I love this quote.

Every time that I see it,

I read it several times to make sure it sinks in.

To quote another smart cookie:

"Twenty years from now

you will be more disappointed

by the things that you didn't do

than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines.

Sail away from the safe harbor.

Catch the trade winds in your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

~Mark Twain

These are truly words to live by.

I love numbered art…

No, I don't mean artist-signed and numbered, limited edition art - although I do love those too - I'm talking about actual numbers and letters being the artform. I don't think anyone has quite been able to define the decor style in my home. I received a catalog a few months ago from West Elm titled "Contemporary Country" and, although I cringe at the thought of saying my design style is "country", this was not your traditional wooden-heart laden country decor. West Elm sells primarily sleek and modern-styled home decor, but, in this particular catalog, they had mixed a lot of their modern pieces in with more rustic "character" pieces. Looking around my house, that's exactly what I've done - mix the contemporary with the rustic. I love things that look like they have a history behind them. Normally, I would say that I lean towards a Pottery Barn look, except where Pottery Barn has a lot of replica antiques, I like to go to flea markets and find the real deal. This is mostly because I want the authentic history factor, but also because, for me, it's always been a heck of a lot cheaper at the flea market than to buy from Pottery Barn! My mom passed her "thrifty" genes on to me I guess. =) 

Back to the numbers.... I've always been drawn to pieces that have some sort of lettering or numbering on them. I love anything adorned with fonts – from the tin "Good Eats" sign above my chemistry beaker spice rack in my kitchen; to stamped pottery; to my newly-started antique wind-up clock collection; to a framed vintage calendar from which one of my collection of 35+ license plates is hanging. I've even been guilty of having a preference for Frigidaire appliances simply because I like their logo! I know this last one drives my husband crazy, but I think he shares my attraction to typographic art. One thing that he does that drives me crazy though, is that he LOVES magnets with goofy quotes and pics and wants to plaster our fridge with them!! AAAAhh!! I'm constantly trying to arrange them in a neat orderly way that might make them look less tacky, but it's not working. Every once in a while a magnet mysteriously disappears. Shhhhh... don't tell.

so many colors!!

I recently decided to paint the guest room in my home. As is the case every time that I decide to pull out the house paint supplies, I first have the "dilemma" of choosing a color. Being a designer who works with colors all of the time, my husband thought (back with the first house) that choosing colors should be easy for me, right?? Wrong. He quickly learned that I'm ultra picky and obsess over finding the PERFECT color. I start talking "tint" and "shade" and he gives up even trying to help. Now living in our third "fixer-upper" house, I've had lots of practice, but it's still not easy. There are a few tools that I've discovered along the way, however, that have made the process a little less torturous.

First, I've acquired color fan decks from both Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams. Just go in and ask them for it. Both places gave one to me for free without a problem. This saves me from going to the paint store, collecting a hundred of those little paint chips and then having them get scattered throughout my house! Although I typically do buy one of these two brands, I could also take the chosen color chip from either fan decks to any paint store and they will custom color match to that chip. I've learned that if I stick with a quality (i.e. more expensive also) brand like Benjamin Moore, the coverage is so much better that it requires less coats of paint, which, most importantly, means less work for me! Plus, needing more cans of a cheaper paint (to put extra coats on) is not really much cheaper in the end anyways. 

The problem with the fan decks is that they have... oooooh... about 1,200 color options! And once I had it narrowed down to wanting to paint the guest room gray, that only narrowed my options down to about 100 slight color variations. ugh!

Another trick I've learned to help me choose paint colors is to use the Personal Color Viewer on the Benjamin Moore website. You can choose one of their stock photos of a room that looks similar to what you will be painting. Then you plug in the Benjamin Moore paint chip numbers that you are considering to see that color on the wall, ceiling, trim or wherever you designate the color to go in the picture you chose. Of course every computer screen shows colors differently, but it especially helps me decide if I like two colors together, if they have enough contrast between each other, if they'll make the room look too dark, etc. I used it this time to see how dark to go with the gray. I wanted it just dark enough to have a good contrast with white trim.

The paint was chosen (I went with "Mindful Gray" from Sherwin Williams), it's on the wall and it looks great! I still have to get the trim/moulding back up, but it's such a relief to have the color decision successfully made. So far, my track record is 19 rooms out of 19 (between 3 houses) painted without having to switch colors in mid-project. I hope I didn't just jinx myself.... I still have a couple rooms to go in my current house!

Feeling official...

The past 7 1/2 months, since my departure from a "real job" at a design firm, has been quite a journey. Between the launch of Paisley Prints Etc. (my online card shoppe) six months ago and the freelance design jobs that I've been blessed to get hired for, I've found myself busier than ever with design projects... and I'm loving it! It mentally wears me out sometimes, a sort of creative overload at times, but it's a good exhaustion. Although I'm not a runner, I'd compare it to how a runner feels physically exhausted after a long race, but how it's all worth it because of the sense of accomplishment the run gave them. Maybe that sounds weird or over-exaggerated, but it makes sense to me. 

A few things recently happened to help me feel like my venture of being self-employed is no longer just something that I'm trying out, rather it's starting to feel "official". When people ask me, "So, what do you do for a living," I feel that I can finally confidently say, "I am a freelance graphic designer with an online custom card and stationery shoppe." One of the things to happened is that I hit the mark of **100 sales** on my etsy shoppe! Yay! Another stepping stone is that, for the first time, I am having a 4"x5" color print advertisement published for Paisley Prints Etc. 

Here it is!

The ad is going to be printed in a 44-page program booklet for a fundraising Gala that one of my clients, HospiceCare in the Berkshires, is hosting in June. I was lucky enough to be asked to design their Gala invitations (photos to come soon, hopefully, for you to see them), promotional items, as well as, the Gala program. Running my ad is not only promotional for me, but it's also supporting a wonderful company and group of people. Most hospicecare duties are not fun, yet so incredibly necessary and valuable. 

The past 7 1/2 months have given me the opportunity to meet some amazing new people and to work on some really fun design projects. Thank you to all that have been part of my journey so far. I can't wait for what the future has in store for me! 

Birthday Week

Today is my birthday! I have been, however, celebrating it all week. In my house, we believe that one single day is not nearly enough time to celebrate the anniversary of one's birth. The tradition of celebrating birthday weeks actually started back when my husband, Rich, and I were dating. We hadn't been dating long when I tested him with the question "when is my birthday?". Ha. That's so mean. He actually wasn't far off when he guessed April 16th, which is exactly a week before my birthday. I think my birthday was coming up soon, so I told him, "Well, I guess we'll just have to start celebrating on the 16th until my actual birthday on the 23rd!" And, that's exactly what we did. What we learned from it, was that a week-long birthday is a lot of fun!! It's too hard to control just one day. You may have a rough day at work or the weather is yucky or you have something scheduled that you just can't get out of at night, etc. Birthday weeks give you 6 more days to make sure that your birthday was not "just another day"! I think it's vitally important to take time to celebrate and pamper yourself and to have others celebrate and pamper you as well. 

So, we both get a week of pampering each and we can decide when the week starts and ends (as long as our actual birth date falls in there somewhere). Rich likes to take the opportunity to get as many homemade cakes out of me as possible. His record so far has been 3!! For those of you who don't know him, he's a dietician who also happens to be a personal trainer and athlete-aholic. So, yes, he can definitely get away with eating 3 cakes, plus more, if he wanted and not gain an ounce! My favorite is getting special meals each night. He always does the cooking anyways, but for my week, the menu is catered to all of my favorite meals like grilled Salmon and a dish he makes with chicken, feta cheese, tomatoes and greek olives. This week, one of my birthday gifts was a waffle iron (which I SOOOOO wanted), so, one night for supper, we had waffles covered with strawberries and whip cream. Yum!

Moral of the story: I highly recommend birthday weeks!

P.S. The photo above (with me sitting on the table) was taken 29 years ago. I think this may have been my brother's birthday, whose birthday is only 3 weeks after mine, but I'm still sporting a birthday hat nonetheless. 

he loves me…

The other day, my husband surprised me by randomly bringing home fresh flowers. Of course he knows that my favorite is the Gerbera Daisy so that's what he got for me. 

I don't know if it was planned genius or dumb luck, but he discovered my new favorite vase - our coffee thermos! My crystal vases live in a box in the basement with the other frilly wedding gifts that we got 10 years ago. I would much rather repurpose something like a water pitcher or wine carafe as a vase, but had never considered the coffee thermos before. It has a fun urban shabby chic look to it and especially looks great with the graphic daisies. 

love it & love him!

A funny thing occurred to me today... that Easter hadn't happened yet. I often have these realizations about holidays because I'm always at least one holiday ahead for my design business. By Valentine's Day, I was already working on new designs for Easter and for the last couple of weeks have started thinking about invitations for graduations, first communions and confirmations. Last year, I started creating new Christmas card designs in July!! So, it is a constant challenge to remind myself to slow down; to live and plan for today; and to not rush through the holidays before they have even arrived! Here's to making today count!

Only two more days until the weekend! I hope you're planning something fun!