Printable: Poster and Price Tags for Your Next Yard Sale.

With summer in full swing, yard sales have been sprouting up everywhere.

They are one of my favorite things about the season: people's old treasures spread on their lawns, the slight guilt of browsing through a stranger's artifacts…

Recently, while packing for a big move, I got excited about the idea of having my own yard sale to thin out the contents of my apartment. Alas, yard sales are not allowed on the grounds of my apartment complex—the sorrow!—so I ended up donating my stuff to a local charity instead.

I'm still excited about the idea of hosting my own yard sale one day, and making a small event of the occasion, with colorful balloons and icy water for the visitors…

For now, I'm pretty content with helping others put together their own de-cluttering event:

This ink-saving set of poster + 16 price tags can be printed on 8.5 x 11 sheets. The printouts are black & white, the idea is to add your own touch. 

Download the full resolution poster and tags.

The poster is a coloring page of sorts: print as many as you need and fill in the letters in bright colors for added visibility. This could be a fun project for the younger family members, and a way for them to get involved—although no one will judge if you find yourself coloring letters and loving it!

As for the tags, you can color them in or leave them as they are, put some string through them, or tape them in place. Make sure you print a good stack of them, in case you decide to modify prices as the sale advances—and also because price tags have a tendency to get lost in the commotion. 

Nail some posters around town, prepare your price tags, and unveil your own trove of goods to the world. Oh, and read around for advice on how to have a successful yard sale; some people have made an art of it!

Good luck! May your yard sale rid you of the old, and make room for new things.

Anabel Bouza insists there's powerful magic in the action of creating something out of a vague vision, a chill of inspiration. She is an illustrator with a passion for nature, paper manipulation, and pointing her camera at things. Her appreciation for simplicity dates back to a former life in Cuba where she refined the ability to see the alternative uses of common objects, and the enchanting side of things. 
You can find her blogging as Weird Amiga, hard at work in her sunny studio, or staring at things as if looking at them for the first time. 
Connect to Anabel via facebook and twitter. 

Printable: Geometric Tags and Labels.

Today, I'm glad to share with you some geometric goodness! 

This is a versatile set of moody paper "rocks" that can become labels, notes, or tags, depending on whether you cut them or fold them. 

I printed mine on thick presentation paper, but if all you have on hand is the regular kind, just glue the shapes to whatever sturdy paper you can find—cereal boxes or colorful junk mail, for instance.

• To create place cards, mini notes, or gift tags, fold along the dashed lines.

• To create individual little labels, cut along the dashed line instead of folding.

Just punch a hole in a spot of your choosing & run some pretty string or ribbon through it!

You can hang these labels from canisters or boxes, listing the contents; use them to make a quick garland, or create simple, unique bookmarks by attaching them to longer strands of ribbon.

You can download the high resolution printable here. It fits an 8.5x11 sheet, each page contains 5 folded pieces, or 10 pieces (when cut along the guides).
Hope you have fun putting these together, and adding your own touches to the project!

Anabel Bouza insists there's powerful magic in the action of creating something out of a vague vision, a chill of inspiration. She is an illustrator with a passion for nature, paper manipulation, and pointing her camera at things. 

Her appreciation for simplicity dates back to a former life in Cuba where she refined the ability to see the alternative uses of common objects, and the enchanting side of things. She can be found blogging as Weird Amiga, hard at work in her sunny studio, or staring at things as if looking at them for the first time. Connect to Anabel via facebook and twitter. 

Heart Cloud - a Free Wallpaper for You

Sometimes your heart is as light as a fluffy white cloud in the summer sky. Sometimes it is more like a stormy cloud, ready to burst with rain. Whatever the season I wish you to listen to your heart and follow it... up, up and beyond!

Happy Valentine's day to all!

I love you for your selfless support. Yes, even you, the ones who read quietly, without leaving a comment. I love you for taking the time to visit every day.

Here is a free wallpaper I made for you. It is available for desktop, laptop and mobile phones.

Download your wallpaper here: 1920x1080 | Android | iPad | iPhone 4 | iPhone 5

This post is part of Listen to Your Heart month on Kanelstrand. Read the rest of the posts here and join in the discussions, we'd love to know what you think! 

Simple DIY: Free Christmas Gift Tags!

This post is written by contributing authors Vivid Please.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

This month we thought we would create a fun free print out for everyone to share - tis the season after all!

Vivid HQ is already brimming with gifts for the holidays, and we love nothing more than to sit down and have a good wrap-a-thon.

Always keen to have something a little different and to save some money, we've created a set of 6 tags for you to download and attach to your presents to jazz them up a bit. How fun!

We've got Santa's mustache, a couple of crackers and 3 classic styled gift tags with our very own special design for you to download and print for free.

All you need to do is save the file below, and print out at A4. Carefully cut each one out with scissors and hole punch the circles into the gift tags. Then using some string or glue, simply stick on your pretty wrapped boxes and pop under the tree... Perfect!

Vivid Christmas Tags (1MB PDF - right-click and 'Save As...')

Don't they look fab? 

We have over 20 family members coming round for the big day and we think the little personal touches like these make all the difference. The prettier and more fun the better we say :D  

We hope you enjoy our little gift to you and we wish you a very merry Christmas!

Happy Wrapping...

Vivid Please are known as Vicky and David when they are not together, but to be fair, that is rarely the case. Forever collecting odd trinkets and pointing at cute dogs, they believe that happiness is found in the little things. Their etsy shop stocks everything from prints and stationery to bags and accessories, everyday life has never seemed so fun! You can keep up with them by following their blog Vivid Please where they share their awesome DIYs, cool design and fashion posts and, of course, lots of snapshots from their world of wonder. Connect with Vivid Please on Twitter and Pinterest. 

DIY: Illustrated Candle Holder Covers

This post is written by contributing author Anabel Bouza.

Don't you love that moody flicker of candlelight? It expands the limits of a room, helps create a quiet atmosphere... Electric light can feel ruthless and impertinent by comparison.

Ever since a line-up of candles settled on my ledge for the season, I've been coming up with ways to dress them up temporarily. My tea lights live (and burn) inside generic glass containers, which I have cleaned and repurposed after their original candles ran their course.

In the spirit of season, I would like to share a DIY project for candle lovers. The graphic look of these covers will turn your generic glass holders into a fun wintry scene.

Just print the file on a regular A4 sheet (8.5 x 11), cut inside the yellow lines, and secure with transparent tape where the edges meet. 

I use single-side tape to keep the paper cover from sticking to the glass, that way is easier to remove in a pinch.

Have time and an X-acto knife? Then go ahead and modify "Behind the Fence" by cutting out the white triangles for the light to shine through.

Click to download.

These covers are not meant for exposed candles. They fit the standard Glade 4-ounce candle jars, and the small tumblers sold by Yankee Candle, respectively. 

Using tea lights (or some other small candle) inside the jar keeps the flame from burning too close to the edge. Something I like about tea lights: the fact that they don't burn for too long means you're not forced to live with the same fragrance (or any fragrance at all) every time you crave candlelight. 

Especially now that the nights have grown longer, the lighting of a cozy flame can help usher in a relaxing evening, after leaving the day behind. If it pains you to get rid of perfectly good glass containers —my case!— a tea light and a unique jar cover are the perfect way to create instant magic.

Anabel Bouza insists there's powerful magic in the action of creating something out of a vague vision, a chill of inspiration. She is an illustrator with a passion for nature, paper manipulation, and pointing her camera at things.

Her appreciation for simplicity dates back to a former life in Cuba - her strange homeland - where she refined the ability to see the alternative uses of common objects, and the enchanting side of things. She's often found blogging as Weird Amiga, hard at work in her sunny studio, or staring at things as if looking at them for the first time. Her tiny family is comprised of her husband & a turtle; they're new to the city of Chicago, and they love it. Connect to Anabel via facebook and twitter.

Weekend DIY: Candy Boxes For Halloween - Free Printable

This post is written by contributing authors Vivid Please.

Hello! 

We're Vivid Please and we're super excited to be hanging out with you on Kanelstrand's blog today! And what a treat we have in store for you too :)

Halloween is almost here. In preparation of the best holiday of the season, we've created these awesome candy boxes for you to make at home and hand out to those cheeky trick or treaters. Not only are they super cute, but being able to make them at home means you'll be able to make as many or few as required, and you'll be saving lots of money which can go towards spiders you can stick on your halloween costume. Hooray!

So, who have we here? Frankenstein and his wifey of course! We all love a good theme for halloween, and we couldn't resist making one of these for boys and one for girls {or should we say ghouls!}, so we went with horrors favorite couple. We made them a little more child friendly, but they still look killer! 

All you need to do is download our templates below and print it out on some thick paper. We've provided both pdfs and jpgs, so just download whichever you prefer. These templates take up on A4 sheet each. 

You'll also need scissors, a ruler, double sided tape or pritt stick and lots of candy to pop inside!

Downloads:

Frankenstein pdf   (or)   Frankenstein jpg

Bride of Frankenstein pdf   (or)   Bride of Frankenstein jpg

Ok, so once you've downloaded the template and printed it out, use your scissors and cut out both Frankie and his missus as shown above. On the templates, cut the solid lines and fold the dotted lines. Make sure not to chop off those long rectangular tabs on the top of their heads as you will need them to create the awesome milk-carton shape. Without these you can still make boxes, only they're a little less fun. 

Once that's done, you need to fold where all the dotted lines are. As you can see from the picture, I've used the ruler to help me fold the straight lines and give them good creases. To do the same, lie your box template down {you should be looking at the white background} then use the ruler to help you fold the sections by folding them towards you.

Once you've folded everything it will look more like a rectangular box! Then put your tape or glue on the small flap. This will be hidden inside the box and will hold it altogether. Lovely!

To do the base, point your two triangular pieces together and put glue or tape over the tops. When you fold the two rectangular shapes over them, they will seal shut. How neat and tidy!

Fill the boxes with candy, eyeballs and lots of spooky treats and seal them shut! Do this by squeezing together the two rectangular shapes at the top and glue together the thin flap. It should look just like a milk carton, only waaaaay cooler :)

Crikey! Don't they look amazing? Paired up with your giant space invaders piñata and fill each with a sugar skull brooch and you're going to have yourself one heck of a party! All you need is some little monsters to keep you company... and they'll probably never want to go home!

We hope you like our free printable boxes and we hope you have a lot of fun this halloween...

Happy Holidays!

Vivid Please are known as Vicky and David when they are not together, but to be fair, that is rarely the case. Forever collecting odd trinkets and pointing at cute dogs, they believe that happiness is found in the little things. Their etsy shop stocks everything from prints and stationery to bags and accessories, everyday life has never seemed so fun! You can keep up with them by following their blog Vivid Please where they share their awesome DIYs, cool design and fashion posts and, of course, lots of snapshots from their world of wonder. Connect with Vivid Please on Twitter and Pinterest. 

My New Year's Gift to You: Slow Down

I guess it is right about time to wish you a successful and healthy new year.

I would like to wish for myself to keep having you by my side on the path to sustainability and simplicity. I am sure we could all benefit from that.

I started the year with 0 followers, 0 pageviews and 0 blogging experience. I finish it with more than 2000 subscribers and more than 100000 pageviews a month. But behind those numbers are you! Thanks to you I have exceeded all my expectations ever. 

Thank you to my sponsors who have trusted me to showcase your lovely eco-friendly creations, your thoughts at the process of creations and your generous giveaways and discounts.

Thank you to all of you, amazing new blogging friends, to whom I look for inspiration and who have been by my side in all my endeavors in the past year. Thank you for your words of appreciation and honest opinion. You have been my driving force.

Please, have my New Year's gift to you. I designed a wallpaper you can download for free and I hope it will inspire you and will set you in the right mood always. I already have it on my desktop and I imagine how if you set it as well we will be connected in a wonderful and simple way.

With the wallpaper comes my wish to you: every time you feel stressed out in the coming year, remember to SLOW DOWN and relax. Things will be alright as long as you are able to hear your inner voice.

Click to download (choose between bright or dark bunny):

iPhone4 - bright | dark

iPhone - bright | dark

iPad - bright | dark

1024x768 - bright | dark

1920x1080 - bright | dark