West Elm printable holiday tags and cards

West Elm is offering a set a of DIY downloads for Christmas gift labels, menus, recipe cards, name tags, and more. Choose from four different suites and print away.
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Orange everywhere

Vintage coffee set by Follyandglee

Creative Zone by Superflash Photography

Have you peeked in the Orangey Goodness Flickr group recently? I started it ages ago so people would have a place to share the pictures of orange stuff they often emailed me. It now has over 2,000 photos of orange objects, projects, interiors, and landscapes. Have a look.
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Happy Thanksgiving printable

Happy Thanksgiving, all! You might enjoy this printable illustration from Draw Pilgrim in Australia—a conciliatory gesture for Americans arriving at her website after searching the internet for how to draw pilgrims. Funny. Pilgrim suggests posting it on your door to welcome guests or laminating it for placemats.

And with that, I'm off for the rest of the week. Have a lovely holiday!
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Pretty project tutorials

A handful of sweet items to sew or craft:
For Pleat's Sake tote at U-Handbag
Storage cube by Obsessively Stitching
DIY cardstock cupcake stand at Bird Crafts
Recycled roses wreath from Alisa Burke
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Giveaway: Art prints from Thumbtack Press

Happy Monday, all! I'm delighted to announce a new giveaway: two readers can win a framed art print of their choice from the new and improved Thumbtack Press! Thumbtack offers a curated collection of work from over 100 artists and illustrators. When I say I'm delighted, it's not blogger hyperbole, either. I've ordered from Thumbtack Press myself and can verify that their prints are terrific. Their paper stock is really heavy, and their inks are archival and stated to be fade resistant for 100 years, which ought to be just about long enough. Prices are super affordable.

(Above: Bamboo Pattern by Masayoshi Mizuho. Below: Volkswagen by Kareem Rizk, Spiritual Tourism by Jay Fletcher, Amsterdam by Matt Mills, Whale Says by Shino Arihara, Deep Tree Diving by Terry Fan.)

How to win a framed print
• Leave a comment on this post with the name of a print at Thumbtack's site that you admire (choose from over 1300!)
• Include a link, email address, or other way of contacting you.

Giveaway closes Monday, Nov. 29 at midnight CT. Two winners will be randomly drawn, announced on Thumbtack Press's Facebook page (give it a Like!), and notified. International readers are invited, too.

Get 15% off through Dec. 15
If you plan to order some goodies for yourself or others, enter the code orange at checkout and save 15% for a limited time.

Update: The giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Carrie who chose “Deep Tree Diving” by Terry Fan, and Errin who likes “Tangle” by Paul Blow. Thanks to everyone for participating!
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Make your own owl calendar

The owl craze is still going strong. For those who can't get enough of them, I present to you the Owl Lover 2011 printable calendar by My Owl Barn. Customize your calendar online by choosing from 30 different owl illustrations. Then generate a high res PDF, download, and print. Nifty!
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New ribbon designs: squirrels and sewing

New jacquard ribbons I designed for J Caroline arrived on my doorstep yesterday. It's always exciting (and scary) to see the finished product since I never know if the colors will turn out as expected. And flat Illustrator files always look cuter with real life texture than they do on my monitor, so I eagerly await these samples.

The squirrels in the berry colorway above are my fave so I put them on a fancy plate for their photograph.

Everybody else got dumped onto a piece of foamboard. Here are all three colorways.

Sewing ribbon warranted a few props since it was easier to find a spool of thread than recruit some squirrels to pose with their ribbon.

These are now available at J Caroline Creative in 25-yard rolls and at Banberry Place (check pages 3 or 4) by the yard. Coming soon to other retailers!
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Printable Christmas card and gift list

If you want to get a jump on printing out Christmas goodies, here's a hand-drawn holiday card, compliments of Mufn Inc.

Possibly my Christmas shopping would be more inspired if I wrote ideas on special stationery. Download a printable shopping list from Atypical Type A.
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Free font: Matilde

Type Depot is offering their delicate Matilde typeface at a cost of zero dollars. She's available in two styles, along with decorative frames and patterns. Download her here. (This font is obviously a she.) For help using the patterns, click here.
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How to make pacifier clips with ribbon

I sewed these pacifier clips for a baby shower this weekend. I'd noticed solid-color clips in the store while wandering the aisles, and I wanted to include something handmade in my gift. These seemed easier to make than a stroller.

Here's my little tutorial. You'll need ribbon, suspender clips (available at fabric stores), Fray Check (optional), and velcro.

1. Cut a 24" length of ribbon. (This ribbon is 7/8" wide.)

2. Apply Fray Check to each end to prevent unraveling.

3. Fold the ribbon in half, leaving a little extra at one end to fold over the other unfinished end to hide it.

4. Stitch around the edges of the doubled ribbon , trying desperately not to run off the edge. Squeaking "Eeek!" helps a little when you get close. Just a tip.

5. Sew velcro pieces onto the folded end about 2" apart.

6. Thread the opposite end through a suspender clip and sew it down.
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Easily customize your Twitter page

Themeleon by COLOURlovers is a tool for customizing your Twitter background. Try out different color palettes and themes, or choose from over 2,000 patterned backgrounds. Many of them are kind of hideous to my eyeballs, but hunting around a bit can yield some keepers.
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Retro printable card from June Craft

The very same Kayanna Nelson of June Craft from yesterday's post has generously provided awesome downloadable goodies on her blog. Get the printable bird card right here. Or hunt through her posts to find all the free desktop wallpapers sprinkled about. Most are calendar desktops, but I was dying to use them immediately so I Photoshopped over the calendar areas to make them useful for posterity. I've got that bird on my monitor right this minute. Thank you, Kayanna!
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How to transfer an image to fabric with gel medium

I experimented with transferring an image onto fabric the other day. For my test, I used this completely adorable dachshund drawing by Kayanna Nelson of June Craft. The little fellow is downloadable for personal use at Bloesem Kids.

To try an image transfer, you'll need:
Acrylic gel medium, available at art stores
Fabric
A laser printed image (not inkjet!)

With your finger—or a brush, but I prefer to feel what I'm doing—spread gel medium onto your fabric in the area where you want your image. Not too thin, not too thick; just a nice even layer.

Place your image printed side down onto the sticky fabric and press firmly. Burnish the paper with your thumbnail a bit to be sure the image makes good contact with the fabric. Let it dry completely.

Dampen the paper with water, then gently rub the paper away from the image with your finger.

The resulting fabric will be a bit stiffer where the gel medium was applied, and you'll be able to see it faintly. I sewed my print into a mini drawstring doggie bag, sized so the area with gel ends near the seams. This way the entire front of the bag is the same stiffness. It's quite cute!

For a good drawstring bag tutorial, check out this one at Skip To My Lou. Since my bag is tiny, I laid the baker's twine inside the top channel before stitching it down, rather than threading it through later.
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Cool free wallpapers for mobile devices

Have you been over to Poolga yet? My iPad really likes their growing set of wallpapers by fabulous designers and illustrators. Maybe your phone would like them, too.
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DIY coaster tutorial round-up

A collection of coaster projects, nice for keeping or handmade gift giving.
Punched coasters by Mackenzie Sasser
Modern number coasters by Mod Cottage
Stitched cork coasters at Crafting a Green World
Maple leaf coasters at The Long Thread
DIY photo coasters at Phototiller
Tree limb coasters by Mod Home Ec Teacher
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Printable calling card freebie

Just for fun I've made you a template for a personal calling card. Apparently social calling cards are making a comeback, so you might want to print up a few to hand out at parties, moms' play groups, to new neighbors, or tuck them into your Christmas cards if you've updated your contact info.

In case you don't like orange because there's something wrong with you, there are two other colors to choose from.

Download orange cards, blue cards, or burgundy cards.

Each design is a PDF file with editable fields for typing. After saving the file to your computer, open the PDF in Adobe Reader (free right here if you don't already have it), type in your information, and print at 100% on a sheet of white cardstock. Trim with an X-acto knife or scissors, using the crop marks as guides. The font used in the name field is Euphorigenic, a free download at MyFonts.com. If you don't feel like going to the trouble of fetching it and installing it on your machine, your computer will substitute a font that might be tolerable to you.

(These cards are for personal use only; please don't try to sell the design, decorate your website with it, etc.) Enjoy!
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Simple, printable party invitations

Real Simple magazine offers an assortment of free invitations to download and print. Mom, I'll be waiting for one of those Thanksgiving invitations in the mail. With a ribbon, please.
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Butterfly invitation template

Let's call this stationery week at How About Orange. Friends inexplicably keep marrying and having babies, so here are some shower invitations I made with a pal last week.

The mom-to-be registered for purple butterfly things, so I had to hold off on the orange cheetah-themed shower that could have been awesome. I think this one might be more tasteful. I made the design in Adobe Illustrator, then cut the cards out with the Silhouette machine. The party information is printed on an interior sheet. It's stapled inside the card along the spine to form a mini booklet. Chartreuse envelopes from Papersource plus these stamps finished it off.

You can download the butterfly template as a PDF file, a zipped Studio file for Silhouette users, or a zipped SVG file for Cricut users. And folks without a digital cutter will have to make do with an X-acto knife. Eek, that's a little bit daunting.
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Valerie's wedding invitation

In keeping with yesterday's stationery post, here's a little wedding invitation I did for a friend. I hope she won't mind, but I have to tell you her story. Valerie and her future husband were college acquaintances in Taiwan. Ten years later, they bumped into each other in front of a Starbucks in San Francisco. Both had moved to the US for grad school, then relocated to California on the exact same day many months before the fated Starbucks meeting. Pretty great, right?

Here are other designs that were part of the process. Congratulations, Valerie!
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Giveaway: Tiny Prints gift certificates

Tiny Prints is an online stationery company with gazillions of design options, from party and wedding invitations to birth announcements, thank you notes, and address labels. To kick off their brand new holiday greeting card line, Tiny Prints is offering a $50 gift certificate to two How About Orange readers. Spend it on Christmas cards or anything else you like on their site! International readers are invited to participate, too.

How to win a $50 gift certificate:
By Friday, Nov. 5 at midnight CDT, leave a comment on this post mentioning a stationery item from Tiny Prints that caught your eye. Be sure to include a link or other way to contact you. Two winners will be randomly drawn, contacted, and announced right here.

Update: The giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Xana, commenter 599 and Lexie, commenter 151!
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