Aisle Runner Overload + Etsy Stuff

My aisle runner was featured on the DIY Bride's blog Saturday. So sweet of her to include me, especially as a "do"!

You can read her (very helpful) post here.

I've also gotten a couple other things posted in my Etsy shop today, so check those out. Here's a preview:

This & That Notebook

Distressed Paper Flowers - Warm Colors

Distressed Paper Flowers - Cool Colors

Aisle Runners

Hi all,

A few weeks back, I talked about Vogt Design Co. and all the things I've been doing. And then I never updated it because I got so busy actually doing those things. Seems like that's how my life goes these days. So, here's a little taste of what's been going on...

I posted my custom aisle runners in my Etsy shop this morning. Here's a few pictures of examples:

The two pictures above are from my own wedding (photography by Kristin Parr)...of course, they're two of my favorites!

I also have been creating monograms to go along with these. Here's just a few of what I've come up with:

Essentially, I'm offering clients the opportunity to either submit wedding monogram or create one with me. Once we have a finalized monogram, I can work from it to create a custom aisle runner for their wedding.

I will say that in my experience with my own wedding, I was very detail oriented. I focused a lot of my planning time on creating the details that, in total, would make up the whole picture. For as much as I did, the thing I get the most compliments and comments on is my aisle runner. It's something that's unexpected and can add a real sense of personalization to the ceremony.

One of the things I love most about working with wedding creations, whether it's invitations or other stationery or aisle runners is that it's a completely unique creation. You'll never see anything like it anywhere else, and once the day is done, the flowers have wilted, the cake has been cut...you'll still have these items as reminders.  

If you or someone you know might be interested in one of these runners, check out my Etsy listing. Hopefully there will be many more wedding goodies listed after this weekend!

8 Question

My good buddy Salt (do you read her blog? If not, you should, she cracks me up!) tagged anyone who wants to play along in these 8 questions. I don't have the brain energy today for an original post, so I'll take her up on her offer. By the way, I knew Salt and her awesomeness long before she was a blog superstar...we "met" on The Knot while planning our weddings. I love her to pieces and hope we get to meet in person someday.

Here we go...

1. What was/is your high school’s mascot?

It is (was) a Lynx. I went to Abraham Lincoln, and I assume the Lynx sounds similar to Lincoln? I don't know, it's a cool mascot either way :)
2. If you could punch one Disney character in the face, who would it be? (I pick Goofy…that guy sucks.)
Winnie the Pooh. Sorry if you're reading this, Ernesto. The guy is annoying as all get out, and he gives fatties everywhere a bad name. I mean, I love my cupcakes, but I'm certainly not going to get my head stuck in a wrapper trying to get out that last crumb.
3. If you were stranded on an island, who would be the LAST person you would want there with you?
Any number of ex's? Winnie the Pooh? Nah...I'll go with my father's "fiance" - Skeletor. Skeletor is one of the most awful human beings I could possibly imagine and I'd probably have to kill her if I was left alone with her for any amount of time.

 4. What is your favorite kind of cheese?
Mm...cheese. Bleu cheese is delish. So is goat cheese. So is colby jack. So is swiss. I'll go with bleu cheese, I guess, since I jump at any chance I get to eat it.




5. What is the weirdest place you ever had to go to the bathroom?
Felt the urge to go, or went? I'm a conventional pee-er. Only gone in a toilet, or perhaps a diaper in my earlier days. Felt the urge to go...I'm sure there are some odd places I've been, but I can't think of anything. I sucked at this question.


6. Do you like camping?
No. I am definitely an indoor girl.




7. What is your most irrational fear?
Terrified of birds. If a bird landed on me, I might have a heart attack. I had a very bad year with birds my freshman year of college (attacked by a swan at school during finals, attacked by a peacock at the zoo, had a bird in my house and try to dive-bomb my head to get out, and had my brother's parakeet fly around my head incessantly until I just curled up in the fetal position and cried.)




8. Are you a cat or a dog person?
Definitely a dog person. Have you seen my doggie? She's adorable :) Plus, I'm allergic to cats.

So, Salt says I'm to come up with my own 8 questions and tag 8 people. I'll just do what she did and pass it along to everyone who reads, so here are my 8 questions...

1. If you could change your name to anything, what would you change it to?

2. What tv character do you most identify with?

3. What is your favorite board game? Do you still play board games?

4. If I gave you a $500 gift card to Target, what would you buy?

5. What is your go-to website for killing time (or having fun)?

6. If your home was on fire, and you, your loved ones, and pets were safe, what 3 things would you rescue?

7. What is your favorite condiment?

8. Do you do any stupid human tricks? If so, what are they? (Bonus points for posting a picture or video of you doing it!)

Have a great day all!

Favorite "Kids" Book

I can't even remember how I got to this point already this morning (which is sad since it's been about a 5 minute process), but I got to thinking about my favorite book as a kid. It's called Peppermints in the Parlor, by Barbara Wallace.

My third grade teacher, Ms. Pashby, would gather us around her on the floor of our portable classroom and read to us from this book every day (for however long it took). I fell in love with that book, and from that point on, would check it out of the library at least once a year. Until I moved to AZ. At 23. I love that book.

I've never forgotten about it, but haven't read it since I was 23. We don't have a library at the moment (and if we did, I doubt they would carry it since it's a small library). Somehow, this morning, I decided to see if Amazon or B&N would carry it because I would like to own a copy. Turns out, the copy I'd been checking out for so many years (pictured above) was from the first round of publications and the dust jacket had the original illustrations. Now I really want that version of the book, which of course is out of print. I found one on Amazon for $39, which I don't think is unreasonable at all. I'll keep watching ebay though to see if I can find one for less.

And, low and behold, I found out there is a sequel! The book resolves itself at the end, so I'm not really sure where they would go with the story (especially since it's called The Perils of Peppermints) so it sounds like it's a stressful time for young Emily Luccock. One more book I need to buy if I can find it for a reasonable price.

So, what about you? Did your teacher or librarian ever read you Peppermints in the Parlor? If not, what was your favorite kids book? Will you read it to your kids (or nieces and nephews or random neighborhood kids or your puppy)?

Now I'm remembering all the time I spent in the library as a kid and probably why I love reading so much to this day...good memories for a Wednesday morning :)

Happy reading, bookworms!

Schedule Change

As you can see, I obviously didn't get the rest of the craft studio pictures posted yesterday. I apologize for that if you were really counting on seeing them. I will do that soon.

I'm in the midst of a schedule change and it's driving me batty. First, Mike & I changed our hours at work a couple of weeks ago to 7am-3:30pm. Which is great because we get to be home earlier in the day (usually be 5pm, which is completely unheard of for us). But, that means that we have to be out the door by 5:30am. I am not a morning person by any stretch of the word. In fact, I don't consider 5:30 to be morning..it's more like "middle of the night." Needless to say, my body has not yet adjusted and I'm pretty tired by the time I get home.

The other schedule change I'm struggling with is keeping up with crafty things I have going on. I sort of took a year off of the craft show/custom order thing when we were planning our wedding. Now, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things and as I sat at my table last night trying to come up with something cute to create, it hit me that I should have already made Halloween things and should be moving on to Christmas. CHRISTMAS! Are you kidding me? I know that's the reality in this particular case, but come on. It's been 100 degrees here for the last couple of weeks, the only reason I'm thinking about Christmas is because I'd like to go bury my head in a pile of snow. I'm feeling extremely out of my element right now when it comes to being creative.

Things are happening in a whirlwind around me, which is great. I love moving at that speed, keeping busy, always having something on my schedule. I've been that way since high school and I tend to succeed when I live like that. The problem is, I'm getting old. :) I can't keep up with that anymore, and I greatly appreciate my down time to nap, read, nap, watch shows I've recorded on the DVR, nap, play with Molly...did I mention napping?

I was saying to Mike last night before bed, remember how when we were younger, all we wanted to do was stay up later? Now, all I can think about is how to get to bed 15 minutes earlier (and that completely makes my night when I do).

So, the point of all this rambling is that I'm really trying to get back on track...get in the crafting mode, be more productive when I am home, blog and work on the Etsy store, and so on. I figure if I say it on my blog, I'm more likely to do it. So, there ya go, it's out there for the world to see.

Have a great day!

My Craft Studio

I have been busy busy busy organizing my craft studio the last couple of days. Busy. That's basically all I've done. But, I'm so happy with the way that everything turned out...I finally have a place for everything. 2 years after we moved in.

So, this post will be very picture-heavy. And explanation-heavy. Here we go.

The view as you enter the room (left)

View as you enter the room (right)

Opposite side of the room

And finally the view of the left side of the room

Here's the details, now that you have a general idea of what the room looks like.

On the shelf beside my work table...my Epic 6 die cutter and my Cuttlebug. There's also some magazines on the bottom for inspiration, a stack of my favorite embellies, and a couple of binders. The flowered binder is my inspiration pieces that I find everywhere, and the black is my portfolio for wedding and party stationery. To the left of the shelf is a filing box, where I keep scraps of cardstock and patterned paper, organized by color. My Cricut machine and cartridges will eventually go on this shelf as well. The box on top of the shelf is to carry supplies between my craft room in the studio and the dining room where I work sometimes.

My punches hang on the wall on bars from Ikea.

In the basket to the left, I keep my Copic markers and my watercolor crayons from Stampin' Up! There's also my SU! color wheel and a diagram of SU! colors by the old color families.

In the basket t the right, there's punches that won't hang on the pegs...corner punches and border punches. My heat gun also rests there and is plugged in below.

Here's my shelf from Making Memories that holds my ribbon, buttons, glitter, paints and SU! markers.

Below that is my Making Memories carousel and SU! ink holder (for my ink pads and refills).

Here's a view of the carousel. I keep a little of everything here...markers, pens, blenders, stamp cleaner, my crop-a-dile, a long acrylic stamp block, etc.

In the set of drawers to the right of the carousel, I keep some of my most-used tools.

In the first drawer, I have the basics...adhesives, scissors, and bone folder

I have acrylic blocks in the second drawer

And in the bottom drawer, I have inks that I use often (that aren't SU! inks)...black StazOn, Versamark, black ink from Papertrey, Ink. I also keep a SU! copyright stamp in that drawer that gets used whenever I make cards for craft shows.

It seems like this post is going to have to be broken down, since there's so many pictures...so, tomorrow, I'll show you the front wall of the room.

A Rant

First off, I have to say that I hate going on blog hiatus without planning it. But that's what I seem to have done. Perhaps I'll get back on track after this weekend. Perhaps.

My co-worker and I were in the middle of a ridiculously personal extremely important conversation about free coffee makers work-related matters in my office, when we were rudely interrupted by a woman who WALKED IN MY OFFICE (no, she doesn't know me...I find this to be a very rude first impression) and simply said, "Bathroom." to interrupt us.

My co-worker was closest to the door and is much kinder than I am (apparently) because she assumed this rude person was actually asking for directions to the restroom. My co-worker showed her where our restrooms were.

Had I been closest to the door, I think the exchange my have gone something like..."Why no, this isn't the bathroom. It's the Human Resources office. Would you like me to direct you to the restroom after I finish my conversation that you clearly didn't notice was going on before you rudely interrupted us with your statements of room locations? I'd be happy to take time out of my work schedule to meet your waste disposal needs since I obviously have no other responsibilities to worry about."

What the hell ever happened to manners?