Weekend in Review Vol.#2- Halloween weekend in NYC

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend and if you were as lucky as me to get stuck in the snow storm of October 2011, I hope you were safe and didn't lose power! I can definitely say I wasn't prepared for the snow that hit the north east this weekend, however I survived nonetheless, and still made it to the Halloween party! It was a great weekend, full of quality girl time with my good friend and fashion stylist Tiffani, of Accidental Chic. On Saturday (the day of the storm) we lounged around with a hot cup of tea and scoured through a bunch of her great magazines for new inspiration, before heading out that night to a Halloween party that our friends were having in Brooklyn. On Sunday, I had lunch at Chocolate by the Bald Man in Union Square (best place for all of you chocoholics!) followed up by drinks at Heartland Brewery to cap off a great weekend! So all in all, it was a good time! Happy Halloween! xo

 photo taken by; Brad Johansen-Pirates of Brooklyn

Photos taken by Wahkuna (unless otherwise mentioned above)

Handmade Inspiration Board #2: Fall + Halloween

Hello, and Happy Friday! In celebration of Halloween weekend, I wanted to leave you with an inspiration board to help stir up some creativity for the festivities! I pulled together some great Halloween/fall images and embellishments to help get you in the mood! So enjoy, and whatever you're doing this weekend, please be safe! xo *wink*

Supplies Used; Patterned Paper- Crate Paper, Melissa Frances and Hambly Studios; Sitching Rub-On- K & Company Studio 112; Burlap Trim-Canvas Home Basics; Paper Flowers & Crocheted Flowers- Prima; Pocket Holder- Ki Memories; Mix Tape- American Crafts; Buttons, Ribbon & Embroidery Thread- Other

Images Used;  

Halloween Bunting- Craft Zine

Crocheted web- Betz White 

Dining room setup- Country Living 

Pumpkin Garland- Martha Stewart 

Trick or Treat boxes- BrownPaper Packages 

Rhinestone Pumpkin- Better Homes & Gardens 

(Photos of inspiration board by; Wahkuna)

Handmade Inspiration Board #1: Fall + Quilting

I recently learned of a great (compact) way to create inspiration boards from the very talented Holly Becker of Decor8. I love the idea of creating a board the size of a file folder that you can fold up and take anywhere- to use as reference or store very easily! It's large enough to include all the important details, but small enough to take on the go!

The first board I would like to share on my blog is inspired by fall + quilting (very similar to the card I posted here). Obviously I can't help but create fall inspired things during this season, and now is the perfect time to share it! The colors are; brown, ivory, red and navy. I hope this board helps you to come up with some great ideas for your next craft project! Enjoy! xo

New Series; Weekend in Review Vol.#1- Halloween Party & King Richard's Fair

Hey there, welcome back! I hope you all had a great weekend and had a chance to get out and do something fun, as well as relax! I'm here today to introduce a new series on the Wahkuna Mae-lyn blog called Weekend in Review which I will run every Monday (at least until the end of this year *fingers crossed*). Its where I will share little clips of my weekend.

So to start it off; On Saturday I went to my good friend's Halloween party at her brand NEW house! First of all, I'm SO excited for her new home (of which she bought all on her own at age 26! I'm such a proud friend!) She's done a lot of work on it, and the whole downstairs was renovated (which is right up my alley, with my HGTV obsession 'n' all!) 

It was a great party, full of new faces for me, but was really fun and I was happy to be in attendance! My costume this year, is basically the same costume I wore last year (a Native American). I love it and was able to save a lot of money by recycling and reusing it for this year! A win/win situation! My friend Katelyn's costume was the bride of Chucky! The costume was brilliant, and looked great on her, don't you think!?!

On Sunday I went to the King Richard's Fair in Carver, MA with friends. I've never been, but it was AWESOME! It's like going back in time to the Medieval days! Everyone who works at the fair dresses up and also a lot of the fair goers do too (even the little kiddos)! It was crazy! There was; a tiger show, archery, bag pipers 'n' belly dancers, jousting matches, sword fights, little Medieval shoppes, plenty of food/drinks and much, much more! It was such a great time, and I will definitely go back! It's only open for 2 months out of the year (between September & October) but well worth the visit! Sunday happened to be the last day of the season, so it was pretty packed but I'm glad we made it this year!

So it was quite the eventful weekend I must say. Stay tuned next week for a review of my adventures in NYC during Halloween weekend! Be back soon! xo

Inspiration on the book shelf

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you all are doing well, and made it through the week nicely! I know I'm excited that the weekend is here, I have a Halloween party at a friend's house this weekend, which will be a lot of fun, so I can't wait for that! 

Anyway, to get to today's post; I was at my local Barnes & Noble bookstore a couple weeks ago, where I almost always head to the crafts section first. On this particular day, I was in a decorating mood (probably from all the HGTV I watch regularly) and decided that the below two books are at the top of my MUST HAVE list for inspiration; (don't mind the photos-taken from my phone)

Design Sponge

Meghan Carter

And these to support my baking habit;

And of course we can't forget the decorating magazines! I'm a magazine junky, and I absolutely LOVE Flea Market style for it's vintage flair and crafty projects for the home, Storage by BH&G because they always have such cool ways to store things in your home or office that can be decorative too (dual purpose). And last, but not least, the NEW HGTV magazine!! I'm so excited they have come out with a magazine and it's just AMAZING! It's like having the HGTV channel, in a book :-), it's so necessary!

HGTV Mag, Flea Market Style Mag, Better Homes and Gardens Storage Mag

So as I said before, I gather a lot of inspiration from these types of books/magazines and I'm always on the hunt for new inspiration that will get the creativity flowing! So that's it for today, hope you all enjoy your weekend and I'll meet you back here next week! xo

Missing You...

Hello darlings! In the spirit of the season, today I'm going to show you one of my newest fall inspired cards. I created this card using the Napa Valley Studio Calico kit from November 2010. The colors and prints are truly fall and I love them! I referenced the tear sheet pictured above (in my mood board) from Flea Market Style magazine for the quilted stitch detail. I love the stitched quilted basket holding the apples (its so cozy) and thought it would be a great feature to incorporate into this card. Hope you like it!

Supplies; cardstock- American Crafts; patterned paper & gem brads- 

Making Memories; ribbon- Sweet Petites; thread- other

images by; Wahkuna

 

That's all for today. Thanks for stopping in! xo

A day at Westport Rivers vineyard

Hello all! I'm finally back from the weekend (better late than never)! I had a pretty awesome "fall" weekend which consisted of; visiting the Westport Rivers vineyard in Westport, MA where we tasted 6 (really good wines), went on a hay ride around the vineyard, picked pumpkins, took a tour of the winery/wine making process & enjoyed the gorgeous scenery! It was a lot of fun, and the best part of the experience was that it was a random stop- totally unplanned (which usually ends up being the best time). I'm really happy to have discovered this hidden gem in the area and would like to visit more frequently. It's definitely a great place to enjoy with a group of girlfriends or for a nice date. Wine + beautiful scenery = simple luxuries of mother nature. So if any of you are ever in the area, please do check it out! That's it for now, I'll be back tomorrow to share one of my most recent creations. See you then! xo

Tutorial; How to create zebra striped wooden letters

For today's post, I wanted to share an easy tutorial for creating your own zebra striped wooden letter accents. The wooden letters & paint can be purchased at your local craft store. I recently made these particular letters to use as a personalized embellishment for a project that I will share on here soon, but in the mean time, I invite you to try this technique for yourself, it's really cool, fairly simple and doesn't take very long.

Step #1- Paint wooden letters white (use 2-3 coats to ensure full coverage).

Step #2- Draw in stripes with pencil (lightly, but make sure the lines are visible to use as a guide).

Step #3- Fill-in stripes with a black paint using a very thin brush for detail (only one coat is necessary).

***Please allow paint to dry completely in between coats.

Enjoy!
xo

Baby Memory Book

Just as promised, here are some images of the present I gave with the baby boy card from yesterday's post. It was a Baby Memory Book I designed, with pages for record keeping such as; baby's arrival, birth announcement,  birth facts, etc and pages dedicated to photos to document all of the little ones special moments. In keeping with the elephant themed baby shower, I designed a cute little mommy/baby elephant design for the top border of each page and used some elephant embellishments to decorate the front cover. And to make it more personalized, there is a 3x3" window on the cover to add baby's photo. This book is about 35 pages- a great handmade keepsake for baby's first year.

xo

Baby Shower Card- Boy

Hi all! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoyed their weekend! The weather here has been ABSOLUTELY perfect! It's quite amazing because this time of year (in the northeast) is usually pretty chilly! But I'm taking it all in and thanking mother nature for gracing us with this FANTASTIC-ness! (and you gotta love my "made-up" lingo too) *wink*

Today I wanted to share a cute little baby boy card that I recently made for a cousin's baby shower last month. The elephant themed shower was super adorable, which usually comes with the territory of a baby shower. It was an intimate gathering with her closest family & friends. There was plenty of food and cute desserts which included; an adorable baby boy cake, cupcakes (decorated oh-so-adorably), cookies, candy and tons more! We played a few games, had a lot of laughs and just enjoyed good company and the relaxed atmosphere.

I made this card in about 15 minutes (literally) and most of the products used are from the Animal Crackers Collection by Making Memories (by far my favorite baby scrapbooking collection to date). The cutest part of this card are the mini clothes pins used to hang the "boy" letters, as if it were a clothes line. When I came across these clothes pins from Creative Impressions I couldn't resist- they are SO tiny and cute, they add a little charm, right?! So stay tuned, because I will be back tomorrow to post about the present (which went along with this card). Be back soon...

xo