Now Boarding

I am completely taken with these vintage airplane boarding passes and luggage tags found at Great Scott Vintage. I love the colors, the fonts, and that they appear to be interesting and unique reminders of the companies they represented, indications of a different era in passenger flight and a stark contrast to the often bland bar-coded or print-at-home boarding passes of today.

Here, here, and here.

A Labor of Love

Copy Cut Create

A well-crafted mix, a compilation of songs carefully selected to tell a perfect story, has always been a gift of considerable thought. It's a gift that is as easy to bestow on a best friend as a lover, and it's always a bold move to bestow one on a crush.

The Argyle Academy

Technology has advanced the art of creating a mix; cds and mp3s have made it easier to fine-tune selections, to rearrange songs until the mix tells the exact story you want. While I can't complain about these advances (for I'm certain I spend more time now than ever before trying to achieve the perfect song order,) as surely as I date myself writing this, I can say nothing quite compares to the labor of love that was a mix tape.

Mix Tape USB Stick. I love these- they appeal to the mix tape fanatic who still lives inside me.

When making a mix tape, you often had to catch your favorite new songs on the radio. When they played, you waited patiently for the dj to stop talking, hoping he wouldn't talk too much over the beginning (or the end) of the song because you wanted to catch as close to the original versions as possible.

SparklePower

When you did catch a favorite song or when you were recording music from another cassette or a cd, you listened with the greatest of concentration; you wanted to stop the tape at the exact right spot-- not too soon and not too late. Knowing that spot was a well-honed skill that made a mix tape flow more smoothly from one song to the next.

SparklePower

Playlists were compiled with care to make sure they not only conveyed the right mood, but that they were also split acceptably between Side A and Side B; if you weren't cognizant of song length, you might find an unintentionally abrupt stop to the music at the end of a side.

heatherjeany

Before embarking on recording the mix, you also had to be fairly confident with the order of your selections. Once a song was sandwiched between two others, a change was only possible if you could find a song of equal length to fill the space or if you were willing to re-record everything after the change in selection. Once an entire side was recorded, there was often no turning back.

InvitaPaperStudio

Choosing the title of the tape, as well as the right words for the stickers on both sides, felt monumentally important. Fitting the entire playlist on the allotted spaces of the case liner was a creative challenge, and sometimes the cover of the case liner turned into your own work of art.

Messenger Bird Press

When the last song had been recorded, the liner notes written, and identifying stickers placed on each side of the tape, you'd slide the cassette into its case. The finished product you then held in your hands was not just a mix tape, but was also a labor of love.

Because I still have a huge collection of my old mix tapes, I love the idea of this product!

Lovebirds

You certainly don't have to be in love to appreciate the sweetness of these black and white lovebirds.

Fly With Me

Ferm Living via Lekker

Pistachio Press

Merry Happy

I've mentioned before how exciting I find it to chose my Christmas gift wrap "theme" each year; I love when holiday papers make their debut each fall! I typically whittle down the list of contenders until I have decided on my color scheme, but some years, all it takes is just one wrapping paper. I'll fall in love, and it is all over; no other contenders even exist from that point forward.


Two years ago, I went with a red and white theme for my gift wrap, and I threw in some apple green accents; I loved how cheerful the packages looked under the tree.

While I like to go with different themes each year, and even though it was a theme I chose not that long ago, I am finding myself drawn to the red and white color scheme again this year.


And I must admit, I still have some wrapping paper left over from that Christmas, so, in this time of economic-woe, it probably doesn't hurt to be a little thrifty; I'll probably stick to only red and white this time (no apple green in the mix.) I'll add some new ribbons, tags, and other packages accessories, and the look should be as good as new.

All tags from Cotton Idea Studio

*And, of course, I heart this and would love to throw it in the mix...yet because I have an insane amount of the brown and white version left over from my wedding, I am not sure I can justify purchasing more just yet...

Not Just Upper Crust

I promise I am moving on from apples, but I couldn't leave the topic without mentioning these sweet calling cards from Etsy shop Avie Designs. It seems so upper crust* to have calling cards, but these cards are certainly an affordable luxury with 48 cards for $12.50.

That's it. Moving on (well, at least for a while!)

*I couldn't help but love learning the history behind the phrase "upper crust." One of those phrases I had never given much thought to the origin, although it's probably not difficult to guess if you think about it. This handy fact come to us from U.S. Apple Association.

In early America, when times were hard and cooking supplies were scarce, cooks often had to scrimp and save on ingredients. Apple pie was a favorite dish, but to save on lard and flour, only a bottom crust was made. More affluent households could afford both an upper and a lower crust, so those families became known as "the upper crust."