Today’s installment in our awesome people series are Andie and Emily from Assemble Shop, friends and fellow crafters from Seattle.

I met Andie through our mutual friend Maggie at a Christmas party a couple years ago, and we met Emily shortly thereafter when we took our scrappy quilts class at their former brick + mortar location. Since then, they’ve transitioned to online only in order to open up opportunities to bigger and better things. They still teach workshops around Seattle (they taught me how to crochet just a couple weeks ago!), but now they also get to teach online classes, develop custom crafting kits, and expand the reach of their awesome inventory. They also wrote an article for this month’s Uppercase magazine, lending their insights to

The development of their custom kits has really been fabulous to watch. They have developed detailed instructions and video tutorials for each project, and the branding/packaging is spot on! But, do you want to know the MOST awesome thing of all? Right now Andie and Emily have a Kickstarter campaign going to turn some of their fun symbols of craft into new rubber stamp kits. Fun, right?

Over the last couple of years, Andie and Emily have turned into our friends, so we share their story with the utmost support. They are SO CLOSE to funding their kickstarter project - just a couple more backers will do it! Could that be you? (you’d be helping me out, too, since I’m a backer and I already can’t wait to receive my stamps

Their story is so inspiring to me: knowing when was the right moment to take a step back from the status quo and go in the direction that would truly be valuable for their business. Its a lesson I can really take to heart when I’m making decisions about whats next in my creative pursuits. These ladies are amazing, visit their shop, blog, and the kickstarter page and say a little hello.

Hey everyone, its finally feeling like springtime, eh?

Did you guys see my contributions to a post over at The Stationery Place last week? Lyndsey and I chatted all about places to find eclectic postage stamps, both new and old. I’m not content with standard american flag forever stamps, so I always like to peruse for whats fun via USPS and also in the vintage realm. Go check out the links that Lyndsey shared in her post.

This morning I was actually perusing through usps.com to see if there was anything new and exciting. I think we’re going to get these kaleidoscope flowers for our Save the Dates, and I wanted to see if anything else caught my eye. And catch my eye something did:

Aren’t these so pretty? The colors and theme fit perfectly for our spring 2014 wedding. I think i’m going to preorder a bunch of these and supplement with some blue/green vintage stamps depending on how heavy our invites end up getting. You never know what you’re going to find on the post office website, I always encourage people to check it out because the physical post office very rarely carries any of the most fun options!

{ps – another tip for buying wedding postage? make sure to buy enough to cover sending pre-wedding thank you notes from showers and bachelorette gifts}

Have you guys seen Tammie Bennett’s new Dear Universe project? She’s combining her awesome illustration skills with a weekly prayer to those in need. Its really very heartfelt and clever – go follow along. I’ll be sharing more on a recent collaboration with Tammie in the next couple weeks, but needless to say she’s pretty awesome.

Anyway, the Test Takers prayer illustration is really hitting home right now. After a couple years of procrastination, I finally got off my butt to study for my Architect Registration Exams.  Every year I kept saying I’d study in the fall when the weather got crummy, but then it would be the holidays, and then suddently springtime again and I couldn’t justify wasting the Seattle summer. But, with the wedding on the horizon, I figure I’d better get my act together before I have Erik home as a major distraction

I won’t bore you with the nitty gritty but the basics of the exam are that there are 7 portions (each taken individually), all of which have both a multiple choice section as well as a graphic “vignette” where they give you a word problem and you have an hour to draft up a solution using their stone-age proprietary software. My first test is tomorrow! I signed up for one that was a medium-level difficulty topic for me, not super hard, but also saving the easiest ones for the end to hopefully coast through this fall. My goal is to have them all done by this time next year. These tests are what finally enable you to legally be called an “Architect”, so it’ll be nice to cross that one off the Life List.

So, if its quiet and/or uninspired around here, you probably can know the next test is pending and send me all the good testing prayers and vibes you want – I won’t turn ‘em down!

One last post to wrap up the love month we just left behind Last week I shared with you my contribution to the 2013 handmade valentine swap and I promised I’d show you what I received. In short – they were all amazing!

This year my swap partners were Nikki from The Salty Pineapple (coincidentally also my Alt Summit Roomie!), Michaela from Develop and Capture (a fellow Seattleite!), Cristine from Christhingsss (all the way from the Philippines!) and a new non-internet friend, Allyl. I also arranged to swap Valentines with my local bud Andrea Victoria, but I was a bad bad friend and failed to hold up my end of the bargain But don’t worry, I’m sending something else special to make up for it

These gals all created such special little treats, including confetti (in my personal fave color scheme), heart themed office supplies and a CUTE turquoise pin for me to wear (hello wedding!). I didn’t catch Christine’s lovely card in these photos because it JUST arrived from the Philippines a couple days ago, but she shared her wonderful work here and you should DEFINITELY go check them out.

Aren’t these all so amazing? I’m always blown away by the creativity of my friends online and in real life.

These also gave me a chance to play around with my new 50mm 1.4 lens. What do you think?? Sure makes photoshoots in the Seattle winter a whole lot easier.

A couple weeks ago we were invited to an event at our local Seattle West Elm to check out new arrivals for spring – especially their cool new paper flowers collection. As part of an expansion of their market, they have awesome paper flowers that you can use for seasonal decor but they’ll keep year after year. My favorites are the tulips and the hellebores. Super pretty!

image credit: curator pr

The event was co-hosted by Nick and Aleah Valley from Valley & Co, who gave some awesome tips on spring entertaining including decor using the paper flowers and other organic items. It was awesome to finally meet Aleah since we’ve been instagram buddies for quite awhile now so it was nice to have a quick chat over a delicious mocktail. (Also, how cute is her turq plaid – you KNOW I need that shirt)

In general I’m a little tired of the terrarium trend, but I loved adding in the colorful mixed media for a more modern vibrant twist. Centerpiece inspiration for sure!

image credit: curator pr

I highly recommend you try the High Tea cocktail Nick whipped up (he’s the bartender master of the duo). We couldn’t have the vodka at the event (pouty face), but the base was delicious and I’m sure it would be great for dinner parties with the windows thrown open.

Go check out full tutorials for the Paper Flower Swizzle Sticks and Rosemary Wreaths can be found on Aleah & Nick’s blog.

 image credit: curator pr

image credit: curator pr

It was so nice to get a dose of color affter many months of wintry gray! After the event, Maggie and I went out to chat all things weddings! Our weddings are going to have some common elements so it was fun to compare notes!

[All images with no credit link were taken by me]