I’ve been thinking about what to do for this box since sometime in September, but haven’t nailed any design/style ideas until a couple weeks ago. I recently bought Folding Techniques for Designers a book all about taking paper into 3 dimensions. I’m loving it & learning a TON from it. Between that book & tribal pattern inspiration, I give to you this year’s box:

I’m not sure what it is entirely, but it definitely has a very scandinavian feel. This box is a BREEZE to cut out & fold (I say this about a million times in the video, it’s embarrassing) you’ll be able to make one for every one of your neighbors. This box measures about 2″x4″x2″. If you’d like it bigger, take it to your local printer & have them blow it up on 11×17 paper. If you can, print them on an inkjet printer, you’ll get better folds this way. Also, you’ll want to print on a mid-weight paper. Thick card stock is a bit much, unless you’re going for a bigger box.

I’ve yet to make caramels this year, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it. If not, I might just do a stack of chocolate-dipped cookies in here. It’s really the perfect size for macarons. I also plan on using Pugly Pixel’s glitter tape tutorial for sealing the box.

Enjoy! Click the button below to download & be sure to watch the video tutorial explaining how to fold it up! For previous year’s boxes: 2010 Christmas candy box • 2009 Christmas candy box • 2008 Christmas candy box • 2007 Christmas candy box.

This tutorial/freebie is free for personal use and should not be distributed/republished without my consent. Altering the file NOT ALLOWED. If you would like to use this printable for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

I guess you could consider me a major scrooge since I don’t really decorate for the holidays. Or any holiday. In the past couple of years (including this one) we’ve moved just before the holidays so I haven’t really had much time to prep for them. Also, I hate buying Christmas decorations. We’ve always been really low on storage space (until now – we have nearly 1300 sq feet of storage space in our new place!), so if it doesn’t fit in a tupperware box, I’m not going to buy/make it.

My mom was always a huge decorator for the holidays & I have such fond memories helping my mom decorate the Christmas tree. It’s definitely something that I want to get into at some point, but perhaps not now. Definitely not until we’re settled in a place for more than a year. So with that said, if I do get around to putting up decorations for the holidays, they’re usually low impact decorations: they don’t cost a whole lot & they don’t take up a whole lot of space. The Hourglass Ornament tutorial over on CraftSnob falls under both of those categories.

Click here to see the full tutorial at CraftSnob.

I owe so many people thank you notes (especially with all of the awesome help with moving!), so this design is largely for me to kick my own butt in gear & spread the gratitude. This hand-lettered thank you is also available for you to enjoy & use to express your thanks to the ones around you (a lined version also included). Just click the download button below & print. The design is black text on a white background, so feel free to print it on colored paper or HECK, some adorable vintage wall paper or scrapbooking paper. I fully plan on doing just that as soon as the ink refills for our printer arrive.

What are your plans for this Thanksgiving? It might be cool to write a thank you to each person you attend Thanksgiving dinner with & write all of the things you’re thankful for about them. Just a thought. Other Thank You freebies:

Thank You Postcard 2010 • Fill-in-the-Blank Thanks 2009

This tutorial/freebie is free for personal use and should not be distributed/republished without my consent. Altering the file NOT ALLOWED. If you would like to use this tutorial for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

Check out page 230 to download free Christmas tags. Print labels on sticker paper for some sweet gift wrapping labels or on card stock for some kid-friendly, simple ornaments! Enjoy!

I changed a few minor details, the color, the script font is now my handwriting & the heart in the middle is now a star. This is definitely more suitable for a boy than my pink invitation suite, but It could still totally work for a girl. Hope someone out there gets some use out of this freebie! Send me pics if you ever end up using any of my downloads! I’d love to see how you use them!

This tutorial/freebie is free for personal use and should not be distributed/republished without my consent. Altering the file NOT ALLOWED. If you would like to use this tutorial for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

Head over to A Subtle Revelry to see the second issue & download the artwork (we’re DIY 6). A huge thanks to Tai Pan for letting us use their decor at our disposal and Ruby Snap for the cookies in the favor shot. My only regret was that we didn’t make the shoot an actual party. We totally should’ve invited people. Next time, right?

So if you’re planning on a little get-together or a party this fall, please use our printables, k? Also – I recommend you hire Jill to do some design work for you. Her work is the shizzzz.

Jill designed the place cards, menu & banner. I did the invite, RSVP, favor, thank you.

• A L S O •

I’ll be speaking in Provo tomorrow at the Creative Collaborative meeting alongside CJane. It’ll be good times. You should come if you’re around! AND. . . as per your request, I scheduled another calligraphy class (the 24th), I’ve not publicized this yet, but there are still a couple of spots left if you’re interested in attending. Go here to sign up.

Just kidding. I’ve always wanted one, though! In church we talked about respecting & taking care of our bodies so I sent all the little kiddos (I teach about 30 kids once a month) home with their very own temporary tattoo as a fun reminder. The kids LOVED it. SCORE!

I designed this little tat using Tattoo ink font & my own hand-lettering. It was super fun & didn’t take nearly as long to print & finish as I thought it would. This paper is some super fun stuff. I love temporary tattoos!

Speaking of which, you familiar with Tattly? It’s a rad online store full of some killer designerly temporary tattoos. The Tantone one kills me. So does the Type Nerd one.

Click the link below to download my design! Hope someone else gets a kick out of it as much as I did.

This tutorial/freebie is free for personal use and should not be distributed/republished without my consent. Altering the file NOT ALLOWED. If you would like to use this tutorial for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

Tattoo paper provided by Silhouette.

Penelope LOVED her dino party and I loved planning it. We kept things super simple, but I got a little creative with the invites and favors.

The download includes a fill-in-the-blank invitation. Instead of “Pen is turning THREE!”, I changed it to “it’s a dino PARTY!” in the same style. The bottom half has areas for date, time, place, rsvp, etc.

I included the dino sticker – ganged up for Avery’s 2 1/2 inch diameter labels. The #3 was taken off.

I included the dino eggs sticker – again compatable with the above Avery labels and the pouch printable. I would suggest printing on a light-weight (ideally 24lb laser) paper & cutting out by hand. For the pinked edges, use pinking shears or decorative scissors. Also, not pictured, I included a Thank You postcard for easy, matching thank yous!

There you have it! I hope someone will find this useful for an upcoming party! Click the button below to download the suite.

This tutorial/freebie is free for personal use and should not be distributed/republished without my consent. Altering the file NOT ALLOWED. If you would like to use this tutorial for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

• C L I C K   H E R E   T O   S E E   T H E   P A R T Y   D E T A I L S •

• C L I C K   H E R E   T O   S E E   T H E   F A V O R S   •

• C L I C K   H E R E   T O   S E E   T H E   I N V I T A T I O N S   •

That made me think that she might not be the only one wanting to know how. Or hope at least. I’m excited to share with you my method for figure drawing. This method is a bit more on the traditional side, what I’m showing you is sort of a caricature of what I learned in figure drawing in college. With these instructions I hope you’ll be able to translate this into your own style fashion figure drawings. If you’d like to learn additional information on how to draw the body, I’d suggest Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist. It’s what we studied from at BYU, so it’s fairly conservative, but it’s still an anatomy book.

Now let’s get started!

• S K E T C H I N G • T H E • F E M A L E • F I G U R E •

• T O O L S  •

• pencil
• eraser
• paper
• a model or mirror

I draw the figure from my head most of the time, but I’ve practiced drawing the figure loads of times. If you’re serious about figure drawing, check out your local museum to see if they do figure drawing sessions – keep in mind, most are nude. So, either that or get yourself a sister or close friend to model for you (a fitted shirt & shorts would would do just fine).

First, you want to mark down your reference points. Where’s the jugular notch (or pit of the neck)? Draw a circle there, then document the angle of the shoulders. Next, draw the linea alba (center line) from the jugular notch to the base of the pelvis. Draw the angle of the hips. Many poses kink the hips in the opposite angle of the shoulders, so keep that in mind.

Now that you have the angles down, sketch in all of the joints with lines & circles. Use full circles for parts that face straight on & ovals for parts that are 3/4 or profile. The line of the hip to the knee goes from the outside of the hip to the inside of the knee. Same with the shin. The shin makes sort of a lazy S shape.

Now that the figure is starting to take more shape, connect the circles. Literally flesh out the form with the contours of fat & muscle. Take note that the angles in the leg with the fat & muscle is very similar to your previous skeletal rendering. Erase the circles & lines from step 2.

Remember in art class in 7th grade how you were taught to start drawing the figure with the head & make the body 7-8 heads tall? Forget that. At least the starting with the head part. Now in step 4, you’ll want to draw the neck, it’s height and width is typically about 1/4th the breadth of the shoulder. The head is more of an oval-bottomed square than an exact oval. Draw the head. You can add hair & facial features if you’d like. Next you’ll attack the hands.

I leave the hands for last because they’re pretty tricky. Sometimes I’ll leave them as circles or mitts, but if I want to do something different, it’s in these last steps that I add them. The palm is a rounded pentagon with fries coming out of it. (maybe I’m hungry?) Again, if you’re serious about sketching the body, this is something that you’ll want to study & practice. Flesh out the feet by just adding their basic shape. I usually leave finishing them for last as they’re sort of tricky & I usually draw shoes on them anyway.

Now your drawing is ready to accessorize. Draw clothing on top of your figure & erase the under-drawing.

When it comes to the fashion sketches that I include with my refashions, I typically hurry to document my idea that I wing it & don’t do the whole under-drawing. I also often draw with a pen – so no erasing, either. I prefer to draw on paper with a pen or pencil over sketching my ideas with my Wacom. Maybe because I like the organic feel of paper & pen(cil) or maybe because I’m not as good with the Wacom as I could be!

As step 6 suggests, you can also download my drawing. I’ve included a front & a back for your convenience in planning refashions, sewing projects, etc! Click the button below to download.

This tutorial/freebie is free for personal use and should not be distributed/republished without my consent. Altering the file NOT ALLOWED. If you would like to use this tutorial for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

Just today I finished a project I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I found this sweet banner via AnnilyGreen & before I even knew that these were being sold (I really hate to be a copy-cat, but let’s be honest I totally am) I knew I had to make one for our front door. I thought instead of a wreath, this banner idea would be the perfect way to welcome friends & family to our home.

I used teal fabric from Hobby Lobby, a dowel that I had lying around, velvet & satin ribbon I scored on the cheap (less than $1) and flocked heat transfer courtesy of Silhouette. When I sewed the banner together, I stuck a neodymium magnet inside at the bottom so that it would 1) weigh down the banner so it didn’t fly off & 2) stick to the metal door, keeping the banner from flying around when it gets windy. It sure has been windy around our house the last few days. I heard there were 60 mph cross winds on the freeway yesterday. NUTS, hu?

I digitally calligraphed the phrase & if you’d like to use the artwork, feel free to download it by clicking one of the buttons below. The top button is to download the PDF, the bottom is to download the Silhouette Studio file. I’d love to see what you make out of the download so please send me pics! As Usual, artwork is free for personal use only and should not be distributed or altered without my consent. If you would like to use this for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

Speaking of Illustrator, when I first got the Silhouette I had Illustrator CS3. I’ve now since upgraded to CS5 & have been designing cutter graphics in CS5 then cutting them in CS3, as the CS3 plugin doesn’t work with CS5. It’s been really annoying to have to save a file, then open up illustrator again in order to cut the stuff out. I’ve been fussing around the last few days trying to figure out how to get the plugin to work & frustratingly enough, it stopped working in CS3! Long story longer, I figured out how to get the plug-in installed in CS5!! First you need to uninstall the old driver (if applicable) then install the correct driver: C-Master2forCraftROBO(M)ver180. I didn’t have the correct software, so that’s why it wasn’t working. I somehow had the C-Master2(M)ver180. It’s VERY different, because it doesn’t include support for the CC3300L models. As soon as I followed the instructions on the correct software, it worked like a charm. You also want to make sure that Illustrator is closed before installing.

On another note, it took 3 attempts to get this to look right. The first attempt, I had some crap on my desk & the cutter got bumped & ruined the piece of flocking. Clear off the area around your cutter before cutting! The second attempt was ruined because the iron was too hot & I didn’t put down a sheet of cloth covering the wax paper, so it just crumpled up. I ended up having to turn the banner around & use the back side, because that completely ruined the front. All worked out okay though. Despite my swearing. If everything had worked according to plan, this project would’ve taken less than an hour.

If you’re interested in buying a Silhouette, use the above code at check out for:

• 1 Silhouette SD
• 1 package white flocked heat transfer material
• 1 package teal smooth heat transfer material
• 1 package dark pink smooth heat transfer

for $219 ($125 savings) Valid May 17th – 25th

Or, if you already have a Silhouette (or any other cutting machine for that matter) save 25% using the above code on heat transfer materials.