Category Archives: Holidays

Valentine’s Gift Idea: 214 Things I Love About You!

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you all have a great weekend planned. Before I dive into today’s post, I want to bother you one last time and say that today is the last day that you can vote for your favorite blogs on the Apartment Therapy Homies. If you like what you read, we would SO SO SO appreciate it if you took 10 seconds to vote for Our Cozy Cubbyhole so we can attract some new readers. Thank you SO much for your support!!

Valentine’s Day is officially less than a week away and I have talked to a lot of people that are still trying to decide on a cute little gift for their significant others. Well you are in luck because I have an idea that will work for a boy or  girl, is very inexpensive, and is oh-so-thoughtful! Although this was originally a gift that I made for Walker for our anniversary this year, the gift can absolutely work for V Day.

I strated off by carrying around a little piece of paper for several days, constantly jotting down little things I love about my man. Some were sentimental and mushy, some were funny and light-hearted, some were not family-friendly, and others fell somewhere in between. I decided to compile a list of 200 things since it was our two year anniversary but you could do 214 things in honor of 2/14! Once the list was all set, I bought a really beautiful Moleskine pocket sketchbook from Barnes & Noble that had really nice sturdy pages and a classy look.

ThingsILoveAboutYou1

I originally planned on decorating the outside but then I realized that this was a gift for a dude and he wouldn’t necessarily care about (or care for) an overly-decorated book. So I decided to keep it plain on the outside so it could be stored anywhere without attracting too much attention. After all, this is kind of a private thing and Walker is a private guy.  In fact, I had to promise I wouldn’t post too many examples of the stuff I wrote in his book on this blog post! ;)

Anyway, once I decided that the front would remain undecorated, I used the inside of the front cover to introduce the concept: Two Years and Two Hundred Things I Love About You. Like I mentioned before, 214 may be a better number to use for Valentine’s Day (and you could do something fun to mimic the slash between the 2 and the 1 like the date! Get creative!).
ThingsILoveAboutYou2

Since I promised Walker I wouldn’t post too mant examples, I limited it to two pictures. But you get the idea of how I decorated each page. Again, I kept it simple and not to girly/decorative because it was more Walker’s style this way (but feel free to go nuts with yours!). I used a bunch of stamps (including the cork heart stamp I made for last V Day), some silly drawings, and some awesome SMASH tape that had phrases like “Love it!” and “Like this a lot!”ThingsILoveAboutYou3 ThingsILoveAboutYou4 ThingsILoveAboutYou5

This entire project cost me less than $16 ($14 for the sketchbook and a couple bucks for the tape) but packs a huge punch of LOVE! ;)

Cheap, super thoughtful, and very personal… you can’t find a better combination than that for a Valentine’s Day gift! So get to it… happy crafting!

Feel Good Art for Awesome People

I am so happy to say that we had amazing sponsor this January: the wonderfully talented Lisa Barbero who makes “Feel Good Art for Awesome People!” Lisa is a wife, mother, and artist-extraordinaire so, without further ado, I will hand it over things over to her!

“I decided I was an artist when I was in kindergarten and it took me about 27 years to finally believe it.”

LisaBarbero

I would definitely say I’ve had a lifelong and passionate love affair with making stuff. But then again, I’ve had an equally lifelong and passionate love affair with Cap’n Crunch. Yup, the cereal. After years of putting up with the Cap’s bittersweet love, I finally hold the secret wisdom of being able to eat those sugary, golden nuggets without cutting up the roof of my mouth. Maybe one day I’ll write a book called “Zen and the Art of Eating Cap’n Crunch”. OMG. That’s so the *new* title of my memoirs. It’s a fitting replacement for “Jurassic Park Scarred me for Life”.

Oh right. Back to the art stuff. I dig on raw line and the unexpected and infuse my work with modern color, original typography, and old fashioned hand drawn imagery. The end result is art with hints of romance, whimsy, inspiration, and lots of soul.

“I believe in true love, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and lots of simple living. Without taking myself or my work too seriously, I strive to make beautiful and emotional things.”

I enjoy the whole art making process and can’t see myself ever living something other than a handmade life. It’s important to me to do something different; to be inspired by my life, my environment, and the work of others, then make something completely unique that can inspire others in turn. I like being a part of that endless creative cycle.

*****

Lisa was born in Washington D.C. and has lived all over the world from Georgia to Germany. She currently calls Rochester, New York home where she lives on an acre and a half of pseudo-suburbia with her soul mate and their munchkins.

Website     Art Shop

Not only is she hilarious and amazingly talented, but she is also roughly from my neck of the woods in Upstate New York (near where I went to college!). WOOO NY PRIDE! I digress. While all of the prints in her art shop are stunning, I decided to share a few of them with you that are perfect for celebrating the upcoming holiday of love! Enjoy! And a big thank you to Lisa for sponsoring Our Cozy Cubbyhole this month! :)LisaBarbero_Print1 LisaBarbero_Print2 LisaBarbero_Print3LisaBarbero_Print4

That Time I Ruined My Birthday Surprise

But I didn’t mean to! Let me explain…

After I got back from orientation, I had a list of the specific supplies I would need for school.  A little panicked that I would have to scrape some money together for a (portable for space reasons of course) drafting table, I got a bit nervous.  I had the genius idea to check Craigslist for the off-chance that someone was selling a portable drafting table and to my great surprise, there was!CraigslistAd

You can’t tell from my screenshot but the table was quite beat up but for $30, who can be picky?! I figured I could scrape by with a shoddy board and emailed the guy. When Walker got home I told him about my find.  He said that it was great and to keep him posted.  An hour later the guy emailed me back that he was around all night and that I could come pick it up. I was about to hit send on an email back saying I’d be over shortly when Walker sighs and says, “Wait. Don’t go. I got you a drafting table for your birthday…”

I was really, really pumped for a second… and then immediately felt guilty for ruining the surprise! I had no idea though and was just getting so excited about school! You can’t blame a girl for being a super nerd, can you? I must have caught this problem from my dad because he ALWAYS unintentionally ruins his gift surprises (my mom can vouch for that!).

Turns out it was kind of a good thing that he got to see my excited reaction when I ruined the surprise because when the table was delivered the next day, there was a giant picture of it on the outside of the box. Who does that!? I brought the box inside on my lunch break and I would have found out then anyway. Way to go, Amazon.

Anyway, he apparently still loves me despite my surprise-spoiling because that amazing man is taking me to wine country for the weekend! We leave in a few hours and I can’t wait! Hitching Post steaks and Pinot, here we come!! :)

(and then I get to come home and play with my awesome new drafting table!)