On The Line

November 10, 2011

Wonderful vintage date... thingy.

I have received some great Birthday cards this year! Here's how I displayed them in my cubicle at work.

Got alot of people stopping by to check them out (especially the 'Freddie Murcury' one!)

Hang them on a 'clothesline': string with mini clothespins. Works great for photos and Christmas cards too!

P.S. It's finally looking like fall here!

Delicious Autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it and if I were a bird
I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
~ George Eliot

Fun times, Birthday Times

November 7, 2011

I had a wonderful birthday this year.
Birthdays are a pretty big deal at my house. I never thought much of it until I started finding out that not everyone has such extravagant birthdays. Usually we stay up way too late the night before a family member's birthday so they wake up to a house full of decorations. Now that I am the only one of my siblings left at home, birthdays are a little more low key... compared to how they were.
My mom did a superb job this year. So light and cheery! Taking advantage of our City Sukkah frame that had not been taken down yet!

She made me such a lovely breakfast!

Fruit & cheese kababs and fresh squeezed orange juice included!

She got very creative with DIY gifts. (LOVE)

She stenciled me an apron with a Julia Child quote

Matted and framed a painting that I had done as a kid

It was sweet, personal, and all around home grown. What could be better?

~*~

The weekend of my birthday, my dear, sweet, wonderful boyfriend took me horseback riding for the first time. My mom grew up with horses and talks about them all the time. I feel like I know about horses and how to ride... but somehow I missed the actual riding experience until my 24th Birthday! I travesty that was remedied beautifully. :)

I even got to meet some wonderful friends for dinner. What a satisfying Birthday. I'm happy.

Thank you!

Love, Caitlin

Happy Birthday, Belinda!

A couple of my co-workers/friends got together to make (another co-worker/friend) Belinda's Birthday special.
We wanted to decorate her cubicle in a way that was cheery, happy, and sunny. I decided daisies were the thing.  I thought we could cut daisies out of paper and pin them to her cubicle walls.Our color scheme: yellow, white, and green.
I was surfing pinterest and came across this image (Be Optimistic). It occured to me that this is perfect for Belinda! Her nickname is 'Be' and she loves inspirational things.

Then it happened.

I thought of putting inspirational words on each petal of our paper daisies with 'Be' in the center of them.

I am crazy about fonts so I made each inspirational word a different font. The effect was perfect for Belinda and, even for someone who's nickname is not 'Be' it is wonderful for cheering and engouraging!

Great idea for a 'Get Well' cheering up too!

Our dasies had 7 petals each so I had to come up with words in sets of 7s.

Here's what we came up with:

Optimistic

Loved

Yourself

Accepted

Happy

Adored

Inspired

Peaceful

Free

Excited

Energized

Empowered

Renewed

Amazed

Unique

Outstanding

Confident

Childlike

Adventerous

Bold
Relaxed

I created a template in Word making two ovals the same shape & size (make one and copy/paste), each with a text box where I put in the words and changed up the fonts. You'll want to make your words closer to one end of the petal so you can glue an end to the centers without covering any of the words.
Note: once the petals are printed, by holding each page up to the light and folding it in half long ways so the ovals line up, you can cut two out at a time.
I traced circles on yellow paper using a soup mug (that my dad made me in a pottery class) and cut them out.
Then I glued the petals to a blank circle with the words face up (making sure none of the words get covered) and glued my 'Be' circle on top (to make a petal sandwich).

I also made one daisy with
Happy Birthday Belinda from Caitlin, Jenn, and Allison

Here's our result!:

One of 3 inspirational daisies



A Happy Birthday Wish



We also made streamer 'chandelliers' using paper plates with the center cut out hung with fishing line

Here are us girls after we decorated

  

Belinda Loved it!