Inspired by: Laura Tarrish | Bridgetown Papers

I recently came across a fabulous artist on pinterest - Laura Tarrish. I found my way to her website, portfolio, and online shop and immediately loved her gorgeous work. She is a graphic designer and collage artist, and uses tons of vintage ephemera throughout her designs (!!). She has had tons of clients, including TheBoston Globe, Apple Computer, Chronicle Books and the U.S. Department of Energy. Wow! Laura has had careers as a graphic designer and illustrator and has recently added design blog contributor to her resume, contributing to Design Observer and Felt&Wire. An avid collector of various kinds of ephemera, Laura admits to having a studio which is always disorganized and messy but rich with possibilities!

I am completely inspired by her work :) So for today, a glimpse into her studio/workspace and her gorgeous work - She graciously sent me some of her beautiful images to share with you :) Her glassine cards are one of my faves - she talks about these adorable cards in her shop: "I’ve been a collector as long as I can remember… and for many years, I’ve created tiny collages in glassine envelopes with pieces of type, old (and made up) fortunes, stamps, bits of maps, ticket stubs etc. Once made only for friends, I am now offering these cards for your special occasions! Each card has various floating elements and each one can be customized with with 1 or 2 letters of your choice. Each card is UNIQUE!"

She also creates these gorgeous personalized collages to commemorate an event, person, family or trip.

Personalized notecards

A glimpse into her studio:

Aren't you completely inspired?! :) Facebook: Bridgetown Papers | Portfolio: Laura Tarrish and Bridgetown Papers | Online Shop: Bridgetown Papers

All images from Laura Tarrish.

I'm finally on Twitter.

Soooo I finally have a twitter account. I know, I know, I'm behind on the times. If you like, follow me on twitter here (@creativeplace_). I think I might need to find a tutorial on how to use twitter. Haha :) What about you? Do you have a twitter account (Is that even what it's called? Or do you just say "Do you have a twitter?")? Do you tweet a lot?

Food: Peanut Butter Cookies

So for some random reason I had a craving for peanut butter cookies the other night. I found a recipe online and adapted it to suit my personal taste. They were quite yummy :)Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoons baking soda

Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars. Add vanilla. Beat in egg. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into batter a little at a time. Put batter in refrigerator for 1 hour.

Roll into 1 inch balls and put on baking sheets. Flatten each ball with a fork, making a criss-cross pattern. Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for about 8-10 minutes or until cookies begin to brown. Be careful not to over-bake.Recipe adapted from allrecipes.com

Pretty Package

I absolutely love to wrap small packages in leftover paper supplies I have laying around. It's so much more fun than using a roll of wrapping paper - but don't get me wrong, I love wrapping paper too! In fact, I wrapped this cute little gift in the brown paper from the interior of a wrapping paper roll (you know how sometimes there isn't a tube at the end of the roll? It's just stiff-er brown kraft-type-paper?). I then used a doily and covered it with some fabric swatches, a vintage button and topped it off with fabulous Divine Twine, alphabet letters, a leftover fabric scrap and some paper rounds. Reusing and adding a handmade touch :)

around here

DIY :: Button Bracelet

One of my sweet friends was wearing a button bracelet the other day-- it was SO super cute. I told her I was going to attempt to make one, because I loved it so much! So, after a couple tries, I came up with this cute little thing. Incredibly simple to make, all you need is elastic thread, a needle, and a bunch of different sizes and colors of buttons.

Fun thing is, you could make a bunch of bracelets using different colored buttons to coordinate with different outfits :)

I cut a piece of the elastic after measuring it around my wrist and made it a tad smaller so it would stretch and fit snug. I then threaded the first button on (the large brown one on the left) and tied a knot on the back. Next, I started threading different buttons on, varying the colors and sizes. Some of the smaller buttons fit on top of the large buttons for a nice layered effect.
I kept threading on the buttons, as well as pushing them all down on the thread to make them snugly fit next to each other.
When I got towards the end, I pulled the elastic out a little bit to fit on one more button and then tied the thread to the back of the beginning button.

Voila! A fun button bracelet :)