I've spent the weekend working on a scrapbook of my New York adventure. More accurately, I've been procrastinating by scouring Pinterest for travel book inspiration!
I purchased my first font today! Normally I just gaze longingly at them, as they’re usually too expensive to justify buying for personal use – but this one was on sale for $9! Take a gander at Thirsty Rough:
I love the old-school, retro style of it. I can see this used in many a project.
I thought I’d start the second week of 2013 with a quick roundup of what I’ve been up to.
My brother is off to China for a whole year! I made Hobbes for him for Christmas before I knew he was going. He took it along. I think it’s safe to say he enjoyed it!
I started playing around with a label design for my husband’s homebrew for fun, and this was born. I might go back and redo it later, but he was quite pleased with it in the meantime.
I’ve been working on the Juneberry Triangle only halfway done with the edging. It’s exhausting! It’s beautiful, though, and I’m sure it’ll be worth it.
I fulfilled some of my Maid of Honor duties and went dress shopping with Jenna. She found the perfect one on our first trip! Don’t worry, this isn’t the one!
If you follow in an RSS reader, you probably didn’t see the new design. Here’s a screenshot for reference:
I’m very happy with it! One of my goals for 2012 was to learn how to write WordPress themes from scratch. It’s not perfect, but I have a pretty good grasp so far. Next challenge: Write one for others to download.
What do you think of the new design? If you notice anything wonky, please let me know. I’ll even take constructive criticism. 
I stumbled upon some beautiful sciencey finds at Savers yesterday, so today’s inspiration is rather laboratory-inspired. All of the items are from Etsy, and most are one-of-a-kind.
One of the unfortunate things about some of the bigger and more popular blogs is that I always feel like I can’t keep up with them. I adore blogs like Apartment Therapy, Poppytalk, and Design*Sponge, but if I added them to my RSS reader, I’d have to spend all my time reading blogs.
The bright side is that when I do get a chance to browse, I discover really fun stuff! Meet today’s discovery: Upholstery Basics at Design*Sponge!
This beautiful Leather Bookcase rivals even *my* ambition
The author, Amanda Brown, has a series of posts with detailed instructions on all kinds of furniture and upholstery projects. I love it! Having the knowledge to revamp (or build from scratch!) furniture opens up a whole world of possibilities!
Lampshade tutorial - no, no *covering* a lampshade. Making it from scratch.
The most exciting thing, though, was this post on building a boxed ottoman from a coffee table. I am not kidding, Matt and I just got home from looking at ottomans at the furniture store.
Boxed Ottoman Tutorial at Design*Sponge
I am definitely doing this! Stay tuned – I’ll absolutely be posting photos when I do.
Another flash-inspired tattoo illustration – this time, of a Robot Heart.
Sketched in pencil, then inked and colored digitally.
For more than a decade I have been a borderline-obsessive Ben Folds fan, not something I can say about many things. One of my favorite albums since high school is Whatever and Ever Amen. Using gypsy girl tattoos as inspiration, I drew this based on the song Kate.
I’m still trying to find my style as an artist, but I’m pretty pleased with it.
If you’re a Ben Folds Five fan, Â check out their new album: The Sound of the Life of the Mind. It’s awesome!
(as always, this is copyrighted material – you are free to share it but you MUST link back to this post.)
I’m absolutely infatuated with this font from Emily Lime Design.
It’s available at MyFonts. Anyone want to buy me a present?? (Now off to practice my handwriting…)
I haven’t talked about it much, but I set a big goal for myself this August: to be able to design and write a WordPress theme from scratch.
There’s only another day left in August, and I think I’m pretty close to achieving it! I’ll let you know for sure come September.
In my research, though, I’ve found some great resources for design inspiration that I’d like to share. Even if you’re merely an observer of good design, you can appreciate this!
1. CSSMania
CSS Mania is a gallery of web design that utilizes CSS (obviously). You can browse by hex code, which is pretty cool.
2. We Love WP
We Love WP is another, similar gallery, except that it focuses exclusively on sites that use WordPress. You can truly see how versatile the platform is.
3. Dribbble
Dribbble is maybe the obvious one, here. It’s billed as “Show and Tell For Designers” and is chock-full of droolicious design. I can lose (and have lost) hours here.
If you know of any other resources for inspiration, please share!
