart Show.

I have a big poster in my studio of my goals for 2009, and one of them is “get on the Martha Stewart Show”!!!! I really want to win this contest and reach my goal.

I entered two bouquet pictures and a picture of a boutonniere in the contest, and if you could vote for each one or leave a comment I would appreciate it so much! There is a quick one-page registration process. Martha Stewart will not sell your information to third-parties. Here are the links to vote:

1. A picture of Heather’s bouquet (Originally blogged here, if you’re interested.)
2. A picture of the flowers from my wedding
3. A boutonniere from Jen’s wedding! (And here’s the post for that wedding!)

Just complete the short registration process and click on the stars to vote!
xo

edit: Oh! Also! I almost forgot! Send up the bat signal, I’m having a giveaway on Friday! And it’s something you will like.

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cream puff cupcakes

Posted on 12. Jul, 2009 by admin.

I adapted this recipe from the cream puff dessert recipe on Meg Duerksen’s blog (one of my favorites! such awesome photos). It’s easy to make–just a few ingredients that you can pick up at any store if you don’t already have them in your pantry–and every time I make them, the crowd goes wild. It’s an impressive dessert, but little do they know that mixing pudding and cool whip is no big deal…

I modified this recipe because last time I made this dessert in pan form, I had to bring a knife to the party and cut it which was kind of inconvenient. In cupcake form, the cream puffs are much easier to eat and everyone can have their own equal portion!

Crust:
…3/4 c. water
…6 T butter
…3/4 c. flour
…3 eggs

Filling:
…2 c. cold milk
…2 packages (3.4 oz) vanilla instant pudding
…1 container whipped topping (thawed)

Topping:
…3 squares semi-sweet baking chocolate, chopped
…3 T. whipped topping

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with 2 liners.

2.For crust, heat butter and water in saucepan until butter is melted and comes to a boil. Stir in flour all at once. Reduce heat and stir mixture vigorously for about 1 minute until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and forms a ball. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes.

3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition until the mixture is smooth. Using a spoon, spread some crust mixture on the bottom of each cupcake liner. I don’t have an exact measurement here, but the crust will puff up and get really huge so don’t use too much. Maybe fill each one 1/4 of the way.

4. Bake for 20 minutes. Surfaces will puff unevenly. Prick each one to release steam, and continue baking for 5 minutes. Cool completely.

5. For filling, pour milk in mixing bowl. Add pudding mixes; whisk 2 minutes until thickened. Fold in 2 cups whipped topping. Pour mixture into each cupcake liner–I like to use an ice cream scoop! Refrigerate 1 hour.

6. For topping, place chocolate and whipped topping in a small bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir until smooth. Pour chocolate into a small baggie. Cut the tip of the bag with scissors and garnish each cupcake with a drizzle of chocolate. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

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some weekend inspiration from Jo Packham, editor-in-chief of Where Women Create magazine

Posted on 10. Jul, 2009 by admin.

Poetic and purposeful creative rituals.

Last month when I received the current issue of Where Women Create magazine, I opened it and was immediately engaged by Jo Packham’s letter from the editor. Although this is only the third edition of the new publication from the popular Stampington & Company, it was clear from the first issue that WWC is not a magazine to idly flip through (although you could!) and toss aside (you definitely couldn’t!) like I do with many of the decor and fashion mags that arrive in my mailbox. Starting at page 2 of WWC, with Jo’s letter, you will be compelled to read every word of every page.

In her latest letter from the editor, Jo Packham addresses the everyday challenges and triumphs of living with the kind of manic creativity so many of us possess. It deeply moved me. Jo graciously gave me permission to share the most recent letter from her WWC column, “From My Kitchen Table,” with you, my lucky readers:

“Perspective. Do you know what it is? Do you know how to keep it? Sometimes, I’m not even sure I know how to spell it correctly! What I do know is how easy it is to lose…sometimes in a minute, in a comment, in a flash of insecurity, it just simply vanishes or becomes completely distorted and unrecognizable. It is like a wild kaleidoscope, always turning, always different, always a surprise.

As a creative woman, I believe we have a more difficult time maintaining our perspective..on our personal life, our projects, our goals, and even something as simple as the immediate task at hand. We are passionate about a new idea and our ever-changing realm of inspiration. We are a “1″ or a “10″ ….okay, perhaps sometimes a “2″ or a “9″ …but we never ever are a “5!”

Creative women don’t often do what is defined as the average or the norm. We are often beyond happy, giddy with an artistic success, or have our hearts broken in frustration and disappointment. To creative spirits, highs are dizzying, blinding, and exhilarating and lows can be deep, dark and seemingly insurmountable.

On my good days I am so happy to have a creative soul. I often wonder, “What would my life be like if I didn’t know the feeling of that creative high?” Some of my most joyous moments have been found among artistic successes, my friendships with other creative women and my personal artistic pursuits in creating, decorating, and writing.

But there are those darker days, when I am down. I can be so overwhelmed with the “to dos” and the “should dos” that my tears won’t stop and the panic attack is so real that it takes my breath away. It’s then that another question echoes in my mind: “Why can’t I just be somebody else, anybody else? Maybe I could be sometime whose life is quiet and predictable and a little bit normal?”

It’s also then that I have to remind myself, it’s to us creative spirits that colors are brighter. And I wonder instead, “Why doesn’t everyone see incomparable beauty in the yellow of the mustard fields in the spring?” and “Can’t everyone tell that the sunset at the end of the day between the buildings in an overcrowded city is the most beautiful display of pure light they will ever see?”

And so, when I am faced with the challenge of my own moods, I try to recall it’s us–the creative souls–that hear the music in everything. And it’s always louder and more melodic to us than to anyone else. (Do you recall, in the film August Rush when everything August heard sounded like music? The footsteps on the cement sidewalk, the leaves rustling in the wind, the subway on the tracks…absolutely everything was music to his ears and it made everything a performance ready for stage.)

Yes, we work, we strive, we pursue a project or an artful task and we do not consider a piece finished until it sings to us…and perhaps only to us. That is the gift and the burden we share as creative spirits and artistic souls.

To us, the often asked and never answered questions on our perspective are: “How much is enough?” “When is it too much?” and “Why are we always looking for our own fairytale?” I often wonder who it was along the way that considered themselves expert enough to answer these questions, to set establishment guidelines, to make such a decision. Indeed, what I do know is that these answers are all so different for each of us and as creative spirits, we seem to defy any of those that are either expected or traditional.

Sometimes a pitcher or a vase of flowers can make a room feel like a garden, especially when we allow room for one more perfect pink rose or honey colored peony–and there are those of us who would not want any blooms at all! For us, it is always difficult to just buy “stuff,” to buy all things matching, to have a designer help us with our decorating, or a teacher guide our art. What I know from working and loving so many creative women is we seem to share so many chords of our own “artistically distorted” perspectives on life, art, and beauty:

…We see untold meaning and purpose in things that have a memory, words must have a personal meaning, and we allow objects to bear sentiment. Every item we see, buy, or hold could be perfect for an unmade piece of art or creative project.
…Our concept of time is not like everyone else’s either. Sometimes we can wait forever for something that is important, or needs to be perfect. Other times, we can’t wait until morning to do something, create something, or develop a new idea.
…Every idea is a better idea than our last great idea and we need to do it “now.” We fight to stay focused–there are just so many things we want to try, to do, to complete. And then sometimes we are so inspired we can’t create anything at all!
…We often surrender to our own self-doubt. Today I know that I am right, but tomorrow I will likely wonder what exactly it was that I was thinking…or…If it’s such a great idea we wonder why no one has thought of it or tried it before. (I have also learned, if a good idea seems like a good idea a week later, it’s probably a really good idea after all!)

And so, the question begs asking, “Are we so creative because our perspective is always askew and artistically distorted?” …Could we create such beautiful jewelry if we couldn’t see the possibilities in everything, could we paint if we couldn’t see “everything” in color and shape and form? Could we dance, or sing, or play if the music wasn’t so loud, so intense, so personal and so intoxicating?

Some days I simply don’t want to have any perspective at all. I just don’t even want to think about anything differently than anyone else. And some days this creative energy that changes my perspective on a whim is truly my drug of choice. I can’t get enough. I can’t do enough. I simply cannot quit.

It is a hard life, it is a wonderful life, it is a life that we are blessed with that we should appreciate every minute of each and every day, every step of the journey…and if we could just keep our perspective, I am certain we would do just that!

What we each need is a friend, or really lots of friends, to help us keep our perspective when we lose it just for a minute. I have such friends, but there is one that means more to me than any other. I call her in the morning with a new idea that makes my emotions soar. I call her at noon, insecure and a tiny bit paranoid because someone said something negative or no one called at all. And then I call her at night because my heart is aching and I am sure I will never have that perfect guy in my life who loves me because I am a little bit quirky, terribly unpredictable, and passionate beyond explanation and understanding.

Her name is Linda, and we have been BFFs since we were 10 or so. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank her, and all of you, who help me and each of us, to keep our perspective, to ind our way on this creative journey of who we are and where we have to go…regardless of how we travel and what we carry with us on any given day.”

Anyway, I just wanted to share that. I think I was having a “down” day when I read it because I just burst into tears and kept thinking “I understand! I understand!” over and over again. Whether you’re a creative professional or hobbyist, you have probably felt the same way before too.

I recommend signing up for a subscription to Where Women Create or picking up a copy at your local bookstore/crafting supply store. (Especially the November/December/January issue which will feature me!)