June 12th, 2009
If you’re up on all your doughnut news, you would know that the first Friday in June is always National Doughnut Day. So In order to celebrate, Mr. Project and I left the house last friday night in search for a doughnut shop.
Now finding doughnut shops in San Francisco is not a difficult thing to do. I’ve never seen so many doughnut shops – there seems to be one on every block around these parts. But we wanted to find a “designer” doughnut shop. So we headed out to Dynamo Donut. If you clicked on that link, you’ll notice two things, 1. They are located in the GHETTO. Seriously. I think we took our lives into our hands for this doughnut run at 9 pm. And 2. that there is no “hours of operation” on the website. So silly me, I assumed they were open till all hours of the night (like most doughnut shops here). However, they were not open late, in fact they close around 6pm, 6PM! Thats insane in the doughnut world! So we risked our lives for nothing!
So not as to be defeated, we searched for doughnuts on our snazzy iphones. We came across an “Eagle Donut” with a 5 star rating that was on Mission St. So once again assuming that all doughnut shops are open late, we decided to check it out. After finding a parking spot a few blocks away, we made the trek uphill to Eagle Donut, which we then found out was also closed! Such devastating news on this National Doughnut Day. So sad. So by this time it was close to 11, and we really didn’t care about doughnuts any more. So we decided to call it a night.
Fast Forward to Tuesday of this week (June 9th) I was thinking about our tragic celebration of National Doughnut Day and said to Mr. Project, “Why didn’t we MAKE doughnuts on national doughnut day??” To which he said, “why don’t you make doughnuts tonight?” Which I thought was a brilliant idea. So while I was cooking dinner, I threw these ingredients into my breadmaker:
* 1 1/4 cups milk
* 1 beaten egg
* 1/4 cup shortening
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 3 1/2 cups white flour
* 1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast
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June 8th, 2009
I’m super excited for my new Digi releases at Two Peas in a Bucket this week — brand new Urban Chic Boutique! All these kits and more are available for purchase Tuesday morning (6/9/09)
My Favorite set is a “black & white” paper set. I loved it so much that I made a cute layout with a picture of me in Paris:
Boutique Glamorous Papers, Boutique Solid Papers, Boutique Victorian Frames, And Adorn Journal Rub-ons.
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June 8th, 2009
With summer approaching, its harder to stay on schedule. I have been wanting to really organize all the chores around here so that it doesn’t feel like “catch-up” on saturday. A little bit everyday goes a long way, right? So I put together a simple weekly chore schedule that has a space for every day Monday through Saturday, as well as notes on the bottom for you to fill in all your chores and errands. Don’t forget to put things like “backup computer.” If you have kids, you could print one for each kid and hang them on the fridge.
For my personal chore chart I typed in all the small daily chores. I also as scheduled out all the weekly chores so that every day is pretty balanced between, chores, projects & errands. I found the cutest clipboard at Target so I made my design green to match – it’s so cute it makes me want to actually DO the chores!
If you are computer savvy, you can type in notes inside of Acrobat (or Photoshop) an then print out a few master sheets that you can customize weekly. Or print one copy & hand-write all your consistent chores and then just photocopy several. Good luck organizing your summer!
Download my chore chart and enjoy (for personal use only ). Please tell your friends to come visit the site and download their own checklist. I would love a comment if you do download!
xoxo Jen Allyson
June 5th, 2009
I couldn’t sleep the other night and I was just letting my mind wander. I was feeling bogged down and realized that because I have a creative job, I use all my creativity to fuel that and not fuel myself. I think that creativity is what creates a happy life, doing the little things that are not necessary, but make life fun and different and exciting. So I decided that for the rest of the month of June, I want to do something creative every single day.
It doesn’t have to be something big. I don’t have to pull out all the stops and make a quilt or paint the whole apartment. What I want to do and what I want to encourage you to do, is to incorporate “little acts of creativity” into your daily life. Sounds easy enough, right?
I was trying to think up some of these little acts and I thought, just simple things that make our day’s brighter — when you make a sandwich for your kids, take out the cookie cutter and cut a heart out of the center — or for your significant other – a tiny heart out of their morning toast. Bake more often, look up a new recipe and just try it!
Sometimes little things like rearranging the furniture, changing a lamp shade, or buying new towels for the kitchen can give you the creative boost to be more productive in all aspects of your life.
Scrapbook! Yes, actually take out your stuff and commit to making a page — 1 page! See how much creativity and happiness that it brings to your day. If you’ve been wanting to learn how to digitally scrapbook, then just do it! Find an online tutorial and just watch it to see if it excites you and gets your creative juices flowing.
Resurrect an old hobby or craft. You already have all the supplies, just dust them off and start again. Remember how good it feels just to sit and knit for a moment or cross stitch or paint — whatever it is, put aside a tiny bit of time, and a little bit of effort and just open up yourself to that creativity again.
If you are out running errands, stop by the craft store, art supply store, or Local Scrapbook Store. Just walk around, touch and feel things and look at all the beautiful samples. Get Inspired! Sometimes inspiration is enough to keep us going, even if we don’t have time to actually create things.
Buy a home decor magazine that you find inspirational. As you look through it, close your eyes and imagine yourself creating those beautiful rooms or being in those beautiful rooms. Try and find one small project that you can do — repaint an old sculpure, hang a shelf, fill a jar with something fun and put it on display. Whatever inspires you to be creative!
Mod Podge. If you have some, and some paper, pick something to Mod Podge and then just do it! Make an ugly clipboard a beautiful clipboard, Turn a boring silverware tray into a chic silverware tray.
Craft with your kids. This was always my favorite thing to do growing up. Take out all that scrapbook paper that you’re not in love with anymore and just go to town. There are no rules — cut out little people or hang a big banner across the room. Fill up some old frames with your eclectic creations and hang them up just for fun. Let your kids know how important and beautiful their creativity is too.
I can’t wait to get started! I really need a shot in the arm on this stuff right now because I’ve been spending so much time working. I have so many projects in the works that I just have not been able to finish. So this month, I’m going to finish those and try and do a lot of little things to fuel my creativity.
I started this yesterday, and what I did was create a digital scrapbook layout just for myself! I just wanted to do it, so I stopped what I was doing and just dedicated 30 minutes to doing it.
So join me in this challenge, and just do one thing creative today, and tomorrow, and the next day! If your a blogger, copy my “be a little creative” button and put it on your blog when you post something creative!
June 1st, 2009
Without further ado, let me introduce my new digi line: Urban Chic Boutique! I have two three (!) beautiful layouts for you to look at.
The first is one that I put together. With the Boutique Victorian Frames, Boutique Fabulous Papers & Adorn Shaped Photo Masks.
And another by the lovely Jen Martakis. She also used the Boutique Fabulous Papers, Boutique Victorian Frames, Boutique Borders, & Adorn Shaped Photo masks. I love the journaling on this layout! So adorable.
I just got an additional layout from Gennifer Bursett who is kind enough to join my CT (yay!): Love her use of these products in a more simple way:
And here are the kits that go up for sale tomorrow morning at Two Peas in a Bucket:
12″ Awesome Shabby Borders
Fabulous Papers & Gorgeous Papers
Shabby Photo Overlays – Tons of them!
Lots of Frames – bi-color frames, Rub-on frames & 3-d Frames!
