Cinderella Pumpkin

I took this photo prior to drilling holes into it (see this post). I thought it was so beautiful. The man who sold it to me, called it a Cinderella Pumpkin and it brought to mind the wonderful story of the pumpkin transforming into a carriage. I googled it and found the following refrence to Cinderella Pumpkins:

"Cinderella Pumpkins are a unique French heirloom whose correct name is "Rouge vif D'Etampes". The source of their nickname it that they resemble the pumpkin that Cinderella's fairy godmother transformed into a carriage." Via All About Pumpkins

Sketches

A little break today from projects around the house due to a Dentist appointment and getting Oscar ready for Halloween! Yay! Anyhow, I thought that this was kind of neat ....I was sorting through files last week to find a sketch I had done and came across some old illustrations. I don't illustrate much these days, perhaps I'll get back into it someday soon. It brought back so many memories.

Isn't this one perfect for today? :)

The vampire cracks me up.

All illustrations are copyright of me, Lindsay Stephenson. Just sayin'.

On a "Scale" of 1 to 10, Hubby's Skills are a 10

I purchased this scale on ebay a few months ago, mainly to get the tray.  It ended up that I wasn't able to use the tray for my original intent, so my husband did a refurb on the whole thing.

Here's what it looked like in all its glory who would paint it yellow and orange? to start with:

I believe whoever painted the scale might have also been in charge of painting this fire hydrant by our house!  U.G.L.Y.!!!

He took everything apart and removed all of the paint using Citrastrip, then a wire brush attachment on the grinder.

He shined up the brass.

He then spent a ton of time recreating the labels that should have been on there.  I am in awe of his patience!

He primed all of the parts.

He painted everything except the tray holder Cherry Red.  (He didn't want to draw attention to the tray holder, so he painted it black)

Can you believe the details on this??

 I think he did an outstanding job!

Thank you for visiting!

Pam


I am linking to the following parties:

 Savvy Southern Style's Wow Us Wednesdays

Do you think our neighbours would care?

This was too funny not to post. Do you think our neighbours would mind if I did this next year? I think a flash mob would break out. Get Oscar to learn some dance moves. ;)

Stamp Winners

Because so many people commented on the stamp post, I thought announcing that I drew the names for the custom stamp giveaway was appropriate. Winners Screen Names are: Sundeep @ Designwali, Carrie, Bronwyncotter  and Kate! Double check to see if your comment won!

If you want your own stamp still, now is the time to get it because as I mentioned earlier take advantage of 30% off the stamps when you enter in the code BLOGGERSALE. It ends Sunday at midnight and won't happen again in 2011. Partially because the stamps take awhile to make, so advertising them any later than November, and it's a bit of a rush. So honestly grab one now for your Holiday Cards. Stamps available here. Little drawstring Bags available here.

Have a great weekend. xo Lindsay

Ps., If a stamp isn't claimed by next Wednesday then I'll re-draw. :)

What didn't get blogged about

What a crazy week it has been. Highs and lows, and, the week ended on a very great high. Halloween is Monday. Oscar and I are attending a "Monster Bash" on Saturday at the local school, our first time - If you see a little spider running around, that is Oscar. My friend lent us a costume this year. But here is what didn't make it into posts this week:

• Did you catch Jen's big news? It's exciting when a fellow blogger gets in print.
• Leigh, who did our awesome family photos is doing her annual Halloween photoshoot this Sunday and all you need to bring is a food donation.
• We made some fun pumpkins in our house this week using a drill [photo above]

Be sure to check back later tonight as I'll draw for the stamps. Because there are so many entries, I've bumped it up to three winners instead of two,but because alot of you liked them, enter BLOGGERSALE when checking out to save 30% on the stamps for this weekend only. It's a secret sale for you, my awesome readers because you really made my week with the support. [If you bought a stamp this week, e-mail me your order # and I will give you the 30% off] Buy online here. xo - Lindsay

Transferring an Image onto Wood

I have tried several methods to transfer images from my favorite website, The Graphics Fairy, onto wood.  The Citrasolv method works well, I've tried Mod Podge and some others, but also wanted to try using the Woodworker's Transfer tool that I learned about from Dee at A Lapin Life.  I found the link on her site to buy this tool from Amazon. (It costs about $14 and qualifies for their free shipping if your total is over $25)  It was really easy to learn how to use it from the directions right on the package.

I started with a mirror image of a graphic from a laser copy.  (Remember that if you only have an inkjet printer, just take it to Kinko's or anywhere with a big copy machine, copy it and you'll have a laser copy)

 

I used a simple, small,  beaten up fence board from Lowe's.  I did sand it where I was going to apply the graphic, so it was pretty smooth in that area, but other than that, I left it in its beaten up state.  I taped the graphic to the wood so it would stay in place and rubbed the heated tool over the paper.  It took a couple of minutes of running the tool over the paper for the graphic to transfer onto the wood.   I lifted off the paper and the graphic looked great.

I stained the wood with Minwax Puritan Pine.  I like this color on cedar as it's kind of dark, but still shows the graphics.  Unfortunately, no one seems to carry this color anymore!

After the stain dried, my husband made the box.  

I found some fall bushes at Michael's.  I stuck them in pots with styrofoam, put some spanish moss on top and they were done.

I really love the way the wood transfer tool works!  Dee at  A Lapin Life  has a tutorial on using it to transfer graphics onto fabric as well.  I think that may be my next project!

Thanks so much for your visit!

Pam


I am linking to the following parties:

 French Country Cottage's Feathered Nest Friday
2805's Potpourri Party 
In My Own Style's Tips and Tricks Party 

 

Believing in the Good of People

Do you recall "Bloggers Give Back?" I initially blogged about it here on my blog, and it has its own website here. Essentially (for new readers) it is a charity initiative where this awesome group of bloggers (regardless of where they live) are trying to transform a garden for a a place called George Herman House, a home in Toronto for women living with mental health issues. Now, some delays and roadblocks hit us this Summer, and this Fall we found ourselves looking for a garden designer to help us transform this garden. Tuesday afternoon I went for a lovely coffee date with none other than Carson Arthur. (Photo, second row)

Carson was the host of Green Force on HGTV, Room to Grow on Global and, is a regular guest on The Steven and Chris Show on CBC. You know what else he is? Absolutely amazing and nice. And cutting to the chase - he is the garden designer for our project. YAY! I can't tell you what an amazing feeling it was to have someone of his caliber, join us.

I attended the George Herman Silent Auction at the Drake tonight, and Carson joined me at it so I could make an introduction to attendees. Here are some shots of the event. Oscar stayed for a bit, but Aubrey in the end brought him home. I mingled, and talked to people about this amazing project that has a group of awesome bloggers getting together. (You're welcome to join in)

So I was eager to post this because it made me so happy. I have renewed faith in the good of people. That people will come through, and help make differences for those less fortunate. So although this past week was stressful, having Carson stand up there tonight and talk about how he was excited to join our project, made everything fine. And now, I'm taking the next 2 days off to chill out. :)

If you want to follow Carson on Twitter, he is at @CarsonArthur

Photos from Top: Scene from the Drake, Carson with Stephanie and Sonia, who helped organize the auction, Oscar with my little sister (whom he adores), Aubrey with Oscar, who is chowing down on ice cubes (not sure that is the best thing but it makes his teeth feel good), and, the crowd at the auction.

Fun Font for Halloween

So moving on from the drama that was yesterday (resolution was reached, see that post for an update) I thought I'd show you what I do when I sometimes get stressed. Craft! Yay! So this is again, a super easy thing to do. Granted, I make stamps for a living so this is kind of easier for me, but you can do this with a store bought stamp. Michaels likely has Halloween stamps out. I found this super cute font called EVILZ, which is free font for personal use. (Need I remind you to please educate yourself on copyright - this font, for example, you can use for your own fun but you can't *sell* it. So have fun crafting but don't think about making a poster out of it)

So I thought it was such a fun font. Now Oscar is way too little for candy this halloween, but he has some buddies on the street who are, so I thought it would be super cute to put special goodie bags together for his special friends. The problem with blogging --- likely everyone who is getting one, will now see my little surprise. So, um, act surprised when you get it. Please and thank you. :)

So I turned one of the font characters into a stamp for my personal colelction. (Note - personal collection, I'm not selling it) Isn't it sooooo cute? Download that font and print out some of the bigger letters and cut them out and make them for your window. Like the crow. SOO awesome. And free. Thanks for your love yesterday. I heart you all.

Update: Sorry, totally forgot to tell you that you can pick up small sets of these bags in my shop, you can also find them on Etsy, and in lots of shipping supply companies. :)

The downside to being a creative...

So part of the frustration this past week has been a case of copyright infringement. Someone taking my work, and reselling it as their own. I'm not unfamiliar with people copying my work, sadly, it happens quite a lot. Jen Ramos (Made by Girl) and I worked together last June when she found my work, along with hers, being resold by someone else as their own. [See this post here]

Since the popularity of my prints have risen - I've found prints that are mine, being sold by other people. But, all cases have been resolved by a simple e-mail asking someone to stop. I wish I never had to e-mail to ask. People - you just shouldn't copy. Do people think that the web is so big that they will never be caught? Do they not want to feel good about their own creativity, and come up with something original themselves? I often wonder many things when I see work that is copied.

Most recently, there is someone who actually lives in the same town as I do, who has a pattern of mimicking my work and business model of The Penny Paper Co. I'll post a sale, and a few hours later - she'll do the same thing for her business.  It happens so much that it has become a little joke. Apart from being a little bit of an annoyance, it's not worth addressing with her.  But it was enough to make me keep my eye on her. The joking stopped after this past weekend.

When I checked in on her site this weekend, as I regularly do she took a design of mine, and is selling it as her own. And, I burst out into tears. (Stress makes me maybe more prone to crying - so maybe it was an accumulation of things) Remember my beautiful bunting I made for Oscar?

I allowed people to download it for personal use (I even wrote that in the post)

She had it as an item on her website, selling for resale. [Photo has been removed, explanation below]

The colours of the triangles are identical - she uses 100% of my colours - none of them are different, but she also uses the same pattern/combination of colours - See the second row --- green, pink, blue, orange ... That can't be a coincidence.

I think art is always inspired by someone, or something - I get inspired by a colour I may see used in a magazine, or a font I see somewhere that I think I would like to try. Being "inspired" is much different than copying. And that's why I was so sad, I saw this as a copy.

I'm posting to show you that this kind of stuff above - kills me. If I ever get all up in arms about crediting photos properly, this is why.  This is why I posted about sourcing Style at Home for the Ikea Rast project. [Blogged about crediting here] I know how it feels when you do something and it is taken and someone else gets credit for it. Anyhow, this is no longer in my hands - I passed it off to someone else to deal with. But it kind of made me really sad the whole weekend, and for the week.

P.S., I'm not posting her name because I don't want to come off as pointing fingers or attacking someone, it's just that I was so bummed out at this.
----------------------------------
UPDATE: October 26th 3:30pm.
The person and I spoke on the phone with regards to this and came to an agreement. She agreed to remove the design from her site, if I agreed to remove the screen shot in my post, as well as delete the mention of her name directly in this comment section. It was an ackward possition for me, as I have never, ever deleted one of your comments before. But, I felt it best to come to a resolution and move on so I agreed to remove any direct mention of her name, or her company in the comment section. [Once again, for the record, I never once mentioned who it was] I just wanted my design, that I knew was mine, to not be sold elsewhere. We have a resolution, I need to move on and focus on pretty things. :)

Some Smokin' Deals at Garage Sales

I'm sure sad that our garage sale season is about over!  This past weekend I found a few fun things at great prices.

I was thrilled to find this unopened tobacco can for $1.  The people I bought it from thought that it was at least 50 years old.  They were really sweet and told me that they hoped I wouldn't smoke it.  :)  I promise--I won't! 

I found the Jack Daniels tin for 50 cents.  I have no idea if it's old or not, but it's pretty neat.  I have them both above my cabinets along with an old egg scale and Ball jar that I purchased on ebay awhile ago.

I found the Premium cracker can for $1.  It's probably not terribly old, but I do love my saltines, so had to have it.  I found the apothecary jar the other day at a local antique store.  I have several just like it, but I had to buy it!  :)  I found this Ball jar at Monticello in Portland last month and I've had the little scale for several years.

It's funny that I haven't been going out looking for cans, but they seem to be finding me!  I love the color and uniqueness of each of them.  Now if the weather can just stay nice for another couple of weeks, I can go searching for more  treasures!

Thanks for coming by!

Pam

I am linking to the following parties:

Junkin Junky's Beautiful Junk Saturday

Front Hall Table

I bought this console table at HomeSense awhile ago and I left it like it came for awhile. I loved the casual feel of the wood.

But truthfully it always looked unfinished in our house, because nothing else had that wood tone. While doing an unrelated project with a dark gray/black paint, I took my paintbrush to the table. I wasn't too nervous about it because after living with it exposed like that for so long I was confident that a colour would be more suited to our house.

It kind of ties in with our stripes from our runner. It now grounds the entranceway. I need to find something for above it, not sure what though. Oh, and look at those dust bunnies collecting by the floor vent. Don't you love how photos pick up things you miss? *sigh*

UPDATE: The colour of the paint is CIL Forest Black DL50