Blog — "stationery"

1. By now I am sure you can tell that I'm ecstatic that summer vacay has arrived! I think teachers enjoy it more than any student ever could!

2. My goal this week is to try three new recipes. So far I've made one, with the next coming today. Monday night I cooked up these fantastic taco stuffed shells that were ridiculously tasty!


3. Two summers ago, a few co-workers and I had a photography challenge called The Daily Dose Picture Post. The four of us decided that in order to keep our photography skills fresh we would use our summer vacation to post one photo a day until the beginning of school. This challenge inspired me to do the same sort of thing, but this time with design. Today marks the first day of my Design a Day Challenge I wrote about yesterday, so stay tuned later today for the first design I've got in store to share!

4. With the arrival of our first time homebuyer's tax credit, we have looked to our trusty list of items to purchase or save for. Aside for saving money for travel and other various things, the first item was a new set of cookware. Say hello to my new set of Le Creuset pots and pans (and I splurged and got bakeware too!) in Caribbean blue!


5. There is nothing more refreshing and tasty on a summer morning than iced coffee! I've been enjoying quite a few of those over the past few days.

6. I've started my summer reading and the first book I will be reading is Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. One of my students read this YA book and was in love with it so I'm taking his recommendation! What are you reading this summer?

7. I call this little list "Punch List" because I'm constantly making punch lists of my own. Summer is a great time for all of those catch up projects. Next in store-- rehabbing a couple sets of plantation shutters I found at the architectural salvage yard.

8. Speaking of projects, our cedar fence is coming along quite nicely!


9. I'm trying to get back into my yoga routine. This summer is all about relaxing, but not getting too lazy!

10. The latest thing I've been trying to convince Andrew on for our back yard is to take out the lower deck and install Moroccan cement tiles in its place for a beautiful outdoor courtyard feel. We'll see how that goes over with architect Andrew.

Day two of summer vacation is under way and I've already been productive in the design department. So far, I've come up with two unique summer designs-- one a day. And quite frankly, they may be some of my best to date. So, motivated by a previous summer challenge of a photo a day for the entire summer, I am going to embark on a similar mission. Ideally, I'd love to have a new design every day for the summer, but I realize that I may be a bit over ambitious. So I will start with a design a day for the next 30 days. I will post the results on this lovely blog so keep me motivated and encouraged! I am envisioning wonderful summer designs with lots of color to come! I'll start with my first post tomorrow so I'll leave you with a quick sneak peak!

My latest stationery design is a simple splash off light, summer color on crisp linen card stock. The wave design started as lines. They became waves by sheer accident when I recolored one set of lines as a fill color rather than a line color. I was happy with the minor mis-click of my mouse and decided to stick with it. I've paired a blush pink with creamy orange, sun yellow with aqua, sky blue with grass green, and lavender with green.