Texting While Driving

Finally Friday

These parents-to-be made a video about naming their baby...

and I love it! (via A Cup of Jo)

The New York Times has a huge collection of their readers' dogs!

These two guys (above) are my favorites on the site.

However, these two are my all time favorites! I took this the evening the family spent at Grammy and Grampy's house a few weekends ago. Even the dogs look serious! Yikes!

I've been trying to keep it organized here in IT the last few days, and I just can't seem to get ahead! It looks like a cardboard graveyard after getting several new printers and PCs. I can't wait for allocations to be over so I can get all this junk away from my front desk. (I say my and really mean IT's). Ever feel frustrated because no matter how much you clean and organize you feel like you haven't even made a dent?? I do! This office (above) has the right idea. It's simple, clean, and there's good looking vertical storage! Who's jealous? Yup. This gal...
(image via This is Glamorous)

Erin Jang is a very talented designer who's work really inspires me.

She has clean lines, great color schemes, funky and quirky ideas, and tons of beautiful print jobs. She's got everything from stationary, to invitations, to books, to her work in Esquire Magazine. Her blog shows all.

This is the kind of work I want to do in the future! Maybe throw in some photography and web design, and I pretty much want this lady's career... minus the Seattle part. Washington State + me = not so much.

This look is sultry and sweet. Love the hair, love the dress, and I love the marina. Somehow I don't think I could go to the store or hair dresser and obtain that little jobby...
(image via This is Glamorous)
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Have a happy weekend!

stuff from my muggy day:

It's hot out today... so hot I might melt into a puddle!

I always forget how all-over-the-place Maine's weather can be.
One day I feel like an ice cube and the next I'm dreaming of swimming in Sebago!

This looks nice and cool... and I want to go now.
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Here are some things I've been browsing this
muggy-humid-sweltering day:

Camilla Akrans has awesome photography.
I really like the rosy processing too!

I also love Bersa photography.
What would it be like to be a glam photographer who travels all over to take pictures of pretty girls in pretty places? If you didn't have a travel companion you loved, it might get awful lonely. However, if you did... it sounds like it'd be fabulous. (Akrans and Bersa via LundLund)

I found these pictures of Twiggy today, aren't they fun? I love photos like this, they're super fun. I'd hang these in simple black frames somewhere in my pretend studio-office. The place where all of my ideas float around and where I crank out awesome photos and prints and stationary and fabrics. Someday... I bet it'll happen. Oh, and my favorite quote by Twiggy? When asked why she was retiring: "You can't be a clothes hanger your entire life!" (hehe)


I've also been working today on some graphics. Since the office has been slow (knock on wood) I've been puttering with an idea that I cooked up while laying in bed last night. I really need to learn to resist the urge to drink delicious coffee past 8pm. At least my java-induced states of midnight delirium helped me come up with these goodies...

I like patterns a lot. This one was pretty simple. I just made a grid in Illustrator and got to work. I have at least six color variations that I have saved on my trusty external hard drive, but this one is a favorite.

This one is truly my favorite product from my morning spent in Illustrator. I want to print it on everything! I want to make a reversible duvet cover that's soft and smooth and cool and crisp feeling. I want to make a cotton skirt out of it to make my older sister model for me. I want to make a purse out of it (in several colors and fabrics). I want to change the colors, blow it up, shrink it down... etc.
You catch my drift.

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A couple of sites that were cool:

The Minimalist from the NYTimes has 101 Simple Salads.
Pioneer Woman gave me a refresher course in photography.

another rainy friday...

It's raining in Maine today... again. Will it ever go away?
Today all I can think of is the Peter, Paul, and Mary song:

Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day...

So, here are some pretty things that have caught my eye and helped my quiet morning and afternoon slide by.

Davie & Chiyo have very cool things on Etsy.
Love this purse! It'd look very snappy and elegant with the outfit I'll be wearing to a wedding next weekend. Alas, I do not have the 85 Buckaroos required to own this baby.

Aaand while I'm in drooling-for-handbags mode, how about this?
Cotton Purr has cute hand bags, and I want this. So snappy! Plus, it's got a wrist strap, which is essential for my handiness seeing that my hands are 100% full 90% of the time. I could see this with jeans (of course) and my white ruffled tuxedo-esque shirt that I got for $12 at Marshall's this spring.

Something else that was pretty that distracted me from my silent office (not that I'm complaining). Found on Etsy by Erase and Repeat. Purples are pretty, no?
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Ok. Now that I'm done drooling (wiping chin and desk),
I'm on to idea-stealing.

Very cool way to store jewelery. I hate how my necklaces are stored in a million and one Sign of the Sun boxes. They're always all tangled up, plus, I often experience moments of serious panic when I can't find something because one of the boxes has fallen behind my desk. Those moments of discovering the fallen boxes do rock though... somewhat like Christmas!
via Decorology via Together We Think Funny

I love this idea from Made by Girl.
Would it be a terrible, unforgivable thing to steal the idea and make note cards out of something like this? I can't wait for my big graphic design independent study that's coming in September. We (the minuscule art department at St. Jose's) actually just got a new room that will be converted into a print room/embossing room! The room belonged to none other than the IT office. We (the IT office) stored all of our dead computers, servers, keyboards, mice (not the furry kind), and monitors there. So, the room previously known as "the dungeon" and "the graveyard" and "that awful closet" is now going to be where I spend a lot of time. Cool!
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Idea-Stealing? Check. Now back to drooling:

My heart belongs to the farm. You can take me off of it, you can sell it, you can even put me on a boring college campus. But you'll never make me stop wanting to be a horse-loving/owning country girl.

This is so pretty. I want what my family calls a "Gentleman's Farm" when I'm a big kid and have kids and lots of money (haha). Wouldn't a country home with some pretty little nags be nice?
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Ok, I've rambled about all the things I want.
Now about the things I have:

I love my family.
I love my education.
So many opportunities that too many people don't have.
I love my country
... regardless of the current leadership's faux pas.
I love my new rain jacket that my Mom bought for me!
Lord knows I need it with this weather!

happy friday!

My 10 day week is finally over! Hopefully the office will be slow and uneventful today so I don't start my weekend super stressed. So far the coffee has no grounds in it and there's fresh creamer. Hooray!

The agenda for the weekend?

This weekend is the Yarmouth Clam Festival!
(photo via my flickr)

above: part of last year's Carnival
below: the parade--Yarmouth FD

All in all, it's a small-scale affair with a small-town feel.
But large-scale fun, if you ask me.

Erin Vey takes great pictures of people and their pets.
Her flickr is great too.

It's pretty hard to take good pictures of animals, she must have a really nice camera. Someday, grasshopper. Someday.

Judy Garland Jewlery is cute/fun with a little taste of vintage.
Found her via Old Sweet Song.
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New find: dry erase paint
It's probably been around for a while, but I'm just now finding out about it.
So cool! Now my mind is running wild with project ideas...
IdeaPaint has plenty uses for dry erase paint, and I want to see all of them in action... what if your wall was stucco or someone did a bad job sheet-rocking?

Jan Von Holleben has some pretty interesting photography ideas.
I'll have to keep it in mind for the next round of photo classes.

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have a great weekend!