how a logo is made

The past few weeks I've been working on a redesign for one of my very favorite clients, the lovely girls over at Purl Soho. If you haven't heard, they are moving their two sweet knitting and sewing shops in New York City into one HUGE store over on Broome Street.

Now that the two stores (Purl and Purl Patchwork) are combining, they needed a new name and a new logo. The new store will be known as Purl Soho.. and there is a great post up on the Purl Bee explaining how the new logo came to be. I had to break out my trusty tracing paper for this one (sketches can be seen above). It reminded me that though most of my design work is now done on the computer, sometimes you need to take a break from the keyboard and pull out your pencil and just draw.. and draw.. and draw.

a party for bee

I had such lovely dreams for Bee's fourth birthday party. A flower theme, out in the backyard. Children running around the backyard on a scavenger hunt to find various flowers in the garden, potato stamping flowers onto goodie bags, planting their own flowers to take home in little pots, a flower pinata, etc. And then it rained. Again. (Remember C's party this summer?) So we moved the party inside. Again.

At least the kids had cute hats to wear. I made these out of paper I had around, and then fashioned a few more tissue flowers to staple to the side. (I'm pretty fast at making those now!) The kids looked awfully cute in their party hats.

And we somehow came up with enough games to entertain them. Do you remember that great party game where you tie a balloon onto everyone's ankle and then you try to stomp on everyone else's balloon? I remember it being great fun.. the three and four year olds felt otherwise. Bee was the first to cry when her balloon got popped.

But they all perked up for cake. Bee wanted cupcakes this year, with flowers on them. We piped frosting into little petals and laid a Necco wafer in the middle. I cut out a few leaves for them to sit on.

And then the pinata. I hoped to find a pretty flower pinata at the party store, but there were none. So we bought a soccer ball pinata that was white with bits of black tissue on top. We pulled off the black tissue and then covered the entire thing with rows of tissue paper petals. (Special thanks to JR who did most of the work.)

Here it is almost finished. We were hoping it would look like the camellias that have just bloomed in the front yard. I think we came pretty close. We were a little sad to have the kids bash it into a million pieces.

And so, our little one is four! We can hardly believe it. We love her so. Happy birthday sweet Bee.. I'll be praying for sunshine for your next birthday party!

bee turns four!

Our little girl turned four a few weeks ago and we wanted to throw a party to celebrate! Bee decided all on her own that she wanted a "flower party", and I quickly remembered this story we did at Martha Stewart Kids about making flowers out of tissue.

Pretty soon we had enough flowers to deliver to Bee's little playgroup and preschool friends, with a paper leaf that told them everything they needed to know. Instead of mailing these, I like going door to door with the kids and having them deliver their invitations themselves. Bee had a lot of fun running around with her paper bouquet.

Party details to follow.

honest abe

I hope you're enjoying a lovely President's Day weekend. Bee brought this log cabin home from preschool last week and proceeded to dazzle us with her knowledge of Abraham Lincoln. Not bad for a four year old...

"This is Abraham Lincoln's house. He wears a big black hat and he's really really tall. He was very poor when he was little, so he lived in a house made of pretzels. Then he died. But he never ever told a lie, so they put his picture on the penny."

Awesome.

valentines 2010

To be honest, I used to loathe Valentine's day with it's overpriced roses and tacky pink and red color scheme. But now that I have little children, Valentine's day is fun again. C is in kindergarten this year and needed to bring 32 valentines to school, so we needed something relatively quick and easy. I always try to think of some way to involve the kids, either by including their drawings or having them help with the assembly.

For this years cards, I printed out plain red hearts with white circles for eyes. I made a sample for the kids showing them how to draw the face and arms and legs. Then the kids took black pens and made their own. Attach some candy to one or both of the hands and you're all set. Here is a template you can download.

a little valentine

The folks over at Brides.com have put together a nice collection of handmade valentines and valentine treats to make for your loved ones, inclduing my little matchbox valentines. There's even a PDF you can download with the patterned paper, so all you have to do is cut it out and wrap it around your matchbox. (And don't miss the cute cards designed by Sally Shim and Nice Package.)

Note: I've heard from a few concerned folks who don't think you should be putting candy in matchboxes, as they could possibly contain traces of chemicals leftover from the matches. If this concerns you, other options would include lining your box with patterned paper, using wrapped candy, or making little cards to fit inside instead!

this week's library book

Library books! Oh, how we love them! Especially new ones we have never seen before, like this one.. A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry with illustrations by Marc Simont. Winner of the Caldecott Award in 1956.

The book alternates between black and white and color illustrations and explains all the reasons why trees are nice. They fill up the sky and make everything beautiful. You can have a picnic in their shade, or jump in the leaves when they fall.

"A tree is nice because it has a trunk and limbs. We can climb the tree and see over all the yards. We can sit on a limb and think about things. Or play pirate ship up in the tree."

I found this lovely quote from the author, which only makes me like her more. "Someone has said that not all readers are writers, but all writers are readers. I believe this is true. And a lot of reading in childhood often leads to a life time of writing. I love good books for children today as much as I did when I was a child. I probably appreciate them more now." I couldn't agree more.