Dear Dad

Happiest of birthdays to you today. I hope you are happy and well up there. I know you're always smiling down on us. We miss you so much! ♥
I love you!

Hazzle wants... a Flutter in Pinhole Camera!

I love cameras and polaroids and instant gratification. So how cool is this?? It's a concept pinhole camera from Yanko Design.

"Flutter In Pinhole is a zero-fuss cardboard pinhole camera. It works like a Polaroid camera e.g. instant pictures. The idea behind the project is radically different from its kitsch appeal. It’s aimed at the traveler who’d like to stay in touch via postcards. The photographs are captured into a pre-drawn frame, which you can then add a message to and post."

Check out the video!

{All images by Yanko Design}

My hero. ♥

He really is. Tonight, my husband, saved a life. I'm so proud and honored to be married to my firefighter paramedic.

I love you, babe! ♥

A Handmade Christmas.

ATTENTION:
If you're my mom or my mother-in-law, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER. I mean it! Unless it's after Christmas. Then it's all good.

Ok, moving on...

The hubs and I decided early on in the holiday season to keep things simple this year. We didn't get anyone anything elaborate and I ended up making a lot of our gifts. I especially enjoyed making the gifts for my mom and Mudder (mother-in-law). {Really, if either one of you is reading this.... No further!! Love you, mean it!}

My mom and mother-in-law are cut from the same cloth because they are both geniuses in the kitchen! So for Christmas, I originally wanted to get them something like this. As gorgeous as that is, I don't have that kind of dough for one, let alone TWO of them. =(

Thank goodness for my hubs and Hobby Lobby, which is where he found these. And my idea sprang from there. A trip to Home Depot for some wood stain and I now had these:

 Fun, huh? After a whole lot of drying time (my fault for not following the directions), I went to Michael's and found these:

Have I ever told you how much I LOVE Sharpies? Well I do. So imagine my happiness when I saw Sharpie Paint Markers!! And they didn't disappoint. The extra fine point helped me achieve this:

And the fine point helped me fill in the blanks. And I'm so so happy with the outcome!

I created the dividers and recipe cards to go with it, topped it off with some baker's twine and voila!

What about you? Are you giving handmade presents? I'd love to see! ♥

Congrats, Grad!

My littlest little brother is a college graduate! Which means I'm REALLY old. I'm so super proud of him! And I know my dad's high-fiving anyone he can up there. I'm quite certain of that. This weekend was full of graduation congratulations!

Our good friend graduated from the Fire Academy, too! We have dubbed him our "Sponsor Child," since the hubs made it a point to help him out as best as he could. So super proud of him, too!! HUGE congratulations again to my brother and our sponsor child! ♥

Thirty-two Years Ago Today...

These two crazy kids got married. And thankfully so, because I wouldn't be here if they hadn't! The hubs and I are taking my mom out for a late anniversary lunch today after she gets out of work. Then we'll go visit my dad to wish him a happy anniversary. We miss him so much every day.


Happy Anniversary, mom and dad! I love you guys...

Merry and Bright.

They came upon a Monday evening... and I couldn't be happier with them! Presenting the Wea Christmas card 2010 edition. These are either on their way to recipients or they've already arrived, depending on how far they are from us.

I used GotPrint for our cards. My bestie tuned me into it. I also used them for my brother and future sis-in-law's Save the Dates. I'm very happy with the result for both jobs. The only problem I have now is that they sent me twice as much as I ordered for our Christmas cards! At first I thought I messed up the order, but I double checked my quantity and I definitely only ordered a 100 and got TWO hundred. A definite oversight on their part, because I only paid for 100... So, who wants a Wea Christmas card?

No, seriously... Who wants one?

I'll be more than glad to send one to you! Message me your address! My email address is over there in my About section. Just think of it as me sending you some holiday cheer! =)

Envelopes to Keep our Cards Warm.

WHOA. It's December 2?! Where did this year go?? My gosh... I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I've been posting few and far between lately due to lots of client work, which I thank the Lord every day for! I've also been busy crafting Christmas presents and creating our Christmas card (which I'll share with you all as soon as they come in on Monday!)

While I wait for those, I've been diligently making envelopes for them. It's amazing what you can do with grocery store paper bags (Shopping IS a pleasure at Publix, BTW!) and an Envelope Template (one of the best purchases EVER). Add some double sided tape and a few TV shows later, I now have these:

Neat, huh? I love them. And I love that I'm being green AND thrifty. Win! I also made the labels. It's my actual handwritten type. I drew it up, scanned it an turned it into a vector in Illustrator. I Printed those up, cut 'em and turned them into sticky labels with my handy dandy sticker maker (another one of the best purchases EVER), which you may remember from this post.

I'm seriously considering turning this into a font.
I can't wait to fill these babies up and send them out! I'm so excited. I love Christmastime! =)

Give Thanks.

I love Thanksgiving. Probably because I am reminded that I am truly blessed, and for that, I am so very thankful.

I am so very thankful for:
- my husband and family. Their love gives me strength.
- amazing friends who keep me sane and grounded.
- my God, most of all. He is so good and so great that He has blessed me with all of the things that I should be thankful for.

I wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Hazzle Listens to: Go Jimmy Go

My hubs introduced me to Go Jimmy Go when we were first dating, and I've loved them ever since! I don't even know how to classify them...They would probably be classified under ska, but they have a sound all their own. And they are meaaaan live! One of the best live shows we've ever been to! We had the opportunity to see them during each of our two trips to Hawaii. Here we are with Bison, the lead singer, and Eric, the sax player, when we first saw them.

Such great guys, good people. And it's that time of year again when I bump Holiday Hell Yeah! on repeat!

If you're looking for good tunes, check these guys out!

Hazzle Wants... Photobooth Picture Frames

(Source:Mama's Sauce Print Shoppe)
You all know how much I love photobooths, right? I have a crap ton of pictures laying around or up on my bulletin board or tacked up on the fridge... but why did I never think to make picture frames? Thank goodness the awesome peeps at Mama's Sauce Print Shoppe did! Go check out their site, blog and shop. You won't be disappointed. And grab a couple of these bad boys, too!

Excitement abounds!

Man, I've been pretty MIA on here, and I was doing so good on the blogging! I'm gonna keep trying to blog better--even with the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

Anyways... on to the excitement... Bryn featured my tattoo on her blog! Woohoo!! With special photo credit to my beautiful friend, Laynie!

Go check it out HERE! I think I just peed a little...

FINALLY!

I finally got off my kiester and finished uploading my online portfolio. It's been a huge undertaking, since a lot of my stuff was either everywhere in my home office or left at my old employers'. It's not very cool to say, "Hey, remember me? I worked for you but now I'm on my own but can I have my digital files? Yes, thanks."  I tried to get as much as I could when I left, but I think I was just so glad to be gone that I didn't really care. Thankfully I had my trusty external hard drive and I had a bunch of my stuff on there. Anyways. If you hear something, it's just me breathing a huge sigh of relief! ;)

Let me know what you think...Visit me here: hazelwea.carbonmade.com

Details

My new tattoo. I'm pretty much in love with it. It's not my first, but it's definitely the most meaningful. I'm so excited now to share the details behind my new addition.

My father passed away 2 years ago. It was very unexpected and heart-wrenching. He lived his life as a faithful servant of the Lord; he's the source and shining example of why my faith is so strong. In memory of my father, I decided to get the first line of the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi as a tattoo. It was one of my father's favorite prayers. It was also the prayer with which he tried to model his life. He also passed away on October 4, 2008--the feast day of St. Francis.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon:

where there is doubt, faith ;

where there is despair, hope

where there is darkness, light

where there is sadness, joy

O divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

I didn't want just your everyday tattoo design and I've seen a couple of blogs where they got a calligrapher to design their tattoo. So I gave that a shot and found Bryn of Paperfinger. You may have seen her work all over the internet. She's known for her wedding work and I've admired her talents ever since I was researching wedding stuff.

I was a little hesitant to email her because I thought, "she couldn't possibly be interested in designing a tattoo... She's been featured in magazines, for cryin' out loud..." Much to my surprise, Bryn was so nice and accommodating! Definitely a Godsend. She completed the design just in time for me to get it done on October 4, the second anniversary of my dad's passing. As evidenced from this post.

Once it was all healed, I enlisted the help of my talented friend, Laynie, to take pictures for me. Here are some of the amazing photos she took.

Please go check out Bryn at Paperfinger and on her blog, Paper Tastebuds. And don't forget to check out Laynie Harris Photography. Thank you both so much for your talents and making my vision into a reality.

The happiest of first birthdays.

Isn't she THE CUTEST little owl you've ever seen?! I love her to pieces. She's my bestie's little girl and she turned one this past Saturday. And like I said in this post, it's pretty much a given that her birthday is going to be costume required, being it's the day before Halloween. For her first birthday, her crafty and talented mama came up with a forest friends themed birthday. Just seeing the invitation alone, you know it was bound to be a wonderfully amazing birthday:

Handmade by my friend, her equally amazing husband illustrated each little forest friend and they carried out the theme throughout the party. Check out the sweets table!

I love that we had to dress up as our favorite forest friend. To go along with cutie pie owl, mommy dressed up as a tree, while daddy was Max from Where the Wild Things Are. And I dressed up as... Russell from Up!

Here are some more shots of the day.

God bless you, little Amelie Faith! Auntie Hazel and Uncle Chuck love you!!

Hitched.

Congratulations to my brother-in-law and our new sister-in-law! It was such a beautiful day and perfect night. Thanks for letting us be a part of your special day. Here are a few of my fave shots of the day.

Such a beautiful and fun day!