Alt

For the next few days, a bunch of people I admire are getting together to learn about things I wish I knew, to talk about things I’d love to discuss, and to share ideas I wish I were creative enough to come up with.

The third annual Altitude Design Summit (nickname: Alt) officially kicks off tomorrow morning in Salt Lake City, but a quick glance at Twitter makes it clear that the fun has already begun.

Alt is a conference for design and lifestyle bloggers, and if you’ve never heard of it, this article will help bring you up to speed. At least nine bloggers I regularly follow are participating this year, along with others I’m familiar with and probably hundreds I’ve never heard of. I’m excited that Alt is finally underway — even though I’m not there. I can’t wait to be inspired by all the words and photos that the attendees will share with the rest of us who envy them.

I don’t know if any Alt attendees read my blog (maybe a couple?), but if you’re lucky enough to be at Alt, I hope you have as much fun as I think you’re having!

tiny tote bag

The American Girl doll who lives in our house seems to be acquiring more new clothes and accessories than I am these days. Now she can carry all of her daily essentials in this snazzy little tote bag. Purple floral fabric isn’t my personal style, so it was fun to use a bit of it to sew a tiny tote bag for Mia.

(For the record, I used the tote bag pattern included in McCalls M5775, but I used braiding that is wider than specified, so I had to fold it in half to feed it through the casing.)

grow.

I love New Year’s resolutions. Each time a new January approaches, I get all excited about making resolutions to do more, to do better, to change something. As I was thinking about goals for the year during the early days of January, the word grow came to mind… and it stuck. The concept inspired me so much that I decided not to set any resolutions for 2012. It’s true. Project-loving, goal-loving, list-loving Rachel did not make any New Year’s resolutions this year. Because honestly, I make personal resolutions all the time. Probably daily. It’s just how I’m wired.

So instead of making New Year’s resolutions, I’ve decided to follow the trend of choosing a single word to focus on for the year. The word I have chosen is grow.

Rather than striving to achieve specific goals by December, I want to focus on overall growth this year. At the end of 2012, I want to to be able to look back at various aspects of my life and identify ways in which I have grown during the year. Sure, I’m keeping in mind some areas in which I’d like to grow, but I’m not going to formalize them into resolutions.

Right now, I’m simply giving myself the freedom to grow.

project: sixteen zippers

I never intended to start a zipper collection.

When I buy a zipper, I purchase a specific length in a specific color to go with specific fabric for a specific garment or project. Sometimes I end up not sewing the item I envisioned. It happens, right? Yes. But in my life, it happens too often. Somehow, over the past decade, I have bought 16 zippers that I have never removed from their packaging. Sixteen!

In my defense, about half of those have been purchased in the past year, and I still have every intention of making the garments that they are intended for. But there are others whose original purpose I can’t even remember. When I discovered recently that I had 16 brand spankin’ new zippers in my stash, I knew it was time to do a little more sewing and a little less shopping at Jo-Ann.

And so, project: sixteen zippers is the story of my accidental zipper collection and the garments they will be sewn into as this little adventure unfolds.

Let’s meet the cast of characters:

The 7-inch zippers are the most predictable and least intimidating, as they are all destined for skirts. They all happen to be very basic colors like black, white, brown, gray, and navy.

The rest of the zippers are a bit more interesting and unexpected. Twelve-inch lilac? Fourteen-inch dark teal? Don’t worry, the three white zippers in this bunch will keep things from getting too crazy. Almost all of these longer zippers were purchased within the past year, and I think all but one are intended for dresses, either for me or for Magen. Dresses make me nervous.

So that’s what I have to work with.

I’m eager to reduce the number of zippers in my accidental collection (and use up some of my fabric stash!) as I work my way through project: sixteen zippers. And of course I’ll be glad to add more skirts and dresses to my wardrobe. I’ll be sure to show you each item as I complete it, but don’t expect frequent progress reports. It’s going to take a while to sew sixteen garments with zippers.

I haven’t decided yet which of the zippers I’ll start with, but ideally, I’d like to be wearing that 14-inch teal zipper in about two weeks. Wish me luck!

(I am not affiliated with Coats and Clark, nor have they compensated me for this publicity. However, if they knew anything about this project, I’m sure they’d want to encourage you to start a zipper collection of your own.)

perpetual calendar micro-journal

The beginning of a new year is a perfect time to start a new daily project, especially one that involves both a calendar and a journal. Over the holidays I spent some quality time with 366 index cards and a Sharpie pen to create this perpetual calendar micro-journal.

My perpetual calendar micro-journal was directly inspired by a very similar project I saw on Design*Sponge more than a year ago. At the top of each index card, I wrote the month and day, and then each day I write one line about something I did or thought that day. A year from now, it will be fun to look back and remember what I was thinking and doing a year earlier. By the time the cards are filled up, I will have recorded a decade of memories.

It’s tempting to wish I had significant things to write each day, but for now I’m really enjoying jotting down simple notes about everyday activities. It’s helping me to notice the small things, and I’m intrigued by the opportunity to record moments that would otherwise slip away and be forgotten.

While I certainly can’t capture much depth or detail, right now this micro-journal is a good format for me. It only takes a moment to jot down a memory before I crawl into bed each night.

What about you? Do you keep a daily journal or diary? Is it handwritten? Electronic? Do you leave it on your nightstand, or keep it under lock and key? I’d love to know.

silver striped notepad

In spite of the fact that I already have plenty of little notepads and tablets, I wanted something new and special to jot notes on during a conference/retreat that I’m attending this weekend. So last night I sat down and whipped up this little silver striped notepad.

I made a lengthwise cut right down the middle of an 8.5×11″ sheet of kraft cardstock to make the cover, and then did the same with three sheets of printer paper to make the interior pages. I drew stripes on the cover with a silver marker, folded everything in half, and then stapled it all together at the top. I trimmed a little excess white paper off the bottom and then rounded the bottom corners with a little corner punch.

My notepad only has 12 pages, and I hope to fill them with lots of great ideas this weekend.

Happy weekend, friends!

twenty twelve

On Sunday afternoon we kicked off the new year with a fun outdoor photoshoot with these sparkly numbers I made. Each number is about 9 inches tall. I cut them out of foam core, painted them gold, and then painted them with gold glitter paint. Gold and sparkles usually aren’t my thing, but New Year’s seems like a great time for a little extra glitz and glam.

I snapped this picture with my iPhone and originally posted it on Instagram, a photo sharing application for the iPhone that I started using a couple weeks ago. It gives you the option of applying a neat filter to a photo before sharing it with your followers. If you have an iPhone, you can join in the fun on Instagram too. Otherwise, feel free to follow me using Statigram.

Are you on Instagram? If so, I’d love to hear what you think of it.

Happy 2012!

five favorites of 2011

Happy New Year, friends. The beginning of a brand new year always feels so refreshing and invigorating, but before I turn my full attention to 2012, I’d like to look back at a few projects I shared with you during the past year. Out of 101 posts, these are my five favorites.

Without a doubt, my favorite creative project of 2011 was opening {rachel+paper}, my online paper goods shop. It’s so much fun to turn a dream into a lovely little reality.

Visiting the American Girl Place in New York City in October inspired me to sew more doll clothing and accessories, and the flannel nightgown I made was my favorite sewing project of the year. The soft pink flannel with tiny stars was the perfect fabric for a little nightgown.

Something about these tiny packets of paper heart confetti made me really happy back in February. It might have had something to do with the fact that I gave them all away to unsuspecting friends when I was in Virginia for the weekend.

The birthday photoshoot with the large number 8 turned out even better than I hoped, and the birthday girl loved it as much as I did. Number 9 will need sparkles, I think.

My final favorite post of 2011 was actually a whole series of posts about Zippy, our Elf on the Shelf. The kids loved looking for him each morning, and I heard the most delightful giggles when they found him.

Thanks so much for joining me here during 2011. I can’t wait to see what 2012 will bring!

Zippy says goodbye

Last night Zippy (our Elf on the Shelf) returned to the North Pole, but not before he got into our pantry, spilled some pasta, and wrote out a little message.

Farewell, little friend.

Zippy makes a friend

My mom emailed recently to say that Zippy seems quite busy, and wondered whether he had found any friends to talk with at night. Well, he’s an elf of few words, so I haven’t heard him mention anyone, but it looks like he’s made at least one new friend here in Pennsylvania. This morning we found him down in the basement playing foosball with a chubby guy from Idaho.

(Did you notice the score? That’s our Zippy!)