Baby Annoucements in Etsy Shop

So, I just posted 2 new things in my Etsy shop!  I'm really excited, I created these designs a while ago thinking about my new niece that's on the way (just about a month now!).  I'm hoping that this will be just the beginning of what I'll call 'Customizable, You Print Cards'.  Basically, the design is created and I list it for sale in my shop.  Then people can purchase the design, they then send me the information and pictures to make it customized for what they want!  Once I get the photos and text and make any other changes requested, I send the buyer a high-resolution image.  Then that person can go to their printer of choice (costco, snapfish, shutterfly, whomever!) and get their pieces printed. :)
So right now I have baby announcement cards, but in the future I hope to have Save the Date cards, Christmas cards, Party invitations, Return address labels, book plates and more!  If you think of anything you'd really like to see and potentially purchase, let me know. 
Here's the new items, thanks for reading!

Birthday Designs [Part 2]

Wow, its been a busy few weeks!  I've been wanting and wanting to get these pictures posted and am just now getting around to it.  As you know from my last Birthday Designs post, I created some graphics for one of my good friend's son's first birthday party!  It was such a fun project, and I think we came up with some awesome things!  She was kind enough to send me some great photos of the big day which I'm sharing with you here.

This banner was one of my favorite things and it turned out so great since they combined the letters I created with background paper and an amazing vine with leaves!  So jungle, it was amazing. 

Tag for the party favors

Smaller signs for the food (cutest names right?!)

Labels for the water bottles

Signs for different areas of the party

And lastly various designs for the cupcakes!  

I hope to do many many more of these wonderful birthday party themes (already have 1 on my schedule, a preview of that to come soon!) so if you know of someone or have one coming up for a child of yours, contact me and let's brainstorm and come up with some great decorations!  Also down the road I'm hoping to create general templates for party decorations like these and sell them in my Etsy shop. I hope this winter will be my chance to do that. [And...visit my Etsy shop if you haven't already!]

Andy Goldsworthy

Some friends reminded me the other day how much I love Andy Goldsworthy (thanks gals!)!  I'm so impressed by his work every time I see it, its beauty, simplicity and organic all at the same time.  I'm also impressed with him as an artist.  After watching his documentary Rivers & Tides (and buying it then watching it over and over!) I feel as though the quiet dedication to his work he displays is amazing.  
One of my favorite pieces he did in the last 10 years was essentially a public installation piece.  On June 21, 2001 he displayed a body of work called Midsummer Snowballs.  This work consisted of 13 1-ton snowballs Goldsworthy created in the winter before.  Each of the snowball concealed pieces inside of them for example one had feathers, another pine cones, medal, barbed wire etc.  In the middle of the night, Goldsworthy unleashed each of these snowballs onto the streets of the London financial district. Throughout the warm day each of the snowballs began to melt, each one was different according to its location and interaction with people who passed by.  What a beautiful way to bring some nature to the streets of London for all to see and experience!  All the snowballs melted within 3-5 days, leaving the enclosed elements behind.
I hope I'm not alone thinking this piece was genius, its certainly one of my favorites.  Enjoy these amazing photos of the process. 

The whole process for 4 of the snowballs, from start to finish.  Amazing, I wish I'd seen these to be sure. 

My New Candlesticks

For the last year or so I've been on the hunt for the perfect candlesticks.  Of course, my dream set is this set of Nambe ones (found here). 

So elegant and simple.  But out of my price range, hence the hunt.  I finally found these at, of all places, home goods last week! 

I'm really excited about them!  (I'm also excited that Josh brought home another batch of beautiful flowers to brighten up the house!)  But in my hunt, I found some other ones I want to share with you. 

In time for Christmas, from Crate & Barrel.

Love the simplicity of these, also from Crate & Barrel.  I would've bought these hands down if I weren't more in the market for candlesticks for tapers, not pillars. 

From World Market, I like that these are wood, I feel as though those are hard to find. 

I like these from Pottery Barn for the organic shape to them. 

Inspired!

Today after I got home from an all-day retreat for the designers at my work and I felt really inspired! 
When I got home, I really just wanted to tackle some of the creative projects I've had in the back of my mind, but havne't gotten to yet.  I think a lot of these items will end up in my office because there isn't necessarily room in my house, but I was excited to finally put them together!  Remember all that paper I bought a few months ago, I finally used most of it.  Enjoy!

A magnetic board I covered in this hand screen-printed paper I bought 2 years ago from RiffeRaff.  I just got this magnetic/cork-board from JoAnne's a few months ago, and this was so easy to cover, just staple gunned the paper right to it. 

I've had this frame lying around, and tonight I just sanded it down to give it a more interesting texture and put the paper in without the glass.  I think its my favorite paper!  It will hopefully go perfect in our future office. 

I finally put this fabric over the cork-board in this frame and I had these matching pins to go with it perfectly.  This frame has been so many colors, gold to orange to black and now white, but I'm most happy with this white. 

New Zealand Photos

Hi All! Its been so long since my last post because we just returned from our vacation to New Zealand!  We had an amazing time and I would highly recommend it. 
I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures with you, not just the ones of scenery or of us, but the ones that were more artistic in nature.  Most of these photos were actually take by my super talented husband Josh!  Enjoy!  More regular posts to come, also I'll be asking you're opinion on which pictures we should enlarge to hang in our house. 

Save the Date Card

I've recently finished working on a Save the Date card for my parents 40th Wedding Anniversary celebration!  Next October they'll be celebrating 40 years of marriage, amazing.  I was pretty excited by some of the roughs I put together, and in the end they chose one of the ones I liked the most, which made me happy. 
It's usually challenging for me to work with a color palette that is more limited to neutral tones or needs to go along with a certain time of year (for example these Save the Dates were in line with a fall theme).  My impulse is typically to use bright colors and to use a lot of them!  This project, and some others recently have challenged me to create good design within the parameters given to me, and I think (or at least I hope) it has helped make my designs better.  It's good to be stretched in these ways and I'm glad I got the chance to do this project!  The first one is the final one, the rest are roughs.  Enjoy!

My Etsy Shop!

This is pretty exciting for me, even though its still in it's infancy.  I've opened an Etsy Shop!  Check it out here.  You'll see some recipe cards like below, but I plan to expand into many more things so keep coming back and looking.  And as always if you want a custom design, email me here!

Macaroons

Just because they're beautiful, and delicious.  And a recipe for those brave enough to try. 

Frank Lloyd Wright

This weekend I got to go tour the Frank Lloyd Wright home + studio in Oak Park, IL!  It was something I've wanted to do for a long time and I'm so excited I finally got a chance to go.
Below are some pictures of the outside of the building (no photography allowed inside) and some pictures I pulled from the interior.

Outside of his house in Oak Park

Outside of his studio

I appreciate that he's well known mostly for the home he built instead of giant sky scrapers or other such buildings.  Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie style architecture is some of my favorite.  I was actually surprised though that from the outside, his house didn't strike me immediately as being very much in his style. 
Our tour guide talked about how Wright built this home at the time when he was just developing his prairie style of architecture and actually I thought this style was more evident in the interior, especially the interior which he added later.

This dining room is very prairie style to me.  This room (added later) to the house was by far my favorite space.  The way he designed the chairs to be so high and go around the table and create an intimate dining room space is lovely.  The intricate screen he designed to go over the lights and create a serene kind of ambient light, really genius.  I loved this room. Also, you can't tell but the walls are covered in a very light linen fabric. 

Here's the drafting room in Wright's studio.  The shape of the space was really unique, and the guide explained to us how Wright used a very intricate set of chain pulleys to keep all the walls in space.  Very cool space, I can see how it would be easy to be creative in a place like that.  After this visit, I love Wright even more!  (For those who haven't already, I'd also recommend the book Loving Frank.) 

Paint by Numbers

Friday I abused my lunch plate at work so much it cracked in half.  It's a cute melamine plate (a set of 4 I bought a long time ago!) with a paint by number scene of various wood animal on each plate.  The set is pictured below.

Sad things have happened to these plates.  Two still exist, one as I said, broke in half, you're definitely not supposed to microwave them although I did very often.  The last one was thrown away by someone, having mistaken it for a disposable plate! 
Anyway, all of this reminded me that I really enjoy the kitschy-ness of paint by numbers.  Here are a few things I've found recently that embrace it and do a great job!

This great zipper handbag from Etsy, here. 

And a very similar pattern of fabric but made into an apron!  Again on Etsy, here. 

Very cool men's tie with just the illustration (of the Mona Lisa) on it.  Found here.

Wedding Invites

Unfortuantely, October is just going to be a light month for blogging.  Got a lot going on and we're leaving for New Zealand in 10 days! 
But...here's a little eye-candy for you.  The mock-ups for my Aunt's wedding invitations.  Their wedding is in the mountains at a beautiful hotel in Park City Utah, in the fall.  I tried to reflect that theme while keeping it elegant and simple.  Let me know what you think! :)

More Paper (Bien Sur!)

As I continue to look for interesting wedding invitations to inspire what I'll be doing for my aunt's invitations, I stumbled across three places that for me, everything I saw was lovely!  These blogs/sites are Wedding Paper Divas, Oh So Beautiful Paper, and Delphine.  These three websites post mostly on printed wedding pieces pieces in a variety of styles and colors. They also act as great inspiration (for me on this project) for fancier events you might be planning or just cute little host gifts or dessert or decor tips in a larger space. 
Here's a few previews from Wedding Paper Divas.

I like how they group images together from weddings with a particular theme, i.e. vineyards or the coast etc.  It's nice to get the whole picture of the event from start to finish, in addition to just showing the invitations the couple sent out.

Bathroom Organization

I'm of the opinion that it is difficult to have an organized bathroom when it is small.  However, as I started looking around for materials on this subject, I found that I was wrong!  I think its all about being creative with the space.   Now most of these are not from my own experience but I'm determined to implement some this winter while trapped inside.
This one is from me, I love the way soap dishes look, many of them are clean simple, this one (from Crate & Barrel) is bright silver with lovely texture.  The only downside to soap dishes is that I don't like giving our guests just a bar of soap to wash their hands!  So, I combined a regular soap dispenser on the soap dish.  It gives the bathroom a more polished look then just a plain dispenser, but doesn't have the mess of a bar of soap.  For me its the perfect marriage.

I don't typically peruse Martha Stewart's website, but when I want organization, that is a key place I will look.

For those like me with small bathrooms, this presents a great solution for storage, installing a nice white shelf above the door.  I also like that they've used apothecary jars and baskets to hold the items, classing it up a bit more then just a bunch of bottles.