Winter Park, Florida

I'm going to write a bit about Orlando soon, but first I thought I'd share some photos from another favorite spot we went to while we were away: Winter Park. It's a darling little town just north of Orlando. We loved it!

We went to lunch at Ravenous Pig. We originally tried to get dinner reservations, but they were all booked up. I'm so glad we were still able to visit! The space is modern but warm. The menu isn't huge, but everything we ate was amazing - Po' boys, shrimp tacos, charcuterie and the grower salad were all devoured.

After lunch, we went over to Rifle Paper Co. It's a tiny shop, with their workshop in the back. I love their products, and it was such a sweet, happy place. I came home with floral coasters, a notepad and some place cards (for the next time we host Thanksgiving!).

Aren't these hearts adorable? My mom bought a 24x18 print of it to hang in her newly redesigned sun room. The shop girl told us that Urban Outfitter is going to be selling the print soon, so be on the look out if you'd like to snag one yourself!

In the later afternoon, we took a lake tour. After being in Disney World for a few days, an hour out on a boat was heaven.

The Spanish Moss hanging down is so lovely. I wish this would grow in New England!

There were huge houses, and a great view of Rollins. I love looking at colleges, even from afar, so that was a fun treat!

Finally, while my mom, sister and I went to visit the local Lilly store, the boys had a drink at Prato. It was wide open to the street, had a lovely, dark bar, and they report that it had an excellent beer list.

If you're in the Orlando area, I highly recommend a visit to cute Winter Park!

1st Anniversary Gift: Paper

(Pink and Blue abstract, via Etsy)

Instead of giving each other a book or concert tickets, I convinced Peter that we should pick out a new painting for our first wedding anniversary (less than a week away!).

This post by Emily Henderson led me to Linda Donohue's pretty shop. Oh, how I love her work!

(Abstract with Pink, via Etsy)

These two abstract paintings were among my favorites, but the few pieces of "real" art we own have this kind of look and feel. And I kind of wanted the painting we chose to feel a bit more wedding-ish, since it's to celebrate our anniversary.

(Via Linda Donohue's Etsy shop)

This lovely floral painting was the winner! I love that it has lots of pink and blue -- our wedding colors. I'm so excited to have it in our home for years to come!

Woefully behind

This is a project I completed in the mad dash run-up to our wedding last year and never got around to showing you.

Instead of a traditional guest book, we put these little booklets on each table at the reception. I bought the blank books at the Mount's gift shop during a pre-wedding visit. Taking inspiration from this Martha Stewart craft, I created the question templates in Illustrator and used my sticker maker to attach them to the books.

I think (hope?!) that guests had fun with them. I've looked at them a few times throughout the year and really treasure the sweet things people wrote. The booklet on the table many old family friends were seated at asked, "What is the best marriage advice you've ever gotten?" The responses were so touching and funny ("Never correct your wife's golf swing!").

One of my favorites came from Eliza, our darling flower girl, in the book asking what we should do in our first year of marriage:

You should have a baby and another baby. You should go to the movies and play card games like uno or tricks with cards and you could play spit.

I've been practicing my card tricks (of course!), but I must admit that we are woefully behind in regards to her other suggestions.

Ruffled napkin rings

 

The new e-magazine Styled is filled with so many fun entertaining ideas! I'm now convinced I need to have a breakfast burrito party complete with festive confetti garlands and colorful jars of sprinkles.

Before I take that on, though, I decided to try making a gussied-up version of the ruffled napkin rings on page 86-87. They use brown grocery bags to create the ruffles, but since I have piles of pretty Crane paper lying around, I decided to use some of that instead. Wrapping paper would also look great.

Super simple how-to is over here!

Paper book wreath + Winter in Bordeaux

Still not sure what I think about this project (based on this one - Lindsay's is significantly cuter!). I will say this about it though -- it's fast and very inexpensive to make. The how-to is over here.

This afternoon Peter is picking me up from work and we are heading out to Long Island for a cooking class at Sur La Table! The course is called "Winter in Bordeaux" and the menu includes Lillet-steamed mussels, beef tenderloin with Bordelaise sauce and a caramel apple tart. Oh la la!

Wishing you a very happy weekend, sweet friends!

Travel vacation journal

On little trips, I love collecting brochures and tickets from places we visit and business cards from restaurants so that I can remember everything when I get home. I love being able to give friends travel recommendations, but I have a terrible memory, so without these little bits and pieces, I would never remember it all. I was lacking a good way to collect all this vacation junk, until I saw this cute idea!

I've adapted it a bit to make it slightly more adult looking. The basic idea is the same though -- label a few envelopes (I used Word clip art and my sticker maker!), attach them together with ribbon or a binder clip, and let your inner-organization-beast run wild! 

This weekend we are headed to Boston, so I'll be putting my envelopes to good use! 

Hope you all have fabulous, happy long weekends. Until next week, lovelies!

Itty bitty love notes

I fell in love with this idea after seeing it on Daisy Chain, but I modified it to be a bit easier. I'm always impressed by those homemade envelope-type things, but eh. They look kind of annoying to make. Though I do think these would be super cute with a square paper doily folded as the envelope. Someone should make that and post it!

I made text boxes on Microsoft with numbers 1-8 in each one, and then did a second page with text boxes where I wrote little love notes to Peter. 

I'll spare you most of my saccharine-sweet sentiments, but this one is fairly innocent. He always makes my coffee the exact perfect color, you know what I mean? Coffee is just one of those things that always tastes better if someone brings it to you, preferably while you are still in bed. 

He has to wait until Monday and can read one per day so that the last one will fall on Valentine's Day. This is the sort of thing that would drive me insane, and I would clearly look at them all ahead of time, but Peter doesn't have that gene and I know he won't cheat (except he will likely see the one above early!).

You can find a bit more on the project here.

P.S. I seriously need a new camera. You guys are brilliant -- any fab suggestions?!

Gifted

Thus far, I haven't been super into the new online magazine trend. I applaud people for taking on this creative endeavor, and they can be fun to glance through, but for the most part, I feel like they are difficult to read and not very satisfying. I find myself constantly scrolling left to right, zooming in and out to read (usually silly and unnecessary) accompanying text.

The creators try too hard to translate strict magazine form onto the computer screen, when really it seems something in between a blog and printed form would work better.

Gifted is the closest to this ideal I've seen yet. Very readable text, full of inspiring, fun images, and it includes an absolutely amazing gift guide at the end (you know my weakness for those!). There are also lots of inspiration shots for pretty, simply wrapped gifts. One of my goals this holiday season is to make my packages more beautiful and festive.

I'll be returning to this often!

What do you guys think of online magazines? Am I being too critical? Are they a successful middle ground in the growing absence of printed magazines?

All images from Gifted.

Thank you

A girlfriend of mine once said a wedding is like one giant stream of thank you notes.  I have always had a big basket filled with treasures from the Crane paper sale, but in the last few months, my stash has taken a serious hit.

It's all for a good cause, of course.  And I actually like writing thank you notes.  Dare I say: I love it.  

In order to stay on top of it all, I've adopted a kind of compulsive habit.  Meaning, I write the note immediately after the gift has been opened or the event occurred.

In order to facilitate this process, I keep pretty note cards, a pen, and stamps under my coffee table all the time.  Make sure everything is housed in a decent looking box, or else you'll be tempted to put it away.  But I've found that having all of the materials ready at hand makes it as easy and painless as possible.

Thank you for stopping by Fresh Basil today.  It has meant so much to me!



See what a natural I am?

Hello good looking

I saw this post on the Dear CJane blog the other day and I thought, "I want that!"

But then I thought about how I'm probably only going to like it for about a week before I'm like, "What?  HELLO GOOD LOOKING?!"*

So I decided the best option was to make it myself.  Of course, the original by Persimmon and Pink is significantly cuter.  

But my version was f r e e.  

*By the way, this was basically Peter's reaction immediately. I got mad at him and he said I was being sensitive.  Isn't crafting fun!!!

Paper heart garland

I still have a giant roll of pretty papers from Crane, so I made this little heart garland a few nights ago to hang in the fireplace in the bedroom. 

It is a bit cheesy, but I like looking up when I'm reading in bed at night. 

Happy Friday, everybody!

Valentine's Day Crafts

Last night at book club, one of the girls asked if anyone was actually into Valentine's Day.

"Yes!" I said.  Kind of obnoxiously.

I know it's not everyone's favorite, and that it's sort of a made up celebration.  But can I just blame my enthusiasm on a deep love of all things pink?   And chocolate-based? 

I found these cute ideas on Martha Stewart.com.  (Where else?)

1. Crayon hearts

2. Papercut hearts

3. Heart shaped pot holders

4. Handmade heart doilies

Suspense

I know it must be killing you. So the wait is over!

It's not the most gorgeous paper garland ever made, but it was really fast, easy, and practically free! As you can see in the close up shot, I just stapled my little circles to ribbon.

I know it's a little early to have Christmas-ish stuff up. I'm just super pumped about the holidays, okay? I asked Peter if he thought it was too early, and he said, "Umm...you can keep it up, if that's what you're asking."

Yes, that's exactly what I was asking.

P.S. Doesn't it look like night time in those pictures? It was around 8:00 AM. What is this, Norway?

Hoarding

I am, admittedly, a food hoarder. Well, it seems my hoarding tendencies spill over into craft supplies.

Instead of using some of the pretty paper I have stashed away, I decided to make a "practice" paper garland with images I cut out from the Vera Bradley catalog. (It really was such a nice looking catalog!)

The catalog had nice thick paper, not that flimsy stuff you usually find. I used a round perfume bottle and a round blush to trace two different sized circles on the paper, and then cut them out.


I'll share the finished product in a post later today! Get ready to be dazzled.

You're invited...

...If I can ever decide on invitations, that is.

I love notecards, and get an embarrassing amount of pleasure out of sending thank-you notes to people. But I'm having a lot of trouble pulling the trigger and picking out some fun invitations to use for our wedding. The photos above are samples from Reaves Engraving (thanks to BBL for the suggestion!). There are some really lovely ones.

I just keep thinking, "Do I really love this pattern? Is it better to keep it simple and classic, or have a fun design?" People on wedding-ish blogs always seem to be so creative with their invitations. I know it's not something I care so much about, and I thought it would be easy to just pick something pretty and be done!

I think I'm feeling a bit indecisive because I know how I look at other people's invitations and think, "Those are so cute!" or "Those are UGLY!" And I don't want people to think UGLY when they see mine.

Can you say paranoid!?!

I know. THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOUR PAPER PRODUCTS, JULIE.