A picture a day.

So since I have little to no time to be truly creative--mostly because I've been stuck in my house being a little Christmas elf, I thought I'd snap one quick pic a day and post it to tumblr.  This is part of my new obsession with instagram and was spawned as a war of who could take better pictures, my husband or myself.  If you say my husband, you're dead to me!  Ha.  Well if you're bored you can flip through my daily life here.  However, I warn you my day to day is probably not as exciting as yours.  Actually I know it isn't, but that's okay too! 

50 things to do with paint chips!

I love me some paint chips! Anything free and colorful, I'm in.

I actually wanted to make a post about all the things you can do with them, but luckily for me someone beat me to it. Actually there was no race, I was just too lazy to gather it together. So check it out here, 50 things you can do with paint chips. Oh and you can also check out one completely overwhelming yet kinda cool thing I did with paint chips here.

Happy chipping!

It's hip to be square

Who in their right mind thought math would ever be fun again? Well, it's currently all the rage, but not as we remember it from high school. Now-a-days it's hard to not spot those lovely basic shapes we all became familiar with in our geometry books, but now they are adorning our necks, walls and clothes! These shapes are like pod people and are starting to take over. Run for your lives! No don't do that better yet run to esty and join the cool kids.

I have to admit I am all about this current trend. I've never been one for girlie floral prints, and a couple year ago when getting married it was hard to find something that wasn't covered in it! So I say keep on keeping on you lovely geometric shapes... Below are some of my most favorite objects and designs of geometric love.


1. Wrapping Paper: This comes to us from one of the most exciting websites since Design*Sponge, Plenty of Colour. This website is all things color and most things geometric, both of which warm my soul.

2. Poster Design: This one is also from Plenty of Colour, I know I know I'm not being diverse in my choices, but hang with me and we'll get there!

3. Chevron Christmas ornament: While searching for the best felt Christmas ornament to make this year, I ran across this gem. You can pick it up one etsy for twelve bucks, or try and make your own. Note I made one the other night, it's not the quickest process. However, since I need to make about fifteen, I'm too poor to shell out the twelve bucks a pop. Either way, this ornament on any tree would be a win!

4. Triangle necklace: Now this is one etsy object I can't make. But I am absolutely in love with! It's priced at 18 GBP at the current exchange rate (watch right when I post this the rate will have changed) 1 GBP = 1.5 USD. So this necklace would cost you around 27 dollars without shipping. Well worth it if you ask me.

5. Wallpaper: While trying to find something to paint on one of my walls in my office I ran across this and thought it would be perfect! Now if only I could make more hours in the day, or clone myself like a mogwai I'd be all set. Then again I don't know if gremlins could paint such straight triangles.

Or if you have money--unlike myself, you can purchase the wallpaper version from Minakani a studio on Paris.

Last but not least and probably my most favorite...

6. Wooden geometric vase: This one takes the cake. It's on my Christmas wish list. 30 dollars well spent--hint, hint!

So there it is, six ways to be part of the "in" crowd.

...It's hip to be square!

Storage genius!

UPDATE: I have turned my tights storage area into a jewelry/tights storage mecca.  It's becoming so cute I just had to share.  I purchased the hooks at Urban Outfitters on super clearance, like 2 bucks a piece.  They've worked out well for holding all my new necklaces I've accumulated in the last couple months.  I've also started turning old vintage buttons into hair pins and earrings, be on the look out for that DIY post ;-)

Recently my collection of brightly colored tights has grown ten fold, okay not that much but I did go from having about five pairs to now having twelve. That's a lot! With that I was tired of waking up in the morning to have to untangle them out of my sock drawer. Feeling defeated by such a small task, I charged ahead to conquer this life altering problem. The first person I looked to is my role model/secret clothing best friend Kendi of Kendi Everyday. In her "Working Closest" series she talked about organizing your space in order for it to work more for you. I remember seeing her tights all rolled up and color coordinated, pure genius right there! For the longest time I thought the only option for tights was a matted mess in my sock drawer.

Unlike Kendi I don't have the space in my closest for such wonderful storage; damn cute, adorable, yet space hindering cape cod houses! Still feeling defeated about my tight dilemma I did what any normal gal would do and went to the mall. Yes, whenever I am sad, angry, or feel as though my bank account isn't close enough to zero I head to the mall. The mall solves 99% percent of life's problems! While there I discovered what may become my third favorite clothing store--behind J. Crew and Anthro of course! It's called Madewell. I can't say I'm totally sold on their clothes yet, but their jewelry is out of this world--if anyone would like to buy me this necklace for Christmas I will be forever indebted to you.

I walked into the store there is was, a wonderful display for socks, white boxes hung on the wall with the socks rolled up and tucked inside. My life problem not only solved, but also a decorative element for my bonus room, double score! I owe it all to them for helping me solving my tight storage problem. Thank you Madewell, thank you.

So below is the final outcome. All it took was fifteen dollars at Target, a level and rolling up all my matted tights. I can't tell you how much better my life has become because of this. Hope each one of you stumble upon such an easy life altering solution to one of your problems!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I know, I know I'm like so 3 months behind the times! However, you should be impressed that I caught up at all! Below are some of my favorite instagrams I've taken in the last week. Have no fear I won't bore you with the ones of my husband and dog!

I picked up these gems at Anthro for a mere 5 bucks at the end of last Christmas season. They quickly became the love of my Christmas life. Anything "vintage" steals my heart without much effort. Tragically when I walked into the house today I found the teal one laying dead on the floor; the cat had batted it to death. Evil cat!

Here is the tree adorned with the lovely Anthro ornaments. Can you see the teal one? Say a prayer for it tonight, it lived a good short life.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

I heart my Ohio!

Whelp, this is what I've come up with! Since I've started this blog I'm wanted to make cool stuff while commenting on the things I've seen along the way. While I have made a lot of great stuff in the last two years, none of it really took me anywhere. A couple of weeks ago I was on pinterest and ran into this really cool string art of California:

My girlfriend and I decided to get together and make one of our lovely state, Ohio-the heart of it all! With this I decided my new quest will be to make all things Ohio. You can track my new adventure here: iheartmyohio.blogspot.com I'm hoping once I get to making stuff I can be apart of City Flea and the Crafty Supermarket. Keep your fingers crossed for me! Until then, there's always Etsy.

Beware!

You never know when your mug shot might come back to haunt you!  Recently I checked out Cincinnati's 513 City Flea  in pursuit of the perfect inspirational print to adorn my nearly complete artist studio—note I say nearly with bated breath as this one week project has spiraled into a 6 months ordeal from hell!  Walking up and down the rows nothing was striking my fancy until the last row, last booth, and then I found it! 

It was unique, inspirational (in its own right) and only 12 bucks to boot!  The print is by Larken Design .  I wish I could tell you a lot about Larken and the origin of this print, but sadly I can not.  I can tell you out of all the booths at City Flea they by far were the most welcoming and interactive.  Everyone had the chance to take their own picture for their mug shot contest!  Looking forward to getting this hung and making some rad art in its presence, all the while counting my blessings that I've never had a mug shot come back to haunt me.  

Pinterest: Like waiting for Christmas!

Oh by gosh by golly!  I haven't been this excited for something since Christmas circa 1985.  As I am writing this I am currently refreshing my yahoo inbox waiting for an "invite" to become a member of a website I stumbled upon today that might rival that of design*sponge.  It's called Pinterest.

Take yourself back to the time when you use to go through all of your favorite magazines, clip-out your favorite stuff: cute boys, clothes, hair-do's, etc. to then plaster them all over your wall and stand back and say "This will one day be my life."  Well some of us are a little bit older now and doing the above may just seem a little bit odd.  While our interests may have shifted from cutting out pictures of cute boys from Teen Beat magazine, our desire to look at things and say "This will one day be my life," hasn't.  Now I can rekindle my old desires to live a make believe life and it be completely acceptable!  While I know I'll never have the hair of Zooey Deschanel, I sure as heck can make that cute bird feeder I just saw.  So please Santa I've been a good girl this year, let me please wake up to an invite to be part of the cool crowd and get my membership to Pinterest! 

You + Me = Us

During my daily glance at Design*Sponge I ran across the above print by Johnny&Stacie and fell instantly in love! It was a must have. Now I don't want anyone to think I'm the type of woman who just buys things on a whim. I'm more of the type to pick up a $1.95 picture frame at Target, carry it around for a while, then put it down realizing I really don't need it—this happened yesterday. Needless to say I strive very hard to avoid buyer's remorse. But this print on the other hand was a must have! You see in the last four years my husband and I have lived in our house, I've painstakingly put hours into making it a home. With that my husband has been left out of the process here and there; not because I wanted him to, more so because it's either been "my" thing or he debates something so long it then goes out of style. Now the above print helps relieve some of that "the house is your thing" tension. This print that will hang next to our door embodies both of our loves, his simple pleasure of riding his bike and my love of good design. One print alone my not conquer our homemaking problems...but it's a simple start!

Remember Yearbooks?

 Ah, the good ol' yearbook.  Something we  can look back on and say, "Did I really wear my hair like that?"  Recently my sister-in-law asked me to design the yearbook for the elementary school she teaches at.  The first thing I thought of was, "Wow they start 'em off early now-a-days, huh?"  The youth of todays America has got it good, first the Internet, then cellphones, social-networking and now yearbooks!  

At-any-rate, the theme was Peace, Love & Learning.  Since I refused to go with the standard tie-dyed approach, this is what I came up with.  It's not really my cup of tea, however if I were a fifth-grader I'd  be pretty excited to have it on my bookshelf to go with all of my other colorful Judy Blume books. 

To me yearbooks are exciting the first five-minutes of having them.  You flip through, see how fat you looked and move on.  I'm hoping that one day when I have kids I'll want to go through them again and show them how awesome I thought I was; yet I'm afraid the initial reaction will probably re-occur.  However, with a cover like this the skies the limit!