Living the Creative Life

Have you ever had a severely plugged-up ear? It's the weirdest feeling in the world. Thursday afternoon I took a walk down a little man-made lake near our house. I needed to get some photos for a class so thought it'd be the perfect day for it. It was a slightly overcast day but still somewhat decent temperatures. I started out with photographing a little fishing dock that juts out over the lake. Then a cloud burst open and it started pouring down rain. This being Oregon, I figured it wouldn't last too incredibly long and didn't really think much of it. Still, I figured that I shouldn't let my Oregon nature kill my camera, so I hid in the bushes for a few minutes, trying to wait it out while keeping my camera dry. This got tiring fast, so I just decided to just walk home instead. I put on my hood and hid my camera inside my sweatshirt. Needless to say, I was drenched by the time I got home. We only live a few blocks from the lake, but t...

I've been working up a storm on my Etsy design shop lately. Besides creating a few more banners, I've started adding some printable wedding invitation options!

Have you ever had a barista who moved painfully slow? That's like the worst thing when you're in a caffeine slump. I just had that experience today in the campus coffee shop. "Yes, I'd like a tall house coffee." "House coffee? ... Okay... no problem..." "Great thanks," I said as I handed her my debit card. She slowly reached her hand out for it... slowly... okay she had it... then she ran the card... slowly... then she stared at the register like she forgot what she was doing. I stretched my customer punch card towards her with hopes that she'd speed up and get to the giving me coffee part. She looked up... slowly... "Would you like your receipt?" "No thanks." "No... Okay..." She was still holding the receipt in her hands and then seemed to remember that I needed to sign one copy... She slowly handed it towards me... "Here... You'll need to sign this one..." "Great thanks ...

Part of being a graphic designer is learning when to scrap something and start over and when to just keep pushing through. You have to weigh how much time and energy you've put in vs. whether or not what you're doing is actually working. It's like when you're knitting and you're about halfway done with a pattern and realize that you did something wrong on the 2nd row. Is it worth it to start over? Will it make a difference or can you hide it? Sometimes it really is better to start over. Sometimes you can fix it. It just depends. Last night I spent hours trying to illustrate the bicycle from my travel poster and it was still turning out rather dodgy (sorry, I've been watching Australian television again) . Between that and being tired, I just set it aside and went to bed. Maybe there's something to be said for working out your problems in your sleep because when I woke up I knew that I'd been making it way too complicated for myself. The solution was t...

Like any good student, I'm adept at procrastination. Here are some of the movies/shows that have been helping me! ;) Felicity I re-watched the entire series of Felicity recently (all 4 seasons). I'd forgotten how it all ended - kinda crazy! Is it just me, or should they have ended the show after the college graduation episode? Other than that... LOVE this show and could watch it every day. I give it 5 out of 5 stars. Contagion This was a typical disaster movie, but I tend to enjoy those, so it was fun. Best part was that they saved the origin reveal until the very end! I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. Another Earth Not the sci-fi adventure that this sounds like, this was a fascinating indie film shot with basically no budget in the filmmaker's own house, and which surprisingly co-starred an actual semi-famous-guy (who, as it turns out, basically did it for nothing because he liked the script). Overall it was a pretty brilliant movie. I give it 4.5 ou...

I keep seeing "What do you like to do on a rainy day?" blog posts around the internet lately. It makes me laugh actually b/c I never really think about things like that. I live in Oregon so it's ALWAYS raining. Whether or not it's raining doesn't generally make it into my equation for what I'm going to do for the day or how I'm going to dress. Granted, I'm an indoor sort of girl, so maybe that's partially to blame for why my activities aren't generally determined by the weather. Still though... I dress based on the temperature, not the weather. Rain doesn't equal cold here. It could be cold, it could also be quite warm. It just depends on what month of the year it is. Rain is just not really a factor to me when planning my day, much the same way that air isn't. To be fair, if I were planning a camping trip, I'd always bring a tarp to go under the tent (regardless of the forecast) because rain tends to sneak in and drench you from ...

Good morning, lovely readers! It's Disney movie time! I was inspired by the recent list over at It's Just Called Spicy , although I must admit, their list made me feel a bit old, considering I haven't heard of half the movies they listed. I guess that's fine though, because there are plenty of awesome movies from my own childhood to reminisce on! Hopefully you won't mind if I add a few live-action movies in here among the cartoons - Disney made some pretty great movie-movies when I was younger (and just before). ***** I'm curious how many of you have seen all of these? Or maybe you have your own favorites? List them below! ***** And so, without further ado, we have here, listed in order by release date... my 10 favorite Disney movies!

Got my new Book Club book yesterday. Hopefully the prologue isn't any indication of the level of not-exciting-ness this book will deliver. Maybe it's just not my style of story, but I've been finding myself having to read every paragraph twice in order to even track what's going on. Amidst the German names and the complicated spy plot, my brain longs for some fluff beach reading. I'll keep you updated on how the rest of the novel goes.

I've been having fun creating some new designs for my Etsy shop! Hopefully I'll find some customers soon. ;P Blue Pinstripes Retro Stripes Orange Funky Pink Floral

In case you missed it... here's a few of the highlights from my year so far! JANUARY Remember this art project ? My non-fashionista's attempt at a fashion post . The day I  unplugged my life . Some awesome graphically-designed posters . FEBRUARY I designed some fun coffee sleeves to knit up for my Etsy shop. Have you seen Dance Academy ? It's about an Australian ballet school. I learned how to knit an i-cord ! Spring arrived in Oregon! I painted a lot of pretty colors . MARCH I realized that  music is vital to the design process. I joined a Blogger Book Club !! Carlita ( my cat ) took center stage on the blog this day. Just a few of  my blogging philosophies . Did you know sleeping by your cell phone is detrimental to your sleep ? Do you zentangle ?

I picked up this questionnaire from Michelle over at Books 'N Shoes . Go check out her blog - she's a sweetheart! If you don't feel like reading my answers, skip to the bottom - I've included some questions for you to fill out!! :) ***** 1. Your favorite author? I'm going to have to go with C. S. Lewis. I grew up reading the Narnia series, and then in college had a class where we read most of his theological works as well. He really is a very good writer and even makes the driest subjects picture-able in your mind's eye. 2. What’s your go-to meal for dinner parties / get-togethers? Enchiladas. It's the one thing that I can make in about 20 minutes flat and that actually tastes pretty good! 3. Do you wear vintage, or is ‘used’ clothing too ick? I'm definitely not picky when it comes to used clothes. As long as it's not too worn, is of a decent style, and fits me well, I couldn't care less where it came from. 4. What’s your favorite ...

Speaking of YouTube ... I was browsing through my "Likes" list and found some awesome videos that I'd forgotten about. Did you know you have a "Likes" list on YouTube? Click on your name in the upper right corner and you'll get a drop-down of your Subscriptions, Favorites, Likes, History, etc. It's pretty interesting to look through there and remember what I've liked/browsed in the past! Here are some of 13 of my favorite creative/ interesting videos from the past year:

Just wanted to share w/ you all how my travel poster is going! I really need to get a move on - it's due next Thursday, although it's really not that difficult. Just need to make time for it really. Lol. Anyway, here's how far I've gotten so far! (The second photo is the original poster, in case you forgot what it looked like.)

Considering that this song is #4 on iTunes, you've probably already heard it, &/or added it to your iTunes library. However... I just discovered this song this past weekend and have probably listened to it a dozen times in the past couple days, so I had to share it with you. I can't get enough of the haunting melody! I also found a fascinating cover of the song on YouTube. The intensity of the music isn't quite as good as the original, but overall the video is pretty cool. As someone who took one semester of guitar about 10 years ago, I can't even imaging how difficult it must be to play one guitar with 4 other people while you're all singing! Lol. They make it look remarkably easy though. ;)

For some reason, I've never enjoyed the interface of Google Reader. I love that GR is an easy way to subscribe to all the (what seems like) millions of blogs that I subscribe to, but it's always felt like a clumsy reader to me. It's awkward to sort blogs and you can't comment within the website, which is slightly annoying. Anyway, so I'm constantly on the lookout for Mac/iPhone apps that I read my GR through. A lot of them are just as clunky, if not more clunky, than GR itself, but I think I might've stumbled across one that I actually like! Have you tried NetNewsWire ? One very cool thing about it is that you can create "smart folders", such that you might find in iTunes. I've got several set up based on key words - "graphic design", "movies", "giveaways", etc. I've also got one set up based on blog creator to designate "people I know", which I realize could be done with the regular folder method, but ...

Don't mind me... just doing a little blog sprucing around here! ;) I got a great pattern image from Five Sixteenths Blog , which inspired me to design a custom blog design for myself. Yahoo! I knew I could do it! I really should be working on homework, but this is practice right? That's the awesome thing about studying graphic design - even playing contributes to my education! ;P I also made some new buttons while I was at it. Feel free to grab one ( other sizes available here )!

Sorry if this is random, but how good are you at remembering to wash your face? I am actually pretty terrible at remembering! I'll be good for a week or two, but then when my face clears up, I'll slack off again. Very bad, I know... which is probably why I still get pimples regularly. Sigh... Also, maybe I'm weird, but I tend to rotate between several brands, since my face seems to like that best. Do you stick with one brand or try different ones? I don't know why but after awhile, my face tends to stay oily if I stick with the same wash for too long. It's like my oil glands build up a resistance or something. ;P

Today I finished up an illustration project that we actually started last term. The original assignment was to create a pattern that had radial symmetry in it. I got a decent grade on this, but my teacher did say that the elements lacked cohesion. So... I re-did a couple elements and rearranged most of them, and this is what I came up with. Then I used the updated design for my current assignment, which was to put this design digitally onto a 3D model of a tea tin. I really love how it turned out! I just wish it were an actual real tin that I could use. How cool would that be to have a tin with your own design on it?