i love my gocco

I absolutely love love LOVE my new gocco printer! I received it as a Christmas present from my wonderful, most thoughtful boss. (more co-worker gifts to come!) I am trying to conserve by lamps, since the printer is no longer being manufactured, but I just couldn't wait to start using it. I drew out a little winter scene of emilee rose-esque trees and loved the drawing. Though, I realized after the drawing was complete that it resembled the black apple just a little too much. What to do...what to do? Add polka dots of course! And so I set out of my goccoing adventure.



This was my first test print. Since it was my first print, I should have:

• read through the instruction manual first
• used one color
• and used the color that came strait from the tube

But that is just not how I do things! I mixed my own colors to match the pool Waste Not envelopes that I bought, and used a hunter green for the contrasting color. Printing was a cinch!

I don't have any sort of drying rack, so I just taped the cards to my wall to dry. I can't wait to send them!

a day in the life of tilly the cat

While I completely understand that reading about a cat's day is not exciting at all (unless you are a crazy cat lady) but I highly suggest that you continue reading about Tilly's Monday.

"My mom leaves me pretty much every day to go to some place called work. I cry and cry at the door in hopes that she will actually stay just one day. But that is never my luck.

So then she is gone and I have the house to my self. I go back to the kitchen to eat a little breakfast, but lately mom has only been giving me dinner because she says that I eat too much. If I'm hungry, I'm hungry, right?

After a hearty breakfast I lay around the house waiting for mom to come back home so that I can follow her around like her own shadow. Sometimes she says that she gets annoyed by it, but I know that she secretly likes it.

Once mom gets home, she goes strait to the computer. She sure is busy most of the time. When she gets home, I just want to be near her as much as possible. Sometimes I will jump onto her desk and she will pick me up and put me in her lap.

So, this past Monday, I jumped up onto her desk, just like every other day. Except this day, she put a candle right where I like to jump. Do you know what it feels like to be a kitty on fire? Because I do! I jumped over the candle and it must have caught my coat on fire! There I was: a kitty in flames! I freaked out, not knowing what to do, and squirmed as much as possible to figure out what was going on. Mom was freaking out too! She grabbed me, which startled me, and so I jumped off of the desk to safety. It's good that I did because the fire went out as I did so. I ran to the bedroom to just be by myself and process the whole situation. Mom came in with a wet washcloth--she knows that I don't like water--and rubbed my coat in the towel. It actually felt pretty good.

The next thing I knew, she was chasing me around the house trying to pick up to put me in my carrier. I scratched her pretty good, just so she knew that I didn't like it. Mom took me to some place called a hospital, where they had other people touch me way more than I like to be touched.

Once I got home from the hospital, mom finally decided not to go back to work and just laid with me in bed. It was so nice just to cuddle up with her. Oh, the doctor at the hospital said that I was ok, but that mom should just 'keep an eye on me,' whatever that means.

And that was my Monday. I'm doing OK. I'm just so glad that the fire went out before it got to my skin. I have some funny looking patches of hair on my coat, but nothing too bad. Mom assured me that it will all grow back. I've seen her hair look pretty funny a lot, and it always grows back, so that seems promising. The plus side to all of this is that she is spending a lot more time with me when she is at home. I knew I could make her feel bad."

Yes, I did just write a story from my cat's point of view. I am that crazy cat lady. But, Tilly was on fire! It was the scariest thing that I could imagine! She is one crazy kitty...but I am so glad that she is doing well.

cookies & cocktails

(the hostestess with the mostestess!)

First and foremost, thank you to everyone that came to the cookies & cocktails party! I had a blast and I hope that everyone who attended did too!

I really really really really wanted to throw a holiday party this year. I discussed the potential of a party with my bestest friend, Erika. The party was a go. We had some girly cocktails (and a mommy mocktail for the lovely Lisa) and lots (!!!) of cookies! We asked that all of the ladies that were invited to bring a cookie to share with the group. At the time, a cookie tasting party sounded a whole lot more fun than a cookie swap. But after appetizers and about 10 cookies later we sort of regretted that decision. But even with bellies about to burst, I think we all had a good time!



I made pretty little banners that hung around the room.



This was the voting station. Cookies were voted on the tastiest, most creative and cutest. Each winner was given a little prize to take home. The tastiest cookie went to Lisa who made a delicious sugar cookie with a lemon glaze! Yum yum! The most creative cookie went to Peyton who made a no-bake cookie full of coconut, oatmeal, peanut butter, and, of course, chocolate! The most creative cookie went to (a lady that I actually never formally met, what a super bad hostess I was!!!!). She made some sort of cinnamon ginger cookie with a blackberry jam filling. The best part about her cookie is that she had NEVER baked before. She said that she found the recipe on facebook and just brought it so that she didn't come empty handed! What a sweet heart! All of the cookies were absolutely amazing!



The cocktails table became a disaster area about 15 minutes before any ladies arrived. Erika nor myself had ever made a martini before. We made up a recipe that included Absolute Vodka, a pomegranate martini mixer, a splash of pineapple juice and ginger ale. We added the ginger ale after we shook the other ingredients of the martini. I made one for myself and it was the best drink I had ever made. Erika said "ooh make me one too!" and so I did. I poured all of the ingredients into the martini shaker, closed the lid, and shook. As I was shaking, the shaker exploded (and I didn't put in the ginger ale yet!). Juice went flying all over the table, my arms and dress, and all over the rug that Erika's roommate had JUST put on the floor, seconds before the disaster. Everything was going sooooooooo perfectly all day. And then I ruined it. We quickly cleaned up the mess, threw the rug in the wash and went on with the party. My arms and hands were sticky for the rest of the night! Way to go, Emily!

Okay, so maybe there was another little disaster...I made beer bread earlier that day. When I started to cut it the interior of the loaf was completely not cooked! The only thing I could do was to throw it back in the oven and make beer bread toast. I thought it was going to be awful, but no one noticed...or if they did, they were polite enough not to say a word!

Erika made some marshmellow cloud brownies...too good!

This was the food table before all of the cookies arrived.

And this is just some cute holiday decor!

holiday handmade and the stress of christmas

I can't even begin to describe the amount of stress that the holiday brings each year. I keep having to remind myself that my Christmas is super easy...I don't have family coming in town which means that my house really doesn't have to be as clean as it should be. I don't have that many people to get gifts for, just the fam. But all of that doesn't really matter because there still seems like there are a billion and ten things to do!

Some of which are (and need to be done this week if not within the next couple of days!)

• Finish making all of my gifts...only 4 or 5 more to go!
• Wrap all of the gifts and put them under the tree so that I can share a beautiful photo of my very first Christmas tree!
• Finish up a custom doll (okay, that needs to be done ASAP!)
• Finalize the design for my best friend's save the date/holiday card
• Re-design my holiday card and print it on my very new Gocco printer! (More to come about that...)
• Address and send out my cards.
• Stay sane.

Christmas is in 11 days from today. ELEVEN DAYS! I am spending Christmas this year in Houston with la familia and actually need to get all of this done in only 9 days. Whooped-de-do!

This year I decided to take the handmade pledge. What this means is that I have pledged to only buy handmade gifts or make my own gifts this year and have also asked for my friends and family to do the same. There are many reasons that I took the handmade pledge and here are a few:

• ONE: I'm broke. And making gifts is (sometimes) way less expensive.
• TWO: I hate the idea of junk. Just look around your house. How many things do you actually need? Very little. And how many gifts have you received in the past just because you want them? Probably a lot. Please don't get me wrong here, because there are tons of presents that I receive that I absolutely love and may not have any specific need for them, but I love them anyways. But buying handmade or creating gifts makes to really think about what you are giving.
• THREE: Handmade comes from the heart. Pure and simple. Handmade gifts take time, energy, and love to make.
• FOUR: They are unique and can be one-of-a-kind.
• FIVE: Handmade just rocks!

With all of that said, I have been oohing and awing over gorgeous embroidered hoops by designers all over etsy. I particularly like the designs by Chez-Sucre-Chez and September House. And so I made my own little embroidered hoops for my co-workers. I also thought that just a hoop wasn't really enough, so they each got their own matching embroidered tea towel! Each gift was made with lots of love and lots of thought!

matching mommy and macey

Look what Cody found in the dollar bin at Target!

tilly's holiday photo shoot

I still haven't come up with a design for my holiday card this year, but I like to put a photo of Tilly on it. These are some pictures from her photo shoot this year.

Any favorites?

holiday crafts

Erika and I sat around at Hifi Cafe, drinking our apple cider (which is by far the best apple cider in town) wondering what to do next on a chilly Sunday afternoon. Michael's? Sure...why not.

Neither of us intended to get anything. I wanted ribbon, but that was about it. Little did we know the entire store was on sale! Well, maybe not the whole store, but all of the Christmas goodies were at least 40% off. How could we pass that up?!

Erika found these little pots on super clearance. So we filled up our baskets with tiny bits of glittered jewels (also on sale) and created cute little arrangements for the holidays.

I have decorated the house in silvers and blues for this holiday season and so mine is the (mostly) silver arrangement. Erika went with more traditional colors and added an adorable little bird.

Commissioned Painting Sketches

I am currently working on three painting for Tracie of her three youngest girls. Tracie is working on a new build out for the most amazing room for the three girls. Check out the photo on the bottom right hand corner; there is an alcove that is painted bright fuchsia (so awesome!) which is where these painting will hang. These are only *extremely* rough sketches, but I think that they are going to turn out so adorable!

Too Legit, Too Legit to Quit!

Tracie e-mailed me this morning to let me know that I was featured as a favorite etsy find on modeco kids. Her e-mailed was titled "OH MY WORD!!! OH MY WORD!!! OH MY WORD!!!" And OH MY WORD is right!! I leaped out of my chair at work to do my happy dance, those who know me know exactly what I am talking about! Modeco kids is a totally awesome blog all about kiddos and neat things for them. And somehow they found me!

As if that couldn't be enough excitement for one day, I then received an e-mail from Angie at The Outfit, a children's store in California. Her e-mail was an inquiry about wholesale! I thought I was rockin' when I got to have my products in Broadway Paper and now I could possibly be in two stores! Bring on the happy dance times ten! I let her know that I will send her sample products and a catalog in the mail soon. The catalog is almost complete, as I have been diligently working on it to send out to lots of other stores! I just need a cover design and then it is ready to be sent out!

To celebrate Cody brought my take out from No.1 Chinese and a bottle of campaign. It was absolutely the sweetest thing ever!

There is no way that I could have ever imagined any of this! It is all so much fun and way too exciting! So, this is me, tooting my own horn and doing my happy dance!

A Tribute to Charles and Ray Eames

This is my favorite chair. There are quite a few things in life that you can look at and say, “I’ve made it.” This chair might just be one of them. I went into Design Within Reach the other day and got so giddy when I saw the molded plywood chair. I would most likely want the finish shown above, but I was quite fond of the red stained chair that was displayed in the store.

Apparently my love for Mr. and Mrs. Eames is all over etsy too! Just look at the great designs that I found...



above:
Pretty much everything that I have seen in avrilloreti's shop is too cute! This set is for four cocktail napkins. I love that she included some other designs in the set too.




above:
I find this pendent from chocolate and steel totally ironic and totally beautiful. For starters, the appeal of the chair is in the beautifully molded wood. By contrast, this pendent is anything but natural. The clash of the materials is just beautiful!




above:
I have had my eye on this print for who knows how long! There is a spot at the top of the staircase that keeps shouting "you NEED this print!" And I think I do. This gilcee print from Jenn Ski is the perfect addition to any home.




above:
I have actually bought a set of these for my little bro's birthday this year. He turned 21 and I thought coasters would be the perfect addition to his "bar." Modern Printed Matter printed these modern chairs onto cork. Perfect for your coffee table...

sweet etsy finds no. 2

Sarah and Abraham is one of the shops that really sucked me into etsy and the do-it-yourself community. I have never met Sara, the owner and designer of Sarah and Abraham, but I would absolutely love to have a chance to get to meet her.

I started following Sara's blog back in March, I think. As a budding entrepreneur, I found her blog to be extremely inspirational. She discusses her products, her home, and (my favorite) the business of selling and creating paper goods. She is really open about sharing her business venture with anyone who is interested. While I can't even imagine how busy she must be as a "mompreneur" she still manages to write a little here and there that really help out the newbies, like me!

As of right now, she has 1,343 sales on her etsy site. I just can't wait until I make it to 10 sales! Sarah and Abraham has recently launched its own site! You can visit it here.

The site turned out absolutely beautiful! Is is designed by Aeoldia, who always creates the most amazing e-commerce websites. I am particularly fond of All-Mighty's site...they have the cutest Boston Terrier illustrations!

I highly encourage everyone to check out Sarah and Abraham. I haven't actually purchased any of her products, since I really don't know anyone with any little kiddos. Luckily, there are a few ladies that I think will need some Sarah and Abraham pretty soon!

Happy Shopping...

Happy Friday

Since Macey got to wish everyone a happy Friday last week, I thought it was only appropriate that Tilly do the same.

Tilly and I will be very busy this weekend working on some paintings and shopping for a Halloween costume. It is just around the corner, you know...

So anyways, Happy Friday to all!

I'm Rockin' at the Broadway Paper!

After much anticipation and lots of hard work, emilee rose is now being sold at Broadway Paper! It's one of those things where I had this idea back in February. I had the idea to create my own line of products and thought "I wonder if they would be good enough to sell at Broadway Paper?"

Apparently they are, and I couldn't be happier. Everyone I talk to just says "it's starting..."

I do hope this is just the beginning for much, much more to come!!!



Ok, so not only are my products being sold in a store, but someone actually bought two sets of paper dolls. As I was doing my daily work, I was called by Sarah, who said "hey, there is someone buying your product!" I just had to come out and see for myself. It was true! There she was, if only I knew her name, buying an Anna set and a Natalie set. I could hardly contain my excitement!

After thanking her for buying my products, I went to the back room and did a little happy dance. I just couldn't hold it in any longer!

My First Etsy Sale

That's right! My first sale!!! It was the best feeling ever to stamp and ship off my products.

TGIF

Macey wants to wish everyone a happy Friday and a good weekend, too!

FYI

There has just been a huge listing in the shop. I highly suggest that you take a look...

sweet etsy finds!

I am still not quite sure where I stumbled ac cross these, but they have to be the cutest stinkin' felt pouches I have ever seen! They are made by suezybees. I particularly like her name and the way that it's not just your typical "suzy." (You know I have to be a fan with the name "emilee" and not "emily") She creates these little pouches and felt postcards all by hand. They are absolutely exquisite!

Any who, I'm pretty sure that someone is going to get this for Christmas. I highly recommend her shop!

Grand Opening!!!!!!!!!

I am pleased to announce that the shop is finally open! Above is an e-card that I highly encourage everyone to send to their friends! Please e-mail me at emileerosedesigns@gmail.com if you would like the original file to send.

There are currently only a few items listed. Please check back daily for more items!

I started listing items last night. When I went to bed, I only had Anna listed (and Tracie's wholesale order.) When I woke up this morning, I already had a convo from BusyNothings telling me that she loved the paper doll set! She also pointed out a typo that I still need to fix. After reading countless articles on the storque, I really did not expect to get any attention until after I sent out a mass e-mailing to all of my friends and family. It was the most exciting news to wake up to!

Also, the e-card explains this, and it is also explained in my shop, but in order to encourage more sales I have decided to run a "tell a friend" special from now until forever (or until I say so!) The way that it works is that you just have to tell your friends about emilee rose and tell them to shop! Refer 5 friends to emilee rose and receive a free gift! It’s simple! At checkout, just have your friends put “referred by” and your name along with your e-mail address in the comments to seller. Once five different people refer you, I will contact you to get your shipping information for your free gift! Please note that your friend must purchase an item from the shop in order to qualify for your free gift!

I know...

It has been pretty much FOREVER since I have blogged! Who knew this blogging thing was actually a commitment? Well after a long phone call with my Mr. Fix-it-Man, aka dad, I now have the Internet on my computer and I can actually be a little bit more diligent about posting. I have thought about giving myself a posting schedule, such as business on Mondays, DIY projects on Tuesdays, and so on. Though, that seems like an even bigger commitment than just trying to post any ol' blog everyday!

Needless to say, I am here now and I am here for good!

Today was a pretty awesome day...I placed my first wholesale order for emilee rose! The lovely Tracie at Broadway Paper bought my goodies for her store. AMAZING! There will be quite a big posting soon of my products to buy in the web shop. Until then, I will leave you with some more teasers!

Above are three packs of paper dolls sets.

polka-dotted peppermint gift tags. The only way these could be any cuter is if they were scratch-n-sniff!

A few warm wishes with winter accessories. If only it was appropriate for me to keep my mittens on a string...

And last, but not least, a page from my 2009 wall calendar! I like the May illustration the best because the little girl is holding a Calico kitty, just like Rosebud (my very first kitty!)