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Our second bedroom is becoming a studio. Today it all starts with the paint. Goodbye white walls. Stay tuned for more. I'll be sure to share the transformation.

Baltimore winters are not really something to complain about. We don't get a lot of snow (except for that time we got pounded with two 22 inch blizzards within one week!) and in general, things are a lot better than when I went to school in Syracuse. But now that I'm acclimated to the warm, balmy Baltimore winters, the slightest dip in temperature makes it ok for me to say it's freezing outside. Anyway, these cold temps and rainy days (especially of late) beg for a bit of color. These wonderful bolds helped to warm me up this past week. And there is still part of me that kind of misses walking to class in this every day.

via West Elm

via Pinterest

via

via Little Dog Vintage

via J. Crew

via Lemon Lime Photography

via sincerely YOU

via notTuesday

via Pinterest

Great color inspiration and certainly a winter warm up! What do you do to beat those cold winter days?

One of my latest Etsy finds are these adorable little pins and fantastic geometric necklaces from Hug a Porcupine. It's really hard not to like these enamel accessories.






I think my favorite has to be the triangle necklaces, and there are so many fun color options! What are some of your favorite Etsy finds these days?

As we move from the outdoors to the indoors in cold weather times, Andrew and I have started thinking about way to make this house what we've really wanted. After living her for a year and a half, we realized that many of the things we had hoped to do right away are still lingering. The half bath tiles were never ripped out, our upstairs is still painted entirely white, and our scuzzy Ikea sofa with dog drool all over it and a faded arm is less than charming. So Andrew has dubbed 2012 "The Year of the House."

The first deed was done when we spent an afternoon in the DC area and picked up this desk.



Then, over the New Year's weekend when we ordered this sleeper sofa and chairs.




The one distressing part about this is that we're not entirely sure the sofa will fit into our basement. Andrew did all sorts of calculations and thinks it'll work, but there's still a part of me that's very worried. On an upside, the chairs will definitely fit, with one of them going into my new studio. We've decided that since we don't have that many guests, we'd opt for a sleeper sofa in the basement and use the second bedroom as a studio and reading room. So it's out with this room, and in with some new decor-- already. Though we're planning on keeping some of the elements.

Before choosing a sofa, we decided to take care of the ugly black one inch square tiles that are in the half bath and chose out new cork flooring. I love the look of cork floors and since it's pretty pricey, we decided the small space of the half bath would be the perfect place to put it to add some light, warmth, and keep the cost low.



Finally, this past weekend we picked out paint for our studio and bedroom.



The transition begins this Friday when the Salvation Army comes to get our old couch and mattress. This coming weekend will be a painting fest, for sure in the studio room, in anticipation for the arrival of our sofa and chairs.

Within the first ten days of 2012, I would most definitely say this has become the Year of the House. Looking forward to these transitions and I'll be sure to share photos as progress is made. What sorts of home projects are you working on this year?

So you may remember some fun I had with markers and I had promised I would show the end result. I finally had the chance to get everything printed, photographed, and listed in my shop. And here is the final result.




While the vibrancy of the colors became a bit more dull, I am still happy with the outcome! So much so that I had to try another idea with creating a scanned image card. This time, I used paper cutouts of hearts, did some PhotoShop magic, popped the PhotoShop magic into an Illustrator file, tweaked a few things here and there, and viola!


What do you think?

I'm loving all of the fun ideas I've been having for Valentine's cards, but have been trying to design some new stationery these days as well. I'll be back with that in a few days! :)