when designers have dogs...

Our Boulder office has an office dog- Elmer- this cute, territorial little westie that goes home with one of the partners everyday. Elmer is as old as the firm- turning three this week- and his owner just sent out this announcement on his behalf. Too bad we're out here in Charlotte and can't join in the fun, but soon enough I'll start bringing my puppy in and we'll start to copy on the east coast :)

a lil bling for the office

pencils in white and ocean

File folders: in ocean and grass

See Jane Work has some colorful and fun additions to keep you stylish in the office. A lady I used to work with always had red file folders. Genius i thought... she always knew which ones were hers and they looked good in her office. I naturally would choose blue and green... and right now all the Basics from See Jane work are 50% off!! The above are my choices to add a little bling.

happy to leave it behind...

yay! its the weekend, well 30 minutes and counting. This is the view of my desk. Although I have filled it with things I love, like my antique glove holder from my aunt, green and blue sticky notes and lovely calendar from my cousin Joslyn, I am happy to leave it all behind.

enjoy your weekend!

in need of a laugh

Flight of the Conchords is BY FAR one of my favorite Tv shows. What makes it so great are the songs! duh. so on my Daily Candy today it had the suggestion for their cd to listen to this weekend. I am allll over it. And check out the rockin cover art. who could ask for anything more?

Ashes + Snow

I've mentioned my coworker who is traveling throughout central + south america these days with his wife (for a year, I think), and the blog that they keep to chronicle their experiences.

Recently they posted about an exhibit they've seen- 'ashes and snow' -which has something to do with animals + humans via photography + film. Just the picture they posted makes me want to look into it... check it out.

New Keys!

via jennski on etsy

Amidst the mayhem at work and the excitement of getting a new puppy, we're moving! This afternoon we get keys to our new place- home sweet home for the next 18 months+ -and this evening I'm going to start at it- taping / painting / whatever I can get done!

high school musical

On friday night I accompanied my friend Shannon to the annual musical at Woodrow Wilson here in Dallas. My friend Sean (Shannon's fiance) is the music director there so it was a real treat to see him at work. They performed Sound of Music. It was an incredible show. The caliber of detail they put out for the show was pretty spectacular. The costumes were phenomonal and the talent of the kids was awesome!! I was really impressed. I recommend to anyone to go and see their show next year no matter what it may be because this school puts forth its all to make it a great show.

Now the architecture of the school is a whole other category. They were put on the historical registry and the gothic detail in parts of the school were really impressive. read more about it here.

party this weekend?

Pingg.com is my new fave site for invitations. much better than evite. you can load your own images onto the site to use as your invite and the best part is you can use their surroundsend feature. this feature sends an evite, a webpage for your event and they even have a postcard (snail mail), and text message feature for your event.

I used surround send recently for my friends wedding shower to send out a postcard invite and it gave me a webpage. I was able to use my own art and customize the page. I will put up the image after the event happens because i don't want the bride to see it... ;)

Have a great weekend!!!

brown thumb no more

I have a problem with keeping plants alive. Pretty much, I have the opposite of a green thumb. This is really sad because I really do love plants... and would love to have fresh herbs to cook with. So, you can imagine my happiness when I found these GroBal pots designed by Karim Rashid.

They have this watering system that lets you know when the water is low and you need to rewater them. And like all of Karim's designs the are are fun and colorful in that blobject form.

New Paint

Just wanted to share some good news: we just got an email from our soon-to-be landlord telling us that not only is he okay with the colors we'd like to paint throughout the place, but he's fine us leaving them up when we leave- in the world of renting, THAT IS GOLD!

That means that instead of painting for a year and a half and then having to re-paint the place back to white when we leave, we save ourselves half the hassle. I'm soooo excited! See colors below- mine is bedroom2, fyi :)

Guggenheim : Lithuania

I just came across this post on Prairie Mod about the "Guggenheim Trilogy." Somehow I missed the news that Zaha Hadid was designing the next Guggenheim for Vilnius, Lithuania. I'm sure it's a welcome progression into the story the Guggenheim architecture is telling, but I'm still incredibly partial to the original... thoughts?

ps: am I the only one who expected it to be designed by another frank?

gen 1 : frank lloyd wright, NY

gen 2 : frank gehry, bilbao, spain

gen 3 : zaha hadid, lithuania

Resisting the Urge for More Clutter...

Getting ready for a move always makes me ache for new pieces and finds in the next place... Last night I got in these curtains that I mentioned I'd ordered from Anthropologie- they were on clearance, so I wasn't picky when the only available length was 108", but my GOODNESS they are long! At least they'll pool nicely on the floor...until the puppy tears them to shreds... hmm.

Now I'm in this inexplainable search for a "new" (to me) piece for the house. I'm out of room in my bedroom, seems as though we're set for the living room, and I'm trying to adapt Erin's method of buying things only on her list by refusing to purchase anything that'll contribute to my growing collection of clutter and / or soon-to-be-Goodwill donations.

I'm also relatively out of money and resources, but I can't help but scour craigslist and ebay for the next accent- for instance, wouldn't these chairs look AWESOME recovered in some other fabric? Love the shape...love the price... hmmm.

just in case you wanted to know....

Because I sure did. I found the plates from my unexpected inspiration post a couple days ago. It was on Fred Flare.com. Plates by Thomas Paul.... thanks kelley, your previous post sent me down that wandering path!

maps... (and no im not talking about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs)

I leant out one of my most prized possesions to Ben last night for his trip this weekend. My NYC pop up map (think joey from friends in London without the 3D landmarks). It is small discreet and even includes a subway map!!

After threatneing him if he lost it, I got to thinking about how I really might have a healthy (or unhealthy) obsession with maps, My 5th year Iarc thesis even included maps as part of the concept! Then I remembered this book I ran accross a while ago via Black eiffel. I think it would be a great addition to my library.

Meanwhile, I am on the lookout for MY upcoming trip to London, Copenhagen and Aarhus! Please let me know if you have any ideas.

New Planner!

Right now I have a plain-old moleskine that serves both as a notebook and a (homemade) planner- pages of monthly grids. I love having everything in one place, but as I've taken less than 6 months to go through the notebook and am now having to transfer to both a new notebook AND a new planner, my system has failed me..

Sooo... I've got things to use as notebooks here- ones that I wasn't AS crazy about and have thus shoved to the side for the time-being. Transferring to a new planner mid-year is something I'm not okay with. Coming from a family that plans trips 2-3 years in advance, I think I've found the perfect solution.

I just ordered this 5 YEAR PLANNER from fredflare and am hoping that it holds up for at least two of the five years - or at least that I don't get sick of it / bored before then.

ApartmentTherapy : Smallest, Coolest Contest

My friend, Aryn, has been entered in Apartment Therapy's "Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest." Check out more photos of her apartment, including a floor plan, and how she dealt with a lack of space- 430 s.f.!!!

Help a girl out and vote for her to help her win some furniture!

Heather's House

This weekend I went over for visit 1 of many (I'm sure) to a friend's house. Heather Miller is one of the girls we went to school with who ALSO settled in Charlotte after graduating and now works for a firm here to support her insanely diverse grouping of hobbies + crafts. This girl does everything from glass-blowing to felting, and has just purchased a 43 year old house to showcase her ever-unique style.

I took a couple mid-progress pictures- she's painting / re-covering / re-finishing almost everything in the house, but still managing to keep all of those great mid-century characteristics that made her fall in love with it. I promised I wouldn't post any pictures until she was comfortable with the "after" shots to compare the progress, but as a hint, she's done-up an entire bedroom around this bedding from IKEA- the wall color, I think she said, is titled "hot." It's hard to see it in the image (thanks a lot, IKEA) but the quilt-covers have all kinds of reds, pinks, oranges, and golds- it's kind of impressive for the price. It's an amazing room- can't wait to see what she does with the rest of the place!

unexpected inspiration

i saw this image in traditional home and well.... i love it. the colors the graphics, the motif. very updated and fashion forward i think. no?

old skool originals

I am contemplating getting some new shoes for working in. flats are a must so i can climb up and down laddars. so i thought i'd throw it old school and go with keds or converse. what do you think?

New curtains!

I think I mentioned this before, but I'll be moving soon- it's not a huge move and it's definitely not a big deal, but it's always fun to have a fresh start- example? I just bought new curtains. I've had these extremely cheap red panels with white shears in my room for while a while now, and they've done their job, but I was ready for a change.

I just ordered these yellow panels, on sale from Anthropologie, and combined with the 'Mysterious Mauve' (grey-purple) color I've chosen, I think they'll look awesome.

I need some help: How do you pick-out a cute, not-boring, grown-up shower curtain?

SEGD 2007 Design Awards

I was looking through the projects that received awards last year from the Society of Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) and this one really caught my eye. It's a temporary street decoration for the City of Melbourne's 06/07 Holiday Season. Rather than go with the typical nativity scene, they went with a typographic solution using nativity text from the Bible.

I think it turned out really well- looks cool, and indeed, isn't your typical nativity scene.

Jessica Claire + My Dream Wedding

You'll see me talk about Jessica Claire, one of my favorite wedding photographers to date, and the amazing photographs she manages to take away from every and any wedding. Most of the time there are things that I like from each one, but it seems to be more about the photography rather than the decor / style of the wedding.

In this case, it's all of it. 9 things out of 10 make up my 'dream wedding' here- the colors chosen, the style, the SETTING, etc... photos like this make my decision more and more secure that I'll want a 'destination wedding.' Now all I need is the groom...

(I sure do have a lot of choices made without having a wedding to plan!) These are some of my favorites:

101 Things I Learned in Architecture School

I know we went to school for a degree in INTERIOR architecture, but with at least half of our faculty having degrees in ARCHITECTURE, I feel like we got a lot of these tips / lessons along the way, as well.

One of my bosses sent through a few pages he'd scanned from "101 Things I Learned in Architecture School" by Matthew Frederick. These two were my favorites, and we can definitely relate.

wood and steel house

love... via dwell, read on here.

Stop to smell the sand.

Erin's cousin (I think?) Joslyn posted recently about an upcoming beach trip she plans to take with her family- just reading her descriptions about past trips and planning for this one, even as different as the preparations are from mine (sunscreen + new bathingsuits for her girls vs. a working blender and tanning oil for me..), made me cringe as I realize that my next trip down to the coast won't be until the first weekend in June.

Growing up in Ohio and maintaining a vacation spot in Hilton Head (along with the rest of the midwest) I got pretty used to a 13+ hour drive to the coast, so when I moved to Charlotte and realized my haven was a short 4-5 hours away, I feel as though I should be there every weekend during the summer!

There's something about the beach- or any beach that I've seen thus far- no matter what time of day / year it is, that instantly relaxes me. I think most of the time we end up arriving at night, in the middle of the night, or the extreme early morning, whether coming from Ohio or leaving after work from the Carolinas. Even in the dark, rolling down the windows as soon as you hit the bridge onto the island makes everything worth it. I've gone with family, friends, boyfriends (now ex-boyfriends..), and by myself- doesn't matter who you're with as long as you're there.

I've got several trips planned for this summer- some with the family, some without, all with the new puppy. Can't wait!

(ps: the puppy is due to be born TOMORROW!!!!)