Jewell's Picks & Pics: Paper's Edge

A latest discovery, this time through Tangled and True blog. Aren't these cute? You can have one custom ordered for your little one at Paper's Edge blogspot. I have to say, it would be tough to make one yourself!

Jewell's Picks & Pics: Free Range

I love chickens. So I've been doing a little research on "free range," and I've discovered it's important to do you homework. In the United States, we have a lot of catching up to do. According to Wikipedia:

"The USDA has no specific definition for "free-range" beef, pork, and other non-poultry products. All USDA definitions of "free-range" refer specifically to poultry. No other criteria-such as the size of the range or the amount of space given to each animal-are required before beef, lamb, and pork can be called "free-range". Claims and labeling using "free range" are therefore unregulated. The USDA relies "upon producer testimonials to support the accuracy of these claims."

Whereas in Europe:
"The European Union regulates marketing standards for egg farming which specifies the following (cumulative) minimum conditions for Free range method:

• Hens have continuous daytime access to open-air runs, except in the case of temporary restrictions imposed by veterinary authorities,
  
• The open-air runs to which hens have access is mainly covered with vegetation and not used for other purposes except for orchards, woodland and livestock grazing if the latter is authorised by the competent authorities.

Let's do our part to make this country a happy place for chickens!

Check out these adorable chicken-friendly baby products:

Moolka

Sashimi Baby

Moon's Creations

Moth Designs

Playstore Toys

Feltmates

Land of Nod

Coco boardbooks by Sloane Tanen

More Progress

Please friends, any suggestions? If you were actually going to delve out and buy some hand-letterpressed notecards, which of these are your favorites, and for what purpose would you use the cards? (Copyright 2008 The Paper Nut)

An Etsy Wedding

Here are some discoveries I've made on Etsy, some of which I've discovered through other blogs (Oh Joy, Coco+Kelley). If you know of any other artists who make handcrafted wedding items, invitation designs, cakes, etc, please let me know!

The Small Object

Niki Jewellery

Magic Bean Buyer

Kats Krafts

LaLaLaurie

Cornflake Girl

Jewell's Picks & Pics: Our Trip to the Beach

Here I am at the greatest beach on earth: Cannon Beach, Oregon. Mommy and Daddy came here on their honeymoon. That was the last time they were here. Now they have ME, and the beach is even more fun. Here's a little gallery of some of my favorite moments in front of Haystack Rock:

Design report: We stopped in at this small fabric store on South Hancock Street.

They carried very cute designer prints (lots of Amy Butler). I really loved these mermaid and ocean life fabrics:

Sneak Peak

I haven't been blogging this week because I've been consumed in other things, like actually designing stuff. Here are a couple samples of what I've been working on. (Copyright The Paper Nut 2008)

Also, I just received an email from my previous employer, Bobby Buchanan, who I worked for at Buchanan Design in San Diego. He just told me the notecards we did for his non-profit line, Orangetree Project just made it into How Magazine, p.101 under "Pro Bono"! So some illustrations I did are actually in a Design Annual. Wow. Sorry the pics are really small; I just pulled them from the website. I'll replace them with some better versions later. By the way, you can still purchase these notecards on the website and ALL proceeds go directly to various charitable causes (most often to help less fortunate children).