Katie Daisy

Newest on my design blogroll is Katie Daisy. Katie does a wonderful job at describing herself on her website. Here is what she says:

"Katie Daisy is a wandering artist whose home is the prairie. Originally from a small farm in Illinois, Katie is greatly inspired by rural life. Ms. Daisy makes her way by enjoying simple country pleasures such as a sweet goldfinch song, swimming in lakes, canoe trips that creep into the night and sipping chamomile tea with honey.

After a rigorous (and fun!) bout of schooling at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, Katie Daisy now follows her bliss as a full time artist. At only 23 years, Katie has worked for numerous clients such as Target, HGTV, & American Greetings. Katie's work has also been recognized by the Society of Illustrators, Chronicle Books, HOW Magazine, CMYK Magazine, Pregnancy & Newborn, and Stampington's Artful Blogging Magazine."

There are many things that I love about her artwork. The biggest thing is her works seems simply sweet an untainted. Now that I have learned that she has worked for Target, I vaguely remember seeing her work there. I also love her name, Katie Daisy. When I was young, I told my parents that I wanted to rename myself to "Daisy Rose." They never let me forget that. Maybe that is one of the reasons I really like Katie Daisy's work.

New Project: Chair Upholstery

Since I finished my door tables, I have been itching for a new project. For the past couple weeks I have been on the lookout for a good furniture project. Tonight I found one. I was watching some of Etsy's video podcasts and came across a video showcase on Spruce Home in Austin, Texas. (Why are all the coolest artists in Austin??) These girls run their own upholstery shop. They take old dumpster-ready furniture and revive it to the coolest standards. I love their stuff! So, here I am, stating to the world (or maybe my DH who is the only viewer), I am going to take on a project just like this. I am going to find an old chair and blog my way through reupholstering it. This should be comical.

Check out Spruce Home's video below (created by Etsy), and if you are ever bored and need some creative inspiration, check out Etsy's videos.

Process: Upholstery with Spruce Home from Etsy on Vimeo.

Helms Workshop

I am absolutely loving Helms Workshop. Helms Workshop is a creative firm that offer many different varieties of services. They offer anything you need from interactive media, web and print, to ... yes ... a plane design. One of their most recent works, Frank Hot Dogs was profiled in Communication Arts 2010 Design Annual (This is a huge accomplishment). You can see more of their work on their own website or at Graphic Exchange (where I discovered them).

Colored Pumpkins

This idea came from a previous post - it was Sweet Paul's idea to paint pumpkins instead of carving them. "What a great idea," I thought. Well, it was fun to paint them, however, it took a long time. A pumpkin needs several layers of acrylic paint to become opaque, and I had to keep flipping them on their sides and painting small portions at a time so that the wet portion didn't touch the table. Also, the paint is very sensitive and easily chips. So be careful if you choose to do this or else you will find yourself finger painting every hour because you nudged them... again.

I chose to paint my pumpkins some of the same colors on my mom's paintings. You can see these abstract paintings in the background of one of the pictures below. I love striking contrast. So these pumpkins on top of my black table sit well with my soul.

Door-Desk Project: Complete!

I think we did it. I think we completed our door-desk project! These doors have been in our apartment since early August, and now, finally, we are done!

This last weekend, I went over to Lowes and found replaceable banquet table legs. Then in one evening, DH and I assembled both tables! The plan from the beginning was to also add glass tops to these. Well, after I got one outrageous quote, I was given another local company to seek out. However, now that we have reached this point in the project and discovered that we don't absolutely need the glass tops (yet), we are going to call it complete. At least for now. That is just how DH and I handle things-if it isn't a dire need, don't bother. So for now, we aren't going to bother.

I should add this note: These two awesome (and sturdy) tables cost us a total of $40! The doors were free (by someone's trash... we are not above that), and a package of two replacement banquet table legs cost $20 from Lowes (x2=$40). Note that if you are going to try this project, make sure of two things...

1. Use screws that aren't longer than the width of the portion of the door you are screwing through. If you don't you could have many little sharp screws poking through your table.

2. Make sure that wherever you assemble these doors you can get the doors out of the room once completed! This is why we chose to use the collapsable table legs-we didn't want to have to disassemble the tables if we were ever to move.

My advice is to get a guy to assemble these.

The entire room.

The side table with our web & print design and adobe-help books.

My side.

The Table

New Link, New Post: Sweet Paul

I was clicking around from blog to blog tonight and came across Sweet Paul. Sweet Paul, run by a man named (you guessed it) Paul, is a blog that highlights portions of his Sweet Paul Magazine. The magazine just completed their second issue, and already they have been nominated the "Food and Drink Magazine of the Year" by DMA (Digital Magazine Awards). This is what Paul says about himself:

I'm a 43 year old food and prop stylist and crafter who packed his Louis and moved from Oslo to New York to live and love. Been working with some amazing photographers, great clients and fab magazines. You can see more of my work on my agents site, www.bigleoproductions.com.

The magazine is not only yummy, but beautifully designed. Simple layout. Stunning photography. Crafty projects, etc. You can browse through the digital magazine by clicking here. Have fun!

New Fall Magazine

Halloween crafts - the white makes it better in my eyes.

Love the idea of painting pumpkins all white.

Whoever says this one isn't gorgeous is lying to themself.

Door-Desk Project

If you have been over to my place in the past, hmm, 4 months, you will have noticed two doors in my spare room. Two random doors-laying against the wall-doing nothing. I have always told my husband (DH) how much I would love to make a table out of doors. It has been done before on many of my favorite crafty blogs, and it looks so great when completed. When I got back from India this summer, one of the many surprises my DH (deer hunter) had for me was this pair of doors. All I needed to do was come up with a plan (and spare time-who has that anymore?) then assemble two tables. Well, I have done my research and come up with a plan. However, this plan has many steps. First, I need to go to home depot for metal table-legs. I've already narrowed down which table-legs I want, but it's a matter of getting over there and buying them. (So much easier said than done-again, spare time anyone?) Then I need to order a glass top measured exactly for the doors' length and width. I found several online companies, but they want to charge me an arm and a leg for manufacturing and shipping. So I have to find a local framing shop who can do this for me. Then, DH can assemble the entire table.

This may take me a while longer to get all the parts and pieces collected. In the meantime, I decided to get resourceful. We had a spare table in this room for a while. I took off the adjustable wings and laid one of the doors on top of it. The other door in behind the table (covering all the computer cords). Since these doors are about 50 pounds each, the weight holds it steady. I also reinforced it with my heavy crafting boxes in the center (DH knows this-those boxes are heavy!). Viola! We have a temporary door-desk.