Whisker Graphics

Everywhere I look there seems to be garlands. Whether they are made from triangles of sweet fabric or stickers and tape attached to twine, I swoon over them all. I’ve been trying to figure out how to incorporate a garland (or five) into my life. Valentine’s Day is the perfect excuse. Here’s what I made for the peeps in my family. If these tickle your fancy, feel free to make some for your valentines. See download link at the end of this post.

There are 5 Valentine messages + some extra hearts.

I plan to hang them around the house with Japanese Masking Tape in places like the back of a chair, the bathroom mirror, the shower door, closet doors, the front of the frig and for an extra surprise, on my husband’s steering wheel (or maybe his windshield) so he’ll find one when he leaves for work.

I tried to make the Printable as easy to use as possible. All the tiles butt up to each other to reduce the number of cuts and there are tiny dots to indicate where to punch the holes (I used 1/16″ hole punch, but you could use a larger size). Thread with Divine Twine, string, thin ribbon or embroidery floss. Enjoy!

Download PDF Printable HERE.

Today over at Skip To My Lou I’m offering a free bookplate and coordinating envelope download. You can personalize the bookplates with the name of your child’s teacher. Click here to go to the post. Enjoy!

A new little addition to the shop. Cherry Blossom 3 inch square printables.

Inspired by this. At the request of a customer.

I’ve been so busy getting everything ready for the Divine Twine debut I haven’t put anything new in my etsy shop for a while. In the last few days two people contacted me requesting the 3in Scroll Border Editable PDF in red (do I smell holiday gift tags?) so I thought others might have a want for them too. I added them to the shop this morning. You can input whatever text you like in them. So handy.

Shameless Plug Part. 2
A little reminder that the 2010 Whisker Graphics Calendar is on sale (25% off, yea!) + just for blog readers I’ll add another discount. Order 4 calendars – get the 5th FREE ($60 + shipping).  That’s a few for your book club friends or bestest pals or maybe an office buddy or two and one for you. If you’re interested email me at whiskergraphics(at)gmail.com.

This concludes our Shameless Plug portion of the show. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. Thank you.

I love when people are creative.  I especially love when they are creative and generous.  Thanks to the creativity and generosity of Whisker Graphic’s customer Sarah Wise you get to enjoy this scalloped jack-o-lantern tag free download. Sarah created these for her daughter’s birthday party. Hopefully she will be posting photos of said party on her blog soon.

When printed out at 100%, a 2″ circle paper punch will work nicely. You could also hand cut them into squares. Print on card stock to make gift tags or cupcake toppers. Print on full sheet labels and make stickers for party bags or a garland. Be creative. Be generous and tell a friend. Enjoy and a huge THANK YOU to Sarah for sharing her creativity!

Click HERE to download.

As promised, here is another Halloween freebie for you.

Some ideas for using the 3" square tag/label.

This is a 3″ square design that comes 6 on a sheet. This PDF is editable, meaning you can enter your own text and format it how you like (font:style, size, color and alignment; the design is not editable). Enter and format your text, print on card stock or full sheet labels, trim and enjoy. Download tags HERE.

Here’s the BONUS. Over on Skip To My Lou you can download coordinating cupcake toppers and editable invitations (no need to handwrite your party info).

photo courtesy of Skip to my Lou

Photo courtesy of Skip to my Lou

Click HERE to visit Skip to my Lou and download the invitation and cupcake toppers.

Here’s a little something to get the party started, Witch Invitations. Just print on letter-size card stock, trim, fill in and mail to your friends. They fit nicely in A2 envelopes. If you download them it would make my day if you left a comment to let me know. Thanks and enjoy! (Stay tuned. I have another free goody coming soon.)

Click HERE to download.

Just added some 3″ square editable printable pdfs to the shop. The chandeliers were a request from a customer.  I couldn’t decide if I liked one chandelier per tag or more, so I did both.

Please note: This post may not be appropriate for little ones to see.

I was touched and inspired by this post over at Just Something I Made.  Cathe Holden is not only incredibly thoughtful and kind, but she’s outrageously creative. She started a letter correspondence via the Tooth Fairy with her kids. What a great idea!

I created a Tooth Fairy Letter Kit for the shop for those who would like to do the same with their kids. It’s a pdf file that includes two sizes of notes (cause sometimes you have a lot to say and sometimes you don’t) and a petite envelope in both a pink colorway and a blue. And because it can be a challenge to write so tiny, you can type your letter right into the pdf before you print it out.  The petal envelope requires only scissors to create and a folded dollar bill (if you’re so inclined) fits inside it quite nicely.

“Brush your teeth at least twice a day” and “Visit your dentist every 6 months” are printed on the envelope.

**Update 7-30-2009** A big THANK YOU to everyone who has left a lovely comment and/or spread the word about this little booklet. I truly appreciate you!

At times, it can be so easy to take that slippery slide downward and focus on what’s not working. It happens to the best of us.

About 5 years ago, I noticed each night at dinner when we would ask the kids  “How was your day?”, we would get a lot of what went wrong for them. We (the grown-ups) would try and point out the good in the gripe du jour. This would lead to defensiveness from the kids and an overall unpleasant dining experience for all.

So, one night I started out the dinner conversation with “Tell me 5 good things about your day.” It ended up being a great conversation starter and the opportunity to teach the kids (and grown-ups) to focus on what is working. We still do this most nights at the dinner table. It’s always amusing when one of the kids has a guest for dinner and we ask them to participate. They get a shy, funny look on their face, but play along. Repeat guests know the drill and often prompt the question and want to go first.

Long story longer (!)… This little printable pdf booklet came from our dinner routine.

Booklet straight from the printer.

Booklet all folded up and ready to be put to good use.

Booklet in action.

Click HERE to download. I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to leave a comment on a good thing about your day or life.

As always,  this is for personal use only.

note: the booklet doesn’t have to be used solely to record good things about your day. It’s also handy to jot down good things about a situation that is not ideal (your job, a relationship, etc). Pick any topic and find five good things about it.