The Burlap Bag

giveaway – custom portrait!

Lauren — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:12:43 +0000

Ok. Get ready for another awesome giveaway. Our friend Mandy creates these AMAZING portraits.

I seriously want to keep this for myself because how ridiculous/awesome would our portrait be? Me in a vintage dress, Josiah's dorky glasses and a sweet bow tie, plus Carrots and Turnip, of course. So I’ll just pick myself as the giveaway winner, ok? Ok. Ok fine just kidding.

A custom portrait for YOU is up for grabs!

One of these portraits would be so perfect for: newlyweds, new parents, your parents’ anniversary, the holiday season, a crazy cat lady, etc etc.
You’ll receive an awesome 8.5 x 11″ hand drawn and painted illustration on watercolor paper.

Some words from Mandy herself:

All I need to get started on a Custom Portrait are a bunch of pictures of the couple/family and their pets. I really love it, if at least one picture is of them from head-to-toe. (That is way helpful for me) And then I ask them some questions about what they want to wear, how they want their hair to look and other stuff too, like when they got married if they want it listed.. One of my favorite portraits has chickens in it!

I opened up my etsy shop last November and I started working from home full time this January. Aaaand almost everyday I paint, I listen to Alison Krause & Union Station or She & Him.

and here’s the cute portrait with the chickens!

Aren’t you just dying for your own portrait? I knew it. Here’s how you can win:

We have 7 different ways you can enter this giveaway for a custom watercolor portrait. Please leave a SEPARATE comment for each entry… so if you do all 7, you should leave us 7 different comments here! If you leave them all in one comment we will NOT count them as multiple… it gets too crazy with +100 comments!

-Option 1: In the upper right hand column, sign up for our newsletter OR to get each post emailed to you. Then leave a comment telling us you signed up. (already signed up? tell us!)

-Option 2: “Like” The Burlap Bag on facebook! Then tell us here. (already “liked” us? Leave a comment saying so.)

-Option 3: Leave a comment on another blog post of ours! Then tell us here that you did.

-Option 4: Post a pin to pinterest about the giveaway. Then tell us here.

-Option 5: Share the giveaway on facebook! Or twitter. Then tell us here.

-Option 6: “Like” Mandy Cave Watercolor on facebook! Then tell us here.

-Option 7: “Favorite” Mandy Cave Watercolor on etsy! Then tell us here.

The giveaway officially ends June 1st, 2013 at 1:00pm central time.

use a carrot to transport knives

Lauren — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:38:46 +0000

This is one of those simple little life hacks/tips and tricks that are like "oh. duh. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT SOONER??!"

Picnics are awesome. I'm especially fans of one that include an Austin skyline, lots of fruit, salami, CHEESE, and boxed wine. And a calm dog or two. Ok and dessert.

But you always gotta bring a knife for that cheese. I don't know how many times I've been like "uh, what do i do with the knife?" and just awkwardly stuck it in my bag... hoping to not accidentally stab myself to death.

WELL fear no more. Here's a solution:

Use a carrot to transport knives (perfect for picnics!)

I actually got this idea from a book – they mentioned to use two wine corks. Which I then tried and almost sliced my finger off…. it was so dry, there was no getting the knife in there!

So I thought for a minute about what else I could use… a carrot! We just sliced through the carrot with the entire blade until the knife was halfway through the carrot – and then just stopped so that it stayed in there. Carrots are thick enough that it won’t continue going through all on its own. (you could also try a squash or something like that, but they aren’t quite as hard). And when you get back home, just eat the carrot! No wasting! And no blood. It’s what I would call a perfect day.

Go enjoy yourself a good picnic for me, no blood please.

cocktail diagrams (and press!)

Lauren — Wed, 08 May 2013 20:02:44 +0000

Getting out our creative juices through some new designs!

Brunch necessities - a cocktail diagram.

because everyone needs a good excuse to drink before 12…..

And then some evening cocktails….

of course, they are in our online shop now as prints :)

In other news… we got a little bit of press today! Pillsbury reached out a couple of weeks ago asking if they could link to our baking eggs in the oven post. Of course we said yes! Who can resist the little dough boy and his belly. It was featured on their front page and forever now on this linky here. And here’s two screen shots!

and

Thanks Pillsbury. Keep being pilly.

giveaway – 3 sterling silver rings

Lauren — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:08:36 +0000

It's time for another giveaway!

It's for 3 BEAUTIFUL sterling silver rings - with textured spinning blocks! They are all hand forged by Erin Griffin Silversmith.

Wear all 3 at once or just 1. (you could even give them to 3 friends if you’re feeling nice!) They are each approximately 7-7.5 in ring size.

And man. Do I want to keep these for myself. They are awesome and the little spinning block is so fun to play with!

Erin is seriously the nicest person ever. Josiah and I met her and her friend of the boy kind, Brian at SXSW. We ate popcorn and hated ourselves for doing the dusty event and laughed a lot.

Brian also is an artist and makes the cooooolest wood items ever. Seriously. We have 2 of his vases in our house, as seen below:

Ok sorry, back to business, those sweet vases aren’t included in the giveaway.
But THESE are:

If you’d like these sweet rings…. here’s some options!

How you can win these:

We have 5 different ways you can enter this giveaway for 3 sterling silver rings. Please leave a SEPARATE comment for each entry… so if you do all 5, you should leave us 5 comments here! If you leave them all in one comment we will NOT count them as multiple… it gets too crazy with +100 comments!

-Option 1: In the upper right hand column, sign up for our newsletter OR to get each post emailed to you. Then leave a comment telling us you signed up. (already signed up? tell us!)

-Option 2: “Like” The Burlap Bag on facebook! Then tell us here. (already “liked” us? Leave a comment saying so.)

-Option 3: Post a pin to pinterest about the giveaway. Or a post on facebook. Or on twitter. Or some other social media! Then tell us here.

-Option 4: Take a look-sy at Erin Griffin Silversmith’s website. Tell us what item of hers you just LOVE! (i love the whole weightless collection!)

-Option 5: “Like” BDJ Craft Works on facebook! Erin doesn’t have a business facebook page… so Brian’s as close as we can get. :)

The giveaway officially has ended! Congrats to Meagan for winning – check your email!

got glue

Lauren — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:52:18 +0000

got glue?

this is the latest chalkboard sign in the window at the Burlap Bag.

(if you’re a little slow on the understanding…. horse + horn = unicorn, whale + horn = narwhal. And it’s a ven diagram. CMON PEOPLE)

diy goo gone

Lauren — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:05:15 +0000

Here at the shop, we give people $1 off their next candle purchase if they bring us their previous candle jar once they're done with it. And we've had TONS of people return them - which is awesome! What's not awesome: having to take off all the label stickers and clean 'em out so we can reuse them for más candles.

Well, luckily, there's an awesome way to make your own goo gone (or sticky-stuff-be-gone-mixture). Or whatever you wanna call it. AND IT'S SO SIMPLE!

DIY goo gone:

Are ya ready: (you better be. it’s soooo complicated)

Mix together equal-ish parts baking soda and oil

You can choose whatever type of oil you want. Vegetable, canola, olive, sesame, coconut if you’re feeling tropical….

We tried it with both canola and sesame because that’s what we had lying around.

Form it into a paste – obviously add more baking soda if you think it’s too liquidy, more oil if it’s too thick.

Then, spread it onto whatever has that icky sticky residue and leave it for a few minutes. Then come back and wipe it with a sponge/cloth. You might hafta work for like 15 seconds at it if it’s a super sticky thing, but it’ll come off so much easier than if you had no homemade goo gone and tried to use your fingernail (and breaking it in the process!).

I accidentally left it on one jar for an hour and then came back to AMAZENESS to clean up. I literally just wiped it with a sponge and goodbye sticky stuffffff.

What’s awesome about this:

-It’s completely made of foods you can eat. (I mean, don’t. It would taste sick nasty. But what is even IN real goo gone?) sidenote: I saw another post online for homemade goo gone and it included GASOLINE as an ingredient. Umm… what??! Does it get more gross/smelly/toxic than gasoline?

-It’s sooooo easy and cheap to make yourself! Baking soda is 48 cents online. 48 CENTS! Plus it’s completely customizable with whatever oil you want.

and if you’re missing that “goo gone-y” smell with this homemade goo gone… never fear. Grab some orange essential oil and it’ll be smelling just like normal! Or you could add peppermint… or lemon…. or or or…..

do be careful about what materials you use this on, please! try it on a small area first. it worked great on glass. but don’t come crying to me because your blah blah blah got ruined - i warned ya!

free clothing swap!

Lauren — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:54:40 +0000

We're hosting our THIRD free clothing swap! The first and second one were a blast... and we figured it was time to host another one! (also, we were cleaning out our closets and I had so many awesome things that I want to give to others!)

I made this awesome kitty cat graphic for the event… because I can.

Ok. So if you’re here in Austin and a lady, come hang out with us on April 28th from 4 to 5:30! (and RSVP and invite friends HERE!)

Keep sponges on soap dishes

Lauren — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:03:58 +0000

Ok. I've seen a tip floating around on the interwebzz. And personally, we like the way we do it more than this tip. So we thought we'd share. But. If you like that other way, then AWESOME. You can still read our blog and we can be interweb friendz.

Here's our way:

Keep sponges on soap dishes to let them dry out.

We just use a wooden soap dish – and it lifts our sponge up off the side of the sink so that it can dry out! (our exact soap dish here) They are so cheap and great at not letting our sponge mildew. And I’ve noticed they don’t smell as bad as when you just leave them on the counter!

Why a soap dish is awesome: You just place the sponge on it and WALK AWAY! It might not dry it out AS much as the binder clip would, but our sponges dry it super fast.

Ok – now the other one is still a super cool idea of using a binder clip to lift up the sponge.

My problems with it: I don’t wanna hafta attempt to open up a binder clip when I have slippery wet hands. I can barely open those suckers sometimes! (boohoo, my hard life, i know :) )Also, I don’t like that it leaves a huge indention (and even tears) at the sponge. I’m cheap, yo! Also, it looks kinda silly being upright like that. Just bein’ honest.

(also, I just noticed that tear and tear are spelled the same way but sound different. It must be impossible to learn english! If you tear up my sponge, my eyes will tear.)

Ok. Well. That’s all. Two tips for the price of one. Except you know which one is obviously the better one (ours). :)

The Plastic Bag – Low quality machine-made goods

Lauren — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:00:37 +0000

Josiah and I have been doing a lot of thinking, and we think its time to rebrand the blog and shop. So we are changing from The Burlap Bag – high quality handmade goods to The Plastic Bag – low quality machine-made goods. It just seems like a good fit. A whole shop full of items from China and blog tutorials on microwave dinners and gluing yarn to plastic plates.
Give us your thoughts!

In other world news, today is the first of April.

Always be a unicorn…. giveaway!

Lauren — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 18:24:25 +0000

giveaway time!

We love this poster. And so do a lot of people. Hopefully it's your cup of tea - because we're giving it away!

Always be yourself. Unless you can be a a unicorn. Then always be a unicorn.

I’d say it’s a pretty solid life motto. And one of you could win it as a print.

How you can win dis:

We have 6 different ways you can enter this giveaway for one 12×18 poster print. Please leave a SEPARATE comment for each entry… so if you do all 6, you should leave us 6 comments here! If you leave them all in one comment we will NOT count them as multiple… it gets too crazy with +100 comments!

-Option 1: In the upper right hand column, sign up for our newsletter OR to get each post emailed to you. Then leave a comment telling us you signed up. (already signed up? tell us!)

-Option 2: Leave a comment on one of our other posts! Then leave a comment here that you commented.

-Option 3: Post a pin to pinterest about the giveaway. Or a post on facebook. Or on twitter. Or some other social media! Then tell us here.

-Option 4: “Like” The Burlap Bag on facebook! Then tell us here. (already “liked” us? Leave a comment saying so.)

-Option 5: Follow The Burlap Bag on the instagrams. (or our kittehs! haha.) Then tell us.

-Option 6: Leave a comment with another funny quote that you’d like to see on a poster!

The giveaway officially ends April 3rd at 1:00pm central time.

AND IT’S OVER! Congrats to Shelley T. for winning. Check yo email!