Valentine Preview

I love maps, like really love maps. Sometimes I think I get carried away with it because I have stacks of old vintage national geographic maps, calendars of maps, pictures hanging on my wall of maps, in my blog banner, books about them and so on. I just think they are great and beautiful. I love the lines on them and how they mimic a blueprint of God's creation.

Anyway, you will see them in many of my designs, just warning you.

The valentine's that I am working on are inspired by the book of Song of Solomon. I found many lovely quotes from Solomon to his bride in the book as I was reading through it earlier this week. Here is just one example.

Lighting Makeover

I have been so busy working on mint&honey and working on my living room I have neglected blogging. As we're nearing the end of the work that needs to be finished in the living room, I'm trying to think of solutions for lighting. I am debating on spray painting both of these fixtures but have no idea what color to choose. If I drive myself crazy and can't decide I will just buy new lighting. The colors in my living room are a light gray and white, so if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Getting ready to add some Valentine cards and prints to my etsy shop next week. So be sure to check them out!

Welcome 2010

I thought there would be a greater chance of my goals for the new year getting accomplished if I were to put it in writing. I have several more that are typically generic that most people re-add to their resolutions each year; those I will stick to my mirror perhaps.

The first one on the list is top priority! The environment I put myself in affects my creativity, motivation and attitude. We moved into our first home at the beginning of July and have finished the kitchen, laundry room and almost finished with the dining/living room. I guess with a full-time job and my husband gone the whole month of July that is a lot of work accomplished. I'm crossing my fingers I will have everything finished by the time my summer break is over, that would be a dream come true!

I will also be radically searching craigslist, antique/thrift stores, garage sales for furniture for our home. I am by curse and by blessing one of the pickiest people alive when it comes to how I decorate my house so needless to say we hardly have any furniture because I've been enable to find anything I can live with for a decent price. So after all this work is finished on my house it will look quite bare if I don't find some items to fill in space. Maybe some random person will come to my door and say "Here's my credit card I want to get whatever you want at Room & Board." Ha!

I should put that dream aside for now and focus on the rest of my resolutions. Happy New Year all!

recipe cards

These are two recipe cards I created for my sister for a Christmas present. She was the first out of all of us to attempt to boil water and go on to master basic breakfast foods. Since, she will probably be married soon and have her own kitchen, she can now start saving recipes. I was forever looking for a cute recipe binder to hold these cards and the only one's I could find were "country kitchen" style with chickens and things on the cover. As I was browsing through Target being disgusted that they too only had "country kitchen" recipe binders I noticed across the aisle were the photo albums which has the exact same function as a recipe binder except aesthetically more pleasing to look at..... and there were cheaper! It worked perfectly holding the 4"x6" recipe cards they only difference is there were no dividers, but I could live with that.

I was so pumped this week when I saw that Nicole, a guest blogger on Design*Sponge was wanting to use photos from my kitchen on Wood Street in a blog post about how people utilize space in small kitchens. Design*Sponge is my favorite design blog out there, I feel so special to have been featured, even for a small thing like this. You can locate the article here.

Last week I completed another one of my holiday ambitions. I made two soft trees based on a project featured on the purl bee. It was surprisingly easy, and with the help of my friend Melanie and her sewing machine I was able to get these sewed and stuffed.

christmas papergoods by mint&honey

Here's a look at some of the Christmas paper goods that came from mint&honey this year. I will show more later. These were all so fun to make; like always. And each one personalized to each person's interests.

Yarn Wreath Complete

My second holiday ambition is complete. Over the Thanksgiving holidays I made a yarn wreath. All of the materials can be found at Michael's, even the reindeer! Now.... where am I going to hang it?