Crystal Madrilejos

Design & Creative

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Before & After

The first few months of our move from NYC back to Ohio revolved almost entirely around fixing up the farmhouse. So much time was spent (and still is) on fixing up the house and we’ve barely posted anything about it. The only posts that we do have about the renovation are mainly to bitch and moan about how back breaking the work was. So, finally we have some photos to show for it. I wanted to wait and put the photos side-by-side before I posted them and I’ve finally put them together. There aren’t pictures of the entire house because there are rooms that are still a mess (not because of renovations necessarily, but because we need to clean!).

One day… For now, enjoy these! We definitely are!

(click no the picture for a bigger image)










Uncategorized

Before & After

The first few months of our move from NYC back to Ohio revolved almost entirely around fixing up the farmhouse. So much time was spent (and still is) on fixing up the house and we’ve barely posted anything about it. The only posts that we do have about the renovation are mainly to bitch and moan about how back breaking the work was. So, finally we have some photos to show for it. I wanted to wait and put the photos side-by-side before I posted them and I’ve finally put them together. There aren’t pictures of the entire house because there are rooms that are still a mess (not because of renovations necessarily, but because we need to clean!).

One day… For now, enjoy these! We definitely are!

(click no the picture for a bigger image)










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Mustache





Maybe you remember awhile back I mentioned Christmas presents (yes, CHRISTMAS presents, you know, that holiday that took place about 7 months ago??) me and Andrew made for our nieces and nephews. I remembered them because of two incidents. First, Andrew’s mom being the very prepared person she is, mentioned a Christmas gift that she just bought for a friend at an art fair. Second, my sister mentioned the gift we made for our nephew, Falcon, and said the kids play with it all the time. I figured it was high time to finally post about the gifts, just in case anyone was looking for ideas for this coming Christmas.

This pillow person/thing is the 3rd one i’ve made and it’s inspired by a creation by Hillary Lang over at Wee Wonderfuls. It’s such a simple and fun idea and oh-so-easy to customize to a kids liking. This is actually the fun part, coming up with ideas of how it should look. Sewing it, not so fun. And stuffing it with random pieces of foam and poly-fill, even less fun. All of that is worth it when you see how much the kids enjoy it though.

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Summertime

If you’ve been trying to view our site lately, you probably noticed that it was re-directing you to a page saying we haven’t uploaded any content. Turns out that I needed to renew our domain name, which ended up being a week-long, super frustrating process. A number of times, I felt like ripping my hair out, screaming, and crying out “Why is this happening to me?!” But it’s all figured out and we’re back up.

Today I’ve been uploading like crazy to Flickr. Now that there video uploading capabilities, I’ve added a year worth of videos, that i’m sure no one but my family cares to see. Along with about a million photos of my family.

Above is a little sampler of photos from our wedding. Our photographer, Lauren Crew, is amazingly talented!!! Check out her site here.

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Tonight

This is what the sky looked like tonight! I figured if our posts are going to be so few and far between we could at least leave you with a beautiful image to look at!

The wedding was wonderful and the house is livable. Now, we can sit back and relax and hopefully POST MORE OFTEN!!!

(click for bigger image)

Fondly,
Crystal

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2 Month Mark

It has been 2 months since our move and 4 weeks since my last post and guess what? The farmhouse STILL isn’t done!!! Crazy, I know. We are so close to moving in. We could potentially move in now, but all the shoe molding needs to be tacked down around the baseboards and it would just be a hassle to work around furniture.

I can’t wait to show pictures of the before and after. I was thinking of uploading some pictures the other day, but then I realized that the disc with all the Before pictures are buried somewhere in a box in the garage with all the rest of our stuff. I didn’t want to post any After pictures without the Before pictures and risk ruining the full effect of our labors.

Hopefully, the next time I post it will be from the comforts of our own home. Until then you may contemplate these dolls that I made around Christmastime for some friends of mine. Which I will tell more about soon, along with other presents that I neglected to post about during the whirlwind that was our move.

Fondly,
Crystal

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A Million Years Later

It’s officially been one month since our last post!!! I don’t even know where to start. Right now, I’m writing from Andrew’s parent’s computer because our entire existence is put on hold until we can move into the farmhouse, including our computer being relatively out of commission until we have a proper internet set up of our own. If any of you didn’t know, we just did a giant move from Brooklyn, NY to Medina, OH and we’re still getting adjusted.

First big hurdle being: The living situation
Our big plan all along has been to move into a farmhouse that Andrew’s parents rent out. It’s old, built sometime before 1930 and it needed work. Before we moved, we figured it would just need some cosmetic touch ups such as tearing out the old carpet, splash on a new coat of paint, etc. However, this house has proven to be almost more than we can handle!!! I can’t even begin to explain the walls that have been thrown up in front of us every step of the way. So almost a month after moving, we have yet to actually “move” into our new place. Currently we are residing above Andrew’s parents garage and we have a goal of moving into the farmhouse in the next 2 weeks. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. As soon as we are more settled, i’ll post pictures of all the progress we’ve been making.

Second hurdle: Work
Currently, both Andrew and I are blissfully unemployed. I had planned on taking off the whole month of February, but some freelance popped up and I can’t say no when the prospects of work in the future are unclear. More work seems to be on the horizon, which is a really really good thing but I was actually sort of enjoying the not working part of our move. HA!

I have so much to share so as soon as we have settled, I promise to post more.

Hope you all are well.

Fondly,
Crystal

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New Beginnings



Things are moving forward quickly and our move is imminent! I’m officially done with work. Our apartment is almost completely dismantled. Our bags are literally packed. It’s a bit nerve-wracking and completely exhausting. I’m excited to finally get on with it, but I’m definitely sad to be leaving the place I called home for the past 8+ years. So many of our friends have been so supportive and it’s been wonderful spending time with everyone. We will miss you all dearly. I can’t even begin to describe the emotions and thoughts that are running through my head all day and night. I’m excited, scared, nervous, happy, relieved, exhausted, anxious, and everything else all at the same time. I’m hoping that this move will give us a kick-start into new and amazing parts of our lives. There is so much to look forward to and I haven’t truly expounded on all that there is to come. Basically, all aspects of our lives will be thrown for a loop. A new house, new job prospects (Freelance, here I come!), new environment, new (and old) friends, family. This may be my last post for a little while, but we’re going to try to set up shop ASAP so we can keep you up to date on all things shiny and new. Take care and see you on the other side.

Fondly,
Crystal

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Friends of Mine




Many a month ago, I made a doll from a pattern I found in one of my Japanese craft books. Maybe you’ll remember him as the hipster bear with his little flower-y shorts and jaunty neckerchief. I was quite happy with how he turned out, but I wanted to try to make him my own by changing things up a little bit.

Since then I’ve made quite a few, but haven’t yet had a chance to post about them. This one I made for my dear friend Chandra over at This Is For That, for her birthday. If you remember the original one I made was more bear-like. I consider this new incarnation more dog-like in the face. This one in particular is the only one I’ve made thus far that has the roundy hands and feet. I’m not skilled in the ways of pattern-making so that’s why the hands and feet are more like flat ovals than rounded balls. Ah well, next time around. He’s also more squat in the body while the others I’ve made have a body more like the hipster bear, just with the dog face I created. I have a love for mismatched fabrics which probably stems from my childhood obsession with Holly Hobbie. I’ve always wanted to dress like her. The idea of being able to get away with wearing a bonnet and brown boots intrigues me.

Here are more photos of him standing around by the window.



Fondly,
Crystal

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The Final Countdown

We’re moving in 20 days!!! I still can hardly believe it and yet it’s all happening before my eyes. What hasn’t been happening is me sitting down in front of the computer to post about the million things that I’ve been wanting to post about.

First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and New Year.

Second, we’ve made so many things in the past couple months that I couldn’t possibly post all about them at once. Especially, since I’m sitting in my pajamas about to go to bed. I thought I should at least check in so no one thinks we’ve fallen off the face of the earth. Almost, but not yet.


A little while back, Andrew and I bought a new computer. The monitor is an enormous 24-inches! The screen is so big that it’s almost too bright to look at without squinting. It’s unbearable to have an all white desktop image. I’m a big fan of Nintendo, Super Mario especially so I found this tiny image of the opening screen of the first Super Mario:


I wanted this image to be our desktop image, but it’s super super tiny. I decided to employ my ever expanding Photoshop skills and create this:

It probably took a lot more time than it was worth, but I think it’s slightly hilarious and awesome nonetheless.

Next post: Handmade Presents – Birthdays and Holidays

Fondly,
Crystal