I finally stopped deluding myself into thinking I'd get more active about posting digital scrapbooking designs & came to grips with the fact that next month will always be busy & I just need to focus more on fewer things.

So, I'm retiring from the Design House Digital scene. Farewell! If you like any of my artwork over at Design House Digital, you better go over there & buy it. RIGHT. NOW. It's all 40% off through the weekend. After the weekend it'll all be gone. Cheers!!

I've been looking in my closet these days & not finding anything interesting. Well, nothing interesting that I haven't worn in the last 5 days at least. On Monday, one of my sweet neighbors kindly offered to watch Penelope as I ran some errands; naturally I couldn't help but pop into a thrift store while out & about. It's a real treat to go to thrift shopping without Penelope. It means I can actually try on clothes that I find! Look at the gorgeous dress I found for $6: I'm a huge fan of this print. I've been seeing all sorts of bold florals around this season and I fell in love with the shape of the skirt. The skirt has pleats & pockets in the front & buttons going all the way down the back (so Victoria Beckham, but with buttons). I wasn't a fan of the bulky sleeves & loose top, but that's never stopped me from buying anything. As soon as I got home, I snapped the ugliest before photo ever & started fixing up the dress. Here's what I did:

• I took in the sides from the waist up by about 1-2 inches on each side
• I took in the sleeves by about 2 inches on each side
• I shortened the sleeves & added a cuff
• I removed the breast pocket (it was making me feel all sorts of lop-sided)

Ah. So much better! The shortened sleeves make the dress feel 20 lbs lighter. I'm a big fan of it now. All I need to do now is find some hot gladiator heels and I'll be rocking and rolling in NYC at the SocialLuxe party next week!

Our tomatoes have finally started to ripen. It was agony to see the mounds and mounds of green fruit on those bushes for weeks, just waiting for the day they'd be ripe & ready to eat. I kept thinking, tomorrow's the day! And inevitably tomorrow wasn't the day. The pear tomatoes are as delicious & sweet as I remember. The red tomato just ripened today, so I'm definitely planning on making some sandwiches with it tonight. It was a TON of work to keep those tomato plants alive, but so worth it. It really makes me appreciate all of my mom's planning & hard work with the garden she kept when I was growing up. Gosh, she grew thornless blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, zucchini, squash and cucumbers! We even had peach, pear, plum & apple trees at one point. There's nothing like fresh produce. MMm! Right now I'm in full-on Blogher mode; so from here on out posts might be a tad sporadic and a little heavy on the before & after refashion stuff. Hope you don't mind!

Haven't posted much along the lines of fashion recently. A lot of it has to do with my favorite neighbor/photographer moving away and the odd summer light. Turns out, there's a 15 minute window (from 8:00-8:15pm) where the lighting is half-decent outside. SO annoying. I've also been avoiding any and all kind of shopping lately. After binging nearly $800 on the most recent upgrade of Adobe CS5, I've been a tad weary of spending money. Saving money is nice, right? It took nearly 3 weeks of no thrift shopping before I broke. While at one of my many thrift haunts last week; I scored an elastic-waist skirt & Forever21 teal flats. Here's the outfit I made: Here's the breakdown:

• earrings: annilygreen $4
• top: MisC $14
• belt: thrifted $1
• skirt: thrifted $4 (talked down from $6)
• shoes: thrifted Forever21 $3

The shirt is the most expensive item in my ensemble, but by far my favorite. It's a very light-weight satin fabric with the most dainty print on it. It's P-E-R-F-E-C-T for keeping cool on a hot summer day. I also love the subtle pops of teal: the shoes, the belt & bits in the print on the shirt. It's likely I'll be packing this in my bag to blogher. UPDATE: Here's what the shirt fabric looks like up close. This is just one of many sweetly painted landscapes that adorns this shirt: Have you found any sweet deals recently? Please feel free to include links in the comments!!

Four years ago today, Chris & I got married. Gosh, we've come a long way since then. We've been through school, graduation, employment, unemployment and parenthood so far and it's been awesome. We've got a lot more ahead of us, too.

One of our many engagement photo outtakes. We were in a silly mood that day.

I'm so happy to be making this crazy journey with Chris. He's my best friend. I thank my lucky stars we were able to find each other in the mess of the college dating scene. I love you, Chris!!

I sorta binged a month or so ago with sewing projects & just stopped all of a sudden. Gosh, I'm feeling a tad rusty already! Well, last night while I was procrastinating doing what I should've been doing (i.e. laundry & design work), I thought I should probably give the sewing machine some TLC. Last week I received some awesome ruffled fabric from one of my sponsors: RuffledFabric.com. She sent me two yards, a petite sherbet ruffle and a more womanly brown ruffle. There's something about the color of the petite ruffle that drew me in, it was probably the orange dreamsicle I ate that had something to do with it. Last night  I made Penelope a little ruffled skirt & matching ruffled bloomers in about an hour. I was so excited about finishing my little skirt/bloomer combo I nearly woke Penelope to see if she'd be willing to try it on. Thankfully I had good self-control. That little girl needs her sleep! This morning when I had her try it on it was a little on the long side, so I just trimmed a little off the bottom. No big deal. There's no need to finish your hems! Hallelujah! I thought the whole ensemble turned out pretty darling. Can't wait to make a mama version of this skirt! Ruffled Fabric did not pay for this post, but were generous to supply me with some rad fabric. I'm just writing about it because it's cool & I enjoyed working with it. That's all.

I've been working on Penelope's room for what feels like AGES. I'm so close, though, I can taste it. I just need to find a lamp, hang the rest of the art & replace the mobile that our annoying maintenance man carelessly ruined. I don't sound bitter about that mobile, do I? I've found/collected some really fun things for Penelope's room & wanted to share them with you as part of this week's Thrifty & Chic.

• shelf: $3
• watering can: $1
• "P": gift to Penelope for her birthday from annilygreen
• elephant: gift to Penelope from aunt Shelley
• painting: one of mine
• daisy jar: $1

I've been sticking to a yellow theme with Penelope's room with pops of orange, pink & teal. I really like how it's coming together and can't wait to share the final result with you!!

Yesterday we invited Chris's brother & sister over for a little Sunday feast. We had a great time & the food turned out delicious. I made (with the help of Chris) sticky ribs, a variation of this tomato feta salad (no fresh toms, yet!), fresh corn on the cob, fresh-squeezed lemonade & strawberry mango ice cream (just like the linked recipe, but fewer strawberries & chopped mango). If the weather had been cool enough we probably would've eaten outside, but it was too blasted hot. I love my ice cream maker. I've had it for a little over 2 years & I still love it. It's so nice that I don't have to use ice or rock salt, so I can make ice cream/sorbet whenever I want. The only thing that sucks about it is I usually make too much ice cream liquid & as the ice cream sets, it expands & spills out the top. It can get pretty messy if I don't have a spoon & a hungry husband on hand. Yesterday I thought I'd try something a little different. See, when the ice cream starts to overflow, it's partially set, perfect for making popsicles. I didn't have the time/desire to go out on a Sunday and get some popsicle forms, so I improvised. I snagged a bunch of cupcake liners & trimmed bamboo skewers to the appropriate length. I lined a tupperware with cupcake liners & spooned the half-set ice cream into each liner. Then, I stuck a bamboo skewer in each cupcake and put my popsicles in the freezer to set. My crazy hair-brained idea worked! We have delicious deformed popsicles!! I have a few more ideas of different ways to do popsicles without popsicle forms and still make them pretty, I think I might need to make some more ice cream pops soon. How was your weekend? What's your favorite thing to make on a hot day?

Bike safety is no joke. I see SO MANY hipsters around Salt Lake cruising on their uber hip fixies sans helmet. It may look better to cruise without the helmet, but it's stupid.

Don't mind me & my soapbox, I'll get down eventually. ;)

My senior year of college, Chris and I rode our bikes all over the place and never wore helmets. The last day of class, Chris got on his bike to ride to campus, the chain detached and threw Chris off his bike. In slow motion he fell and knocked the back of his head on the asphalt. It was a slow speed accident with pretty low impact, but Chris's head was hurting for days. NOT cool. I was worried he had a concussion, but thankfully he didn't. After that, Chris took wearing a helmet seriously. It took me another 6 months before I unwillingly complied to buy a helmet and wear one - and I only agreed to wear one if it matched my bike. You think I would've taken wearing a helmet more seriously, because my brother (bicycle daredevil) has broken a helmet in half before from his crazy awesome bike tricks. Long story short, the bike helmet I bought to match my cruiser doesn't match my fixie, the bike I ride most often. It's also seen better days. I felt like it was time for a facelift. I used Krylon Fusion spray paint in yellow. Krylon's fusion brand is awesome. It's made to adhere to any smooth surface, especially plastic. It went on my helmet so easily & the finish looks beautiful. After I painted the helmet yellow, I made the decals for the sides to add a little more flair. This helmet is SO much hipper than it was before &  matches my bike perfectly. I need to go on a ride soon! If you're looking for some hip helmets to wear, try NutCase helmets (found via Kitsune Noir), they've got some rad designs. Stylishly protecting your head for $40-$50 isn't a bad deal, either. Do you wear a helmet? What kind of helmet do you prefer?

I completely despise the attitude that warrants the everything-will-be-better-when mentality. I feel like it's such a waste for enjoying the little things in the now. You know? I've fallen victim to this mentality this month. I keep saying things like: Next month will be SO much better, next month I'll be craftier, next month I'll take a nap, or two (Gasp!). I'm so annoyed with myself right now. Things are nothing short of crazy around here. Penelope is napping less & less (what am I going to do without 4 continuous hours of naptime?!?!), I'm working on several projects in preparation for BlogHer and I'm working on this blog. I'm tired and I feel like my creative juices are evaporating in this heat. I found this gorgeous teal felt ric rac at the craft store a while back. I'm in love with it, but too intimidated to do anything with it. Isn't it lovely? What would you do with something like this? Sew it onto a pillow? Use it to decorate a wrapped gift?

It's been far too long since I've just sketched just for the sake of sketching. Seriously, far too long. It's been even longer since I've painted with watercolor and even longer since I picked up my oil paints! This is a problem. I kind of forgot about it until I bumped into one of my college professors a month ago and he asked me what I was up to. Ummm. . . Errr. . . I blog. I love to blog. I just don't paint much anymore. That's gotta change. I'm working on a couple of artsy fartsy projects that will give me the kick in the pants I need to clean the dust off my art supplies. This is what I did yesterday. Penelope colored the pages and I embellished them with a little fish motif. Did you know that I like fish? Koi especially. They're beautiful. Did you have a good weekend? What did you do?

Today I'm over at Good Look Cook Book sharing my opinion on over-used and hideous fonts and how to avoid them. Check it out!

I have a minor obsession with containers. I was more than giddy with excitement when my mom bestowed upon me her spice of life jar from way back when, and I was personally hurt when Penelope broke it two days later. I also can't help but lurk down the aisles at any store (thrift or otherwise) where cute containers might be present. After all, you can never have enough containers. Especially if you plan on entertaining the masses with little goodies that could possibly fit inside those containers. Let me tell you about these containers. First, you've got the pitcher. I love this pitcher becacuse I inheirited it from my parents. It was part of their everyday ware that they got for their wedding. I love the cream colored ceramic & the mustard ring detail. Second is the daisy glass container. I found this gorgeous jar for $1. I love the bright yellow & the daisy illustrations on the sides. So sweet. It's the perfect container for sour lemon candies. Third, we've got the ice bucket. I found the ice bucket at a high-end thrift shop just south of town, it was originally priced at $15, but on sale for $5. I had a hard time justifying buying it and felt all sorts of buyer's guilt afterward, but that didn't last too long. I've used it over and over at parties, family dinners, picnics, etc! Do you like vintage containers? Do you collect/hoard them like I do? I'd love to see pictures! (Or maybe not. Maybe I'd get too jealous.)

I've learned a lot since writing this post back in 2010. I've also made some changes to my personal supply list, too. If you're interested in learning calligraphy, consider taking my online class! We provide you with a kit with all the materials you need to get started PLUS personal coaching. What I've found in the 6+ years I've been doing calligraphy is that the going gets rough when you first start out. It helps to have a BFF in calligraphy. Learn more about my online class here. A few of you have asked what supplies I have for calligraphy. It's taken me a while to put this together (don't ask me why), but finally I present to you my little stash of calligraphy goodies: Isn't this fun!? I have a little bitty calligraphy set, but my stash of inks and pen nibs are constantly multiplying. It's always a treat to buy new inks & nibs. Here are my inks. I started out with buying Higgins inks and quickly realized that they are runny, low-quality and super frustrating to work with. The Black Magic kind on the far right is OK, but I'll stick to my Dr. Ph. Martin's from now on. My aunt suggested Pelikan; I have yet to try it but I'll let you know when I do. Here are my pen nibs. It's important to label them & keep them in a safe environment; safe from Penelopes & Christophers. My favorite pen nib is the third from the right. I can draw super thin & juicy thick lines all day long with that one nib. We're BFFs. The other nibs in the box are getting jealous. I like to buy my pen nibs at Reuel's Art & Frame because they sell pen nibs individually, rather than in packs. I hate having to buy pen nibs in packs. It also helps that Reuel's is just around the corner from my house. I love having an art supply store so close! UPDATE: My favorite nibs have now changed. I love the far right two nibs the best now. You'll want to look for Hunt's mapping nib #103 (it does really dramatic thicks & thins) and Hunt's #104 (it's a super fine nib, perfect for small projects & fine detailing). The #103 is a flexible nib, so if you're heavy-handed I wouldn't suggest it. The #104 is a much stiffer nib, so if you're inclined to put you're entire body weight into your pen, this is a good one to snatch up. Here's my other BFF; ink cleaner. I've learned by experience that if you don't clean your nibs, your lines will become unpredictable and clumsy. Although, maybe that's the new style in calligraphy. I dunno. This cleaner is pretty old. I got it from my grandpa's sweet wife, just after they got married. She gave me a ton of her late husband's drafting supplies. I'm pretty sure this solution is just a mixture of glycerine & dish soap. Not entirely sure, though. Additionally, If you're looking for books to help you on your quest to learn Copperplate Calligraphy, you'll DEFINITELY want to buy these books: Mastering Copperplate Calligraphy and Calligraphy in the Copperplate Style If you'd like a printer-friendly copy of my supplies (with additional supply information), please click the download button below.

ENJOY! This PDF is free for personal use and should not be distributed without my consent. If you would like to use this PDF for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

Hope you had a happy fourth of July weekend! I sure did. My parents were here visiting from Charlotte, so we packed the weekend full of barbecues, pool parties & dinners. Friday, my folks treated me, my siblings & our kids to Toy Story 3; Penelope sat sweetly on my lap the whole time & I just about bawled my eyes out. Friday night we hung out with my dad's family and I got a peek at my uncle's new iPhone4. Saturday, my dad & I ate lunch at Bruge's Waffles & Frites where we enjoyed the most delicious waffles & fries & fry sauce ever. Seriously. EVER. Saturday afternoon we partied with my mom's family & went swimming. Not sure I've ever seen Penelope so petrified of water before. Sunday, I barely squeezed into this patriotic outfit; I must've gained weight or something in the last month because that skirt does NOT fit anymore. Oh well. Sunday evening we dined with my grandparents; Penelope & her cousin had way too much fun playing with dress-ups, toy guns & water. Of course I forgot to bring my camera to every single thing this weekend! I seriously missed out on some great photo ops. BLERG! How was your holiday weekend? What did you do?

In about a week and a half I'm going to have tomatoes coming out of my ears. I'm not sure what I was thinking, planting 4 tomato plants. Whatever. At least I didn't plant 4 zucchini plants. Those things are practically noxious weeds. This year is the first year that I've successfully planted a "garden" and not killed the plants (yet-there's still room for that). Last weekend after I got back from EVO, they were looking all sad, like they hadn't been watered much. I thought I was going to lose them, but as luck would have it my mom said it's ok for tomatoes to dry out a bit every once in a while. They bear more fruit that way. NICE.

Early Girl tomatoes

The smell of the tomato plant just screams summer to me. I love going out there, watering them, fondling their leaves & then smelling my hands once I've come inside. That smell just takes me back to summers as a kid. The smell of fresh tomato & cracked pepper also takes me back. My mother is a crazy green thumb. I grew up with pear, peach, plum, apple and cherry trees, raspberry and blackberry bushes, tomatoes, beans, peas, armenian cucumbers, corn, squash, zucchini, pumpkins and grapes. I never knew how spoiled I was with fresh, delicious fruits and vegetables until I moved off to college to find out that store-bought produce doesn't taste nearly as good as the fresh stuff. Mmm.

Pear tomatoes - the best!

Do you have a garden? What have you grown this year?

This post is brought to you by Tai Pan Trading.

One of my blogging friends, Jenni, always has rad giveaways. She works for Tai Pan Trading, a Utah-based wholesale home decor store (which has the awesomest stuff, btw) so she frequently features new items in stock & gives them away. Two weeks ago I won one of her giveaways & scored this incredibly sweet bow bag: My old purse was starting to look really ratty when I won this purse; the timing couldn't have been better. I love how small this purse is while still fitting everything I need: wallet, keys, phone, business cards, pens, usb drive & poopy clutch. I also love that it has two detachable handles, a drop handle & a messenger bag-style handle. The messenger bag handle is perfect while riding my bike & wrangling Penelope. This purse normally retails for about $29.99. Not bad, right? I'm used to spending about $30 (give or take) for a purse. What about you? Head over to your local Tai Pan Trading to drool over and buy their many wonderful purses. If you're not near one (sucks to be you), you might want to try these alternates online: Bow Bags

• Ruche Bow Bag
• DownEast Sailor Knot Bag
• Charlotte Russe Jersey Bow Bag
• Anthropologie Dungaree Tote (SPLURGE!)
• Anthropologie Knotted Satchel (SLURGE!)

Watermelon Bags

• Target Studded Handbag
• Forever 21 Vintage Bag
• Forever 21 Claudette Shoulder Bag
• Forever 21 Braided Shoulder Bag
• Aldo Salami Bag
• Aldo Hinderman Tote

Let me know if you find any other bags on the internets that are worth adding to the list!