ATC: Summer

Wednesday we traded ATC (artist trading cards) for the Hallmark trade, the theme was "summer." After thinking of several concepts, I finally landed on a county fair theme, specifically focusing on bucket calves. I had bucket calves when I was younger and I am missing them this year more than ever. I named each one of the calves on my cards after my own calves. I had really original names: Daisy, Susie, Betsy, Clover 1, Clover 2, Red, and Met Life (our insurance calf).

I used a combination of computer illustration and hand-drawing for these cards, some being more abstract than others.

013 | Wallpaper Wednesday

Another great quote from Randy Pausch

Junck?

Recently on a trip back to my hometown, my mom encouraged me to stop at a new store on our square, JUNCK, after seeing my post about on the MN art fair and the Spark Plug Guy. JUNCK "repurposes hidden treasures" to help move "toward creating a greener, happier world" and "do something productive with some of the STUFF that is already here."

I was pleasantly delighted with the goods I found at JUNCK! Neither my mom, nor I, walked away empty handed. My mom purchased two great wood plant stands. And I ended up with a beautiful, vintage "Marta Stewart blue" vase, 3 blue Ball mason jars, and this lovely vintage pyrex (shown above), all for right at $20! I baked with the pyrex for the first time this weekend and am already deliberating on my next baked good. I've always dreamed of being the stylish mom with the cute kitchen items to bring to potlucks... now I'm one step closer to making that dream a reality... sigh!

012 | Wallpaper Wednesday

My mentor at Hallmark, gave me this piece of advice early on in our meetings. She's given me great advice during our touch-bases and I truly appreciate her feedback.

Color Palettes to Inspire

Last week, I checked out House Beautiful's book: Colors for your Home: 300 Designer Favorites. I was so inspired by the layout of the colors. The designer of the book came up with the most beautiful and unique color palettes for each page. The book isn't promoting these specific colors together, it's just how they were laid out. I spent some time going through the book and assigning Pantone colors to each of the paint chips to create a color palette "library" for myself. The color palettes going horizontally are the original selections, but after printing it out, I realized there was other dimensions to the color palette love (diagonally, vertically, in squares, etc.) I tried my best to diagram the combinations I thought worked best (this only hints at my severe nerdiness).

Disclaimer: In the conversion from paint color, to PMS chip, to a jpg and then depending on the calibration of your monitor, the colors have probably shifted a bit in hue, value or intensity and may need to be adjusted before using.

011 | Wallpaper Wednesday

Fresh Peach Pie

I had friends over for some swimming, grilling, and summer foods. I thought I'd share the recipe to my favorite summer dessert, Fresh Peach Pie, it might even be my all-time favorite dessert!

Fresh Peach Pie
Crust:
1 ½ cups flour

½ cup oil
2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp milk
½ tsp salt

Mix all ingredients until oily and press into 9" pie pan with fingers. Bake at 400 degrees until golden, about 12 - 18 minutes.

Glaze:
½ cup sugar

3 tbsp cornstarch

1 cup water
2 tbsp white corn syrup

4 tbsp jello mix (peach or apricot)

6 sliced peaches (peeling is optional)

Mix cornstarch with sugar in saucepan. Add water and corn syrup. Cook & stir until thick and clear. Remove from burner and add dry gelatin and fresh fruit. Put filling in pie crust and refrigerate 4 - 6 hours.

Enjoy!

New(ish) Art 2 + Office Tour

Back in March, I got the "Keep Calm and Carry On Poster" from Blu Lima on Etsy. I was buying another color for a friend's birthday and thought I deserved one for myself and it's appropriate to have in the workplace. Don't you think?

I figured I'd take a couple extra photos and give you a tour of my booth at Hallmark:

Here are some of my favorites from the photo:

-Iowa landscape in pastels by Diane Kunzler, my high school art teacher, one of my most treasured pieces of original art.

-Vintage lime green turtle given to me by my co-worker, it is after-all my namesake.

-Mosaic frame and pitcher made in a Hallmark mosaic workshop during my summer internship.

-Laser-cut "Thanks," "Bananas," and wine bottle, all from co-workers... we like to use the laser cutter!

-Limited Quantity "What Up Homies" letterpress print from the one-and-only, Jessie Snede.

-Another piece from the intern mosaic workshop.

Felt Rocks

This project is going waaaaaaaaaaay back to January... I wanted to jump on the felted rock bandwagon. I bought some scrap wool felt at a craft show for 4 beans, found some cool rocks on a brisk morning walk and thought I'd give it a try. I used a tutorial similar to this. I used several methods (hot water washing, washer, etc) and they didn't turn out perfect, but I think perfection comes with practice, I was happy with the thin stripe on the largest rock. I think I've settled my craving for felted rocks. This may be my last go at it, but I'm glad I have this little rock tower to display my efforts!

010 | Wallpaper Wednesday

A+ Blood Donation

I think donating blood is extremely valuable and hope that everyone that is capable to donate does so. But you can find those reasons (like every pint can save up to three lives) elsewhere on the internet. I want to tell you about how it can benefit you.

A couple of weeks ago I received my Community Blood Center card in the mail and found out that donating blood can also benefit me. The Community Blood Center website let's you monitor your donor history and track your own health stats through it's free Wellness program! It charts your cholesterol, blood pressure, heart rate, & temperature. What a great way to keep track of your health statistics?

If that's not incentive enough, the Wellness Program also let's you "buy" things with the points you earn for donating blood. You earn 100 points every time you donate whole blood, and an additional 100 points just for signing up for the free program! I bought AMC movie theater tickets with my points, but there also other cool things like a pizza cutter. And who wouldn't want a pizza cutter from the Blood Center?

In case you aren't currently donating blood, there are now two great reasons for you to start! But most importantly you're saving lives... shortages of all blood types happen during the summer and winter holidays, so get going!

Sadly, I was supposed to donate blood this evening, but as it turns out I need to wait another 3 weeks... I think I had my months messed up when trying to schedule my appointment. :(

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July! I'm heading to Cedar Rapids, Iowa this weekend to spend time with a great friend, and stopping along the way to visit family and friends. It should be a fun-filled weekend!

I baked red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for the festivities! Doesn't it look like ketchup when the batter is in the little baking cups?

New(ish) Art

I finally got around to framing (and posting) some artwork that I got in March & April. Here's the first set of two letterpress prints that I got at a First Friday event at Hammerpress. Aren't they lovely? And they're the perfect colors for me! I love Hammerpress' artwork and style, but I have a hard time finding posters where I like the band and the design, so these little characters are perfect for me!

I hung them on the small wall when you first enter my room, so every time I walk in I'm greeted by these lovelies!

009 | Wallpaper Wednesday

Today's Wallpaper Wednesday comes from Jane Fulton Suri from Ideo, a design firm that "creates products, services, and environments for companies". Jane spoke at Hallmark some time ago and when an audience member asked her what kind of employee's they look to hire at Ideo, she responded with "T-shaped people," and it struck me as very profound. It's described really well here:
"We look for people who are so inquisitive about the world that they’re willing to try to do what you do. We call them “T-shaped people.” They have a principal skill that describes the vertical leg of the T — they’re mechanical engineers or industrial designers. But they are so empathetic that they can branch out into other skills, such as anthropology, and do them as well. They are able to explore insights from many different perspectives and recognize patterns of behavior that point to a universal human need. That’s what you’re after at this point — patterns that yield ideas."