We all know how obsessed I am with ampersands.
Check out this sweet limited-edition print a friend just alerted me to.
Have a lovely weekend, everyone! I will be enjoying a sushi date on the back porch and a game of loteria with friends. What are your weekend plans?
I helped a coworker shoot some wooden hands this week and now I'm kind of obsessed. 
And it got me thinking...
Maybe I should line my shelves with a bunch of wooden hands. Too creepy?
This weekend I will be removing everything from my built-in shelves and starting over from scratch. I will be taking inventory, editing, and rearranging. My goal is to end up with something that is monochromatic and somewhat minimalistic with pops of interest.
So, we took a stab at container gardening. We spent about $200+ on containers, plants, soil and have produced 2 peppers, 3 baby strawberries and now 2 tomatoes.
Part of me wants to say "these are my babies and they're worth every penny!", part of me wants to blame myself for not doing enough research on container gardening, and part of me thinks $200 would get us a lot of produce from the farmers market.
We're NOT giving up. Not yet.
A few of our friends have been very successful with the Square Foot Gardening method. We can even get started now and prep a garden for fall plants.
In addition to a fruitful veggie garden I would still love to execute a wild flower garden and get a fire pit in our back yard.
I scored four French Paper (my favorite!) Promo posters at the HOW! Design Conference this year. I can't wait to get these framed.
They'll certainly add bright pops of color around the house.
Which one is your favorite?
AMC's MadMen is one of my favorite shows. Partially because I, myself, am a feminist in the advertising world and can relate to Joan and Peggy but mostly because the clothes! the sets! the cigarettes! Don Draper!
So when I stumbled upon MadMen Yourself I just had to do it.
Kathleen Shannon is an ambitious, yet stylish, young art director at Sterling Cooper.
Jeremy Shannon is an up-and-coming engineer turned idea man at Sterling Cooper - also married to the very talented Kathleen Shannon. They are often caught making out on the brand new xerographic copier machine.
Right before Jeremy and I headed to Michigan, a friend and co-worker of mine asked if I could design a quick poster for a baby shower she was hosting.
She told me the theme: "Vintage Wizard of Oz" and gave me a color palette to work with.
I immediately thought it would be cute to highlight some vintage Wizard of Oz illustrations but found those hard to come by. So I decided to glean inspiration from the Poppy Field scene.
Here are some shots I gathered for inspiration. Top left for typography, top right for imagery, and the bottom image for general look and feel.
Then I had to figure out a way to tweak everything to fit in with the color scheme provided. My coworker gave me the paint swatches above to work with. 
From there I came up with this. I recolored the poppy field photo to match the paint swatches and drew in the castle. I wanted Odelia Rose to look like the vintage movie poster typography - I used a combination of fonts to achieve this look.
I suggested to my coworker that she get a big ornate cream or white frame to frame the poster in to bring out the cream in the color palette.
P.S. Isn't Odelia Rose the sweetest name ever?
This weekend me, Jeremy and a few of our friends floated the Illinois River and camped out.
Our dear friend, Dan, starting a fire with his knife. His enthusiasm was appreciated but we ended up using matches and lighter fluid. 
Food always tastes better when you're dirty, tired and in the middle of nature.
I had a friend of mine ask me how Jeremy and I keep our house so tidy. Three letters: OCD. Okay - maybe only a little bit of OCD. My family likes to joke that I'm a total slob but the last time they lived with me I was a teenager! I had more important things to worry about - like growing boobies. As an adult, I take more pride in my space and a clutter-free place truly makes me feel more at peace. However, it doesn't come naturally for me - and for Jeremy it's second-nature.
I'm going to break it down room by room and then by what is done Daily, Weekly and Bi-Weekly or Monthly. 
KITCHEN:
Daily - wipe down counters, table and put dishes into dishwasher after eating
Weekly - swiffer the floors
Bi-Weekly or Monthly - Wet mop floors, wipe down cabinets
Yearly - wipe down fridge surfaces (need to do this soon)
LIVING AND DINING AREAS:
Daily: Pick up
Weekly: Sweep floors
Bi-weekly or Monthly: Vacuum corners and rugs, dust, lint roll cat hair off furniture (more often during shedding months)
Yearly: Dust blinds (I probably don't do this nearly enough)
These places don't gather much clutter. The big trick here is just to pick up after ourselves. Also, we have a Roomba (robot vacuum) that cleans up cat hair for us daily.
BATHROOM:
Daily: I think maybe Jeremy rinses out the sink just with water...
Weekly: Wipe down sink and toilet, brush out toilet
Bi-Weekly or Monthly: Mop, wash floor mat, scrub tub and shower walls 
BEDROOM:
Daily: Put away clothes (this is an every-other day thing for me... I'm bad about letting clothes pile up but I'm working on it), make bed
Weekly: Wash sheets, vacuum up dust bunnies
Monthly: Organize jewelry, closet
LAUNDRY:
Jeremy is a SAINT when it comes to doing laundry. He usually does a couple loads a week. He'll fold my clothes or lay them out flat and from there I just have to put them away or hang them. In fact, I'll just give Jeremy huge props here for doing SO much around the house all the time.
CATS:
Catbox: Jeremy cleans out the catbox twice a day every day.
Cat Hair: This IS an issue and I'm still trying to find a solution but the biggest help is Roomba and Lint Rollers.
Jeremy's #1 tip for keeping things clean (and he is the tidier one of the two of us) is just to do it as you go. It's sometimes a pain but is worth it in the long run.
My tip for cleaning is to pretend your Jennifer Aniston in Friends With Money while doing chores. I'm only half-way kidding - if I pretend like it's my job it's much easier - which is probably why I'm a bigger fan of the weekly deeper cleans rather than the pick-up-as-I-go approach.
I've also heard that you should clean as fast as possible. Or even clean in 5 minute spurts - it's kind of amazing what you can get done in a short amount of time.
Do you have any tips? Is there anything I'm leaving off my list that's grossing you out right now?
Also, check out Chez Larsson's tips for cleaning here.
Between all the traveling and slip 'n' sliding and Summer-Oh-Nine shenanigans I kind of forgot that I have a house that is still in the works.
But today I got to thinking about our living room. From the get-go we knew that we wanted our living room to be an area we want to spend a lot of time - we wanted to make it just as much of a sanctuary as our bedroom and give it just as much attention as the kitchen.
So, here it is. It's getting there. Slowly but surely I'm "listening" to the room and what it needs.
Recently, my friend Jenn got a new sectional from West Elm and it is SUPER cozy. 
West Elm - Walton Sectional
Something I love about it are the cushions as the back - I think this helps make it feel plush but still maintains it's modern shape. This might be something I do to our couch as the back cushions become warped and old. I'm thinking in all neutrals with a couple of accent throw pillows in the mix.
I'm also really loving this lamp from CB2.
Big Dipper Arc Lamp
I returned from vacation to a present from Rand Elliott, an Oklahoman architect that with mad style, in my inbox at work.
Elliott + Associates: Listening to the Land
Nuh-uh! He wrote me a note! 
All for blogging about his rad letterhead. So, it's probably cheesy to blog a "thank you" for a "thank you" but THANK YOU! What an unexpected surprise (that made all of my coworkers jealous).
