Be green(er)

Happy Earth Day!

It seems that everyone nowadays is trying their best to be a little bit greener. With Blend Creations, we try and use off-cut materials whenever possible, we recycle all of our scraps, and part of the reason we chose to work with stainless steel was because it is both a recycled and recyclable material.

I think having a child makes you want to be a better environmentalist, if for no other reason than when they're an angry teenager, you can honestly say, "hey, we tried to do what we could!".

Ever since Jack was a wee little baby, he's been at least part-time in cloth diapers -- we use Fuzzi Bunz on him and they've worked quite well.

I got to thinking how if Jack was in cloth diapers, that perhaps I should try and do a little bit more myself in terms of the female equivalent of over-used paper-products. (Guys, I can understand if you want to skip a post about menstrual products).

I'd seen LunaPads before in Bitch magazine, and after being reminded of them again at Arbour (an environmental shop here in Ottawa), I decided to give them a try and I ordered the Deluxe kit in the mixed light fabrics. My first thought when I received them in the mail? "Oooh they're pretty."



And normally, who thinks that about menstrual products?

The "extra" work with these reusable pads is minimal -- just a cold rinse before putting them in the wash, which isn't really "extra" work if you're already used to washing cloth diapers. The LunaPads FAQ is here. I wholeheartedly give them my thumbs-up and it's nice that they're a Canadian company too!

Want $5 to spend at Blend Creations?

Right now, we're asking people to fill out our survey so that we can hopefully learn what it is we're doing right, what it is we're doing wrong, and what we should be doing.

If you'd like to take a few minutes to fill out our survey, we'll send you a $5 Blend Creations gift certificate as a thanks for your time and input. Simple as that.

Oh, and if you fill it out before April 29, we'll be drawing for a $100 gift certificate amongst all those who've responded. The winner will be announced in our next newsletter.

So go, go now and answer a few little questions for us. Please? :)

Itching for some home improvement

It is with fond farewell that I bid adieu to the 7 FOOT HIGH snow banks that lived in our little courtyard for so long. There is no longer any trace of snow around any piece of property that's 'ours'.

Of course, in its place are neglected patches of (crab) grass and we're itching to do a little home improvement, both outdoors and in. As inspiration, I recently found "This Young House".

I love old 50s era houses (in their post-war mass-produced housing kind of way), and seeing what people do to them to make them right for today. Our house is a 70s era townhouse, so it's a little younger, but still needing some help in the updating department.

I've already wasted a good 20 minutes looking through their Flickr photos. (I'm really liking what they did to their master bedroom). Might as well share the procrastination ;)

Better get to work!

Big heart, little heart

From the time I could hold a crayon, I've always made my own cards. The very first ones were just folded sheets of lined paper with a drawing and a simple message written inside with a shaky hand. As I got older, the cards have gotten more sophisticated, and even more so when we acquired a laser-cutter to enable us to do tiny, intricate cuts that would be a challenge to the steadiest and most patient hand.

Today we're going to kick it old school so that anyone can make their own hand-cut card just in time for Mother's Day-- no laser required! (And moms always appreciate handmade stuff).

The card design is called "big heart, little heart", and it's free for you to download the templates: This one is for the card itself, and this one is for the envelope so that you can make your own version of this:

(Of course, producing this design commercially as yours, would be pretty wrong, so please don't do that).

You'll need:
- A printer to print out the templates
- One letter-sized (8.5" x 11") sheet of printable paper for the card. Regular printer paper will do, although in the example, I've used printable card stock that's about a 65 lb weight.
- Another letter-sized (8.5" x 11") sheet of printable paper for the envelope, preferably in a contrasting colour, although white will do.
- One sheet of contrasting paper that's at least 4.25" x 5.5" (You can cut down a letter-sized sheet of paper).
- A good cutting knife. Retractable is nice because you can always have a nice, sharp blade.
- A cutting mat so that you don't damage your table. If you don't have one, cardboard or an old magazine will do.
- A ruler for straight cuts (metal is better since it'll hold up to getting nicked).
- A bit of glue. Glue stick works very well for thin paper.
- A pen for signing your work and writing a heart-felt message inside.

And here we go:
1. Print out your templates and assemble your tools.


2. Cut just outside of the black lines of the card (so that they're not visible when you're done).


3. Once you've got all the bits cut out, fold the card in half so that the shorter sides meet up. Then fold it again so that your card is 1/4 the size of a letter-sized sheet of paper. It helps to crease the edges with a pen so that you get a nice, sharp fold.


4. Your card should looks something like the picture below. It looks pretty contemporary as just a tone-on-tone card. You could pretty much give it like this if you'd like.


5. Sign the back as your own, since this ain't no Hallmark card.


6. Write a lovely message inside. If you sign it with "XOXO" you might get some affection headed your way ;)


7. If you want to add some punch, this is when you use whatever contrasting coloured paper you've got. In this case, I've got letter-sized bond-weight printable paper that just happens to be bright blue. You could also use wrapping paper so that it'll match the gift you'll be giving.
If it's letter-sized, fold the paper in quarters (like you did with the card).


8. Taking your ruler, trim the paper so that it's slightly smaller than a quarter of a page. This way, none of the contrasting paper will stick out of the card.


9. Tuck the paper into your folded card and voila! you're done. (The fold will keep the contrasting paper in, but if you're paranoid, a dab of glue works too).


If you'd like a custom envelope to go with your card:
1. Print out this template and using your ruler, cut out the perimeter of the envelope shape. Ignore the rounded corners for now and just extended your cuts beyond where you need to go.


2. Round the corners freehand with your knife.


3. Fold along the dotted lines and apply a little glue to the side flaps.


4. Fold up the bottom (larger) flap and stick it to the side flaps. Insert your card. You can either seal it with some more glue... and you're done!


Now go and make this your own!

You can easily make this in about 15-20 minutes -- which is great if you're stuck without a card and all you've got is your printer and some regular paper. As I said, you can contrast it with gift-wrap, or if you're reading this, and it's Mother's Day, and you oh, forgot to buy your wife a card, you can do a collaboration with your kid. The grown-up should do the cutting and the child can do a drawing on a quarter of a page and just tuck in their masterpiece in place of the contrasting paper. Alternatively, you can skip the cutting altogether, and just have your child colour the card and learn all about negative space ;)

Our little monster is a bit young yet to contribute his art, but here's a quick example with some pink highlighter scribbles:


The envelope template is also very handy for any cards that are just letter-sized sheets of paper folded down. So you can always go draw your own card and stick it in your own little hand-made envelope. Have fun!

Experiencing technical difficulties :/

Things have gone rather pear-shaped with our web host.
For a while, the site was completely down, and now there seem to be a few glitches appearing. We're in the process of upgrading servers.

Please bear with us!

By the way...

We've lowered the regular price on our earrings from $120 to $89. This means that if you've got a promo code, you'll get even more savings.

So in case you were eyeing them before, take another look.
(We were able to lower the price due to some much better metal supplier prices, so we're reflecting that in the pricing of the earrings. Yay!)

A wee post

Inspiration comes from so many sources, and as a designer, I can truthfully say that sometimes, what I've done I've thought to be original and mine, but in essence borrows so much from what I've seen that it has seeped into my unconscious mind. If the ideas are too similar to someone else's, then it gets shelved until something can be done to actually make it "mine" -- through an improvement or my own interpretation.

It is also quite possible that an idea is so great that many people can simultaneously hit a very similar "Eureka!" point independently. With our products, we try very much to make sure that the things we produce don't infringe on anyone else's creative rights and it pains me when others do not share the same sort of respect.

Today, I was reading wee wonderfuls and my 'creative' side aches for Hillary Lang, because no one who has ever put in the time, thought, energy and most importantly heart into any sort of creative endeavour wants to see someone else take that creation and claim it, un-rightfully, as their own.



To be fair to the company that has produced the dolls, I know nothing about why/how they came to be. To an outside observer though, it just seems that the dolls shown just look remarkably similar to the patterns that were produced by Hillary Lang, that were never meant to be produced commercially without her consent.

I can only hope that that company will do what's right.