spring... is that you???!!!

Today was... warm. Yes, thats right. The sun was out, and it was in the mid 60s! It is pathetic to celebrate, I know, but around here, that is big news, especially with all of the rain and gloominess going on lately. We are currently having our first, though perhaps slightly premature, BBQ of the season, so this is going to be a short one. Here are few shots I took earlier of the beautiful and much missed sunshine!

[[ downtown cvo. buttercups! reflection... this tree needs some lovely springtime leaves. ]]

midweek inspiration 9

Today is going to be a long day. I have a client meeting tomorrow, and I can already tell I am going to be up late staring at my computer screen preparing for it. Eight hours of work followed by eight hours of work? Having missed out on any form of Spring break, I am starting to feel the effects of no sun in my life. I am officially over the gloomy skies and whatever form of precipitation they feel the need to conjure up. It is making me feel a little bit more burnt out then I would prefer.

My source of inspiration today is great for a laugh though, just what I need! I saw one of these posted over on Seablanket last week and thought it was awesome. They are "Toy Stories" created by Aled Lewis a designer and illustrator from the UK. Below are a few of my favorites, you can find the full set on his Flickr account. So clever!

[[ "chance encounter". "allow me to explain". "good samaritan". "nobody likes a showoff". "murder mystery". "maybe nest year". "teenage angst". "horn hubris". ]] 

el prez.

El Presidente is a restaurant in Corvallis where ALL, well almost all, college kids go for their birthdays 21+ to get their Birthday picture taken in an oversized sombrero so that they can post the polaroid on the 'wall of fame'. Last night me and Pat stopped by for dinner and a margarita or two to celebrate our newest roomate Rory's birthday. Several Cazuelas later, and Rory was a little bit... tipsy, so when everyone moved on to their next destination we opted to call it a night, it is after all only Tuesday!

Here are a few quick snapshots I took, and the polaroids of the friends that I found up on the wall, (minus Sam's because he stole it down, I got his picture from his fb page)...

[[ polaroids: jerry 21st. "frantastic". molly 22nd. sam 25th. chips. rory all dressed up. margaritas. ]]

for the record, I am not up on the wall and neither is Pat.

weekend adventures 24

This weekend was a bit of work, much more math then usual, with a little bit of Saturday night fun thrown in, and of course, Hank Moody.


saturday
I spent a good portion of Saturday morning working on my taxes, trying to make sure that I was not forgetting anything. It occurs to me that I need an actual filing system of some sort, because I do not think that my series of shoe boxes containing different types of paper work are the most efficient solution at the moment. Good news though, with me and Pat's combined returns we should be able to get some new bedroom furniture! After I was done with all of that business I ran out the door to get my hair cut, nothing too exciting, just an overdue trim up. Once it starts getting a bit warmer outside I am thinking about doing something a bit more exciting, maybe with some color even?

saturday night
After Pat got off work we headed to Albany to have dinner and wine with our friends Nate, Alicia, Brad, and Alia. Dinner was seriously AMAZING! Alicia is one hell of a cook. Couscous ("the food so nice they named it twice."), seasoned and lightly breaded chicken breasts, asparagus, and some really amazing wine. Brad brought his Xbox Kinect with him, so everyone played some sports games (except for me, because I hurt my pectoral muscle somehow earlier in the week and did not really want to risk injuring it further). I did however attempt to play one of the dancing games later on. I am pretty sure I only embarrassed myself, all in good fun of course.

[[ bottles. glass. onlookers. cork topper. ]]

sunday
Sunday was not very fun. Poor Pat had to work fairly early, and I had work of my own to take care of, including budgeting to try and figure out how much we can afford to pay for rent at a new place. Our final conclusion was pretty much that it is a complete waste to rent, and we have to buy something, and then rent it out when we want to move and become slumlords. Hmm... not sure how rational this plan is. We did get to watch the season finale of Californication though! I am sad to see it go away for a while once again, but I thought that the season ended perfectly and I was very happy with it. I am dying to watch them all together now. The 'Leave it to Beaver' homage scene = hilarious!

[[ showtime image via google images. ]]

tgifffff

Yay Friday! Would anyone argue that is not the best day of the work week? Most productive, maybe not. But people are certainly in better moods on Fridays. Maybe that is why I am in such a great mood right now. I am excited to cook some dinner, drink some wine, and relax. I have a lot of work to get done though, I have work to do on the wedding invitations I am currently working on, and, GASP, I have to do my taxes. I know, I know, I should have done those a LONG time ago! Hopefully I can get some money back to put towards some new furniture, for our mythical new house... that we cannot seem to find. Enjoy your Friday night!

[[ sparkly robot polish (sparkling torpedo - la splash). studded satchel form modcloth. 

snapshots

Like I mentioned yesterday when we were in Bend me and Pat stumbled across some old old old photo albums!!! They were amazing. Not only did we find all of Pat's baby albums, but we found his moms as well! I must say, she had some pretty fantastic clothing in the 60/70s shoes especially! (and no, I am absolutely not being sarcastic, I want her platforms).

Look at how cute they are! Not only is Pat extremely... stylish, but he is wearing an old Oregon State University shirt in the picture of him on the swing! Somewhat ironic, since he works for athletics now. I do have to say that my favorite picture of them all was the one of Pat's mom Lori as a little little girl making a pouty face! So adorable.

[[ grainy old pictures. stylish little pat. always a beaver. mowing the lawn. pats mom pouting. ]]

midweek inspiration 8

Wow this week is moving quickly! I can't believe that it is almost thursday! This weeks inspiration comes from two awesome DIY projects that I found on Design Sponge, and totally want to try! 

One is very Alice in Wonderland inspired as well...

First off is the China Teaware Lamp created by Sarah Goodwin from Daisies & Pearls. Seriously genus! I have loved the look of stacked teacups since I was a little girl watching the Mad Hatter sing "A Very Merry UnBirthday" to Alice. I would love to try this idea in teacups of solid colors as well. The best part is that she provided instructions!

I also stumbled across this home made lamp shade, which is right up my alley, and a perfect example of turning an old object and a bit of garbage into something new. The ultimate paper recycling project. And around here there is never an issue finding scrap paper. The Paper Scrap Light, created by designer Gabrielle Guy is a very unique idea for a lampshade or 'chandelier'. I am definitely going to give this one a try as well. 

[[ all photos from design sponge. ]]

weekend adventures 23

Last weekend was extremely relaxing and just what we needed. There was sunshine, snow, wine, delicious food, sleeping in, and many games of Rummy. All of which I won, Pat was not pleased.


thursday night
We left for the pass right after work and were well on our way by six, in fact we almost made it to the house before the sun went down. Once we got to Brasada we made some 'bangers and mash' in honor of St. Patricks day, and Pat had a Guinness for desert. We also stumbled across some really old family albums to look through, they were hilarious (more on that later). We were not up for long though, after a long work week we passed out pretty early, but neither of us were complaining.

[[ kettle. bangers & mash. st patty. woodgrain. ]]

friday
We took our time getting up in the morning, got ready cooked breakfast, and lounged around. By the late afternoon it had started snowing! It actually stuck for a while too, so of course I was outside taking pictures. I love the look of the desert terrain littered with snow. You would not think tumbleweeds and ice go so well together. The rest of the afternoon ended with us baking some chocolate chip cookies, which seemed like the perfect thing to do with the weather. We went up to the lodge for some drinks before making spaghetti for dinner. Many games of Rummy later, it was late and time for bed.

saturday
Snow continued to fall throughout the day in little flurries, but none of it stuck around for long enough to play with. I spent a lot of time sitting by the fire looking through old Vogue magazines. It was nice leaving my computer behind for the sake of not using the internet, but it might have been nice to have gotten a bit of design work done. Am I crazy? I try to 'unplug' as much as I can when we go on little vacations. We went out for dinner at a 'steakhouse' in Redmond, opened up a bottle of Maya Serra, delicious, came back home, ate cookies, and watched movies. Again, a very mellow night.

[[ making cookies. playing rummy. ]]

sunday
We were sort of ready to get back home, but sort of dreading it at the same time. It is hard to leave a gorgeous home in one of our favorite places only to return to roomates and their messes, but we had gotten just about all the relaxing in that we could. We grabbed lunch up at the lodge and then headed back home. The drive home was much more snow covered than the way up, and took significantly longer, but it was beautiful all the same. I love long car rides with Pat, we have great conversations. Once we finally got home it was dinner, a movie, and a little bit of work. It is always nice to get home in the end. It will be even nicer when we find our own place in town!

[[ beautiful sunset. ]]

over the pass

I am in the process of updating some portions of my resume and portfolio right now. I have been working on it all night, and I suspect it will occupy a good portion of tomorrow as well. Thus, I will be putting up my weekend adventures tomorrow evening. Brasada was beautiful! I have some good imagery to share of the sunshine/snow competition that went on throughout the weekend.

Here are some pictures I took of the drive over the pass. I love being able to watch the terrain change all around you, it is pretty amazing how different things are over there. From lush farmland, to an arid snow covered desert.

[[ leaving corvallis. farmland. over the pass. first glimpse of the mountains. window view. ]]

kiss me i'm irish?

Happy St. Patty's Day! (or as Pat would say, "Happy me day").

We are about to head over the pass for a well deserved long weekend (FINALLY!) I am so ready to just relax and spend time together. I am not sure we will really participate in too many St. Patty's celebrations tonight... but we are currently both wearing green, and will be having some Bangers and Mash for dinner later. I'm sure Pat will throw a bit of Guinness in there as well.

So, this (old) picture has a story...
This is from 2008, when I was a Junior in college studying Graphic Design. It was during finals week, and I had literally been up working on my projects all night for the entire week. And when I say all night, I mean it. I was not drinking a fancy beverage, but rather a Diet Rockstar to stay awake! (YUCK by the way)... I honestly got like an ulcer or something after that from how poor my diet was. My lovely headband says "Kiss me I'm Irish", which is a lie by the way, but festive all the same.

I hope you have a great weekend! I will be back on Monday.

midweek inspiration 7

I would be lying if I said that today did not pretty much kick my ass. Tomorrow is definitely going to be intense, I have so much to do! But, by 5 o'clock me and Pat will be on our way over the pass to Brasada Ranch! I can't wait, it will be JUST the two of us for once. It is keeping me motivated for sure.

I saw a nod to a printmaking artist named Sarah Abbott posted on Creature Comforts at the beginning of this week, liked what I saw, and thought I would check her out. As it turns out some of her pieces are hand drawn typography containing inspirational words, something I could use right now, how very relevant! The content aside, I am mostly drawn to her choice of text styles individually, and how they look all together as a whole. I used to do this all the time in little notebooks, I have several full of hand written lyrics in various styles, this makes me want to get into it again. I also really like her little drawings, "Wagtails" especially, because, well, I like birds... and not in a "Put a bird on it." kind of way.

[[ wagtails. route. best version. nice try. ]]

robot party !

Alright, this is a picture heavy post of Robot Costume Party awesomeness! These pictures are from my lovely friend Colleen's 25th birthday party last Saturday. We have had so many great costume parties with this group of friends, I love it. Take a look, they are pretty epic...

[[ kiss bots. colleen aka rosie. awesome hair. love bot. me & pat as bots. tiffany & jason's bot shirts. me/megan. me/tiff. favorite picture of megan maybe ever. amazing homemade robot cake. pat's costume shell. sam the mustache robot. mustache tiff. transformer john wayne. wall-e bot ashley. pat. megan. dancing bots. rosie. party people. ]]


_____________________________________________

[[ final costume vs. my little sketches from last week. ]]

weekend adventures 22

Oh man, last weekend was epic... So much so that I am still trying to recover. I would love sweat pants and my couch right now, or bed for that matter!

friday night
Me and Pat kept it pretty simple Friday night and worked on our costumes, everything started really coming together finally, and I personally was very very very excited for Saturday night! Here are some inspiration pieces I found when "designing" my robot costume... I have sketches also to post tomorrow.

[[ dolce & gabanna. hussein chalayan. unknown. maria from metropolis.

saturday
We got up, made breakfast, and started working on our costumes some more. Everything was finally completed by around 3, just in time to head up to Portland. The drive there was pretty quick, we got to Colleen's house at exactly 6pm, ate some dinner, and started getting ready. Megan showed up and we went upstairs to share a tiny tiny mirror and put all of our sparkly makeup on. After a few costume malfunctions we were FINALLY ready to go downstairs and enjoy the party! It really took us a long time to get ready though, which, knowing us, is not very surprising. I was wearing some really epic fake eyelashes too and was super excited about it!

saturday night
The party got started and more and more people in epic robot costumes started showing up. Colleen was Rosie from The Jetsons and seriously looked awesome! Sam was a robot with changing mustaches (haha), Tiff and Jason came in painted robot T-shirts, Ashley and her boyfriend were characters from Wall-E, and Pat looked freaking sweet in his costume! Surprisingly there were no characters from Star Wars or anything, lots of tin foil though. It was a late night... The pictures below are a little bitty preview, though I plan to do a full party feature tomorrow!

[[ makeup. jello shots. basement. preview. ]]

sunday
Pat really wanted to go wine tasting, so we got up and headed to Carlton where we always go. It was so cold and blustery outside! I was thankful to be indoors and warm. The storm cleared a little bit, long enough for us to make our way to some of the other tasting rooms, and snap a few pictures. Unfortunately the restaurant we wanted to eat dinner at was closed for a private event, so we drove home and cooked some pasta instead.

[[ me. sparkles. can you find the rainbow? tasting. carlton. folin cellars. woodgrain. sunny sky. ]]

costume preview...

Special Saturday preview post

I don't want to give too much away..... but, here is a little bitty preview of some of our costume stuff for Colleen's Robot party tomorrow night! Excited.

We have had so many awesome costume parties over the past few years with this group, I think I may need to recap on some of them next week. Special feature?! I think so. 

[[ messy dinning area. bolt jewelry. pat in a box. goggles. plastic gun in the works. plate holder. boots w paint from super hero party. boots after. metal bracelet. cardboard strips. easter eggs. testing eye shadow. misc parts. clothes. leftover markings. spray paint. ]]

Our Robot Making Supplies:

- 3 rolls of duct tape (home depot)

- 3 cans of spray paint - silver, textured silver, candy apple red (home depot)

- flexible aluminum duct tubing (home depot)

- red rubber coated work gloves (home depot)

- black rubber cleaning gloves (dollar tree)

- 2 large cardboard boxes & 1 medium cardboard box (Pat's work)

- 1 pair of boots (misc. pair I have had for a long time)

- black ribbon (creative crafts)

- 1 package of easter eggs (dollar tree)

- 1 package of disco ball party favors (dollar tree)

- hex bolts & nuts (home depot)

- sequin tank top (target)

- geometric pattern leggings (modcloth)

- 4 paper plate holders (dollar tree)

- plastic toy gun (dollar tree)

- glow stick stars (dollar tree)

- safety goggles (dollar tree)

- glue gun/glue sticks (craft store - old)

- pen (random - old)

- misc glittery eyeshadow (fred meyer)

- dark purple lipstick (fred meyer)

- 4 pack of plastic headbands (dollar tree)

- fake glitter dipped eyelashes (fred meyer - purchased a few years ago)

- chunky metal bracelet (gift)

mother nature is a scary beast

I have been looking at the news feeds of Japans disaster all morning. They are completely terrifying. I cannot even imagine a natural disaster to that magnitude happening here, but it sort of seems more and more eminent, as I know there is an expected 9. something to hit California/Oregon's main fault line pretty much anytime.

I hope that people in Japan are cooping and that missing people start to turn up! I feel for everyone effected in one way or another by this event. To those in Hawaii as well, it looks like things were not an issue for the evacuated areas... but the threat is still nerve racking.

If you have not checked out any of the imagery or videos being published around the internet, take a look. There are several news sources that have put up amazing and horrific photo-reports about the tsunami/earthquake. Here are some links:

The Atlantic
Boston.com
Mail Online

urban update

I have a lot of work ahead of me tonight... robots robots robots. I have some pictures of the process so far, but I want to save those for tomorrow. I also scratched my eye earlier, and it is not being friends with the computer screen right now. So, for today, I am going to keep it extremely brief and show off some sweet alterations I made to the new Urban Outfiitters catalogue last night. (you should never leave sharpies, or any writing utensils laying about around me, I am bound to find some scrap paper and doodle all over it). I think it is much improved. What do you think?

[[ napoleon? i did not do a very good job with this one. tiger lilly. deer boy. princess. fez barring assassin? space explorer. ]]

I have more doodles to add to this post later.

midweek inspiration 6

This has been a pretty dreary looking week so far, lots of grey skies which make the trees look extra mossy and fairytale like. I was looking through my bookmarks and stumbled (once again) across UK based photographer Rosie Hardy's flickr site (<--- click for more). Her images are half pretty and innocent, and half dark and sexual, the colors are amazing, and I just love them! She is also her own model in most of her imagery and is absolutely gorgeous... its pretty ridiculous.

(It took me a LONG time to get this post together because I just could not decide which pictures to use! There are so many good ones!)

These 100% make me want to scoop up my camera and go on a photo adventure! I wish I could create imagery like this... after all, everyone loves a good self portrait.

[[ "this way". "fill these spaces up with days". "conserver". "inner strength". "romance isn't dead". "after the storm". "wait for me". "we painted the skies". "eleven paper girls". "these walls i can take". "incognito". "i will find a way". "anomaly". "solitude". "untitled". "1/365". "so she dances". ]]

getting started...

Like I mentioned on my weekend adventures post, I spent a good chunk of last weekend putting together some initial process for the wedding invitations I am currently working on. I did not really feel like looping a preview in with the matrix and robot building supplies, so I figured I would give a little peak into my initial typography and visual exploration process here. These are heavily cropped and extremely vague screenshots, I would not want to give anything away after all. But here they are, the beginnings of my current project...

[[ cropped screenshots in illustrator. ]]

On a side note, I need to start making more money because there are soooo many great fonts for sale and I want to buy them all up asap! I have sort of run through my selection of freebees. Hmmm... tax write-off?

weekend adventures 21

I would not really say that I have a tremendous amount of exciting adventures to share with you... this weekend was more about getting things done, or at least started. There was also quite a bit of nerdy movie watching... thanks boys.

friday night
I was so stressed out from last week that it felt great to kick back and relax knowing that I did not have to be at work early in the morning. I don't know how we got on the topic... but Pat, surprised that I had not seen 'The Matrix' series, insisted that we start watching it. Most of the evening was good, except for a little mishap, so I guess you could call it relaxing-ish.


saturday
I was focused on the robot party and set out to find some costume making supplies. I honestly thought that I would be able to find some clothes at one of the very limited cheap clothing stores we have around town to go off of, but came up completely short handed after visiting Goodwill, Ross, and TJ Max. Left with no choice, I headed over to Home Depot, a place I absolutely HATE visiting! I always feel so out of place and confused when I have to go there alone. I do not know much about home repairs, in fact every single time I have gone there by myself I have been picking up paint or various "art" supplies.

I grabbed a shopping cart and just started wandering the aisles until I stumbled across some of the things I was looking for. I could not ask for help because the conversation would have gone as follows / "Hi, can I help you?" / "Yes, I am looking for that silver, metally, tubey stuff... you know the thick tubey stuff that is bendy, like in E.T., but smaller and silver..." / "..." / In fact, when I finally checked out with my silver metally tubey stuff, some hex bolts, washers, two cans of spray paint, and a lot of duct tape... the woman at the counter politely asked me what kind of project I was working on, and upon explaining that the materials were all for a robot costume she laughed and said "Ok good, I was worried you were actually trying to build something with all of this!"

[[ some of my robot building supplies. ]]

Saturday concluded with some well deserved drinks after all of that exploring and the next in the Matrix series, which was not nearly as good as the first one. I liked the concept of the films, the story is very intricate, but I did not really like the introduction of the village and all of the tribal elements, that took it away a bit for me. It seemed artificial, forced, and a bit corny at that point. I did like the introduction of the Frenchman and the ghosts though, that was totally weird and creepy, my favorite thing apparently.


sunday
Sunday was all work and no play. I completely secluded myself all day to my room (since I have no office anymore) and really got started on the wedding invitations I am freelancing. I think I got the main direction of the system worked out... I just have to put the elements together, mimic some materials, and create all of the little components before it is ready to be presented as the first draft to my client. I wish that I had more time to work on it during the week, it is hard to work on it for only an hour or two at a time when I get on a tangent... I feel like I need five hour blocks to really make the progress I am looking for... but during the week, I just do not have that luxury.

[[ the matrix series screenshots. ]]

Sunday concluded with?? Surprise, the last Matrix movie. So nerdy. This one was pretty cool special effects wise, but I still preferred all of the Matrix scenes as opposed to the Zion business... though visually interesting during the fight scenes, I still found it to be a bit cheesy. People sure take a long time to die in these movies... I also wonder if the sales of pleather and alternative looking sunglasses skyrocketed once the first one came out in 1999. Interesting series. More interesting concept. Visually awesome and really advanced for its time. Creepiest villain ever. Overall not a bad watch. Though I think that they did that Kung Fu "come here" hand motion too much. But, I do really like the overall story conceptually.