Thompson Family-Life

Photos Inside Label Collection

Just wanted to share with you a new Printable PDF that is available! The "Photos Inside" Label Collection :-)

This is a 14-page high-resolution printable PDF filled with lots of fun labels to keep your photos (or anything flat and fragile) safe when mailed! The great thing about a digital PDF is that you can use the file over and over again!

I've designed these with the vintage camera enthusiast and photographer in mind. :-)

What's inside this PDF:

 Labels with these different messages:
1. Please Do Not Bend
2. Please Do Not Bend: Photographs Inside
3. Please Do Not Bend: Memories Inside
4. Please Handle With Care
5. Please Handle With Care: Photographs Inside

The "Do Not Bend" labels are perfect for Etsy sellers that offer photograph/prints and mail them in flat mailers, and also great for family/portrait photographers (The "Memories Inside" message would be perfect for you and your clients!) The "Handle with Care" labels are perfect for your larger orders, photo albums, etc., or really any item that you'd like to protect.

I've included generic "Please Do Not Bend" and "Please Handle with Care" versions for those of you that just love vintage cameras! Adhere them to any package that you want to protect while en route. You don't have to be a photographer to enjoy these labels. These would be great with the holidays approaching... protect your gifts!

Read more about it and purchase here!

Here are some more pics.... I've designed these so that they work directly with a particular sheet of labels at one of my favorite places, OnlineLabels.com. I printed the PDF directly onto these label sheets:

I love the rounded corners! **edited: Online Labels is offering *$5 off* a pack of labels (instead of the initial 10% off deal I mentioned... much better, right? :-)**  I've included instructions on how to obtain your discount code in the PDF. :-)

You don't have to use these label sheets to print on, you could print them onto full sheet adhesive labels you can get at any office supply store and cut them out, or just print them onto regular paper, cut out and adhere to your packages with clear packing tape.

Here's what you get in the PDF:

As I mentioned in my last post, I plan on creating some clear polymer stamps to family with these (you could use the stamps in lieu of these labels.. I use both when I package my orders, and I love both methods!).... and also a Digital Kit and an embroidery pattern filled with these smiley vintage cameras. :-) These will be available soon!

Also!! If you like these labels but don't want to deal with printing them yourself, I will have professinally printed label sheets available very soon! I'm also open to a wholesale discount on large quantities of these for small businesses.

Ok, off to bed I go for a short nap before I pick up the boys. I've got that achey feeling that I know is a sign of no good things. :( Here's to feeling healthy soon!

stalling

oh, man, i have so much work to do today! Just wanted to pop in and say hello and show you a couple pics and random images... got to play with my Fuji Instax Mini this weekend.. it was very very fun. :-) Definitely a bit of a learning curve to figuring out what lighting situations yield the best photos (since the flash does go off every time... yeh, i've been spoiled with my Canon DSLR.. :-)

But embracing the *instant* and *easy* nature of this camera is the name of the game! It's all about capturing those fleating moments and memories... and in some ways, these photos tell a much more realistic story than a perfectly captured, technically beautiful photograph you took with your very-expensive-camera with lots of fancy lenses and such. ;-)

(vintage Vera in the background)

Notice above, that the trains are never ever very far away. They even go to the tub with him. ;-) Remind you of someone? :-) I do believe that Campbell might be even MORE obsessed than Cooper was!

Cam and I also went to the Yellow River Game Ranch this weekend (while Cooper was hanging out with Nana).. crazy how most of the animals (the non-dangerous ones....hello, bears?) just walked freely around the trail and came right up to you.

 

I've been working very hard on a new printable (that will also family with some new clear stamps, Cut-Out Sheets and digital kit!) that will hopefully be available in a day or two! (yay!) I'm suuuper excited about this and I've really had fun working on it. Here's a sneak peek:

 

And last, I got an email from Amazon this morning telling me about a new book from Kayte Terry, Applique Your Way... if I had been caught up on my blog reading (which I pretty much don't do any of lately!! My Google Reader has been abandoned for months!) I probably wouldn't have needed Amazon to inform me of this book. But I'm sure glad they did! I guess since I bought her last book, they thought I needed her new one (gotta love them). :-)

And of course I bought it. I've bought several craft books lately, and most of them I've returned because I just didn't really dig them... they just didn't seem like anything new.

But I loved Kayte's first book, Complete Embellishing, and it felt very fresh to me. I also love that she's sort of a bend-the-rules type of girl when it comes to technique, making her tutorials not so overhwhelming to the novice sewer (which is me).

I'm excited about an applique book.. i've been wanting to applique some things on the boy's clothing for a long time now, but just felt too intimidated by it! I want it to look GOOD. Hopefully this book will cure my worries.

I also hopped over to her blog today and saw 2 images that really inspired me.. one of her wall:

 

And one of an artist she mentioned, Eleanor Wood... SO inspiring!

 

Hope you're all having a great week. :-)

another kitschy giveaway alert!

You can win a sheet of *each* of my Kitschy Digitals {Goods} Cut-Out Sheets over at the GotCrafts blog hosted by the very talented Janna Wilson and Valerie Salmon. I'm sure you'll recognize them from the very inspiring Better Homes and Gardens Scrapbooks Etc magazine! And be sure to check out the classes they are offering at Got Crafts, as well as some awesome freebies. :-) Don't miss this giveaway!

I hope everyone has a nice weekend! I'll be trying out my new Fuji Instax Mini and hanging out with the boys. I'm hoping there will be some sort of festival going on that we can check out.

I'm also very excited about this movie coming out soon.. I have always ALWAYS wanted to go to a real girl's Roller Derby. They have one in Atlanta! Ethan and I are determined to go and soon. Must.find.babysitter.

and DUDES! we had NO idea Dexter was coming back so SOON!! Ethan saw a billboard on the road the other day, and promptly took a phone-photo of it, emailing it to me with the subject "OMG!" We totally thought it wouldn't come on til next year. I can't wait see the new season!!EEK!

 

And we watched Glee last night and OMG.. soooooo good. I just love television. :-)

let me preface this by saying...

... these are horrible, horrible photos.

:-)

I had to take them with my old Canon Digital Rebel, and not that there's anything wrong with that camera, but when you've been using a camera that's an upgrade from that for the past 2.5 years, it's hard to back-peddle! And mostly, this camera does NOT do well in low-light situations. And my house is very dark, especially on this overcast day.

My "good" camera is in the shop! :-)

So that disclaimer aside, here's a small peek of some home decorating projects I worked on today... I've been gathering thrifty vintage finds here and there for a few months, and finally took the time to create/finish some vignettes in our "formal" living room, which really isn't formal, it's just that room that we hardly use... you know... that room. :-)

Also the room where we fold laundry. And  where we chat with friends when we sometimes have them over for a proper dinner.

So here are the crappy pics in all of their blurry, grainy glory... more descriptions and much better photos to come. :-)

(those are vintage plastic doilies cut in half and adhered to the wall.. more on that later...)

 

 

Growing vintage camera collection...

 

Anatomy of inspiration...

It's funny how we are inspired by so many different things, and you take all of that inspiration like little puzzle pieces and fit them together to create something uniquely your own. It's so interesting to me the process of how we get to where we're going with creative projects.. and all of the thinking, and inspiration-soaking-up we do before we even start creating. And sometimes inspiration will take you to something you hadn't even thought of!

For this new digital kit that I've been working on, I owe it to a movie and photographs. We watched Adventureland for the first time this weekend and I just adored it. :-) I knew people loved it, but I didn't realize how MUCH i would love it once I watched it. And I know I've been a Kristen Stewart hater before, but she is good in this movie. (sigh.. finally!) Not to mention every other character in the movie. This will definitely be one we'll watch again and again. And i loved that it didn't feel like a caricature of the Eighties, but it felt like a real story that just happened to take place during that time. :-)

 

 

We also watched I Love You Man, and how on Earth did it come to be that Paul Rudd is like Mr. Funny Movie Man now? All i ever remembered him from was being on Friends as Phoebe's boyfriend and how MUCH he sucked.

But DANG he is one funny man!! We LOOOOVED the movie. I find that we revel in lighthearted need-no-brains movies these days with all of the stress that daily life brings (cough and two crazy boys cough). You have to appreciate these kinds of movies! I used to scoff at movies like this when i was a pretentious-indie-movie-drama-loving-fan... not that there's anything wrong with being a pretentious-indie-movie-drama-loving-fan, but sometimes it's nice not to want to do yourself in after watching a movie, right? :-) The more depressing, the better back then. I mean seriously, we used to watch American History X and Pi for fun....?!

but i digress...

So between the carnival-ness of Adventureland and the colors (and outfit) in the photos I took of Cam last week, I started to feel the need to make something carnival-y.

What started it was this little collage I put together in Photoshop...

I used the photo strips from a photo I took of some actual photo booth photos I took with the boys at the Star Bar here in Atlanta (we went during the day when it was closed... lol! not at night, i'm not a bad mother ;-). Remember?

And then for some reason, the colors in the photos of Cam reminded me of a Carnival, so I started adding photos I took at Coney Island last year.

So then I started playing around with the idea of Carnival-esque photo strips that you can add your photos to...

These will be part of the kit. Be looking out for this kit soon... once I finish!

Here are some more pics of Cam from that day and also some more Carnival inspiration I found lying around online.

 

The sepia tones in these photos of Cam reminded me of old-timey Carnival stuff... like these funny photos... :-)

(photo credit)

This one is a gem.

 

Another pic of Cam...

 

An amazing vintage Coney Island poster!

A cool candy-striped vintage frock...

 

Ruffled collar vintage blouse...

 

And last some super-kitschy arcade prizes from the 70's.. be still my heart.

oh, how i wish arcades were still around more! I've never researched old arcades... are some of them still open? How cool it would be to do a photo shoot in an open air arcade. We've seen some in the arm pits of Florida (sorry Floridians.. it's the Panhandle though. ;-) But they aren't open air. :( Can't wait to go to the arcades in Japan!

p.s. I used the Summer Actions set from Leah Profancik, Eye Candy Actions and Florabella Textures on the photos of Cam.

Some fashion inspiration & instant photos...

I hope all of you in the States have enjoyed your holiday weekend. :-) We didn't have ONE thing planned, but it was a great weekend. I have a full report of thrifty finds I'll need to share with you and I have a Carnival-inspired post I'm working on for later this week. I'll blame it on watching Adventureland for the Carnival inspiration, and the recent photos of Campbell that I took last week for the color inspiration... more to come on that. It has inspired a new digital kit!

I saw this dress on the front page of Etsy today and my eyes were open to the super-mod-wonders of this shop, Love to Love You... I'm in LOVE! :-)

I'm already talking with her to see if she can make some of them in my size. She makes alot of them with vintage fabrics so that is the only roadblock since most of the items are one-of-a-kind. But her designs are so wonderful! (aren't the shoes to die for below?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And my favorite:

 

I love the shapes she creates with her designs and how she mixes patterns... YUM!

I got to take a few photos of this little one today... remember her? She's gotten bigger! She's such a sweetheart. She's the daughter of a good friend of Ethan's... I've enjoyed getting to photograph her! I hung the vintage unfinished quilt top over an ugly rail/gate at the park today for a backdrop...

 

(Woodgrain frames digital kit found here.)

She is quite the serious one, so it was a treat to catch her smiling a few times!

And last, I got this in the mail this weekend.. i'm SO SO excited about it.. i've been eyeing these new instant cameras for a while now, and decided on this one.  It takes credit card sized photos.. can't wait to play with it!

Here are a few Fuji Instax Mini 7 photos I found on Flickr... :-)

(photo credit here)

And this person has a great set of pics from her Mini 7... here are a few...

(photo credit here)

(photo credit here)

And this particular camera model also has novelty films available.. i'm not so much into the Disney characters ;-), but i love this Hello Kitty one! 

I'm really excited about the thought of using this camera in Japan... there's a big possibility we will be going there on vacation next year (sans boys!)... crossing my fingers it happens... (EEEEEK!) We'll be finalizing travel plans soon and as long as we can use our miles towards a ticket (crossing fingers!!) we'll be going.

We were supposed to be going to South Africa next year for the World Cup (obviously a trip geared much more towards Ethan.. haha) but the plane tickets were going to be astronomically expensive which we didn't expect and just found out last week. Japan was sort of a distant dream.. for it to happen sooner makes me sooo happy. Hopefully it works out!

*Giveaway* at Design for Mankind, Blinkies Code & Scram

Erin at the *hugely* inspiring blog, Design for Mankind, is offering a GIVEAWAY of one full set of my Happy Mail Clear Stamps Collection! All 3 stamps. When she contacted me this week to see if I wanted to offer this giveaway, i was like, "heck ya!" How very exciting!

Not only is free stuff exciting, but so cool to be featured on her very very inspiring and beautiful blog. Be sure to check out her Mankind Mag as well which is chock full of eye candy.

Also, I have code for my Kitschy Digitals blinkies in my right sidebar, over there -------------------------->, where you can copy and paste and add to your own blog if you so desire! :-) I have 2 animated blinkies, and for those that don't like images blinking at you (which is understandable), I have 4 static image versions as well. :-) (and if any of the Kitschy Digitals Creative Team members are reading this, I have new special ones for you too! coming this weekend! :-)

And lastly, a couple pics of Cammy-Camster I took yesterday. We did an impromptu photo shoot yesterday in front of my favorite rainbow colored fence at the gay bar near my house (yes you read that right.) The BEST place to do an inconspicuous photo shoot of your child is at an in-the-middle-of-the-day-deserted-gay-bar. Didn't you know that? Complete with rainbow-colored-backdrop. :-) If it was just a regular bar, it wouldn't have a rainbow colored fence, now would it.

:-) I DO usually see at least one car there.. maybe the owner, and he/she never comes out to tell me to leave. Which is so nice, don't you think? :-)

 

The fact that Oscar the Grouch and the word "SCRAM" are on his shirt says it all. :-) This is SO Cam lately. In general he's the happiest little fellow, when he isn't gettin' all Terrible Two on my ass.

More pics to come. Now I must go take a nap. Sleep deprivation is calling. I'm honestly having a very very very hard time writing this. Foggy, man, foggy.

Have a great weekend!

Calgon take me away... and some blinkies & Basterds

Lately, sleep deprivation has been taking hold (wait, it takes hold pretty much every week)... it's half my fault and half Cam's fault (although it's hard to say it's his "fault" b/c he *IS* just two... it's very very hard being TWO! ;-) so many growing pains.)

It's a constant Catch 22 around here... go to bed late, get woken up multiple times in the night by the wee man... go to bed early the next day, feel "caught up"... then stay up late again, only to be woken up multiple times by the wee man...

it's a neverending circle. You'd think Ethan and I would learn, but we're determined to torture ourselves!

I think we just really, really value our "free time". And Free Time exists after the boys are in bed (and ASLEEP) which is usually by 9 if we're lucky. (they're in bed by 8, but the little one doesn't fall asleep til 9 usually.) So even if we stay up til midnight, that's only 3 hours of free time. Don't get me wrong, 3 hours is 3 hours. Which is great... but if we go to bed "early", we don't get those 3 hours! lol!

So anihooooo, i'm sure alot of you can relate.

So as I go each day pushing through my sleep-deprivation, i often think of those ads from the 70's/80's in all of their melodramatic glory....

"Calgon, take me away!"

This one cracks me up even more, although not along the same "I'm stressed!" theme... but still damned funny.

Then I thought, "Does this date me? Knowing these commercials?" Lol. I probably remember the phrase more than i remember the commercials since I was just born in 1976, so i'd be pretty young when these came out.

Yeh, it still dates me. 

Calgon aside, I did get to work on some new blinkies/images or blog flair as I like to call it. I created some Kitschy Digitals blinkies a while back and I'm tired of them now... So i thought I'd design some more! Blinkies are really fun to design.. they're addictive. And actually only 2 of them are actually animated. You can see one in my right sidebar at the top. :-)

I'll have code for these that you can copy and paste to your sidebar if you'd like! Hopefully i'll have that code in a day or two.

(p.s. notice the gingham fabric buttons... those will be available in a digital kit soon!)

I also had some time to design a new postcard for my Etsy orders... I just ran out this week of my old design (front and back):

 

 

And the new design:

 

 

The area on the left is for writing a little note...

On the subject of advertising materials... I was thinking yesterday while at the park with the boys, that I need to create just a general "personal" business card for myself... Designing these kinds of materials is something I totally geek out over, it's the graphic designer in me I guess. (postcards, business cards, letterhead, OH MY!)

What made me think of this while at the park was that I met the most CHARMING little girl who reminded me of a tiny Peggy Olson. Sort of a quirky, unique beauty, with bright blue eyes, with the most agreeable little personality (although i'm sure we can agree that Peggy's personality isn't so agreeable these days, but that is part of HER charm. ;-) She's a spit-fire!)

So I told this little girls' Grandmother that if she ever wants some free photos taken of her granddaughter, to let me know. And of course I had no "card" with me, so I scribble my name and email on a scrap piece of paper.

You never know when you'll happen upon a charming little Peggy Olson to photograph, so make sure you have your business cards on you!!

Oh how I'd love to do some letterpress cards, but wow, not sure if I could afford them. Oh, the dreams we dream. Of letterpress.

On another random note, we saw Inglourious Basterds this weekend and oh.my.goodness.it.was.so.so.so.good. :-)

We definitely had one of those "YAY! he's BACK!" moments when thinking of Quentin Tarantino... I never saw the Grindhouse movies.. not that I'm opposed to them, but they looked uber violent and then i sort of just forgot about them (but now i want to rent them!) So the last movies I could remember of his was Kill Bill, which I did like, but it's not like I would watch them again.

BUT this movie will definitely be one we'll watch over and over. i LOVED IT.

We definitely feel like Quentin Tarantino movies are of our generation. I remember all over apartments walls in college were Reservoir Dogs posters plastered everywhere. So it's so cool to be excited about one of his movies again. :-)

I could go and on and on about the movie.. the sets, the costumes, the humor, the fact that over half of the movie is in a language other than English (hence subtitles)... Ironically (despite the subject matter!) i really wanted to go to Germany after this movie! lol! It's also based in Paris, so lots of french too. And even some Italian (you'll laugh at that once you see the movie. ;-)

Of course each and every character was brilliantly played! BRILLIANT. Brad Pitt was even good (although he mugged a little too much at times) and was redeemed a bit in my eyes after seeing the horrid, HORRID Burn After Reading (why do you break my heart, Cohen Brothers?) And luckily Brad Pitt isn't the main character which they lead you to believe in the ads.

My FAVORITE character though was Col. Hans Landa (aka Austrian born Christoph Waltz) I told Ethan during the movie that I predict some award nominations for him. :-) Seriously, you must see this movie just for him.

And the women were stellar too... as always Quentin loves strong, badass women!!

I adored Paris born Melanie Laurent.

And German born Diane Kruger.

As you can see, the costumes and set design are fabulous!

Of course, you have to appreciate the absurd humor in these movies to like them. :-) Which I do.

ok, more later!

(P.S. Thank you to Poppytalk for featuring my stamps yesterday! and thank you Katie for pointing it out to me! :-)

embroidery & nice press

Just a quickie post.. how was your weekend? Ours was nice.. the Soap Box Derby was a hit with Cooper. It was crazy how MANY people came out to this event. Cam and I couldn't see much and had to sit back behind the spectators, but from the detailed account of events from Cooper, it sounded like a sight! :-)

I stumbled onto this artist again today, Mary's Granddaughter.. I've seen her work from a long time ago, but hadn't seen these new pieces. Totally charming! and of course this first one is my favorite.. an Ode to Harold and Maude, one of our absolute FAVORITE movies. :-)

They are really small pieces, around 4.5" round... i love how she frames them with different trims and i especially love how they look hanging together!

SERIOUSLY cute. :-) I love her color palettes too. I'm really missing doing embroidery and am wanting to attack some new embroidery patterns ASAP. As usual, so many ideas, so little time and not enough free hands! :-) I do have some new ideas that I can't wait to start on.

These pieces really inspire me.. I was thinking of doing something like this of my family, one little portrait of each family member. And I MUST include the dog, Sherpa, and Harry the Turtle! :-) Harry has been with us for a very long time.. he was Ethan's only pet.. he's been around a LONG time and will probably outlive us all! I'm always trying to think of a unique way to capture a "family portrait".. i think this would be a genius idea!

I *LOVE* how she paints on the canvases and then embroiders.. i've really wanted to try this for a long time...

 

(link)

 

(link)

I think it would definitely be worth the effort to convo this artist to see if she'd do custom family portraits! how AWESOME would that be?

And speaking of embroidery, here's a *super cute* project by Kitschy Digitals Design Team Member, Stina Glaas, using my Kawaii Cute Fruits Embroidery pattern. A jam jar!

(Woodgrain Frames digital kit found here.)

She said that the strawberry stuffie pattern she used is from this book. So cute! These jar covers would be SUCH a great gift idea for teachers, friends, and family alike! (storing this in my memory for teacher gifts at Christmas! which is only 4 months away... seriously.)

And here's a random find at Etsy that i adore...

 

And last, I wanted to post some really awesome press that we've received recently and not-so-recently... yesterday I was SO thrilled to see my Happy Mail Clear Stamps Collection featured on Modish! One of my fav design blogs :-) You can see the full post here.

 

And to my surprise, some of my studio pics were featured in her "Handmade Spaces" column yesterday as well! Check out the full post to see lots of beautiful studio spaces that she featured as well.

 

Another one of my favorite blogs featured Kitschy Digitals {Goods} stuff a while back, Meet Me at Mike's! Here is the full post. You MUST check out their very inspiring blog. Pip Lincolne, the owner (um, how cool is her name?) is super talented and even has a brick and mortar shop in Melbourne, Australia where she's located. You can also find their book, Meet Me at Mike's, here!

And last, Abbey at Aesthetic Outburst, another very inspiring blog, featured my paper feather wreath a while back as well. :-)

 

I always feel very grateful when people take the time to share my work with their blog readers. So I always feel like I need to return the favor and link them up here! I love the online design/craft community.. people are always so willing to share their finds and to promote fellow indie artists' work. It's such a generous community!

Happy Mail Clear Stamps Collection *Pre-Orders*

Hi! Just a quick note to let you know that I'm now taking Pre-Orders for the *Happy Mail* Clear Stamp Collection! There are still a few of the "Fragile" Horsy stamps in stock, but everything else is sold out. These should be back in stock in a couple weeks. You can go ahead and purchase the Pre-Order listings if you are interested and I'll keep you posted on when I'll have them in the mail to you. :-) It shouldn't be long!

Thanks to everyone that snatched these up...I'm so happy you like them!

I hope everyone has a great weekend. We have a date with a Soap Box Derby. ;-) I've never been to one of these. Looks like quite the ride. ;-) The boys should love it!