RWL: Lucky Seven

March 6, 2013 | leftylex

In five short days Husband and I will have been married for SEVEN years! Seven! I can hardly believe it. And for some strange reason I am more excited for this anniversary than I have been for any other. I’m not exactly sure why, it’s not the big 10 year quite yet, but I’ve been anticipating it nonetheless. So with seven on my mind this week, I present you the seven inspired Rainbow Wish List. Enjoy!

By taking a quick look at this RWL you can tell that it’s a bit different than most. Most of the items are strictly number sevens so there isn’t much desiring of any of these items, but I would love, love, love to have the lovely yellow item: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!

Have you seen this musical? It’s amazing! It’s a very sweet story, the choreography is awesome, and the costumes are bursting with color. I have yet to see this on stage, but one of the high schoolers at my church is going to be in a performance this spring so I’ll have the chance to see it then. I’m sure that she is going to knock it out of the park! Here’s a snippet if you’ve never seen it:

And my final plug for why seven is an awesome number… dialogue from The Seven episode from Seinfeld:

“I defy you to come up with a better name than Seven.”
“Seven Costanza… You’re serious?”
“Yeah. It’s a beautiful name for a boy or a girl. Especially a girl… Or a boy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What, you don’t like the name?”
“It’s not a name. It’s a number.”
“I know. It’s Mickey Mantle’s number. So not only is it an all-around beautiful name, it is also a living tribute.”
– George and Susan, in “The Seven”

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Weekend Wrap Up 3/2-3/3

March 5, 2013 | leftylex

It was a lovely weekend to be in sunny San Diego, California! It was in the 80s on Saturday, then a bit cooler on Sunday, but only light cardigan weather. The weather could not have been better to kick off the 9th Annual San Diego Cruisin’ Quilter Shop Hop! What is the SD Shop Hop? Why it’s when all of the old lady quilters of SoCal and I go from quilt shop to quilt shop to see the latest wares out there. Seriously, I am always the only person under 50 doing this! More info on the hop here: http://www.cruisinquilters.com/html/default.asp

A few years ago I hit all 13 shops with a vengeance, but this year I am not going to kill myself if I miss a shop or two. I was able to leisurely hit 4 shops… and boy were they packed! Here are the shops that I went to:

1. The Country Loft: rustic, charming, incredibly crowded (!), and my new go-to shop for felts when I’m in dire need and can’t make the trek to Fat Quarters.

2. Rosie’s Calico Cupboard: lovely staff, large book collection, absolutely enormous, carrier of all new Moda collections, 2nd favorite shop in SD.

3. Cozy Quilt Shop: offers loads of classes, large Bernina machine collection, loads of quilt patterns available.

4. Fat Quarters Quilt Shop: the best shop in SoCal!!! My love for this shop cannot be accurately measured. I will not gush again about this store just yet, but click here if you want to read a previous gush: https://leftylex.com/2013/01/06/shop-highlight-fat-quarters/

The weekend was not filled entirely with shop hopping. Saturday was also my little brother’s first swim meet of the season.

That’s him, my baby brother, super tall and skinny.

And although I love my brother dearly, swim meets are somewhat tiresome and incredibly long! I was there for over two hours and still left before his final two races…geez! And you can imagine how Mom’s puppy felt about the whole situation…

Later that night Husband and I had a lovely date night at Seaport Village!

I love Seaport Village so much! Only, in my childhood recollections, I do not remember so many homeless people rummaging through the trash cans.

I do however have found memories of the carousel! It’s just as lovely now as it was those 20+ years ago. Only now just watching it spin around is enough to make me sick!

And we decided to eat at the Pier Cafe, how cool is (literally) eating right over the water? The floor consists of old wooden planks that are not perfectly aligned, so I could actually see the water beneath my feet! The food wasn’t too shabby either. And the company, as always, was superb. It was a fabulous ending to a busy Saturday.

Sunday began as it always does, bright and early with worship.

This was followed by a failed attempted to visit the Carlsbad Flower Fields. We drove at least 40 minutes to get there and (although it was opening weekend) there were absolutely no flowers!!! What a bust! Oh well, we’ll try again in a few weeks. Now time to face Monday… bring it on!

Opening Day on Etsy!!!

March 2, 2013March 2, 2013 | leftylex

Well ladies and gents, opening day is finally here… off to the races! I literally felt like a kid on Christmas Eve last night. And I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at about 4AM but forced myself to stay in bed until 5AM then quickly made my way to the computer and officially “opened shop”. Now the challenge today is going to be focusing on work and resisting the urge to check my Etsy stats every two seconds!

Once I finally saw the activated version of LeftyLexCreations on the Etsy site I literally wanted to do a cartwheel in my living room. This represents many, many long hours of work: some fun, some frustrating, but all have been exciting. It’s so rewarding to see my products alongside the work of other artists! Not all of my finished products are listed quite yet, but I figured that 35 listings will do just fine for my grand opening.

So please, please click on over and have a look at my shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/LeftyLexCreations this is some of what you’ll see!

Thanks for being so supportive, and please continue to spread the word! Cheers!

Etsy Countdown

Image | February 28, 2013 | leftylex

I have been blog MIA, I know. But this does not mean that I have not been super busy! As LeftyLexCreation is scheduled to open in TWO DAYS, I have been spending loads of QT with my laptop getting everything up and running on Etsy. This is what my morning view has primarily consisted of for the past week or so:

Etsy Countdown

Aaahh; the printscreen alone gives me nightmares! This is not the creative outlet that I need before (and after) I work my regular 9-5, but my shop isn’t going to up and open itself so this is just a necessary evil that must be tackled. Lord willing, this will be the most that I have to work on the computer for Lefty Lex for a while. There is nothing as fun as sitting at a computer from 5:30AM-8:00AM, getting ready for work, then sitting at another computer from 8:30A-5:30P for work! On these days 6PM yoga cannot come fast enough! Hopefully this is just for a short period of time and I take comfort in knowing that I will never again list 30 new items all at once.

I can see the finish line, it’s so close! I honestly feel like I am at mile 12 of a half marathon and just started getting a side ache; so close, yet so painful! All will be well very soon! For now, however, I feel like I’m existing in a barricade of hoops!

Busy Little Bee

February 22, 2013 | leftylex

It has been extraordinarily busy over here in Lefty Lex land! With just 9 short days until LeftyLexCreations opens on Etsy, I’ve had lots and lots to do! Unless your a shop owner yourself, or are in the process of becoming one, you have no idea how much work actually goes into opening a (presentable and non-tacky) shop. It’s borderline exhausting, I get tired just thinking of everything that has been completed thus far! Design drafting, supply shopping, product execution (stitching, etc.), photographing products, editing photos, uploading to Etsy, writing descriptions, battling the dreaded pricing issues, finalizing logo and all things branding, keeping up with social media, keeping up with this here blog (or trying to!), etc., etc. Whew! I now have a new level of respect for people who make their full-time living running successful shops.

While I know that these are all necessary tasks that must be executed in order to open shop, I have spent such a large amount of time on the computer over the past couple of weeks that I have begun missing the actual stitching process immensely! So, for the past three days, I have dedicated at least an hour per day to the pure joy of stitching. The results have been a happier me and the following little gems…

That was a nice little hiatus, now back to work!

Week in Snapshots

February 22, 2013 | leftylex

A bit late, but this was my last week in snapshots. I tried quite a few new recipes, semi-celebrated Valentine’s Day, watched my baby sister enter her twenties (!), spent oodles of quality time with Husband, and further fell in love with succulents.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Image | February 15, 2013 | leftylex

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! May your chocolate be sweet, your flowers fragrant, your lover endearing, and your restaurant reservations on time!

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The Big Branding Reveal

Image | February 14, 2013 | leftylex

I am so excited to (finally) present you with my logo and other delightful branding products! I am absolutely in love with the work the finished products and I could not say enough about my wonderful designer, Renee Jones of Mulberry Designs. Before I go any further, I’d like to say thank you to everyone (and there were a lot of you!) who chimed in with your two cents while I was still in the initial designing process with Renee.

The branding journey began with an email of the photo below to Renee. This little heart has become my signature stitch and I new that I wanted to incorporate it somehow in my logo. I sent Renee the image and she created/interpreted it in digital form. Kind of awesome to see that happen!

She then sent these two designs to me as potential LLC logos. Deciding between the two potential logos above was tricky. While lots of followers liked the font on the left best, I ultimately went with a slightly altered version of the font on the right because it looks much more like my own handwriting. I did however absolute LOVE the little hoop design on the left.

While taking your lovely feedback into consideration, I decided that I preferred the hoop design from the left logo paired with the lettering of the right logo. Renee then created these two designs to show me what exactly my two likes would look like paired together. This is where decisions began to be a bit more difficult for me.

Luckily Husband always has ideas on what exactly my finished products should look like. We decided that even though I loved the top logo, it looked a bit crowded. Ultimately I liked the overall look of the later as a logo but I still loved the heart and hoop, so I asked her to create that as a separate avatar for me, which she graciously did. Best of both worlds!

There were several drafts and little kinks that were worked out prior to the finalization; things like smoothing out the font, changing the colors slightly, adding rows of colored dots, removing other dots, etc., etc. Overall, however, it was a rather painless and exciting experience. And I am finally able to present you with the finished products… don’t you love them? I absolutely do!

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Renee, truly! She was extremely professional, listened to my ideas and turned them into reality. I searched for a branding designer for quite a while, but some showed poor work portfolios and others were severely overpriced; Mulberry Designs was neither. Renee has a fabulous body of work (of which my logo has been added to!) and she is reasonably priced. I would highly suggest Renee to anyone looking to brand or re-brand themselves. I could not be happier with the overall look that she has given me!

To view more of her work, click here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MulberryDesign22

RWL: Valentine’s Day

February 13, 2013February 13, 2013 | leftylex

Well, just two short days until Valentine’s Day. Truth be told, Husband and I are not the biggest Valentine’s Day celebrators. I have two reasons for permitting this: 1) my birthday is in January (just a few short days after Christmas) and 2.) our wedding anniversary is in March. So I am never truly in the mood for another obligatory festive celebration. Husband should be so happy, he gets off easy!

However, I am not a total Valentine’s Day grinch so I present to you, this week’s love themed RWL!

Red: I like to think that one day I’ll be the kind of mom who makes uber cute traditions for my kids like making the same love theme breakfast each Valentine’s Day. Perhaps I’d have a cute little bowl like this cute little white and red heart number. It would of course be accompanied by an equally cute mug, plate, table runner, and other heart themed paraphernalia just to complete the effect. And probably an embroidered napkin or two (let’s keep it real here).

Orange: Hello. Also, I love you. This is my kind of card exactly: super weird, simple, and to the point. I like cards that aren’t entirely expected. This card is able to capture the love and Valentine’s Day effect without being red, pink or covered with little cupids. I’m also a giant fan of the letterpress look, magnificent!

Yellow: I adore this little yellow print and think that it belongs in my craft space. I love the many shades of yellow (none of them are annoying primary or neon shades) and I quite fancy the font as well; sweet and simple.

Green: This is actually a fridge magnet made of tile. I think that I’m drawn to this piece because it reminds me of Gaudi’s Parc Guell in Barcelona, a home of many, many tiles. If you are not familiar with Parc Guell, then you must take at least two minutes to check out some of the photos on this site: http://www.parkguell.es/en/gal.php. You will not regret it, I promise you! This is the most whimsical place I have ever been; it literally feels like you are stepping into a fairy tale when you’re there. Hop a plane to Barcelona right now and let the whimsy begin!

Blue: For some reason or another I keep find myself crushing on useless little felt objects. No offense to the artist intended; of course these little blue felted hearts are not useless. If they can make someone smile, then they have purpose. But for practicality’s sake, not much use is achieved through tiny felt hearts… but I love them! Perhaps they’d look cute in a shadow box? Or placed together with other goods to make a unique centerpiece? I’m sure I could come up with a few good uses for these little guys should they make their way to my house!

Indigo: Okay, I know what you’re thinking here in regards to my indigo pick: that it’s not really indigo. But it is, it’s even titled Indigo Heart! So there, I win! This is actually a photograph of a door that belongs to an old, old house in Monaco. And although I have never been to Monaco (Southern France, but not Monaco) I can imagine that this door would belong to an old romantic house in a neighborhood with only cobblestone roads and surrounded by oodles and oodles of flowers. If only you could see the image in my mind!

Violet: Remember being around age 8 and thinking that nothing in the world was cooler than wearing broken heart best friend necklaces with your best friend? That is exactly what these pendants remind me of! Is that not the precursor to the engagement ring? It basically says: hand’s off, this best friend has already been spoken for!

Okay, just one more because for some strange reason I felt drawn to this strange little image. Happy Valentine’s day everyone!