Evernotes Every Friday

Make sure you read through the design posts to find an extra sweet treat discovery!

1. Lettering versus Calligraphy

As I have been exploring the art of lettering and calligraphy—which to many seem one in the same as the term lettering is rather vague—I got super excited to stumble upon the site of Lettering versus Calligraphy. I thought all the mysteries of the typography universes were about to be solved! While the site may not solve my age old question, I did find the site to be a fun adventure in type exploration ::nerd alert::

It consists of a visual dialogue between a letterer and a calligrapher, where they draw/write a letter responding to a keyword given by a moderator. The adventure aims to explore the capabilities of the two technical approaches. It delivers one letter daily and takes place online, where the visitors are invited to vote for their favourite.

Found via swissmiss.

2. Brad Woodard’s New Site

Another fun site I found this week was the brand new site for illustrator Brad Woodard—a designer I have featured quite a few times now, and the designer of one of my favorite wedding invitation suites ever! Check it out—its full of amazing new work! Found via Dribbble.

3.  1975 Wine Branding

At first glance you may wonder why I would post a seemingly simple or traditional design below, but you see it’s not just the year ’75 shown, but using an old printing technique, the 19 of 1975 sits subtly behind its counterpart making this designer “literally say oooooo.” Designed by CF Napa Branding, found via Pinterest.

4. Custom Typography Wall Art

Continuing the topic of typography, and thanks to a new blog reader, I was reminded of these cool art pieces. How cool would it be to create your own custom images around one of your favorite towns or places? And a fun photography challenge!

5. Cookie Butter

Something that is somewhat widely known to those who have known me for a matter of years—and sometimes new friends of just a week—is that I love chocolate chip cookies. Like seriously love them. To me, a chocolate chip cookies satisfies all food cravings and could possible end wars with just one freshly baked batch. My answer to the question, “what should we have for dessert?” is always the same but I have recently heard of this wondrous creation of Cookie Butter. Say what?! I am salivating already, it’s on my must find—and eat—list. To use this delectable treat in cupcake frosting, check out A Beautiful Mess.

Evernotes Every Friday

Sorry to have missed this post last week, but there was just no way, no how I could manage it—plus I hadn’t spent much time perusing the interwebs either. So carry on to the delayed Evernotes Every!

1. Engler Studio Identity

I love the splashes of yellow amid the bold black and white, but what I really love is the concept behind this design for the interior decorating team at Engler Studio:

We wanted to create a brand for Engler Studio that embraced its interior design skills, as well as its individual design personality. The main element of the brand is a graphic combination of patterns that overlap each other; they represent the images and colors you might find on an interior designer’s inspiration board, and also refer to the play of patterns, colors, light and shadows in a beautifully designed room.

Designed by Eight Hour Day.

2. Gig Poster for Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

So much going on in this poster with the organic yet abstract shapes—yet it has a simple design in terms of color and imagery. It definitely caught my eye while browsing the pins of Pinterest.

3.  Antique a Mirror

It’s full speed ahead in redecorating our home office. As I was going through all my current wall decorations, I realized I mostly had framed pictures, so I started searching for other alternate options. A mirror would be a great addition—I also found a 2′ compass, score! But I don’t want any old mirror. In keeping with the Pirates of the Caribeean theme we’ve been dreaming of for 8 years, I thought if I pirate were to have a mirror, it wouldn’t be nice and shiny but rather waterlogged and aged. So thanks to HGTV I found a DIY post on how to antique a mirror, now all I need is a mirror.

4. Ikea Moppe Drawer Hack

I started staining the 4 crates I have thus far collected (for my office of course), and let me tell you—I love staining wood! It is just too fun! Thankfully I am liking the imperfections of the wood and the stain otherwise, I may say it wasn’t going so well. Anyway, to further my love of staining wood I found this great “Ikea Hack.” Thank you Pinterest!

5. Salted Caramel Cheesecake Bars

I can’t help but salivate every single time I look at these scrumptious dessert treats! Find the recipe on CupcakesOMG! Found via Pinterest.

Evernotes Every Friday

1. Pantone 2013 Color Chart

Love each and everyone of these! Found via Pinterest.

2. Jan V. White

You could spend hours perusing the new Jan V. White site. As his About page states:

Jan V. White is a magazine guru and design consultant to publishing companies. He has given more than 1800 seminars in 27 countries on the relationship of layout and graphics to editing. His goal is to persuade word-people to think visually and visual people to think verbally. Understanding each other and blending their skills increases the impact and quality of their shared product.

And now eight of his books are online for free!

Over his forty-year design career, Jan V. White wrote twelve books on grids, page layout, typography, designing charts and graphs, the use of color, and other aspects of information design. Now, eight of his classic design books can be yours, free.

Seriously hours and hours can be spent on this site, truly an amazing gift to the design community! Found via Nubby Twiglet.

3.  Christel Llop Calligraphy

Just last week I posted about needing to take a calligraphy class, well you guys, this stuff is hard! So far my letters are not looking the way I hoped. That class is looking more and more appealing to me! Especially when I saw the work of Christel Llop on the Graphic-Exchange. Her work is amazing and I love the mixed media pieces she’s created that truly take her lettering and calligraphy to a whole new level of art and design. New design crush right here.

4. Map Quilting Kit

Well I guess we can add all things sewing and quilting to my growing list of “new hobbies I want to try.” I have been wanting to try to learn how to crochet for awhile, not that I have done one thing about that, but finding this Haptic Lab quiliting kit that creates a map, well now that is just too cool. And you can get even more creative with it by adding in your favorite places in the city. They have kits for New York, Washington D.C., Paris and a ton more! Found via swissmiss.

5. Decorative Wooden Crates Forming A Cabinet

People of the internet, I am finally working on my new office!! Remember when I posted about getting inspiration for offices? Well that day is finally here! And my husband has agreed to allowing the installation of a wall of crates—you may also remember my obsession with those!! I sold him on the idea after seeing this DIY post about getting crates from Michael’s and staining them. I could not be more excited—or antsy—to get started! So far I have 4 crates, but with the size of the intended wall, I believe I need about 20! Oh and this photo here, I love the way the vertical crates break up the design, the various heights of columns, and the way the top ledge is decorated. Thank you Pinterest!

Pinterest Project: Pedestal DIY

Totally forgot to tell you all that I did a little guest blog over on J. Rose Photography’s blog last week while Jess is on maternity leave. Go check it out and learn how to make a pedestal for your …

Pinterest Projects: Wooden Crate

I have been loving wooden crates ever since this post on Huckleberry Prairie! Since then, I’ve joined Pinterest and my obsession with crates has increased expontentially. But the thing is, I didn’t own any crates. Not a one. Until one …

Office Inspiration

As I mentioned in my Photo A Day post, I haven’t left the house much. And for awhile, I was working from home a lot which leads me to this post. My home office is a disaster. Andy and I had dreams of a Pirate’s Den even before we got this house but our lair has merged with a distribution center for BBQ sauce! I still have high hopes that we can make our two fields work together, even keeping our Pirates theme. I promise Andy, I will not throw out your endless supply of USPS boxes. For now, I am just thinking and planning—thanks to other bloggers and Pinterest, inspiration is not hard to come by. Here’s just a few of my favorites (click the image for source)… I will be keeping our pirate theme so most of these are organization and layout inspiration for me. What does your office look like? I want to see, comment with a link to your own office post!

I can totally see this as my corner of the office space, plenty of storage but yet plenty of room for visual appeal!

While our office won’t have white white white walls, I do like the typography accents!

This room could totally exist in our house!

Definitely a fan of the chalkboard wall trend, but I hate writing with chalk!

I like the look of this desk out from against the wall but I know I’ll want a much larger, clunkier desk.

Love the whole wall dedicated to a inspiration board.

The following is a shot of Kevin Kidney, a Disney artist’s, office!

We definitely have the cabinets to pull that look off, even with the glass windows!

Oh, for the sake of storage…

Other Helpful Resources

• Design Sponge’s Design Solutions for Working at Home

• A Little Tour of My Office, by Promise Tangeman (I love seeing other designer’s workspaces!!)

• A Photographer’s Workspace, Katelyn James‘s guest post on Jasmine Star’s blog

The Before

And I guess if you must know, just so you know how bad it is. This is our downstairs room that basically stores everything from the office, to BBQ product and shipment, to anything else we don’t know what to do with yet!

P.S. I totally saved this for the end, so the only truly dedicated readers would reach this abomination!

P.P.S. A few days after I took this picture, the small opening in the floor by the window has now been filled with a few dozen cases of BBQ sauce! Help me out!

Now you believe me… please help!

The Allen Home: Christmas Decor, Part 2

Last Saturday, Andy and I picked out our tree from our local Lowe’s. Andy’s family tradition is picking out a tree that hasn’t been unwrapped yet so it is a mystery to how well shaped the tree is… My family (or should I say my mom) on the other hand would go down aisles and aisles of trees selecting just the perfect tree with no browning branches or gaping holes. Our compromise was choosing a tree that had been unwrapped yet not fully open! Gotta love compromise in marriage! Another compromise since we’ve been married is decorating our tree with a unifying “theme.” Theme is loosely based as ornaments just have to fit into the categories of red, gold, silver, rustic, or extremely important! All others may be left for my very own tabletop Disney tree! The tree that is designated for all my more cartoonish ornaments of the Mouse himself and all his buddies! I wasn’t a fan of any of the photos I took of my Disney tree so you can wait until next year for those! So with that lengthy introduction, here is our 2011 Christmas tree!

Oh Christmas Tree!

First up is our nativity bulb as you can’t have Christmas without the birth of Christ!

I am just discovering the beauty in mercury glass! I just love it! Our house doesn’t have too many fancy things so I like that it adds class with a rustic touch. As we were unwrapping our ornaments we found a few that resemble mercury glass! Didn’t even realize we already had them!

For many of you, after you see the following photos, you’ll wonder how I don’t consider this a Disney tree as most of the photos here will be of Disney origin… but you see, I have cleverly presented them to my husband as either in the red/silver/gold or rustic category!

Since our first Christmas together we have been collecting an ornament from Disneyland each year. Here’s just a few of my favorites. They’re in order as we got them. The “castle in the woods” ornament was bought for our first Christmas in our house and the last bulb is the one I bought just last week!

Even our tree topper has little hidden Mickeys all through out! You really can’t even tell, but I know they’re there… and now so do you!

And without any further adieu or blabbing from me… here’s the most beautiful Christmas tree I have ever seen!

Hope you have a merry Christmas!

The Allen Home: Christmas Decor, Part 1

Earlier last week, the hubby and I brought in our few Christmas tubs from the garage. We didn’t have the time the last two years to even decorate so we were pretty excited to put up what we had! We don’t have much in Christmas decorations so it didn’t take longer than 15 minutes to have everything up. We’re not getting our tree until this weekend so be looking for a part 2!

The Mantel

Kirkland’s Nativity

For our wedding, my best friend’s mother gave us this nativity from Kirkland Home. It is my favorite part of our decorations, from the style to the subject. I just love it.

Jim Shore Christmas Donald

Another favorite decoration, our Christmas Donald made by Jim Shore. We also have a pumpkin with Minnie Mouse for Halloween/Fall; she kept her appearance on top of our tv for the last two years actually. We hope to have a Jim Shore to put out for each holiday and season.

Entry Way

Coming Up Next!

When Andy and I got married, some of our compromises included what to do with my plethora of Disney merchandise. So I have a mini table top tree that’s just for my Disney ornaments. You’re excited to see that, right? Well, look forward to Part 2!

Pinterest Projects: Pallet Shelves

One of the first ideas Pinterest ever gave me was the idea of turning a pallet into shelves. Here’s just a few of the promising pallet pins that continued to spur me on to find a pallet…

I have since seen pallets everywhere… on my drive to work… being whisked away on big semi trucks. Or I see them piled high behind fences, just out of reach. And then I posted my 25 Wishes post for my birthday and I got my mom involved. And you know, any time a mom gets involved, stuff just gets done! So she started bugging my dad and by that following weekend, I had a pallet! He had found a few of them on the side of the road!

And so from there my lovely husband cleaned it up with the hose and a brush and pulled off the center board. Then he hung it up on the wall above our staircase.

I went through a box I had of random frames that had never found a home, ordered some photos from Sam’s Club, and added a few other decorations that I had out in other places and ta-da! I think the grand total spent came to $0.54 for the photo prints! I want to eventually get some bigger frames to put in there as the 4×6 frames are just a little too small for something so big. Plus most people will only see this from the floor below and I would rather put up bigger photos to be seen from there.

That little succulent came from my friend Courtney, a gift for my birthday!

Stay tuned for another Pinterest Project! Here’s a clue….

P.S. I had been wanting to post this for the last month as the start to the Pinterest Projects series, and purposely left it out of my birthday gift post just so it could have more attention. And then Miss Lauren Lee posted her own Pinterest series: As Seen On Pinterest! And she just posted a second post in the series! I need to catch up! Great minds think alike, Lauren!

P.P.S. If any of you out there have tackled a project (or recipe or shopping outfit or craft or etc.) that you were inspired by from Pinterest, please send them to me or link to them in the comments! I’d love to feature your projects as well!

The Allen Home: Maps

I have been planning this post for some time now, ever since this post on design*sponge. After seeing maps and globes around so many other’s homes, I wanted to share mine! When Andy and I were planning our home together we wanted a travel theme with a heavy influence by Indiana Jones. So here’s a small home tour of the Allen Home’s maps…

Our first map we bought, from JC Penney. We were just about to move in to our first apartment and were so excited to find this HALF OFF!

A little globe Andy found at a garage sale sits atop our television cabinet.

A very cool find from another garage sale, it’s the same globe used in Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post.

A gifted map from our good friends BJ and Melissa Rice… thank you thank you thank you! This finds its home in our Pirates of the Caribbean themed office, which has not yet been fully developed.

And lastly, my mom buys us a vintage map wall calendar each year. Here’s March. See the pirate’s booty in the cabinet? Oh and my hoard of shot glasses?!

Thanks for touring the Allen Home!