I'm back...

After what seems like an eternity, I finally have internet again! It was such a long drawn out mess, but it is all under control now and I should be back to more normal posting as of today! Hooray!!! I'm so excited to be able to join the world again.

In my virtual stroll today I found that Helen Dardick from orange you lucky has posted some free bookplate downloads. So fun, thanks Helen!

still working on it... part 2

Well, I thought I would be back up and running on June 1st and back to regular posting. Unfortunately that is soooo not the case. So, please bear with me for just a bit longer. I hope to be back to normal towards the end of this week, but I guess at this point I can definitely not make any promises. It's quite amazing how phone and cable companies can get away with such poor service and attention to detail. I could never get away with that in my business... but I digress.

Hang with me just a bit longer : )

still working on it...

Well everyone, I'm still fighting with the powers that be to get some internet at my new house. I've been told it will be available by 8:00pm tonight, but we'll see. So my little blogging vacation will have to continue on for a bit longer. I'm hoping to be back in the swing of things by June 1st.

Hope to see you all back here then!

posting will be sparse...

Well everyone, I am just popping in quickly to say that posting around here will be pretty sporadic for the next week or so. On top of trying to get ready for the big move this coming Saturday, the internet at my house is down. Apparently the cable company is rebuilding the network in the city where I live, and when they came to do my street yesterday they completely messed up our signal. Terribly inconvenient timing! I could go on with a bit more ranting, but I'm trying to let it go since I will only have to deal with this company for a couple more days (hooray!). So I'm busy trying to pack everything up and trying to get as much done on the new house as possible before moving in on Saturday.

Wish me luck!

image via veer

Rachel Ann Austin

I found Rachel's lovely paintings via Modish and wanted to share them here too. I love the mixed media quality of the paint and oils over maps. The texture looks amazing and I bet it would be even better in person. Plus you can't beat the vibrant colors! Beautiful!

You can check out more about rachel on her website or purchase some of her lovely yet affordable art from her etsy shop.

illustrator...

Flora Douville is an illustrator living and working in Nantes France. I originally found her on print & pattern and immediately loved the cut paper illustrations (shown below). I visited Flora's site to see what else she has up her sleeve and was pleasantly surprised to find several fun illustrations and some nice photography as well. You can visit her new web site here.

pattern love

I found some new lovely wrapping papers to drool over today. The folks at elum have expanded their letterpress success to include a line of complimentary wrapping papers. Each sheet is 22 x 34 inches. I found it here. The nice thing about paper mojo is you can buy both 8.5 x 11 and 3 x 5 inch samples! Enjoy and try to keep those keyboards dry ; )

mums in orange

interlock

gerber daisies

dots

busy, busy, busy...

Sorry for my absence and random posting lately. Between working on the new house, finishing up my semester of teaching, freelance work and designing new stationery & wedding invitations, I haven't had any spare time to post! Anyway, I thought I would just pop in to wish everyone a good weekend. I'm going to be working hard today doing some grading and planning some final exams. Hopefully I'll get over to the house for a few hours too and that way I can go watch my little brother play some baseball tomorrow for a nice break from it all.

Hope everyone is having a nice spring so far. I'll leave you with a photo of my beautiful lily of the valley. They didn't bloom last year, so I was so excited to see all of the delicate little white flowers bloom this year!

milton glaser...

I recently assigned a project to some of my students where they were supposed to pick an influential designer of the 20th century and write an essay about their lives and work. One of my students chose Milton Glaser and in his research found this video on youtube, which I found to be rather inspiring. Thought I would share.

illustrator...

Paula Sanz Caballero is one of my favorite illustrators, based in Spain, and I thought I would share her work with all of you. She mainly works in fabric and embroidery and I find her use of materials so interesting and refreshing. The intricacy of her work and stitching takes my breath away... such an inspiration. Be sure to click on the images to see them larger, the detail is beautiful. To see more of her work, visit her website.

rainy day accessories...

It's a gray and rainy day here today, and even those these are gray too, they are super cute. Just the thing to brighten a rainy day.

Alphabet brooches by SleepDreamPlay where you get to choose which letter you want.

And this gray fused glass pendant by moonofglass.


And this cotton scarf from PrettyRaccoon.

etsy eye candy

Today I have a few letterpress goodies to show you that I found on etsy. Happy Friday everyone!

folky flower folded note from dutch door press

congratulations baby (bebe) letterpress greeting card by smock paper

elephants limited edition letterpress print by ink + wit

New House!!!

Wow, a week has past since my last post! Seems like a few hours. But that is just because I have been so busy with the new house!

My husband and I just bought a great new house! The house is a large 4 bedroom, with a gorgeous backyard that overlooks a local metro park! Everything is starting to turn green and bloom and is looking beautiful. While the house is a great shell, there is much work to be done–hence my absence. We have been ripping down wallpaper, scraping glue off the walls, tearing down ceiling tiles, and ripping out paneling. There is still a lot to do. We still have a lot more glue to scrape, can I just say what a life saver a steamer is when taking wallpaper and glue off of walls! Plus we have to patch a ton of holes (all small), paint some of the rooms and I'm sure a ton of other things that I am not thinking about right now.

I think the thing that I am most excited about is the room that I get to claim for my studio/office. It is a large bedroom that overlooks the backyard and the huge tulip tree that is back there. I can't wait for it to bloom! Anyway, I promise to post some pictures when I get a little more time.

Sneak Peek

Thought I would show a little preview of a new wedding invitation suite I am working on. I already did the save the dates (I promise I'll get some photos up soon) and am now working on the invitations. Here is a little graphic that I am working on to integrate into the stationery:

personalized silhouettes of the beautiful bride and groom!

Awards

Not to toot my own horn... but I'm going to for a bit : )

I found out yesterday that I won a Silver ADDY at the district level for a direct mail piece that I designed (is also won gold at the local level)! Very exciting! It is such an honor to be awarded by the design community.

photo downloaded from veer

A touch of green on a snowy day

Well, for some reason winter has decided to come back to us. It's been quite nice for a while, things were starting to grow and bloom, and this morning we woke up to 2 inches of snow! Yuck! Snow is beautiful, but only in December as far as I am concerned. Luckily though, there was a wonderful little treasury on the front page of etsy. I picked out a few bits of green that I thought were charming. I long for everything to be green... I guess these will have to do for now.

moss terrarium No. 100 by madebymavis

echeveria pulidonis in vintage silver plated sugar bowl by monkeysalwayslook


growing together scene glass planter kit by LBrandt

More embroidery hoops!

It must be the week for them. I posted about an over sized cross stitch on Wednesday and today found these great bulletin boards from little pretty studio. They are called hoop.dee.do and are quite fun! I love this idea and think it would be great to have a ton of these in different sizes and fabrics with some stitched letters in the mix. I hear that studio wall calling again...

New items in the shop

I was able to finish putting everything that I made last weekend up in my shop yesterday. You can see on the back of the square gift tags and leaf stationery the fabric that I was talking about the other day. The colors of ink I had mixed reminded me of these fabrics that I had packed away, and when I pulled them out, they were a great match! I had to put the fabric on the back, so cute and fun!

Fun idea!

While perusing some blogs today I discovered this lovely photo on Oh So Beautiful Paper, originally posted on {frolic!}. I am in love with the huge embroidery hoop that the model is holding with the over-sized cross stitch! What a fun idea. Perhaps it's time for some new artwork for the studio wall.
Hope everyone had/is having a nice Wednesday!

Music Saves Lives

I find it amazing how emotional some music can be! Take a look at this video filmed with musicians from around the world.
Stand By Me from David Johnson on Vimeo.