Be brilliant at the basics

Posted: January 11th, 2011 | Filed under: misc | No Comments »

Wow, David Airey’s Be Bril­liant at the Basics post sure caught my eye today! As a designer, I am often focused on details like color and fonts, but if I widen my lens a lit­tle, I see that busi­ness sense is star­ing me straight in the eye at all times.

I came across a great list of basic busi­ness reminders today on David Airey’s blog (via swiss-miss.com). David fea­tured an excerpted list from the mini-book Bril­liant At The Basics of Busi­ness 100, by author, designer, and teacher Nicholas Bate of Oxford-based Strate­gic Edge.

Happy New Year

Posted: December 31st, 2010 | Filed under: travel | No Comments »

It’s been a great year around here and I’m per­son­ally and pro­fes­sion­ally look­ing for­ward to the adven­tures in the the new year. I spent a good chunk of the day in the car, but it was a beau­ti­ful day for a drive. Happy New Year to all — the view is good!

luggage tags transformed into art

Posted: December 6th, 2010 | Filed under: misc | No Comments »

my obsession with antlers

Posted: November 30th, 2010 | Filed under: art/design, house | No Comments »

I recently learned about about some­thing called shed hunt­ing. It’s the prac­tice of “hunt­ing” for antlers that some of our four-legged friends shed every year. This all started when I dis­cov­ered The Antler Lady, who cre­ates long-lasting chew toys for dogs out of shed antlers. As the owner of a dog who can make quick work of toys that tout them­selves as “inde­struc­tible”, I was intrigued by the promise of a chew toy that would last for months. And, although the antler only lasted a week, it by far out­lasted any­thing else I’ve bought for dis­tructo dog­gie. I’m hooked.

Sud­denly I’m see­ing antlers every­where! I came across these charm­ing antler hooks from Antler & Co today on apartmenttherapy.com and I’m set on mak­ing one! So, back to shed hunt­ing. Must find antlers… The sea­son is typ­i­cally from December-February which means I have a few weeks to find some­one who knows where to look for the antlers. I’m on the case.

Heath Ceramics

Posted: November 30th, 2010 | Filed under: misc | No Comments »

So in love with Heath Ceram­ics since check­ing them out at Canoe here in Port­land. I love how the warm, rich col­ors stay vibrant with the matte fin­ish. The slightly off bal­ance pro­por­tions are com­pletely endearing.

Doggies painting

Posted: November 29th, 2010 | Filed under: art/design | No Comments »

I fin­ished this paint­ing a cou­ple months ago and have been want­ing to share it. All I have at the moment is a cell phone pic­ture, so I have to admit I doc­tored it in PS a lit­tle. I used reg­u­lar inte­rior paint on a 3/4″ piece of wood, then coated the whole thing with epoxy which gives it a won­der­ful thick gloss (like a bar top).

Baby Carrots

Posted: October 19th, 2010 | Filed under: misc | 1 Comment »

These guys were too cute not to post! I’ve tried to grow car­rots unsuc­cess­fully sev­eral times, so I thor­oughly enjoyed these lit­tle beau­ties in a salad tonight. Not bad for mid October.

Anchors

Posted: October 4th, 2010 | Filed under: misc | No Comments »

I’ve been on a anchor kick for a while and always admired the logo for Yacht — so I did a lit­tle trib­ute for a wall­pa­per for a baby shower invite (psssst, it’s sail­ing themed…)

DIY Wall Garden

Posted: September 23rd, 2010 | Filed under: art/design, gardening, house | No Comments »

Here’s another idea is ver­ti­cal gar­den­ing. This time, it’s of the DIY persuasion…

Tuto­r­ial by Martha McQuade of Uni­form Natural

Vertical Gardens

Posted: September 20th, 2010 | Filed under: misc | No Comments »

I just vis­ited the coolest store! Root Pouch is down the street from work so I’ve passed by it a few times and decided to ven­ture in today. I was warmly greeted by one of the own­ers, who def­i­nitely stands behind his inven­tion with lots of enthu­si­asm and ded­i­ca­tion into the cre­ation of a sus­tain­able prod­uct that enhances our urban envi­ron­ments. It’s such a won­der­ful idea, and uses mate­r­ial made out of recy­cled plas­tic water bot­tles. I can’t wait to get a few up on the not so beau­ti­ful fence that runs along the side of my property.