hello 2012, nice to meet ya!

Wow, 2011 was quite a year. We decided to leave my home of 15 years, Asheville. I spoke in front of over 300 people. I helped organize a my first fundraiser with a lot of help from Meg & Leslie! Good work ladies!  We put our Asheville house on the market and it sold in TWO DAYS!! We sold the only place I ever felt totally safe, our Broad Street house.  We bought a new house in West Washington Park in Denver, CO. I drove a 28 foot truck from Asheville, NC to Denver, CO.  We moved to Denver less than six weeks after we put our house on the market in Asheville. I gained a son, Antonio, then we lost him. Heartbroken is the only word I can think to describe what this was like. We are still healing from this.

Things have been up and down since Antonio left. We miss him. He misses us. He could use any prayers or good thoughts if you have any to spare, so could we. Even with the tough times, there have been some really good times.

Meg & I love our house and neighborhood. Everything you could want to do is close by. We live just minutes from downtown Denver. We hit up the local goodwill pretty often. We found a new mexican place, called El Diablo, a couple of weeks ago. Amazing tacos! We saw our first Denver Nuggets game a few nights ago. AMAZING!! The Nuggets are really looking good this year. We had such a great time.

We are starting to make friends. We attended a Christmas party that was mostly southerns! We had a blast. We both miss the south, because let's face it, there it no place like home.

I gained an amazing friend & room mate. I don't know how we scored Justin, but if you have ever heard my talk about him, I know we are super lucky to have him. He is a handy man, figureouter of all stuff, & a major rescuer extraordinaire.

Mambo the cat is still in love with Denver. I attribute his happiness to two things. One he is having a bromance with Justin. They are such good buddies. It's so cute. Also, the cat to human ratio is perfect for Mambo. 3:1, cat perfection!

To start off 2012, we are doing some house renovating. By we, I mean Justin, of course! We are re-doing the hard woods we found under world's ugliest, cheap tile. (thanks to Brittany & Tate for checking to see if they were there, we had no idea!) We are getting a new renovated bathroom in January... complete with a claw foot tub, nice octagon white tile, bead board with a chair rail and a few other awesome vintage surprises. I will do a nice before (ugly shell sink and other ugly stuff) and after shot! We are pumped up to rid ourselves of the 80's shell sink that is there right now.

We have a number of road trips planned for 2012.

The first one is in late January. We plan to drive cross country back to Asheville, with stops in St. Louis, & Nashville. Then's is off to Charleston, SC to see the cutest kids in the world, Finn and Addie & spend time with world's best friend ever, Hilary!!! Then we will hit the road again to Baton Rouge. Then back to Denver. We will have little stops along the way and we will photograph our travels as usual. I love to blog when we travel, so I can remember what the hell we did and what fun we had!!

My plan to blog about what inspires me this past year was really fun. Overall, I was the most inspired by simple things. Hope, change, peace, love. I plan on continuing the inspiration blog posts, along with travels posts and whatever else I feel like talking about.
I learned a lot this year and I am sure that 2012 has big plans for me, just like I have for 2012.

Happy New Year Folks. Let's make the most of it!

Bad Blogger Girl!

I have been a bad blogger girl. I am hopeful that Santa does not read my blog. If he does, I am in big trouble. I always look forward to Christmas. I have a number of vintage christmas decorations, I look forward to pulling out of the boxes each year. See the nice view from my desk below.

Christmas is one of the few breaks I take each year. Taking a break to spend time with family and friends is very inspiring to me. I had an old friend lose his life partner in a tragic accident last weekend. Life is short! Work will always be there to be done, but someone you love may not.

As you all have surely noticed I have been neglecting my blog lately. I am super busy with graphic design projects. I have been working on two custom greetings cards, that I produce each year... in addition to my already full work load. I am in the midst of four logos, three websites, a catalog and a few other odds and ends.

Lately, (for the last year or so) I have been obsessing over Victorian everything. Advertising architecture, fashion, industrial design, even christmas ornaments. You name it, if it's Victorian, I am into it. I am working on a logo right now for a historic inn (see above), that was built in 1856. I have been doing research and working on the logo for over two weeks and I still have so many ideas!!

I wanted to show you guys a few of the images I found (mostly out of a couple of library books) that inspire me design wise. I am loving banners and how in victorian times, no type was on a straight line. Everything that was type had a curve it somewhere. Also, everything was designed to KEEP, not throw away. Interesting how times have changed, isn't it? I am more on the designed to keep side of that story.

The photo is of some vintage match book labels. I am amazed at how cool these are.

Alright, back to work. Hopefully, this post (along with a couple more before the holidays) will put me back in good graces with the big man at the North Pole!

purple & gold inspires me, like a lot.

Because I am an LSU super fan. Because purple and gold are awesome colors and happen to be my favorite colors all space in time. I know, I know, I am from North Carolina. Don't get me wrong, I adore my tarheels and carolina blue is a beautiful site for sure. I got into LSU women's basketball about 7 years ago, when Meg took me to my first game. I have been hooked ever since. We were at the first game of the new season last night in Baton Rouge.

Of course we always dress up for every game and this one was no different. The girls looked amazing. We LOVE the new coach, Nikki Caldwell. She does not mess around.
I could tell they everyone has been working super hard. The lady tigers beat Xavier 102-42. I like that score a lot, a whole hell of a lot. It's going to be a great season! We plan on getting to as many games as we can even living so far away. Southwest direct from Denver to New Orleans rules!

You can pretty much get anything you can imagine in purple and gold LSU versions, even tater chips. You can get who dat ones too. Someone would sell purple and gold air if that were an option. I would buy it if they did!

There is sort of an important game going on this Saturday, so the peeps down here are pretty fired up. (#1 LSU plays, #2 ranked Alabama, in football, if you live under a rock or if you just hate sports) We will be at a wedding Saturday evening, but I am sure we will find a way to see some of the game.... and we will be watching the whole game on Sunday!! GEAUX TIGERS!

fall winter wonder land (or for fun you can say Finter Wonderland!)

Snow days inspire me, possible more than anything else. I have loved snow since forever. Snow makes even the ugliest of things beautiful. What else can you think of that has that sort of power?

We got about 6 inches of snow today in Denver. Fall was just getting rolling here, so snow with fall leaves under it is pretty cool. I think it made for one of the prettiest snow days ever.

Well, the photos say way more than I ever could. I am super stoked I moved to Denver today. Bring on more snow!

homegrown inspiration.

I have always been into my house, our home. I have worked out of my house for the past eight years. Originally, when we moved to Denver, I thought I would be working a full time job, but things have changed. See earlier posts, for an explanation, I am talked out about the situation & the Antonio subject still makes me sad. I am back to running my own freelance graphic design company from home & business is great!


I have always been inspired by my living space, it has to feel like home!

So, since I am around the house all day, we have started a few more projects around here. I have always had a pioneering spirit. I have always been able to make a lot out of what ever I have laying around. It started as a kid. I would build entire towns for my matchbox cars out of spare car parts, wood scraps (one of my grandfathers was a mechanic, the other a carpenter, so go figure, their scraps made for great stuff to make things out of), trash, moss, sticks, rocks and whatever else I could find. I used a piece of asbostos sliding as a scraper to build roads for my matchbox towns. I am sure that was super safe and really great for my long term health. It was was super for my creative health anyway, and that is what is important to this blog post.

I built many things at our old house on Broad Street out of free, found stuff. Our fence was made out of hotel doors. Literally, hotel doors from the Princess Anne Hotel around the corner. I built a wall out of a bunch of wild cherry tree logs that were the result of said wild cherry tree having to be cut down. I used bricks I found in an abandoned lot across the street to make a flower bed border. Our broad street house looked pretty sweet after 8 years of hard work and love!

So, of course when we bought our new house in Denver, I was taking stock of anything laying around that I might use for potential projects. We looked at many different houses, on two different housing buying trips to Denver. Each time we pulled up, I was wondering, is there anything laying around I could use to sweeten up the new pad? The Pearl Street house won on many different levels as the one, but a lot of it for me was the potential. She is basically a blank slate, other than the two amazing pine trees, a fenced in huge back yard, a sweet front porch, and a killer deck, that we hang out on all the time. The Pearl Street house has many left-overs from previous renters/owners. There are piles of rocks, tons of wood (shoved in the open rafters of the garage), loads of flagstone patches around the deck. I had been eyeing the rocks since day one for a project. The front yard was almost completely weeds. I should have done a before photo, but I never can bring myself to look at the ugly version of projects! Our sweet handy man Justin (see photos for G. I. Joe look alike) laid down landscaping fabric and dug around the edges of said weed patch, then carried all the many miscellaneous rocks into the front yard, and proceeded to help me arrange them for another 2 hours, after he had been working on the yard for the past 6 hours. He is pretty awesome. We mention quite often, we don't know what we did to deserve such a handy fellow around all the time, but we are incredibly grateful daily for him.

We had mulch delivered a few days later and wow, what a difference a little mulch & lots of GI Joe man power can make around a place! I know, finally, photos of the house, on the blog. Miracles really do happen!

Back to my inspiration blogs.

I am excited to say things are going really well for us. The Denver do over could not be going better. I am grateful everyday I wake up in Denver. I know it's the right place for us.

So, back to life, back to what is important to me. Inspiration. As a creative person, I am always searching for new music, new curtains, new colors, new typefaces, new anything that I think is pretty or gives me that happy feeling.

Lately, I am inspired by simple things.... today it was homemade ceasar salad with a gluten free pizza. We used tomatoes and basil grown here in Colorado, near or in the city! I was surprised to see tomatoes still looking great and in season. I picked them up at the South Pearl Street Farmers Market on Sunday. Hello, can you say new Sunday tradition. Loved it!

I am inspired by cool, crisp Colorado evenings. We took a bike ride this evening, and I was actually cold! It was awesome.

I am inspired by the new Burton Catalog I got in the mail. I want everything in there!

I am inspired by regular days, that are spent working, making lunch, petting the cat, and spending time with my awesome partner in crime, Meg.

Last but not least, today I am inspired by change. The last year of my life has been all about change. Making changes is not easy, but hey, anything that is awesome enough to be worth doing is not easy.

So here's to a new house, in a new city, with new friends.... Denver you are starting to feel like home and I know we are going get along just fine.

Four Day Weekend!

Four day weekends are my favorite kind of weekends. Meg & I have our first out of town guest in Denver this weekend, our awesome niece Lalu! With everything we have had going on the past few weeks at first we weren't sure about having company... as Lalu is the first of many guests this fall. But after thinking it over, having a guest is a nice break from everyday life & hey we could use a staycation!

The weekend started with a trip out to Red Rocks Amphitheatre to see Alison Krauss & Union Station. The weather was cool & cloudy. We arrived early (after walking up about 7000 steps) & really enjoy the view before the big crowd arrived. There were thunder storms in the distance most of the evening and a huge rainbow. I took that as a sign for a very good weekend ahead. Boy, was I right about a good weekend!! The show was amazing & so was the four day weekend.

Saturday, we got all dressed up in LSU gear and rode our bikes down the cherry creek parkway to REI to do a little shopping, then we had a little Mellow Mushroom lunch. Then it was back to our house to watch the LSU vs. Oregon game. There is a bar in town that is the official LSU club bar, but for such an important game, I wanted to be home where I could focus on the game. I do plan on joining the club for a less important game in the very near future.

Sunday started off perfectly, with breakfast at Snooze!! The wait can be over an hour at times. If you are in Denver, ever, you must have breakfast at Snooze. YUM!!! Then we took off and drove over to the Indian Peaks Wilderness outside of Boulder, CO. The drive goes through tiny Ward, CO. It's only about an 1 1/2 from the heart of Denver, so if you are ever around there, this is the place to go in nature, period without a doubt. We hiked for a couple of miles on the Lake Michigan trail. It was beyond amazing. There is still some snow up there if you can believe that. There is a glacier you can hike too but it's a 7 hour (round trip) hike & that was a little out of our range at the moment. When I say out of our range, I mean me and Meg, not Lauren. She could handle a 7 hour hike no problem!! I waded around in the little lake and almost froze my feet off. I only lasted about 90 seconds and I don't even mind cold water, but this was serious. We drove back into Boulder, had a fancy coffee drink & drove around Boulder a little so Lauren could check it out.

With a nice coffee in hand, it was back to Denver, for a dinner of grilled BBQ (Carolina style) chicken, roasted brussel sprouts and taters! Then we rode downtown and stumbled upon the taste of Colorado. It's was sort of like bele chere but bigger & with a gourmet food section. I think Bele Chere needs a gourmet food section, don't y'all?? We finished up the night at sweet action ice cream near our house. Again, YUM!

Monday was a chill day, Lauren went on a bike ride in Washington Park & we took a little walk before we had to drop her off at the airport.

Overall, it was a great weekend. We loved having Lauren around and we enjoyed getting to know our fine city.

I am off to pack for a trip to Asheville. We will be there this weekend to photograph a wedding and see the many friends we did not have time to say a proper good bye to in June. We are both still having good days and rough days, but we know that we are where we are supposed to be and trust that everything happens like it is supposed to, when it is supposed to. Keep those positive thoughts rolling our way. thanks for all the love and support!

Until next time folks!