Black Friday + 2014 calendar + Christmas cards!

Last night I stayed up until 3am finishing my 2014 calendar and it's FINALLY complete and listed in my etsy shop. Phew! This is the latest I've ever posted it and everyone in the universe probably already purchased their 2014 calendar, but I'm just happy that I actually finished. I felt so creatively stunted this year.. every single time I started drawing the illustrations for this I'd come up blank. I took my sketch pad with me every time I was in the car, I took it to Disney World, down the shore, and always came back with empty pages. Then somehow in the last week I cranked out almost every single drawing and I love how it turned out! And even though it's super late to be debuting a calendar at least I know my grandmom wants one, lol :)

The calendar is available here. I'll be listing all of the new drawings as prints later today!

I also have a 20% off black friday sale going on in my shop.



















I also decided to turn the drawing for June into a Christmas card, it just seemed so warm and cozy! The greeting reads "Wishing you a storybook Christmas" and they come in packs of five cards.



And I don't usually send out Christmas cards that I design myself, but... I think I need to this year. My dad gave me the idea for this one and I love how it came out! If you're an Office fan hopefully you'll love it too ;) They're available here.

princess unicorn

This is by far my favorite Halloween costume ever! I've actually been planning it since last October. If you're not familiar with The Office, Princess Unicorn is a fictional Barbie-like toy that was featured in the Season 5 Christmas episode. Her tagline is "My horn can pierce the sky." NBC made a fake website promoting the doll here, which is where I got most of my costume inspiration :)



In the episode, Princess Unicorn is the most popular toy at Christmastime so Dwight buys up a ton of the dolls and sells them at a marked up price to desperate parents who missed getting them in stores. It's only featured in the one episode but it's one of my favorite Office things (I mean come on, it involves unicorns!)

I had so much fun hunting down all the different pieces I needed to make the costume and then assembling them! The dress was an 80's vintage find on etsy and then I dyed it light pink and added the gold trim to match Princess Unicorn's. I wore a lace bodysuit underneath to add the sleeves. I was originally going to sew on star-shaped sequins as well but I just ran out of time. I'll probably sew them on anyway because I have a feeling this costume will be reused at some point in years to come :)

The only thing that I couldn't get right was the hairstyle since a ponytail is hard to do with a wig... but the website says "style her hair anyway you like, up or down" so I'm more like Princess Unicorn after someone took her out of the box and brushed her hair.

dress- vintage | unicorn horn - brooklyn owl | wig & tiara - party city

necklace - handmade | magic wand - disney world | bodysuit - boohoo

the office wrap party - part 2

The first place we stopped when we got to Scranton was the Steamtown Mall. It's mentioned in The Office quite a few times but we were there for more practical reasons -- Kyle forgot to pack a shirt and tie in his suitcase. While we were there, though, we found the original Scranton welcome sign that's shown in the opening credits! I read somewhere that they had moved it off the highway and into the mall so it would be easier (and less dangerous) for tourists to take pictures with it!

We took a LOT of pictures in Scranton so it took me a while to narrow down which ones to share, and even then I still ended up with 40 for this post. Yikes! I decided to do one of those "read more after the jump!" things so my blog won't take 200 years to load :)

the office wrap party - part 1

This was the best weekend of my entire life. I know everyone is probably sick of all of my Office-related posts by now (at least if you don't watch the show you must be) but I just have to do a few more so please bear with me :) We got in late last night and I just woke up (and have a ton of things to do today, eek) so I'm going to keep this post short and share more pictures and details tomorrow!

How this particular photo came about is a VERY long story but basically on the last night of the event, the entire cast was tending bar downtown at the Backyard Ale House and me and my brother were behind the bar with them. YES. That happened. I still can't believe this is real life.. I keep looking at the pictures to make sure I didn't dream it all up!!

paper hearts

Paper hearts is the name of an episode of The X-Files... I thought it was also kind of relevant to the show that shares the title of "Kate's favorite tv show" -- The Office. After all, they are the people person's paper people. And tomorrow I'm going to get to meet some of them! Tomorrow!! My paper heart is going to explode from excitement.

We're leaving for Scranton bright and early and planning on doing some sight-seeing before the festivities begin at night. Did you know that Alfredo's Pizza Cafe really exists? (That's the pizza that is *not* a hot circle of garbage) I need to go there! Also Poor Richard's! And there's a Chili's in Wilkes-Barre so I might need to go there too, Dundie in tow.

dress- c/o sheinside | lady tie - flapper girl | shoes - bait footwear

bears. beets. brooches.

There's a new brooch design over at sweet and lovely, and it's featuring America's favorite Assistant (to the) Regional Manager! ;D I drew this and had a sample made so that I could wear it to the Office Wrap Party this weekend, and when it came in the mail I just loved it SO much that I had to make more for Sweet and Lovely!

I also drew Michael Scott, Kevin, and Creed but I don't have pictures of the finished brooches yet -- they're coming soon though! If they go over well I might add more characters but for now I'm just sticking with my own favorites in case I end up having to keep all the brooches myself, lol! I also drew a Carl Sagan one, too! I'm probably getting a little carried away with the faces-as-wooden-brooches thing but I am just so smitten with this little Dwight, I can't help myself!

friday favorites

I love this photo from Polly's blog! (Also: the pink coat!!! eep!)



I think this is one of the most clever ideas ever! An astroturf purse! I would love to get this and wear it with my sunny day outfit. It also reminds me of this picnic basket idea!



Pink polka dotted cat shoes. Need I say more?!



Speaking of shoes, BAIT Footwear is releasing their spring line this week and to say I'm in love would be the understatement of the year. So far the only ones I see up on the site are the pink ones, but I'm dying to get my hands on the mint and cornflower blue ones too!!



Did you see Helen Mirren dyed her hair pink? Coolest thing ever! I hope so badly that my hair turns white (or at least light grey) when I'm older so that I can dye it fun colors without all the hassle of bleach. My genetics seem to point towards having dark hair FOREVER though, darn it!



Anthropologie has a grapefruit sweater!! A grapefruit sweater! It's a little (okay, a lot!) out of my price range though so I might DIY it. I think I owe it to my undying love of grapefruit juice to own at least one piece of grapefruit clothing.



I love this print of foods from The Office! I definitely need one for my bedroom.. it would be a much subtler (and cuter!) way of paying tribute to my favorite tv show than the poster I currently have hanging up (you can see it creeping in the background of the close-up in this outfit post.) And the mixed berry yogurt will always make me smile :)



Speaking of The Office, did you see the Dunder Mifflin products at Quill? They started selling Dunder Mifflin paper last year (of course I bought a whole box!) but this year they added legal pads, post-its, markers and legal boxes! I'm so excited!!



A Ross Gellar brooch! I love it! I wish Friends would start streaming somewhere so I could watch it constantly like I do The Office and The X-Files. I have the whole series on DVD but I've gotten so spoiled by netflix instant that I hardly ever pull out my discs anymore.



Speaking of instant streaming, from Feb. 14th to Feb. 18th all of the Criterion movies on hulu are free for everyone! If you have some free time I highly recommend checking some of them out! Some of my personal favorites that they're streaming are Jules et Jim, Daisies, Elevator to the Gallows, The Seventh Seal, Stagecoach, Monsieur Verdoux, Vivre Sa Vie, La Strada, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Earrings of Madame De... and Orpheus.



This service is so cool! You upload your photographs and they turn them into a viewfinder slide, plus you get a viewfinder to.. well.. view them! I'm thinking of getting one of these made for my dad's 60th birthday in April!



My dream home would definitely have a spiral staircase, extra points if it's pink (who am I kidding, if it wasn't pink to begin with I'd probably paint it!) Honestly I think if my future home doesn't come with one of these, I'm installing one... even if it's a one story flat and the staircase is purely decorative. It just needs to be there.

not fade away

Even though I've been feeling blue lately, I've been really really really enjoying my favorite tv shows and some new-to-me movies recently. Does anyone watch The Mindy Project? I loved the last episode (as a big When Harry Met Sally fan, the whole Bruno Kirby/Carrie Fischer dialogue made me crack up) and having BJ Novak for a guest star made my Office-loving heart explode with happiness. Kelly and Ryan, together again! yay!

Also, speaking of The Office, a while ago Amber recommended The Giant Mechanical Man with Jenna Fischer (Pam) and I kept putting it off because for some reason the title made me think it was an action movie (I swear I miss so many awesome things because of misconceptions like this... I guess this is what the google is for?) but I finally watched it this week and I think it might be in my top five favorite movies ever. It was just SO good and touching and sweet and incredibly relevant to my life at the moment. And so many tv people were in it -- Danny from The Mindy Project is the co-star (and he is absolutely amazing!) plus there's Harry Crane from Mad Men, Eric from That 70's Show, Marshall's boss from How I Met Your Mother and the girl who plays Stella in The Wedding Bride movie in HIMYM too! (It's kind of sad that I recognized all these people. But also a point of pride? hmm..)

Anyway, long story short -- if you like sweet, quiet movies about people who are a little lost in life you'll probably love this too. And it's on Netflix instant! And it's not an action movie.

dress - c/o modcloth | tights - h&m | sweater and necklace - forever 21

shoes - from my grandmom | belt - asos

polka dots

Something a little out of the ordinary for me.. no color! Well, okay, some color. I had to add my new blue bow collar clips, and I had a bright green band-aid peeking out from underneath my sheer tights ;) I've really been going through a huge polka-dot phase lately! I'm coveting basically anything dotted that I see online or getting the urge to add my own dots to the plain clothes in my wardrobe. It just makes everything look more fun, doesn't it?!

On a totally different subject, did anyone watch The Office last night? I know a lot of people gave up after Michael Scott left (which I can understand since he's my favorite character) but I've stuck with it and last night was heart wrenching. Actually, that's an understatement. The show basically ripped out my heart and put it in the shredder like a sheet of Dunder Mifflin paper :(

sweater - forever 21 | faux leather skirt - c/o sheinside | tights - asos

shoes - c/o oasap | collar clips - sweet and lovely

Just a couple of kittens out on the town

Happy Halloween!! This year I'm going as Angela Martin from The Office! I love putting together costumes from things I already have... the only thing I needed to buy was the wig. I already had the clothes and the ream of Dunder Mifflin paper (you can get it here) and the Dwight bobble head in the background ;)

oh, and Sprinkles!


Is anyone doing anything fun to celebrate today? Every year I throw a little costume party with my family. I'm making pumpkin bean soup (I guest-posted the recipe here!) and vegetarian mummy hot dogs (recipe here, I just substitute regular hot dogs for Morningstar ones.) And of course I have oodles of candy on hand! ;)

Cardigan and braided headband - h&m | Skirt - vintage | Shoes - modcloth*

Wig - ebay | Dunder Mifflin paper - NBC store

*Today is the last day (unless they extend it again) to get $20 off your first Modcloth order of $50 or more! Just use this link to get the discount :)