daisy duo gift set

I finally got my hands on some paper! It felt strange to be away for so long. It doesn't help that my studio looks like a bomb hit it. I started a purging process mid-summer and I haven't quite gotten around to finishing the job. The mess is not very conducive to any creative endeavor at this point. I need to move this decluttering to the top of my to-do list asap.

I was reading an article on stamp collecting when I was sketching ideas for this Daisy Duo Gift Set. I put the two things together and this is what became of it. The set includes a gift box with a gift card holder, an accordion style card, a simple card and three different flower stamps. The negative spaces in the single flower designs allow for the addition of a stamped sentiment if needed.

Below is an idea of a triptych that would be a very easy project to complete with the help of some frames. I favor Ikea frames for something simple like this.

The subtle difference in pinks of the two flowers is something that I would keep in mind when selecting paper for this project. If the flowers were equal shades of pink the illustration would look very flat. By making the flower that is in the 'back' darker, a bit of visual dimensionality is added.

You can now order the Daisy Duo Gift Set in the A Little Hut shop.

Have a great day everyone—and enjoy the short week!

slow (on purpose) week

Easter is just around the corner so I had to squeeze at least one small project before the holiday is here. I wish square cards where more of a standard format—love them.

Thank you, thank you to all of you that ordered the Lush Garden Gift Set over the weekend! It's always so fun to see that my projects are so well received. I truly hope you'll enjoy it.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend not too long ago. We were talking about how a lot of what we do as artists is taking risks and how scary it can be to show our work after pouring our souls into the process. The work can be well received or not but somehow we always come back with more to show —and let me tell you it can still be a bit nerve wracking. Every single time I press publish I feel a bit of angst — every single time — still. I'm always proud of what I show (there are plenty of bombs that don't make the cut/see the light of day!) but ultimately it is my customers who will tell me whether a design is successful or not.

Yes, I can make art and not care about what people think. But here's the thing I want to love what I do while earning a living with my passion. Since I'm fallible and not everything I make will be a hit, the whole thing feels like I'm rolling the dice with every project. The important thing, like my friend told me is that I do come back, and I do press the publish button.

Last year, after taking on a full-time job, everything at A Little Hut slowed down — way down. It had to. I had to get used to the new routine and to put in plainly, I was burnt out. I feel like I'm back again. Slowly but surely my designing rhythm is here again and it feels great! I'm so glad I gave myself some time off to renew the energy that is needed to fully engage in meaningful work. We'll see where this new chapter takes me.

• • •

I will be quiet for the rest of the week just soaking in some family and reflection time. It'll be nice to slow down for a spell. I'm trying really hard to be more purposeful with my time. It's amazing how quickly it flies by and some days I feel like I'm not focusing on the most important people in my life. So yes, I love my work but I love my peeps even more — as it should be.

For now and a little ahead of time... Happy Easter everyone!




Lush garden tote bag now in my Society6 shop!

lush garden

This week I gave you a tiny preview of the Lush Garden Gift Set in the image for the cover of the quarterly that I have in the works. You can see most of the set in the photo (only the full size images of the card designs are missing). I'm still working along the lines of making projects that can be used for your own decor or to be given as gifts—those are the best.

I'm killing two birds with one stone here because I'm using the framed piece for our own home which is in need of some artwork. I used a 12" square frame for the piece that is cut out of one piece of paper. It's gracing one of our walls now and now I'm thinking that it needs some company. I'll be working on that for the next few projects.

The illustrations are direct copies of sketches that I worked on when I was just doodling one day. Sometimes the work that you start without an end in mind seems more genuine and more joyful. That's why the more I worked on this the more I fell in love with it. The final touch was adding spots of color that don't match up with the outline illustrations. I think that offers a bit of a contemporary edge that seals the deal.

You can now order the Lush Garden Gift Set in the shop. I hope you enjoy it!

simple wins

I've been sorting, filing and just cleaning up a lot of my files. I went through my photos too and I don't know why but I felt very connected with this old photo. Remember my Simple Monday posts? These cards are definitely great representations of how simple can totally work and be used for so many different occasions.

These cards can be made with simple flower designs and portions of background shapes. The card full of leaves is by far my favorite. I made it using a portion of my Just Leaves Lattice file. Groups of leaves are still one of my favorite things to draw — they are therapeutic to work on.

Look at your patterned embossing folders and background SVG files in a new light. Instead leaving them in the back, why not making them the centerpiece of your cards?

(The cutting files are part of my backgrounds and flowers files.)

spring embrace gift set

I've been giving some in-progress images on Instagram regarding this project. It started with the simplest of little sketches that I drew one night right before going to bed. It developed naturally after that.

Here are some additional ideas for using this Spring Embrace Gift Set:
- Table numbers
- Rectangular shaped banner pieces
- Cut the illustrations out of white paper and place over colorful paper (pastels?) for a nursery
- Frame the 3D flower in a shadow box to use as artwork
- Use one of the illustrations on top of a gift wrapped in solid colored gift wrap.

I decided to turn this into a gift set because there isn't anything more fun than to give someone you've made. Right? Cards are not only a great gift but they're small (fast to make) and so useful for the person that gets them. The larger rectangular piece and the card illustrations are great to give someone framed artwork. I'm about to make more of these myself as gifts (Mother's Day is on my mind ;)).

Have a great weekend everyone!

simple monday: sunny greeting card

If you downloaded Friday's freebie over the weekend you'll notice I changed it just a bit. I made it two-layered so that you can use the sun separately. In addition to the wine tag I used my sun for a card and matching gift tag. Here's what I did:

- Cut two sun shapes in different colors.
- Lined up the circles one over the other and cut them in half in the same place.
- Attached two different colored halves to the card. The left yellow side of the circle is attached on foam squares—tiny ones that I had to cut in half.
- I cut a separate white sun and glued the other half of my yellow sun onto one side. If you're keeping count, I still have the second half of the orange sun which I can use for anything else (I'm thinking of making myself a bookmark).

All I need to do is add an appropriate stamped sentiment or hand write it (my usual go to!) and I'm done. Simple!

Download the freebie here.

Happy Monday!

simple father's day ideas

Pockets are easy to make and they can be the central idea of many types of projects. I used one for this week's freebie file and it can llend itself for different occasions but with Father's Day around the corner (and my Mr Z's birthday is Saturday—he was actually born on Father's Day) this will work out great.

You can't see it too much in the photo, but I attached the pocket with dimensional dots between the tops of the red pieces and attached to whole thing to the card with dots as well. Really easy.

I was inspired to make this card by the simple but stylish Father's Day project in this month's issue of Martha Stewart Living. These iPad cover designs are right up my alley. I really like the non-traditional take on the color schemes and the fact that if you're cutting it close to Sunday there's still plenty of time to make these (instructions in the magazine). I see the red one and think—Father's Day?—I want one! ;)

Feel free to download the cutting file freebie here.

Photo by Kate Mathis. Courtesy of Martha Stewart Living. Copyright ©2013. 

simple monday: use what you have

Happy Earth Day everyone!

I'm the first to admit that my love for paper can be a bit over the top at times but that doesn't mean I splurge a whole lot. I tend to be on the conservative side and really try to use what I have. The fun and awesome thing about paper is that scraps are still very, very useful.



Today's card is made completely from scraps—and let me tell you that after making the boxes and cards below (for the first communion celebration of a friend's daughter) I have plenty of white and pink paper scraps to go on forever! I cut the tree with my cutting machine but all the leaves are cut by hand and glued to the tree one at a time.

The tree is attached to the card using foam dots to give it more dimension and contrast since it's white-on-white.

Color is awesome but isn't white just so beautiful?






PS - I've been absent because I'm crazy busy with work for Surtex and other side projects. I'd rather stay away from the blog when things get like this. You wouldn't want to hear about the same thing over and over again, right? Hopefully things will get a little more normal once I get back (it's only 4 weeks away - yikes!). In the meantime I work on!

Have a great week! 

simple monday: thank you!

The daily freebies are done but they were a lot of fun to work on!
46 days
48 freebies
That's what I accomplished since my Feb 14th post.

In all honesty there were some days where my brain was so fried from other work that I had no clue what I'd be posting the following day. Some weeks I had several files ready ahead of time. Other days I was barely squeaking out something in the nick of time. I just didn't want to miss a single day—and I didn't. Some images where easy to illustrate and some others took a lot of tweaking or research (like the hi bubbles!). You'd be surprised to know that sometimes the simplest ones are the ones I'm most picky about—a curve may not be just right, etc.

As many of you Siilhouette users know, I posted most of the files in the Silhouette store. I told you we'd all benefit! By making myself accountable to you I was also creating some work to post there and earn something from it—we all won!

Here they are (photo below)! If you missed any they're in the Single Images section of my shop as well. I think my favorites are the ones that I did during this past week (still uploading them to the shop). My weekly freebies will continue to be posted on Fridays.

Thank you so much for those of you that participated and shared such kind comments on Facebook or sent me emails. I read and enjoyed them all.

I hope you get around to actually using these files. Don't collect them like we collect Pinterest photos and do nothing with them (guilty!). Use them! Have fun—just like I did by finally making something myself.

I cut out the last file—the tulips. I discovered that the negative (the paper left on the cutitng mat) would work too, so I made a tag which I'm thinking of using as a bookmark.

Happy Monday!

house warming

Sometimes my designs start with the simplest of ideas. This one started with the card. I love the idea that the design is created with the union of both the inside and the outside of the card. I like it even more because the insert can be used on its own as a note card (maybe a thank you card if you have your own house warming party?).

The box is very simple to assemble with a two piece design and ribbon closure. You can beat stylish and easy!

The whole House Warming Set is now in the shop.

• • •

Reminder! My daily freebies will be over on Easter (then we'll go back to weekly) so we're in countdown mode. Don't forget to check every morning. Don't miss out!

feeling spring

Yesterday I was plagued by technical difficulties. It was just one of those days. But it's over now and I'm back on track—even if it is Saturday and I'm feeling a bit under the weather (this is also being done while sitting in bed and Mr. Z picks up my slack!).

This new Sprig Gift Card set is definitely inspired by the gorgeous weather that's been taking peaks at us on a few days recently (some days are still gray and gloomy). It's so beautiful to see that the trees are starting to bloom everywhere. I hope this will be a sight that will soon come to those of you still being hit by inches of snow—wow!

I made sure, as always, that you can use the design as is, but in this case I also wanted to leave plenty of space for you to personalize with stamped sentiments. I think a simple worded message would look really nicely with these designs. How about that #10 envelope? Yum. I don't know why I hadn't made one sooner. I don't know what it is about that top flap, but I just love it (only another stationery lover would get that, right?).




Don't forget that I'm still doing the daily freebies until Easter. Look at what a lot of you have downloaded already! I hope you've been enjoying them as much as I am making them.

Have a great weekend everyone!

simple monday: crosses

It's so fitting that I designed these crosses and was planning on posting them today.

I was thinking about ash Wednesday but now we wake up to some big news today.

Who will be the next pope?!

Happy Monday everyone!

our special day: feb 12th

Everyone will be focusing on February 14th next week. I'll have my attention on the 12th. That's because 16 years ago on that day my sweet husband proposed to me—over the phone when I was in my dorm room in San Antonio, TX and he was in Colombia. Talk about going crazy after I hung up. I was so excited!

So... those of you that got my newsletter earlier today know that I'll be having a sale in the shop that will end on the 12th. You'll receive a 25% discount off your entire purchase when you order more than $20.

Code: vday
Expires: Feb 12th



I shot the photo above because I wanted to point out that sometimes you need to look at your scraps in a different way. They can be useful too! 

The green frame is the leftover from the Flower Medallion that is included in the Flowers Party Set. Wouldn't it make a great base for a scrapbooking page? The flowers that are left over from the tea light cover and the medallion can also be used—toss them around a table top or stack them to make a pretty 3D flower. 

Below is the new Frame and Matchbox Card set that I've also posted today. The center flower is my Cherry Blossom and the vase and purple flower are part of this week's freebie.

• • •

I feel like I've been a complete hermit the last few weeks so apologies for the lack of Friday Tidbits. I need to get out of my cave more! Thankfully Texas weather is just about perfect right now and the sun is just begging me to go out. I think I'm going to take the invitation seriously. Off for a walk...

Have a great weekend everyone!

simple monday: playing with a pop-up idea

Hey everyone—I'm glad to be back!

The break paid off. I've been busy but a good kind of busy—the productive type. So far so good—but there's still so much to do. I have my list and I'm just going through it. One step at a time, right?

Here you can see where my mind has been off on a different tangent card-wise. I've been interested in going 3D for a while. So here I go with a Floral Trio Pop-Up Card—which is now available in the shop! The pattern on the side just came up as a side-effect of everything else I'm working on. I'm telling you—it's patterns, patterns, everywhere around here.

Now to clean up my studio that looks like a bomb hit it and a crew of one of those TV design teams could (and should!) totally take over.

Happy Monday!

simple monday - trying to go further

Saturday night we had some of our son's friends over to celebrate his birthday. More than a party it was a "hang out", which is the way they put it. Needless to say having five rowdy 12 and 13 year olds that were deeply involved in their fun left me with a bit of unexpected crafty time (our DD was having some daughter-dad time).

I used some of the parts of my Hearts Gift Set to make a couple of cards that are a bit out of my comfort zone. I'm not used to layering, adding glitter and texture all in one—like the card on the right.

Card on the right
- The white piece of paper right behind the flower is a larger version of the slide with the ribbon holes cut off.
- I used Stickles stardust glitter glue on all the hearts

Card on the left
- You may not be able to tell from this photo but the heart is being held by a mini-wooden clothespin

And that's all I had time for—but some time with paper is better than none, right?

Happy Monday!

hearts + news

Happy Friday everyone!
It's been a long week. I think it's a combination of back-to-school routine with my new idea of getting up early every week day—and I'm talking 4am early. As I've mentioned before I'm going to be exhibiting in Surtex in May (booth 664—I know you're going to get tired of this!!) so I'm squeezing that in alongside my A Little Hut projects. I've decided to use the early morning strategy that I used when I wrote the manuscript for my book way back when. There's just something about the early morning darkness and quiet that gets me really going. The good news is that it's working. I'm getting a lot done!



So here's the new Hearts Gift Set! It's completely inspired by my Wreath Gift Set—can you tell? I just love the combination of a pretty shape with a bit of 3D involved. It takes it to the next level.

Cut the Hearts Wreath and/or the Hearts Flower below really big and use it as beautiful gift toppers!



News
- Many of you know that I contribute some work to the Silhouette shop. I will continue to do so but I've decided that I will no longer break up my sets and post them there. I will only be adding single images that I have on my site and that are not part of any of my current sets. This will make it easier for you to know what will be posted and what will not.

- For those of you that have asked about Studio files—I can't offer them because Silhouette does not allow anyone to sell files with that format.

- Videos are coming! I stopped making them simply because our camera had died and we finally, FINALLY got it fixed. I'm so happy about that! I'm excited about the ideas that I have in mind. They will be very simple videos but I hope they will give you more creative ideas of how to use my files.

• • •

Friday Tidbits
- I had skipped out on visiting Print & Pattern for so long but I'm definitely back. Always such an inspiration. It was so nice to see a bit of my work included in the Holiday Round Up post!
- Who's keeping an eye out for new products being shown at CHA this weekend? I am! I'd love to go one day. In the meantime I catch a lot of the action through Twitter using the #CHAshow and #CHA2013 tags.

Have a wonderful weekend!

ready, set...

Happy New Year!

Just a quick hello... We had a great holiday weekend and have been relaxing all week. The kids are in serious denial that they'll be back in school in just a few days. It's been fun having them home.

I'm feeling so excited for what awaits this new year! A lot of work is on my plate already but I'm really looking forward to it.

In the meantime I managed to squeeze in a couple of new projects—Blooming Hearts and Heart Clips. I thought that the hearts lace on the card where going to be too small or detailed to be workable but it cut beautifully. Love it!

I hope you're all enjoying the new year and looking forward to having a creative year.

Now to get some yummy soup on the stove!

happy new year!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Our was great until we came home to no electricity and 40 degrees inside the house—brrrr! Fortunately we only had one night of that. On the flip side, when would it ever occur to us to play Chutes & Ladders by candle light with some yummy hot chocolate and tea (thank you gas stove)?

We didn't have internet or cable for a few days too, which has given us extra Legos, new dolls playing, and reading time. Not a bad thing at all.

• • •

I have a couple of goodies for you!
I was finally able to upload a couple of new sets—Happy New Year 2013 and Graduation Set 2013. I'm going to need the former for a couple of get-togethers that we'll be heading out to over the weekend.

Now off to go ice skating or we'll never hear the end of it from our sweet girl.
A promise is a promise!

Ta-ta!

nativity, coffee and giveaway

Setting up the nativity scene is one of the fun parts of decorating for the holidays. Our set is very traditional looking but you know me and wanting things simple so this ornament follows that feeling. I made two to show you how changing just one color can make something look and feel completely different. Big difference right?

For the coffee lovers in the crew I have these cute holiday and any occasion sleeves in the shop now! 

Giveaway time! 

Since we're celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday here in the US I think it's the perfect time to offer a giveaway to thank all of you for supporting my work and for visiting here whenever you get a chance. I am giving away three $15 gift certificates to my shop. To enter simply leave me a comment—say hello or whatever you're in the mood to share—include your email address or a way to contact you. The giveaway will be open until Friday at 7pm (central) and I'll announce the winners on Monday of next week. Good luck!

Oh and by the way, my apologies for not getting the weekly freebie posted on Friday. It's up now—here.

Off to enjoy some family time!
Have a great week everyone and Happy Thanksgiving to those of you celebrating!

cardinal wall art

I have a real soft spot for cardinals (if you're curious why you can read about it here) and I'm surprised I hadn't worked on them sooner. Inspiration finally struck because I've seen many cardinals flying about in our neighborhood. The timing was now—so that's how this Cardinal Wall Art set was born.

It also fits in perfectly with my idea of making a set of framed Christmas paper decorations. I purchased the shadow box frames in Ikea. I originally removed the glass to avoid glare but now I prefer them this way.

Love them! I hope you do too. The SVG and DXF files are available in the shop now.

Have a great evening!