bouquet card (freebie!)

Some flowers for you! Consider them my freebies for last couple of weeks.

I've been knee deep (or higher!) in work and I haven't had a chance to make any paper related projects. That made this card for Mother's Day feel so good to put together.

The pieces are all separate and I simply tied them together with some twine. I hope you enjoy it! You can download it here.



Surtex is only a little over a week away and I'm very excited. I can't wait to show everyone my work! If you're there please visit me at my booth - 664! If you're tired hearing about Surtex can you imagine my Mr. Z and the kids? LOL. They are so patient with me. I'm a lucky girl!

Wish me luck! I can't wait to tell you all how it went. Until then I hope you take care and I'll see you when I get back. There will be no posts until the 24th or so.

Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful mothers!

Be well! - Patricia

mother's day pop-up card

I have a little treat for you today! 

You can download a free printable and see the tutorial for this mother's day pop-up card on the FedEx Out of Office blog. Enjoy!

creativity to fill your heart

I've been wanting to add to my Single Images collection for a long time. I always get these random ideas of what to do but they don't really fit (or inspire me!) to make a collection/set around them. So I've decided to come up with this little plan. It's called Creativity to Fill Your Heart.

I will share the images first and then I get to upload some different type of images to my shop. We ALL get something out of it!


It is no coincidence that I start this on Valentine's Day. I think that we need to share with everyone today. It isn't just a day for couples. It's a day for everyone that we hold dearly in our hearts—including ourselves! I want to encourage you to really make something with these simple images and use them for fun cards, scrapbooking, etc that will brighten your day or someone else's day.

So here it is...


Creativity To Fill Your Heart 
I believe that creativity truly does fill our hearts. We need it to step aside for a few minutes from our daily routines or to share a special moment with friends. It's also a way to remember how artistically carefree we were as children. It's great therapy!



How this works

- One freebie per day

- It will be available for only 24hrs (after which it will go into my Single Images section and be available for $0.99)

- They are for personal use only

What you need to do

- Download the image
 (go to my Freebie page)
- Make something, anything!

- Have fun!

- Like my Facebook page - that's where I'll be making the daily announcement of when the new image is posted.
- Optional: Post a photo of your project on my Facebook page and share your work with everyone
- Sign up for my weekly newsletter for updates on the shop and freebies (this week I'll be sending the newsletter today). Sign up here!
- I can't promise I'll get to them all but if you have any suggestions/request please post them in my Suggestion Box

So what do you think? I really hope you have fun and post your work on my Facebook page. I love seeing what you make!

CRICUT USERS:
My files will not work with your machines. Unfortunately Cricut does not allow the use of 3rd party files.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! 

XOXO

oh happy day

Oh Happy Day is this week's freebie and maybe a general idea of how I led our summer and how I feel about us celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary yesterday (yay us!).

Wouldn't it be a great thing to say right before getting out of bed every day (regardless of what it may bring)? Oh happy day! Yes!

We've been having happy days all around, whether we were away on vacation or home in our PJs we had a great couple of months. I realize that things got quite slow around here and in my shop but lately seeing how quickly the kids are growing has made me stress less about that and keep things in perspective—such is the luxury and/or quandary of being my own boss.

I hope you're having having happy days yourselves!

• • •

Friday Tidbits
- Check out how the talented Lowri used my apple box to create a larger and festive school box project.
- Printable blank calendars: Take a look at these couple of options that I designed to coincide with the start of the school year.
- Back up your computer people! A worrisome and eye opening story.
- 21 great Etsy shops worth checking out - I'm so happy to be in such a great company! Thank you Gabrielle!

Have a great weekend everyone!

the gift of friendship

Hello my friends! I'm so sorry for the late post. Motherhood has definitely taken a front seat this week and the summer balancing act continues!

This week's freebie is a butterfly which I used to liven up a Flowers Gift Card Set (not included in the download). I'm going to send a coupon thought/gift/three-dimensional card to a friend that needs a little pick-me-up. I'm not sure what the coupon is going to say yet but at least the pretty paper part is done.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, 

but to reveal to him, his own. 


Benjamin Disraeli

Friday Tidbit

The world's largest stop motion video. It took 15 days to make! It seems fitting for today. :)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

• • •

Remember! - If you'd like to share your projects with this week's freebie just add it below by clicking on the blue bar. The posting will be open for two weeks. Have fun!

cake + art

In honor of Mr Z's birthday (feliz cumpleaños mi corazón!) we will all share cake! Today's freebie file is ready to go and as always it's available for one week only.

Please feel free to share your creations below during the next two weeks. I added more time because I know we're all busy and/or the summer is slow. Just click on the blue bar at the end of this post.

Shop Update
You can tell that I had gift giving on the mind. Here are two of the Decorative Tags that are now in the shop.







Friday Tidbit
Paper + gunpowder! - Today I only have one but it's a fun one. The kids and I went to the Houston Museum of Fine Art yesterday and we saw the wall to wall artwork called The Odessey by Ca Guo-Qiang. I hadn't been to that part of the museum in a long time so I hadn't heard of this piece even though it was made and installed in 2010. It's beautiful and it's amazing that the medium is gun powder of all things!

Check out the video of the project here. It's worth watching!

• • •

Have a great weekend everyone!

oh happy day!

I'm in the mood to celebrate!

- Today is the last day of school! Sixth grade and third grade are now history. Phew! The kids couldn't be any happier and I'll have to admit I'm pretty thrilled myself.

- As of 11:45 last night I am a first time aunt to a little guy that has already melted our hearts. Yay!!! Now to spoil, enjoy and give him back to his parents whenever I need a baby fix. Haha!

What do you have to celebrate?

• • •

Today's freebie is about keeping it simple or using repetition to make something more elaborate. I made these two completely different projects with the same leaf image.

You can barely see them but I used wire rings for the wine tags and I used a couple of layers of Mod Podge to make the leaves water proof. Wine tags came to mind because we've been needing them for a long time and I kept being stubborn about making them myself. So I'll consider this the first project of the summer—check!

if you don't have a cutting machine you can still participate! This may be an image that you'd like to cut by hand or simply be inspired by its graphic quality to make something else. Just do whatever you're inclined to do! There are no wrong answers and the point of this is just to have some creative fun time.

Friday Tidbits
- This bird nest project caught my eye this week. Newspaper is a great resource!
- I'd love stand right here one day.
- But I shouldn't complain because this will be our view for a couple of weeks in July. Can wait!



If you're interested in sharing... don't forget to post your projects below. Just click on the blue bar.

FTI - If you're reading my blog in a reader you won't see the link that let's you post your project. You'll have to visit my blog to do that. Thanks!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

7 years

Today I celebrate seven years of blogging. Seven! It seems unreal.

Seven things I've learned:
- Go with the flow of my own creativity and personal pace.
- Stay true to my style. Always.
- Writing is still painful, but I make it work. Pressing "publish" still gives me pause.
- Take breaks when needed. It's better than posting for posting's sake.
- Accept that things are changing in the blogging world. Everyone is so quiet!
- It's great to have a 'specialty' but it's fun to try other things too.
- It's always best to keep learning. There's always room for improvement.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you that have visited . I know there are a million places you could be and the fact that you stop by is still very important to me. I hope that I can continue to teach or inspire you in some way.



So... onto a few changes:

- Friday Freebie:  I will be posting freebies on Fridays—no strings attached. The files will be two-dimensional (SVG & DXF) and can be used for personal use only. Remember that you can use code seven12 for 30% discount on all A Little Hut products until tomorrow.

- Weekly challenge: I'm going to start a weekly challenge on every other Thursday. It will be based on an inspirational photograph or image. I will start the first challenge next week (May 31st).
- Product/tool reviews: I'll be writing more of these posts as I come across products I use and like.
- Product listings (as you see below): I've always thought these are practical when I've seen them on other blogs. You can see at a glance what product is being used at any given time. Full disclosure: I will earn some commission on these listings.

Just for fun!
Since birthday cards are something that we all need at some point or another I was wondering if anyone would like to show off their work with today's first freebie.

Who's willing to share? If you are, post your project to your blog or elsewhere on the web (ie Flickr) and copy the URL to upload by clicking on the little blue bar below the product listings. I'd love to see what you make!

That's all for now. See you Tuesday. Have a great weekend!

InLinkz.com

mother's day - free download

I haven't posted a printable in a very long time so I thought Mother's Day would be just the right occasion.

Mother's Day is very special but why limit the card or note giving to just that day? You (ok we!) have no excuses with this simple design. You can send you awesome Mom a quick message any time of the year.

The PDF has 8 pages (I couldn't decide between raspberry/pink and orange so I included both. I also included options in English (mom and mum) and Spanish (mami and mamá). All you need to do is cut the card out (outline included) and fold it in half (optional - I used the We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper on my printouts).

You can download the entire PDF (just delete the pages you don't need) right here.

For those of you that have cutting machines... I'll be posting cutting files for the "Mom" titles tomorrow.

Enjoy!

simple monday: easy kids valentine's day project

If you have little ones and you're still looking for something for them to share with classmates, here is a simple project to do. My tutorial, a free download and full instructions are on the Out of Office FedEx blog.

Happy Monday!

Disclosure: I am a paid blogger for FedEx Office

a little something for you

I have a little freebie for this month. The details are in October's newsletter. If you haven't subscribe you can do so by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page. I only send out newsletters once a month, so don't worry I won't be flooding your inbox.

Yes, I said I wasn't going to add any fall-ish items to my Falling Leaves set... but I couldn't resist a little acorn for this one. Enjoy!

• • •

Thank you so much to eHow for including me in their 100 Shift List! So honored!
The full list of inspiring women is here.

Have a great day everyone!

4th of july star place cards

I don't know about you, but when I'm full of mental cobwebs, my creativity flies out the window. Instead of making anything new, I spent the last couple of days building my gift tags stash, using recently ordered stamps. It was very therapeutic.

Today, mental balance has returned (phew!) and I'm in a 'better give than receive' mood.

Seeing so many 4th of July projects has seeped through, so I worked on this simple place card project that you can either cut by hand or with a cutting machine. It's a new freebie for you!

If you don't celebrate the 4th of July, you can still use the cards to help decorate any occasion for the stars that brighten your life.

I called them place cards but they can also be used as gift tags or food labels (I've also heard them called food tents—right?).

Download files here (PDF, SVG & DXF files are included).

Enjoy!

february calendar

Can you believe it? January just flew by. I'm immersed in some projects so this will be a quick one.

This is a simple project for you to make and enjoy this month—it won't take you more than a few minutes to make.

Download here.

lined holiday gift cards or tags for kids

Oh my! I never thought I'd pull a disappearing act for this long. I've been trying to get a proposal out the door, but nothing is worse than changing your mind about something at the last minute. I'm almost done and hopefully the effort will be worth it in the end.



In the meantime, upon several requests, I decided to once again pull out the holiday lined printables for kids. Because of my limited time, I've 'recycled' some of my own images (hope you don't mind). I'm offering two versions—one is just like the ones I've posted previously and the other is in black and white.



The black and white version has illustrations in outlines so that your little ones can color (while giving you an itty bitty slice of time to wrap gifts? read?—maybe?—or is that coming from a mom + wishful thinking?). I hope you like them and that the kids have fun working on them.

Downloads here:
- black and white
- color

Can you believe there are only 12 days until Christmas? I can't.

dull but not empty-handed

This week I had to hit the ground running. We all had Tuesday to recover and then it has been non-stop since then. I'm completing some projects and starting unexpected new ones. It's been a good week.

Unfortunately for you, my busy week is directly linked to this yawner of a post. The good news is that I do have a way to make it up to you.



Remember these lovely Make Good Books that I mentioned a couple of weeks back? Guess what? I have two of each to give away. In order to enter the drawing all you need to do is leave a comment here answering the following question: What has been your favorite sewing project? If you don't sew - What sewing project would you like to learn how to make? Easy. Right? I will draw four lucky winners next Tuesday, May 5th. Good luck!

For more information on the Make Good Books Series visit their site here.

My answer? I'd love how to know how to make very simple skirts (wrap arounds?) for me and dresses for little C to wear for the summer. But I don't own a serger. Would that be a problem?

Have a great weekend everyone!

401st post giveaway

My 400th post slipped by me so, to celebrate, here we are at my 401st post giveaway. I don't have a special piece to offer this time (my daughter got sick and the plan for that went out the window) so I will offer four printables of your choice to four people that post a comment and a little framed surprise in the mail to a fifth person. I will end the drawing on Jan. 20th at midnight. To participate simply leave a comment below and answer one little question for me. I want to make another group of gift boxes but I'm undecided as to what theme to run with this time. Do you have any thoughts for me? If you don't, how about... what do you want to see me make next? Just curious.

And to give you a heads up... Starting January 17th (until the end of the month) with the purchase of any 2 A Little Hut printables you will receive a 2009 Patterned Initials Calendar for free!

Thank you to all of you that visit and comment on my blog and make my efforts here so very rewarding. It is all truly appreciated.

winners

First off let me say that I never thought the auction would go this high. I took a peek at some other auctions and it seems like the generosity spread all around. It just shows how wonderful people can be in a time of need. Amazing and so heart warming. Thank you to those of you that participated. Laura, please contact me at info[at]alittlehut[dot]com with a copy of your PayPal receipt and the address you'd like me to send the piece to.

Now, the book giveaway. I love actually picking a number out of a hat, but in the interest of getting this done a little quicker I used a random number generator. I decided that the first winner would get Forecast and the second would get the Over and Over book. I almost feel like this was fixed (I promise it wasn't!) because I love the work by both these very talented ladies and they have always been very supportive with their comments about my work. Congratulations to you both! I really hope you enjoy the books.

Here are the winners:
Jules (Forecast) :: I've always envied Jules' talent for writing. Her blog is so entertaining to read and always makes me feel like I need to try harder. I love how she combines her wit with her obvious talent to tell a story. Who knows how many times she's just shaken her head in shock as she sees me stumbling along with my posts. I have honestly thought of that Jules! ;)

Lisa (Over and Over) :: Lisa's artwork has always inspired me. I love her use of colors and textures. Some of her work looks so dreamy and some so graphic. I find that contrast so interesting.

I hope that everyone enjoyed the weekend!

book giveaway

Yes, I know I was supposed to stay away but hey I'm only human. I also happened to pick up my mail at my box today and got a lovely surprise package that I will be sharing with you.

Raise your hand if you love free books? I thought so. Me too. I love getting them and specially when they're unexpected. I sat down and flipped through two great ones this afternoon, enjoyed them a bit and now I'm ready to let them go - kind of. We literally have no space in our bookcase for more books and I'm determined not keep anything we can't put in the right place. As a matter of fact, I'm getting a serious "spring" cleaning bug. The type that has me clearing out closets (drastically) and taking tons of stuff to Goodwill.

I know this is going to sound strange but I'll share anyway. When I'm in the middle of purging, I repeat a short phrase to myself (out loud mind you) when I'm undecided about getting rid of something: "Be BRUTAL!" Nine times out of ten I end up getting rid of whatever it was that I was doubtful about. It really works. Try it. But I digress. On to the book giveaway.



I'm not good about giving book reviews (plus I'm not really supposed to be here - remember?) so in the interest of efficiency please click on the links below to read more about each book. Here's the info:

Over and Over by Mike Perry - This book is particularly painful to let go. It's all about hand drawn patterns. Very, very cool!

Forecast by Nicholas Blechman - This book offers a lot of food for thought and is very visual too.

So here's the deal. I need a little help deciding something and I'd really love your input. Please! So... to enter the contest please answer a little question I have. If you've read my blog before you know about a small (emphasis on small) collection of patterns that I've been working on) so I've been toying with an idea for a while. Coincidentally it was also mentioned in the Spoonflower blog. If I sell the rights to my patterns to be used/uploaded for Spoonflower fabric would you consider that a good idea? Any pros/cons comments or other ideas are also welcome. I can think of a million reasons why it isn't a good idea but I can also think of other good reasons as well. I'm really torn. Easy. Right? Thank you in advance for your input.

I love that giveaways pull some of you out of lurking. And I love meeting new people, so please join in the fun and introduce yourselves. Everyone is sooo nice here. Really.

I will select two winners on Monday, September 1st. Yes, it's a holiday but we're not going anywhere. Good luck and thank you to all of those that visit every day.

By the way, thank you so much to those of you that made comments on my horrible bag post. I still cringe every time I see that photo. You're all too nice. Thanks!

And this was supposed to be a short post. Yikes! Out of here now...

EDIT - Just to clarify something that came up in the comments section. Spoonflower is not offering to sell the rights of any patterns. They will allow people to sell their own designs in the future but as of right now it would be something that I'd be doing on my own end. My customers would purchase a file for a fee from me and use it to upload it at Spoonflower. Sorry for the confusion.

ready for summer parties

Happy Monday! I come bearing a small gift for everyone. The kids have been invited to some birthday parties throughout the summer so I thought I'd share the gift tags/cards that we're using to accompany our gifts. You'll find the download here. Enjoy!



Have a great week!

new gift tags

I was making some of the projects for my book (I wish I could show you!) and as usual my mind was going over other items on my to-do list. Among other things, I was thinking of what we'll be giving our children's teachers at the end of the year. I'm not sure what the gifts will be, but I worked on our gift tags this afternoon (with some input from C and D). Remember the ones I made for Christmas? This new set has the same layout but new graphics. I think it will be a nice touch to have the kids write their teachers a short message themselves.

If you like these gift tags, you can get your own set for free here. Enjoy!

Thank you to Cookie Magazine and Apartment Therapy/OhDeeDoh for featuring my Let's Go! boxes! :)