TULALOO:elevated envelope 2

 Now that I've shared what Tulaloo mailed out for the Elevated Envelope exchange, I get to show you all the nice goodies I've been receiving int he mail! This beauty is from Danielle S in Nebraska. The front of the hand made envelope has a clear window in it, giving you a sneak peak of the contents!

 Denise made a really creative envelope that folds up in a way that reminds me of a kimono, which was a perfect choice for this Asian inspired letter. There was lots of collaged paper which added great texture.

When you unfolded the envelope, there was a pack of Chai tea, gorgeous postcards featuring Japanese prints and a really wonderful letter from Danielle. As someone who really struggled with what to write in my envelopes, I loved receiving Danielle's letter, which told about her other pen pal exchanges and inrpiration and process for creating her envelope. Thanks for sending something so pretty my way Danielle!!

TULALOO: elevated envelope 1

By now all of Tulaloo's Elevated Envelopes have been received so I get to share them with all of you! If you like Tulaloo on facebook, you may have seen an earlier post where I gave a sneak peak of my initial Elevated Envelope plans, which included pastel drawings of tiny bouquets. It was a nice idea, but after the first two I just wasn't feeling it anymore. I wanted something a little more fun and off beat. So I dropped the pastels and opened a few bottles of nailpolish instead!

 Nailpolish is fun to paint with because the colors are really saturated and it dries to a bright glossy finish. You can get some interesting effects when you mix the colors and allow them to bleed into each other. And there is very little clean up involved since the brushes don't need to be washed and are stored in their bottles! I painted an abstract design on the front of folded black cards, and incorporated the word "hello" into each. On the inside I wrote a brief note the the recipient in white gel pen, and attached a tiny envelope I made from shimmery vellum. Tucked inside the little envelope were tiny heart shapes stickers I made with nailpoish!

The folded cards were placed inside translucent vellum envelopes so that you could see the design through the paper. I addressed each in colors that coordinated with the enclosed card. This was a really fun project, and it is easy so I definitely recommend it to anyone. BUT, if you are going to try this out make sure you are in a room with plenty of ventilation. The nail polish fumes can be overwhelming!!

PERSONALLY: dog people

This is Clifford, our big red dog. We adopted him from Flora's Pet Project shortly after we were married 9 years ago. Sadly, Clifford passed away recently. It was unexpected and sudden. Did you see Marley & Me? Clifford was struck with the same awful stomach bloat/flip, and due to his age, the condition and some other health issues, we had to make the difficult decision to let him go. It was very sad and there were lots of tears. But, Clifford lived a good, long life, climbed lots of mountains, ate plenty of steak and was able to pass away while snuggled up to me. Those things make me feel happy.
What is strange for me, is suddenly finding out that I am, in fact, a dog person. Clifford was a wonderful dog and I loved him. But I never really considered myself a dog person. Maybe it is because when I was in highschool my family had this obnoxious dog that use to eat my toothbrush and steal my chocolate. Or maybe it is because I don't feel any desire for dog themed bumper stickers/keychains/Snuggies. Not that there is anything wrong with that mind you (ok, I do take a rather firm stance against Snuggies) It is just that pets have never been a primary focus of my life, although I've had cats and/or dogs since I was a baby. In fact, I told a good friend, just a few months ago, that when Clifford eventually passes away I will be terribly sad, but I'll also be happy not to pick up dog poop in the backyard any longer. I had no plans to get another dog.
So guess what I've been doing since Clifford passed away... Well, there has been a fair amount of tears. Every night when I go to let him out one last time and every meal when I actually have to sweep up the kids' dropped food, I get a pang of sadness. Didn't really expect that. And I have been obsessively checking Petfinder and all the local animal shelters, just in case there is an awesome dog there that needs to come live with us. Yeah, the lady who didn't want another dog REALLY WANTS ANOTHER DOG. So I suppose I am a Dog Person. Just not the kind that wears paw print Snuggies while reading Dog Fancy. Not that there is anything wrong with Dog Fancy.

GIFTABLE: clocks

Not that long ago we remodeled our bathroom, and there is a space next to the medicine cabinet that is just begging for a fantastic clock. I think I may want to get a really great wall clock for the new Tulaloo Studio as well (we're getting there....slowly but surely). I've had my eye on the clocks above. What do you think?
Top row, left to right: mb art studios, say hello shop, uncommon
Bottom row, left to right: decoylab, vinylclockwork

TULALOO: on vacation!

From July 29th through August 7th the Tulaloo studio will be closed for vacation. All phone calls and emails will be returned on the 8th, and any orders placed during our vacation will begin processing then as well. I know several of you are curious what we will be up to...

Tomorrow afternoon I am hopping in the car with ony of my very best friends (the wonderful Jessica of Sparetire Design) and heading out to Newport, RI for the Newport Folk Festival! I'm really looking forward to seeing lots of great music, particularly The Civil Wars. We even scored tickets to Deer Tick and Friends afterparty show Saturday night.

Promptly upon my return from Rhode Island I will load my family into the car and head up to Ogunquit, where we will eat a ridiculous amount of lobster and watch the ocean. Maybe we'll even take a boat ride with the boys! Have a wonderful week everyone!

CELEBRATE: superhero party!

As I mentioned earlier this week, we celebrated the boys' birthdays with a big backyard superhero party. Because their birthdays are only 9 days apart, and because they are such good friends (I know, we're lucky. Very lucky.) we throw a joint party for them both each summer. To make it easy, we stick to a basic backyard picnic and throw a kid friendly theme on the top. Last year was an Intergalactic BBQ, and this year we all became Superheros!

The best thing we did was order a party pack of capes and masks from LotsoCapes. The capes and masks did triple duty as party activity (the kids decorate their own with self adhesive felt shapes!), party favor (no bag of candy and junky toys!) and even party decor. When you have 20 kids runing around in superhero costumes you don't need to do much else for decorations! LotsoCapes was wonderful to work with and had super quick shipping. AND, the pack is completely customized! You get to pick your colors, initials, shapes and they even offer baby and toddler sizes! Really, these capes and mask made the party.

I didn't take many photos of anything but these adorable pint-size superheros, but you can see our "Pin-The-Mask-On-The-Superhero" game in the back of the above picture. I painted him on a small piece of leftover plywood and then cut out mask shapes for the kids to stick to his face. We also had "Superhero Training" with an obstacle course through our backyard - up the steps, down the slide, sling webs (silly string) from the fort, fly Wonder Woman's (almost) Invisible Plane. At one point I believe we had 16 kids on the not quite invisible jet!

It was a great party and lots of fun for the kids and parents alike. Thanks to everyone to came and played with us!

PERSONALLY: 9 years ago....

On July 20, 2002 I said "I Do" the most wonderful man I know - the best decision I have ever made. Nine years and two kids later we are still here, stronger than ever.

Happy Anniversary Mike! I love you!

Wedding Day Photo by my friend Jeanna.

BW Portrait by Meg at Creative Image Collections

PERSONALLY: happy birthday chunk!

It has been a whirlwind of celebrations around here! Over the weekend we celebrated both boys' birthdays with a Superhero Birthday Party (pictures coming soon!), and today is Chunk's 4th birthday! Since we are still recovering from the weekend festivities we are going to keep it low key today with a run through the sprinkler and dinner out at Maggie McFly's, one of his favorite restaurants.

Happy Birthday to our very sweet and very silly 4 year old!

PERSONALLY: happy birthday captain!

As mentioned in the previous post (Free Guest Addressing), July is a very special month for my family. Today is reason number 1!! Our oldest son turns six years old today! Today we are celebrating quietly at home with a massive Lego build and his favorite dinner. Happy birthday to my sweet, smart and funny little boy!

Of course we are celebrating at Tulaloo as well! Don't forget our July Special - just a few more weeks to take advantage of this great deal!

PERSONALLY: from our family to yours

I recently had the extreme pleasure of a photo shoot with the very talented Meg LaBarbera of Creative Image Collections (You may remember Meg from this gorgeous wedding we both worked on last year). I asked Meg if she would be able to take some pictures of my family as well as shoot some headshots of me for the Tulaloo website and I couldn't be happier with the results!She captured some sweet moments of my husband and I together as well as of Captain and Chunk and all of us together. They are natural, beautiful and very "us". While it is kind of silly, the image above is one of my favorites. As soon as Meg took out her camera, Captain decided it was time to break out as many silly faces and poses as he could muster up. Despite his craziness Meg still grabbed many really beautiful portraits, but this one photo makes me smile every single time I look at it!

Happy Holidays from our family to yours! I hope every one of you has a joyful holiday filled with family and friends, and I look forward to sharing many new designs and products with you in the New Year.

PERSONALLY: outer space birthday

We celebrated Captain's 5th and Chunk's 3rd birthdays a few weeks ago with an Intergalactic BBQ in our backyard. Although the news threatened "torrential downpours" we lucked out and it barely sprinkled! It was a fantastic afternoon with lots of friends and family and plenty of rockets!

Last month Family Fun magazine featured cupcakes based on the squeaky, pizza planet aliens from Toy Story. They were a great fit for our Outer Space Party!

For goodie bags I filled silver buckets (from the dollar spot at Target!) with some fun outer space goodies: a small air rocket, glow in the dark bracelets, alien finger puppets and Moon Mints (Junior Mints with a custom wrapper).

We kept the food simple - burgers, pasta salad and watermelon. And I'm gonna come clean - I didn't even bake the cakes and cupcakes. I did, however, painstakingly decorate each and every alien face!

For activities we had two large rockets - and air powered stomp rocket and a water powered hydro rocket. They shot REALLY high and by the end of the night most of our rockets were in the neighbors yards. We also had Area 51 - a martian lab where the kids could create their own aliens from model magic, googly eyes and pipecleaners. And last but not least, the Tin Foil Hat making stations so that the aliens couldn't read our thoughts. At one point we had every child and several adults rocking foil hats!

Overall, it was a really fun party. Thanks to everyone who celebrated with us!

PERSONALLY: happy birthday captain!

Today is Captain's 5th Birthday!!! Today we celebrate with his favorite mac n cheese dinner and finishing up the backyard fort The Mister is building for both boys as their birthday gift. Tomorrow is the big "Intergalactic BBQ" to celebrate both boys' birthdays (Captain and Chunk's birthdays are 9 days apart) with their friends and family. I plan to share photos of the outerspace shindig next week. We have lots of fun, crafty ideas that you might be interested in.

Happy Birthday Captain - you are one super duper 5 year old!!!

PERSONALLY: fine friends are here

Are you hanging out with Dan Zanes this Saturday? I AM!! Yes, it is quite possible that I am just a little more excited about this than my kids (refer to earlier post regarding Mr. Zanes). But Captain and Chunk are pretty psyched about it as well. We've downloaded a few of the songs we didn't already own, and they've been singing "All Around the Kitchen" all around our kitchen. We went to see Dan Zanes and Friends when they were in Connecticut last year and it really was a great show. It is "family music" not kid music, so although the songs are kid friendly it really is just good, fun folky music. After the show we went to the entire band was in the lobby happily talking to all the kids and offering autographs. That is Captain (gosh, isn't he tiny there!) getting a book autographed by Dan Zanes!

We are going to the show with some good friends in New Jersey, so I will be out of town for the weekend. Tulaloo will be closed Friday and Saturday while we are gone. HOWEVER, I will pop in tomorrow to announce the winner of our $100 giveaway!! You still have one day to enter!

PERSONALLY: dogzilla

Captain is a quirky little kid in alot of ways. Long ago he invented an imaginary character - The Chinese Moose - that has been secretly living in our house and yard for the past two years. I think he may be in love with the Progessive Insurance girl. But his primary quirk is his persistant fear of random, non-scary things. Such as Grover in this book, the old lady in Ratatoullie and Count VonCount's girlfriend on Sesame Street. All of those things will send him into crying hysterics. For awhile I thought nothing could be more terrifying to Captain than the Count's girlfriend, but I was wrong. There is a horrible new monster in his world: Dogzilla.

We make a weekly visit to the local library for storytime and some new books. Captain and Chunk are both avid "readers". About three weeks ago Captain borrowed a book titled Dogzilla - a very cute and funny story about a city of Mice that is invaded by a Corgi when he smelled their BBQ cook-off. Dogzilla does not eat the mice - it is a decidedly non-violent story - but he does chew their furniture and bewilder them with stinky dog breath. Captain was happily obsessed with Dogzilla for an entire day. Then around bedtime he started to view it a little differently. He woke in the middle of the night with nightmares and actually came to sleep in my bed (something he hasn't done in years). The next day he started refusing to be in rooms by himself because an ancient volcano might erupt, releasing Dogzilla into our house. He tearfully told me he wanted to "return Dogzilla to the library and never ever borrow it again!!!". It went on like this for days and I cursed Dogzilla while I tried to find away to convince him that he was not at risk for attack by a gigantic dog. I finally stumbled upon something that helped a little bit. In the story, the captain of the mouse military is able to drive Dogzilla away by threatening to give him a bath; all dogs are afraid of baths of course! So we now have bottles of shampoo, bars of soap, washcloths and toy firetrucks (for spraying water) strategically placed throughout the boys' bedroom. If our house didn't resemble a mental institution before, I'm pretty sure it does now. We're just a few short steps away from wearing tin foil hats to ward off aliens. But at least Captain is sleeping soundly again.

PERSONALLY: out of the stone age

First of all... WOW! I have been very MIA on the Tulaloo Blog recently!! No excuse other than wedding season and sunny weather. I'm finishing up the last of the fall weddings (did I mention I love fall weddings?) and trying to spend as much time enjoying the steamy summer weather as possible before I need to dive headfirst into the Holiday rush for notecards and then Spring weddings. Captain, Chunk and I have been spending our days picking blueberries here and running through the sprinkler while The Mister sweats through his Kevlar at work. But I veer off of my intended topic...

The Mister and I finally joined the modern world and got ourselves a pair of iPhones! We are pretty frugal, and have always had whatever low end phone was being given away free with a contract. But after he told his buddies to stop texting him because it cost him money every time, they began texting him as much as possible just to be obnoxious. It is a guy thing. So, between that and the sad shape our old flip phones were in, we decided it was time to do a little phone shopping. It was a humbling experience since the salesmen looked at us like we were cave people when we explained that neither of us had ever sent a text message and fumbled with the various touch screens and keyboards. But we sorted it all out and were amazed when we realized that we could get the old iphone 3G for the same price as the so-so phone we saw at Sprint.

Of course, I don't need to tell you this since I am the last person on earth to use an iphone, but THESE THINGS ARE AMAZING!! They are so much more user friendly than the competitors versions, and have an app for everything. Texting makes it so much easier to talk the The Mister when he is at work (which is all the time). And I love being able to access my work email at all times. But my favorite little perk is probably the ability to read books on it. I use Stanza for my eReader, and it is just great.

And now I am curious...what is your favorite iPhone app?

PERSONALLY: happy birthday chunk!

Chunk, today your are two years old! You are becoming such a big boy, even though it seems like just yesterday you were a squirmy little newborn! I remember when you were just a few days old, you would actually snort like a little piglet when you were hungry and rooting! You made us laugh from the very beginning. So, in honor of your birthday, here are just a few things that make you so special:

• You have developed your own quirky sign language and prefer that over speaking. I think my favorite miht be the thumped chest and pumping arms when you are telling me you would rather walk than be carried.
• Your vocabulary is expanding quickly, but you definitely have a few favorite words. "Mama" tops the list (thank you) but "cheese" and "num nums" are a close second and third. You like to eat.
• You are far more wild and impulsive than your brother, and he gets a little crazier when he is around you. It will make me go gray, but it is probably good for your conservative big brother to learn to take a few risks. Thanks for showing him how much fun it is to dive off the couch. Sort of.
• You think you are so much older than you are, and you want to be just as big as Captain. You'll only play with the big boy toys that he likes.
• Even though you are a rough and tough, independent little monster of a boy, you are still very attached to Mama. And while this often drives me crazy, I will admit it is nice to get so many hugs and snuggles. Even at 3 am.

Happy Birthday Chunk!!!

PERSONALLY: happy campers

The Mister and I are taking Captain and Chunk camping this weekend. We're all pretty thrilled since scheduling vacations - even a weekend camping trip - is next to impossible for us. But we did it and I can't wait to go.

We're tenters and I like it that way. That is the way I've camped since I was a baby. We used to do the bluegrass festical circuit with my dad's band, which I think is a pretty great way for a kid to spend summer weekends. Most of my family vacations involved our tent when I was a kid. I can't recall staying in a hotel until I was a junior in highschool. While I've never done the ultralight backpacking thing, I am pretty determined to keep our camping experiences as pure as possible. I can't really wrap my brain around the seasonal campers with the giant RVs. Is it really camping if you have running water, air conditioning and satellite TV? I just don't get it - why bother?

My husband, however, really likes gear (the brand new camp coffee maker is something I am looking forward to. The hanging tent fan I plan on hiding because it is silly and annoys me) and a few years ago a made a pretty significant concession. We got an air mattress. And although I still feel like a bit of a pansy when we inflate it in our tent, I have to admit it is SO much nicer than a sleeping bag on the ground.

Oh, and since we aren't as plugged in as our mega-RV camping neighbors, Tulaloo will be offline from Saturday through Monday. Any orders, inquiries or email will be taken care of on Tuesday when we all return!

PERSONALLY: new ink

Here it is! So I spent some quality time with Tattoo Bill (not really his name - see earlier posts on this subject) this past Saturday, and got the foot sperm covered up. He had to change the design a bit for it to cover the old tattoo, but I had expected that. The first night I obsessed over every detail of the new tattoo, finding tiny things I should have done differently. But the next morning I loved it for sure. There are one or two things I might alter a tiny bit at some point, but nothing major. All in all I''m pretty happy!

This picture shows the tattoo as others see it, and the letters are more clear from this angle. The way I view it the letters are very camoflauged in the swirls. It is all still pretty shiny as I'm washing and greasing it up 5 times a day still. But it is healing nicely and I hope to be in shoes again soon!

And since I know a few of you are wondering, yes it did hurt. Not wimp-out-in-the-middle-of-it pain, but it doesn't feel good. As long as I had something to distract me I barely noticed the pain. Lucky for me the staff of Needlewurks is really into horror films, so I had lots of creepy, serial killer art to ponder while I got my foot done. Bill did a great job, and I highly recommend him to anyone in the Saratoga area in need of some body art!

In case you would like the full saga, from my Grandma calling my original tattoo sperm to my very pregnant friend making sexual innuendos in the tattoo parlor, see here and here.

PERSONALLY: yip yip yip uh huh uh huh

We've been spending a fair amount of time on youtube recently, watching classic sesame street videos. Chunk has been obsessed with this video after seeing it on Vivki's blog not long ago. I frequently find him trying to pry my laptop open, asling for "La La? Mama, La La?". And Captain think the yip yip aliens in the above video are hysterical. I can't recall the last time I saw him laugh so hard!

PERSONALLY: the baby did it

It is no secret that pregnancy (and breastfeeding) messes with your hormones and your body. Truly, the whole thing is a little bizarre when you stop and consider it. You have a person living inside of you....weird. But the weirdness doesn't stop when the baby is born. Shouldn't the stretch marks and utter lack of sleep be enough? No, my kids messed with my hair too.

I've always been a brunette, but before I had kids it was a medium, auburn brown. Not anymore. Now nearly every time my mom sees me we have a conversation that goes something like this:

"When did you dye your hair?"

"I didn't dye my hair."

"Yes, it is much darker"

"Mom, I haven't dyed my hair in years. It got darker after the kids"

::Mom gives me disbelieving look::

Not only that, but I get baby hair too. I've only met one other person this happened to, so I guess I'm special. Or a freak. In any case, about 6 months after each baby came I got a line of new hair growth along my hairline. It is really annoying because it comes in very slowly and sticks straight up. The baby hair from Chunk is just now starting to blend into the rest of my hair.

But the biggest change is the texture. I've always had thick hair (to the irritation of every stylist who has had to give me an updo) but it was always straight. For the past year or so, even when I styled my hair like normal it looked bad. It wasn't cooperating with my normal routine and I didn't know why. Recently I had my hair cut a little bit shorter with layers, and the stylists made a comment about my natural waves. I had no clue what she was talking about, but I try not to argue with people holding sharp instruments near my face so I let it go. The next day, after washing my hair and letting it air dry I caught a glimpe of myself in the mirror and was shocked. I walked into the living room where my husband was sitting, and forced him to look at my head. "SINCE WHEN DO I HAVE CURLY HAIR?!??!" I shouted! And while "curly" may be a bit of an exaggeration (there are no ringlets or anything lovable like that, but definitely some major waviness) my hair is definitely no longer straight, which explains why it fought against my attempts at normal blow-drying. I don't know how to deal with this new hair of mine. I bought some curl defining spray, and while it might make the curls more defined, it mostly just feels kind of crunchy. But I'm at a loss for what else to do with it. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes and wishing for a super talented stylist to wisk me away for a complete makeover. Who wants to sign me up for one of those ambush style, reality TV makeover shows?