I Love Mondays

That's not a joke. I really do love Mondays, and I'll tell you why.

This girl doesn't have aaaaany classes on Mondays, or work, or any commitments at all usually. So I get to spend the entire day doing homework do whatever I want!

Anyway... here's some junk I like:

1/  Bumblesea Jewelry

Not only do I think these hand-made necklaces are cute, but also by posting this I'm entered to win a free one! And I love free things!

(Enter the jewelry giveaway sponsored by Bumblesea indie jewelry / indie fashion blog.)

 2/ My Homework (also not a joke)
Currently I'm designing a how-to guide for children with diabetes who want to learn to test their own blood sugar. Maybe that doesn't sound like fun to you guys, but I'm actually having a lot of fun doing it. And maybe this is tooting my own horn, but I think it's turning out rul well (which is pretty unusual).

Test-Strip Steven, obvi

The how-to guide consists of about 20 cards and a poster. Some of the cards introduce the characters (the supplies used, above) and the rest illustrate the steps (below). Children can then lay the cards out in the correct order, helping them learn.

Very important step. Kids are filthy.

Then they could also put the steps (once in the right order) on the poster, below.

Makes you wish you had juvenile diabetes, right?

I'm still working out the colors, but I do kind of like the way it is right now...

3/ Pumpkin Spice Lattes
All of them, from anywhere. But today I learned that ones from Dunkin Donuts cost about half as much as the ones from Starbucks, and taste a little better.

One MILLION Things

A lot of things have caught my eyeballs in the past...24 hours or so. Let's just start with the most recent and work our way backwards! PS - I just found a folder on my computer named "Things I Like" and another called "Pretty," both of which were chock full of images. You'll be seeing some of them today, and some of them at a later date.

1/ Keds Collective and Amy Ormond

 Keds Collective is a collaboration between Keds and designers, artists and musicians and the results are pretty effin great.

2/ One Minute Portraits by Benjamin Hammond

The image kinda says it all.

3/ The Original Penguin

Tiny bit in love with these ultra preppy clothes. And the name is cute.

4/ The Glue Society

The Glue Society is a collective that does art and advertising, and other stuff too. The image is an example of one of their sculptures. Look closely, you can see that guy's junk.

5/ Freakishly adorable dishware by Finding Cheska

Again, the image says it all, but visit the website for more well-designed homewares.

6/ Words (FFFFOUND!)

Ffffound has about 50 of these bad pictures with words over them. Some of them are real dumb, but some are nice.

7/ Better words (still FFFFOUND!)

Ffffound also has some good things. Like these.

8/ Michelbergerhotel

This is one from my long list of bookmarks. It's the exterior of the Michelbergerhotel in Berlin. It's a pretty happening place, I've heard, and the interior's sweet as well.

9/ Food: I like food a lot, and these are my two current favorite things (besides, obviously, toasted baguette sandwiches with hummus and tomato).

9/1 Black Silk

The first is Folger's Black Silk coffee, which is black as night and I like it.

9/2 15 Grain Bread

The second is Pepperidge Farm's 15 grain bread; this bread is awesome and I'll tell you why. When I buy bread, I always have to decide, do I want some hearty whole grain bread that will have more calories and fat but be more satisfying? Or do I want the lighter loaf that is fewer calories but ultimately less satisfying? This is the PERFECT blend of the two. It's light on cals and fat but feels hearty. I'm clearly in love.

10/ Gilt Group and Thomas Paul

Gilt Group is a member's only sale website and one of their current sales is Thomas Paul who does some fantastic things with textiles.

One MILLION/ Perfect Job at Urban Outfitters

Found my perfect job, Women's Print and Artwork Designer, at Urban Outfitter's. Requirements include forecasting fashion trends, researching print and art trend directions, shop and observe street fashion and rework artwork into prints for the UO customer. Plus it may require some overseas travel...bonus. PS - love those brogues.

 Coming soon to a computer screen near you.
Today I went shopping for supplies to make my own headbands. Wednesday Lulu and I are going to be trying our best to actually make them; we'll see how that goes. I mean, obvi it will be fabulous...unless we eff it up. Then it'll just be funny.

Keep Calm and Eat Big Cookies

Goooood morning! Just now I have woken up and pranced (stumbled) down from my attic room (much better than it sounds) to make myself some coffee (Dunkin Donuts!). After anxiously awaiting the end of the coffee maker's gurgling and steaming, culminating in a full pot of deliciously caffeinated brew, I opened the cupboard to select a mug. Coffee mugs, possibly even more than coffee itself, are one of my main interests in life. Often, they are sooo beautiful! They can also be clever, humorous, or just plain well-designed. The particular mug I chose today is a gem I received as a parting gift about a month ago. Side note: I had been studying (I'm a student of graphic design) in London  for the spring semester of 2010 and, as part of my course load, I was "employed" as an intern at a company called the ILN. This McLaggan Smith mug is a combination of sooo many of my favorite topics. For starters, it's a coffee mug. I am sensing the need for an entire post on my favorite mugs because if I went into that now, this post would be 3 years long. For seconds, it's based on posters which were first created by the British government during WWII, intended to raise morale in case of an invasion. The poster was never used, but was rediscovered in 2000 and has spread like wild fire. Not only can you buy posters of the original saying "Keep calm and carry on" in a million colorways, but you can also find it plastered onto mugs, towels, chairs, books, clothes, bags, and chocolate. And that's just the start! Once the original had been sufficiently circulated, of course people started playing with the words. Some of my favorite variations:

 

See more here.

I think one of the things I like best about the original poster is its actual message. The country was at war and Briton's advice was "deal with it and keep fighting" which in general I think is good advice. I mean, sometimes you can't control what's going on and you just have to keep going anyway.

Anywhoser, my good friend Lulu and I were discussing these posters the other day while also shopping for new day planners/journals/sketch pads...and then we started craving cookies. We really wanted cookies that were both GIANT and thick and HEALTHY, but had little luck. Thus, we decided we should just make them ourselves, so I'm putting myself in charge of recipe-finding. This is what I've come up with so far:

A chocolate cherry oatmeal cookie, (top)
 An orange spice molasses cookie, (left)

Crunchy fudge cookies made with Fiber Once cereal,

and oat and almond breakfast cookies (right)

Once we actually decide on a recipe and get to baking, I'll be sure to let you know how they turn out!