Back.

Over the weekend we went to Tennessee for a little vacation. A few days before we left, I googled smoky mountain cabins, and found this place. We ended up staying in a private cabin called Woods and Waters, which was unbelievable. You never know what you're getting into when you reserve something online, but when we saw it, we were thrilled. Charming, spacious, king bed, hot tub, fireplace, two porches, candles, BBQ grill, kitchen, waffle iron, wine glasses, and total privacy. And it smelled like cedar and pine trees, with a faint hint of woodsmoke thrown in. Dreamy.

We slept late every day, cooked bacon and eggs, drank coffee on the porch, and went over to the national park (10 minutes away, and no entrance fee!) to hike for the rest of each day. Have a look:





I highly recommend it.

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Bye.

Hey, I just learned that literally means "Go with God." Seems obvious now. Nice. I'm taking a blogging break over the long weekend. Later, dudes.

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Conclusion of the mushroom epic

For those on the edge of your seats following the progress of our mushrooms, here's the final installment. Last weekend they turned into four of these pizzas, with brie, tomatoes, green onion, and garlic butter drizzled over them. Yum. I used this recipe (scroll down to Shiitake and Brie Pizzas), which is from another mushroom log retailer. I think it took about 7-10 days from start to finish to grow these. Now our log is resting before its next crop.

(Side note: I found this set of dinner plates and little matching salad plates under an inch of dust in a second-hand store down the street. They were stacked on the floor. I'm so glad I bothered to bend over and swipe a finger along the edge. I like this pattern.)

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Spiffed up onesies

These are the results of a recent baby gift-making session. My first time to applique something. Here's how I did it, in case you want to do it, too. But I bet there are lots of really good tutorials out there somewhere if you need step-by-step pictures.
1. I walked up to the cutting counter at Joann fabrics and asked for something that would let me iron one fabric onto another and make it stick there. They stared at me blankly for a moment, then gave me a chunk of Heat 'n' Bond.
2. I kept the Heat 'n' Bond under my bed for 5 months. (This step is optional.)
3. I washed the onesies. And dried them, too.
4. I roughly cut out a small piece of pretty fabric containing the design I wanted, and a smaller-yet piece of HNB that would fit under the design, then ironed the HNB onto the fabric chunk, following the directions that came with it.
5. I cut out the shape I wanted.
6. I pulled off the paper backing, positioned it on my garment, and ironed it on.
7. I zigzagged around the edges with my machine. Done.

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An artist or an ape?

Take a fun little quiz to see if you can tell whether each painting was created by man or monkey. I did okay: just one wrong, where I gave an ape too much credit.

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New paintings are in the shop

If you have bare walls, you can go see if there's something that strikes your fancy in the shop. I just put in 11 new paintings.

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Mushroom update

Hey, look! In just a few days, our mushrooms have gotten this big! And there are two more on the back side of the log.

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Partake of free fonts

I learned of Brazilian designer Eduardo Recife from The Scoop. He has designed several distressed typefaces and has generously made many of them available for free downloading right here. Click the name of any typeface and you'll see a groovy poster design featuring that font and a link to download it. "Porcelain" is used above.

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Start your career as a photojournalist

I found this via Swissmiss last week, and I'm addicted. It's a promotional game for Superman Returns. In it, you are Jimmy Olsen, trying to get a good shot of Superman for the Daily Planet's front page. I can't stop myself. I have to keep playing. Start your photo shoot, and you'll see what I mean.

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Maybe you need a shiitake mushroom log

This has nothing to do with art or design, but I have to tell you. A week and a half ago, a box arrived. It contained a log. Yes. My mom decided we would enjoy growing our own mushrooms, so she ordered us a mushroom log. We're in a second floor condo, so obviously there's no garden, but we like to make the most of our back landing and try to grow interesting things. This one takes the cake. I'm very excited. Seriously! And look! The log came with no mushrooms, and now it has two! I think more are coming. If you feel you can't live without one (and I'm sure that's just about everybody), get your own log here.

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Quiz: What color are you?

Take this quiz to find out "what color" you are. Apparently I am blue. No, not sad. The results said, "You give your love and friendship unconditionally. You enjoy long, thoughtful conversations rich in philosophy and spirituality. You are very loyal and intuitive."

That sort of fits. I'm not sure I'm that philosophical, though; I tend toward the practical. But I do like talking about spiritual stuff. And it's funny that I ended up "intuitive" here, since I was not so intuitive here. Hmm. I'm curious to know if anyone's color result turned out to be their favorite color. Mine's not.

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Stuff you can make

Roses made from coffee filters at Martha Stewart (watch the video, too)
Lined drawstring bag at Happy Things
Fancy business card box from Evil Mad Scientist Labs (doesn't look as scary as it sounds)
Kid-sized apron made from a dishtowel at I Have to Say...
Pinwheels at Allsorts
A dressed-up sewing tape measure from Whip Up
Small framed photo+fabric art at Two Straight Lines

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Quiz: Art or Crap?

I bought a set of colored Sharpies a long time ago for some project or other, but now I can't remember what for. I pulled them out just now and doodled a bit, which was nice and therapeutic. But I'm still trying to think of a way to make doodles into something decent. I'll keep working on that...

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More online photo editing: Picnik

A couple people have suggested Picnik as a good free online tool for editing photos, so I checked it out. I had visited the site once before, but got too impatient waiting for the page to load and gave up. This time I was determined to have more patience. I had to download Flash Player 9 first, but the wait was worth it. It's a well-designed interface that's easy on the eyes and does a good job with standard simple editing. And you can directly save your edited photo to your Flickr account, email it to a friend or another website, or print it directly from Picnik.

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Whoa.

I just got home from work, checked the ol' email, and was stunned to read all the encouraging comments on my last post. And things sold in the shop! Get outta here! You guys weren't kidding. This is fun.

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Etsy is a go

News flash! There is now a How About Orange... etsy shop. So far it's just a few sets of thumbtacks and a package of coasters, but I hope to put in some paintings as soon as I figure out how to package them. Thanks to everyone for all your advice and encouragement!

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Crazy online sign generators

Somebody at redkid.net has put together about a million sign generators. You type your own text into a form, submit it, and up pops your personalized iPod billboard (one of many options.) I can see some potential ways to use this in deceitful emails... To a friend whose birthday you forgot: "Look! In honor of your birthday we made a cake with your name on it to celebrate!" or maybe "Mom, I TOLD you that dropping out of college would work out! Here's a photo of my Oscar." To make your own photo, click here and scroll down for the list of signs.

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Cut paper wall art

My friend Megumi sent me traditional Japanese kirigami paper-cutting patterns for my birthday, and I was very excited to try it. Foolishly, before even picking up a scissors, I had to make it harder for myself by deciding they would look simply perfect framed in some square Ikea frames I had in the closet. So that meant in order to fit them in the matted opening, I had to reduce the pattern to 40% size. Nothing like starting off easy! But I was bursting with confidence. So here's my first attempt. Not perfect, but I'm happy. Oh my gosh, it's SO FUN to unfold these little guys!

They're 3.5" in diameter. I ironed them to make them flat. Wasn't sure if they'd burst into flames or not, but they lived. Here they are, framed and ready to hang in our bedroom. (See bedroom. Still crazy about our Blik Iron Vines. But there's plenty of wall space left that needs filling.)


And I was so proud of myself, until I saw these. Holy cow. I'm going to go throw myself in front of a bus now. :)

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Make wee little websites

I just discovered Leafletter.com via Heather Bailey's blog. Leafletter is a tool for creating a little website based on your choice of 36 different grid-based layouts. You can link to or embed your "leaflet" in your blog or anywhere you want. Check it out! I made myself a tiny portfolio, below.

6/30/11 Update: It looks like Leafletter is now extinct. Sorry, folks!

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My mini portfolio

Here are some samples of my graphic design work. Click on an image to view it larger, then mouse over the "i" for a brief description. Click the arrow to go back. Clicking the bottom left box with the green type will take you to more pages.

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