Friday, October 21, 2011

Owl Lover 2012 Free Calendar + Owl Tea Set Giveaway


Hi, everyone! I have great news! Our "Owl Lover 2012" calendar is up! Before I show you the calendar, allow me a minute to share the success story of last year's calendar. 

Our unique calendar received phenomenal response! It was downloaded over 100,000 times and over 10,000 readers liked it on Facebook. Many fellow bloggers, including the best of the best blogs like decor8, poppytalk, featured it on their blogs. It's an honor to be appreciated by so many amazing people who have always been a source of inspiration to me. But, I couldn't dream of this accomplishment without your support and encouragement, and the 40 awesome artists who contributed to this calendar -thank you! Thank you! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.


Now, on to the present - this year, there are 45 beautiful artworks in our gallery from which you can select the images you love the most and create your own free calendar. Or you can simply download the pre-made version, whatever you do - I'm sure you will love taking a peek and exploring all the wonderful images. We have improved the customization a lot better this year, and now, you'll be able to download any number of calendar months you want. If you want to print just one month and use it as a gift tag, you can do that or you can print the entire calendar. It will make a perfect Christmas gift to your family and friends or even a gift to yourself!


To make this news sweeter, I have a surprise for you. Sonja of Old Shanghai Online has offered an owl tea set as a giveaway to one My Owl Barn reader. The lucky winner will get to choose the color (from here) of the tea set.


1. To enter, you must be a follower of My Owl Barn (click here to follow My Owl Barn)

Make sure you leave a comment here letting me know that you are a follower and have liked and shared.

Winner will be announced sometime on October 28th!

Update: Thank you all for your lovely comments on the giveaway. I have decided to extend it a few more days, now the winner will be announced on the 31st.

Update: The winner is mcfamqc. Congratulations!  Thank you all for participating!

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Wise + Witty Owls at West Elm

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More owls flew in at West Elm. Browse the "Wise + Witty Owls" section on their website for owl mugs, owl plates and owl embroidered pillow. 

DIY: Halloween Plaque

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Halloween is just around the corner. Are you looking for some easy crafts? Because I have just the tutorial for you that will look great in any corner of your house. Maddie of Domestic Anarchy made this Halloween owl decoration and shared the tutorial on her blog with easy to follow instructions.

For this project, she used the board that she found at a thrift store (for only 59 cents!), the  owl image from her own collection, the bat lady image for the logo from The Graphics Fairy (you can find tons of owl images on this site) and finished it by adding her own lettering. I love how she transformed the old junk into something that can be cherished during the holidays.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Freebie: Halloween Place Cards

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Wendy Piersall is a blogger of Fantasy Jr. where she shares crafts, educational games, free coloring pages and free holiday printables. There are tons of wonderful freebies on this site, but I was so happy to find these halloween place cards. I like the retro-style and old fashioned design style of these place cards that is so rare these days. You can also use them as napkin holders to go with your Halloween party theme. To download your set of free owl, skull, cat, dracula, visit here.

Paperchase: Tall Owls

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"Tall Owls" is a new autumn collection by Paperchase featuring hand-drawn, doodle style owl illustrations on tote, notebook, iPhone case, mugs and coir doormat.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Freebie: Mini Owl Treat Boxes

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Kristen has created this free printable owl treat box for you to download, print, assemble and fill with treats on Halloween. For detailed instructions and to download the template, visit here.

Gingerbread House - "The Owl House"

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Josh Latham started making the gingerbread houses when he was in his early twenties.When he turned vegan, he decided to continue making gingerbread houses using only vegan ingredients. He recently released a free e-book "Vegan Gingerbread Houses" in which he shared some very wonderful recipes for gingerbread houses.

This book has everything one needs to know to make their first gingerbread house. There is list of materials, tips and tricks, recipe for making vegan icing, step by step instructions with images and printable patterns. This is a perfect book for beginners and pros who want to improve and make beautiful gingerbread houses. To view more recipes in the book and to print click here.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Eric Barclay

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Eric Barclay likes to design, illustrate and create fun things out of odds and ends. He made these wooden owl (with tattoo on their backside) sculptures from discarded lumber from his garage and hand painted each one of them in his signature cartoon style influenced from the 50s and 60s. You must see this penguin and this circus lion.

Halloween M&M Cookies in a Jar + Printable

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Amy of Living Locurto shared this creative project idea "Cookies in a Jar". It's a recipe for yummy M&M cookies, free printable and a fun Halloween craft for kids that they can gift to their teachers and friends.

You can download the complete instructions for the recipe, ingredient list, 2 directions tags. 2 circle tags and owl circle tags here.