Lately, I haven't had much time for crafting "R&D", ie messing around. But I managed to do some quickie projects after getting inspired from my first visit to Urbanic on Abbot Kinney in Venice, CA.

I am in looove with this boutique! It's one of the nicest stationery stores I have ever visited. I've been to Abbot Kinney dozens of times, but somehow this was the first time I actually noticed this shop. For shame...

Through Urbanic, I discovered a stationery brand called O-Check, from Korea. They have adoraaable papers and notebooks and stamps and and and... I love their frenchy, minimalistic, classical styles. I have a long-standing romance with papers—I wanted to buy all their paper pads! Go check out Urbanic if you're in town!

I think it was on the O-Check blog that I saw a photo of a simple notecard that had some machine stitching on it that looked simplistic, but elegant. I wanted to give it a try with some of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine that I pretty much have never, ever used.

Kind of cute, yea? It takes like 1 minute to sew each one, and you can totally have fun with all kinds of designs and colors! You can make greeting cards, note paper, letter paper, letterheads, etc etc. I totally dig that leafy stitch one below.

One of the cool stuffs O-Check has are these patterned tape. They have 'em as regular glossy tapes and masking tapes. I got a roll of the glossy ones with a red grid printed on it. It's so cool, but I don't know how to use it. So I stuck some on this clear glass bathroom tile I picked up from Home Depot the other day. Now it's a cup coaster! I actually like it a lot. And it's so simple to make! Costs like $3 bucks per tile at HD.

Alright, that's enough fun. Gotta get back to work!