Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Free Geometric Desktop Wallpaper
Moodboard – Pleated Pants
Not all that long ago, pleated pants were so not cool and bootcuts were all the rage. But fashion inevitably changes resurfacing that which we thought we would never love again. I quite clearly remember a time when pleated pants were on the "Don't" list but now you can't go anywhere without seeing a pair. As evidenced by my moodboard above, they look especially good with a narrow hem and heels. Way cool, right?
Clockwise from top left:
1. Pleated High Waisted Trousers from Forever 21
2. Selected Sadia Sporty Peg Trousers from Asos
3. Chloe Pleated Pants with Ankle Snaps from Nieman Marcus
4. Rabens Saloner Stretch Silk Pants from Huset
5. By Malene Birger Ellua Pants from Huset
6. Easy Pleat Pant from Free People
7. 3.1 Phillip Lim Draped Pocket Check Trousers from ShopBop
8. Linen Two Tone Double Pleat Trouser from Alexander Wang
For more pleated pants inspiration, check out my Pretty Clothes pinboard. Check back in later this week to see my own pair of pleated pants that I made as part of my new handmade Spring Wardrobe.
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Font Friday – HVD Rowdy
This week's Font Friday is HVD Rowdy a free font from HVD Fonts. The font was made using potato stamps which I think is totally craft-tastic. I was actually playing around with some potato stamping this last weekend. It's super fun and I hope to do more of it. To actually make a whole font composed of potato carved stamps is an impressive feat. This font is definitely not for everyday use (certainly not for large blocks of text) but for everyone once in a while, headline use it's appropriate. And for when you want to let a little loose on say St. Patrick's Day, it's perfect.
Giveaway and Design Tips to Make a Photo Collage Wall
Recently, I was invited to attend a party hosted by HP and interior designer Genevieve Gorder (you remember her from Trading Spaces, right?). The purpose of the event was to showcase HP's new photo wall decor products. I arrived early because I was super paranoid about being late. Being early can be so awkward sometimes can't it? This time it worked out for me and I got to chat with Genevieve for a little while about design and blogging. She was very nice, obviously passionate about design and so pretty! We bonded over our graphic design backgrounds and Northwest connections. I told her that I'd like to try printing some of my Instagram photos. And she shared that she had printed some low res Hipstamatic photos on canvas and they looked really great. Now I just need to choose which of my Instagrams I want to print!
Font Friday - Myra Caps
Have you ever thought about how a font could be like a pocket? Well, pockets are useful and decorative just like today's Font Friday pick – Myra Caps. Myra is a sturdy, all caps, sans serif font – very useful – but it also has a curly decorative alternate for each letter. The font is designed by Sergiy S. Tkachenko and is available for free download on the Free Typography website.
Above I'm using the font over the top of one of my favorite instagram pictures of the week. I was trying to think of a pocket related phrase to use and decided on "Like candy in your pocket" because I always feel a certain child like glee when I have my pockets full of candy. It's a secret little treat just hanging out there waiting for you to be ready to throw 'em down the hatch. The blue sky in the photo really lends itself well to the word candy. You can almost eat it!
Spring Wardrobe Sewing Plans
After a lot of planning, thinking and scheming, I finally decided upon these six pieces to make for my new spring wardrobe. I stuck a rather neutral palette of greys and blues that will easily fit into my existing wardrobe. The selections are on trend, inspired by my Spring Wardrobe inspiration board and fill in the gaps of my current wardrobe. Oh, and I'm only using stash fabrics!!!
Spring Wardrobe Planning Part 2
How to plan a Spring Wardrobe Part 2 is all about decision making. In Part 1 you came up with some great ideas and now it's time to put it into action. Truth be told, this part was not easy for me. There's so much I want to make but I want this collection of things to all go together, so I had to pare down my ideas quite a bit. Take that stack of fabric up there for instance. I'm only going to use four or five of those fabrics. The others are ones I love but will just save for later. Let's get started.
Font Friday - Blanch
Today's Font Friday feature is Blanch, an all caps font available for free from Lost Type Co-Op. This font is an interesting mix of serious and friendly. It's very tall and straight, a little uptight but then it has softly curved "U"s and "N"s. I think this would be a great font for infographics or other informational designs. I'm getting into some knitting this week so I decided to do a little knitting themed graphic to feature this font. You know the seed stitch right? It's a lovely stitch and so simple, just knit one, purl one, repeat.
Free Printable - Crossed Arrows Valentine
Valentine's Day is quickly approaching which means it's time to start making valentines. I've always loved making my own valentines, cutting out paper hearts, making treat boxes and such. Last Friday I featured the font Berimbau as a nice pick for a Valentine's Day graphic. I adapted that design into a sweet little card free for you to download and print yourself.
Font Friday - Berimbau for Valentine's Day
Today's Font Friday is Berimbau, available from My Fonts. Berimbau is a tall and thin, handwritten font. So, even if you have less than stellar handwriting, this font can transform your valentine from a scribbled mess to a tender, hand-crafted love note. And most of all, you want a valentine to look sincere don't you?
Spring Wardrobe Planning Part 1
Last week I shared some inspiration for my new spring wardrobe. I have some ideas of the style I want and some of the items. Now it's time to get to work and start planning. It's one thing to make a single garment but it's an entirely different endeavor to plan a group of garments that you'll want to mix and match with each other and with the rest of your wardrobe. Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to show you the steps involved in planning a new wardrobe and give you some insight into the design decisions that go into the creation process. Let's get started!
Font Friday - Matchup
Today's Font Friday pick is Matchup by Ryan Welch, available for free on Behance. The font is all caps and rather athletic in style. Especially when you make it dark blue and yellow and add lightning bolts. Those letters are ready to duke it out, play ball and have a good ol' rumble.
I hope that you have a great weekend and are surviving this flu season. Last weekend I thought I was coming down with something but lots of sleep and fluids turned it around. So, this weekend I'm planning to really get a lot done including finishing my Spring sewing plans. But that's always the plan, isn't it? What are your plans this weekend?
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Font Friday - A Practical Font for the New Year
Today's Font Friday is Casper designed by Michael Chereda and available for free on Behance. Casper is a clean, sans serif font perfect for the New Year when we're all looking for a little more simplicity. This font has features four variations: regular, italic, bold and bold italic. Just enough for the basics. For more fonty goodness check out #FontFriday on twitter. Do you have any favorite practical fonts?
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DIY Graphic Design Tip - How to Pair Fonts
Choosing a font can be difficult but choosing two that go together is a whole other proposition. When choosing a pair of fonts, you need to find a balance of contrast and similarity so that your fonts look good together but different enough that they show off each other's specialness.
Inspired by this post from the blog Frances May, I decided to feature a cursive typewriter font this week. So I found Script 12 Pitch BT (available for free, found via iDIY). Next up was what to do with this font. Seeing as it's almost Thanksgiving, I decided to do a little Thanksgiving themed graphic with one of my favorite shapes - the triangle.
The sample at the top is my favorite font pairing - Script 12 Pitch, the cursive typewriter font and Governor from Lost Type Co-op. These two fonts both have a vintage feel but there's a nice contrast between the thickness of Governor and the varying line weight and casual feel of the Script 12 Pitch. Each font holds its own yet supports the other which to my mind is the perfect pair.
Now, a few examples that I think are less successful pairings.
Here, Script 12 Pitch is paired with Ballpark Weiner. Ballpark also has a vintage feel but because it's also a script it feels fussy and overdone next to Script 12 Pitch. A script font is often a great accent font but it's really difficult to pair two scripts together.
For this what-not-to-do example, our typewriter script is paired with Gotham Medium. Gotham is a great sans-serif font but it doesn't have any similarities to our script and the design falls flat. While it is a sans-serif like Governor, Gotham is too current and doesn't have the vintage feel that complements the script so well.
For more font inspiration follow #FontFriday on twitter.
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Free Printable - Thanksgiving Placecards
Friday's Font and a Song – Embossed Label
Today's Font Friday is Embossed Text Label available for free from fuzzimo. Remember those old label makers that embossed letters into a sticky strip of plastic? That's what this font looks like. How cool is that? It's available in 4 versions, label and text with a regular and light version of each. Above you can see both the label and text versions in regular. Fuzzimo has lots of free design stuff so be sure to check out the whole site. Find more font inspiration by following #FontFriday on Twitter. You can follow me on twitter too.
The photo is a snapshot I took at a concert. Concert photo taking tip: carefully watch the changing lights and you'll get a ton of really different photos. The text/lyrics in the graphic above are from Hall & Oates' Rich Girl. Watch it. You'll love it. You'll sing it all weekend. Speaking of which, have a great weekend!!
P.S. I'm sure you've heard of Lucky Magazine but have you heard of the Lucky Community? Basically it's user generated version of the magazine. You can submit your own fashion and beauty related blog posts or just browse through and see what you'll find. I'm pretty excited that I already have two posts up. Check it out! xoxo
Free Printable - Halloween Treat Bag
The two most important things about Halloween are costumes and candy. Here's a little printable treat bag for you to hold your own Halloween candy, wrap a gift or just decorate your home or office. Choose from orange, black or both!
Friday Faves – Oct 5
This week's Friday Font is Homestead from Lost Type Co-Op. This all-caps font pretty much screams fall in the coolest retro way. The font is all-caps which can be a bummer but it comes with 6 variations that you can layer for even more looks. The three shown above (from top: Display, Inline and Regular) work perfectly on their own. Inline has a very collegiate feel and would be perfect for back-to-school designs. The top one in blue – Display – is my personal favorite. It looks like letters cut out of plaid fabric. Amazing right? Wait until you see them layered in different colors.
Moodboard – Triangles
These days I find triangles so inspirational and inherently cool that I have a pinterest board entirely devoted to the simple three sided shape. You might remember the triangles I've done with fabric paint. See the ombre clutch and camera strap. When quilting, the next logical step from squares and rectangles has got to be triangles. Don't you think? I have a little quilting craft I'm going to show you later this week featuring triangles that I really love. I'm definitely seeing more triangles in my future.
1. Free Envelope Printable Download from Zu Galerie blog
2. Triangle Puzzle Pendant from Soft Gold Studio on etsy
3. Geometric Cushion Cover from Si. Sauvage on etsy
4. Little Remix Knitted Blanket from Darling Clementine
5. Shape On It Dress from ModCloth (You should also check out their The Evening Unfolds Dress with a triangle cut-out. Gorgeous!)
6. Pink Suede Coin Purse from Blackbird and the Owl on etsy
Friday Faves - September 21
It probably comes as no surprise that I'm a sucker for pattern. When shopping for anything, I know that a solid is the sensible way to go but all I really want is pattern, pattern, and more pattern. So, this week I'm sharing some of my favorite quirky fabric patterns from around the web.
1. Madrona Road - Farmstead - Powder Blue from eQuilter
2. Chicopee Fuchsia Heatwave Stripe from Fat Quarter Shop
3. Echino - Fall 2011 - Purple on etsy
4. Stella-69 Play Date - Campgrounds - White from Fabric Depot
So, are you a pattern person or a solid? Do you struggle with finding a balance between the two? Have a great weekend everybody!
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