So generally I feel I can cook and follow a recipe fairly well. But cooking is entirely different than baking. And this month, baking definitely got the best of me. So attempts #1 for the chocolate cranberry cookies and the ginger cookie bars were hardly successful. Not sure if it was me or the recipes (pretty sure it was me), but March will include a second attempt for these.

A Good Day for Pink.

So it was a snowy February Saturday. Perfect for locking yourself in an antique mall with centuries of junk. I mean... treasures!

It was the annual sale at the Lake Odessa antique mall, on 4th Street in Lake Odessa. It was a big day for Pink Pyrex. Check out my loot for the day on the upper right (the monkey was just cute).

Also swung by Century Avenue to see the new addition on the strip, Lost and Found. A curated display of repurposed retro and vintage items. Looking forward to frequent visits and future finds.

The Lake Odessa sale continues tomorrow, dig yourself out and head on down!

A Bootful of Awards

The 2011 Addy's, a regional advertising awards celebration, was held last night at the Grand Rapids Art Museum. I was awarded my first Gold Addy for the CAT Colorado Brochure, which I worked on shortly after starting at Wolverine World Wide.

The large brochure celebrates the 20th anniversary Cat Footwear's Colorado boot and features a timeline of the boot paralleled with historical events, and large fashion photography.

Wolverine was awarded a total of four Addy's and their second consecutive Best-of-Show for the Hush Puppies Airstream trailer.

Read more about the event on mLive and see the complete list of winners visit the AAF website.

A Man a Plan a Canal Panama.*

It seems my blog has taken a turn towards FOOD lately (I do like to eat) and also to home decorating, but print design is still my passion as well as my profession.

Here's a recent project—one of my favorite kind of projects—a travel memoir, for my 2009 trip to Panama. The 11" x 8" book was printed by Blurb, with the image wrapped hardcover.

I'm a big fan of Blurb (and travel!) and love that they now offer a pdf to book option, making creative opportunities endless.

Back to planning my next trip!

* Love a good Palindrome? Me too! Check out So Many Dynamos!

Conservative Pink

The other day I had the following relay with a coworker:

cw: That's a surprisingly conservative nail polish.

me: Really? Conservative? It's Pink.

cw: That's not pink.

me: ::Long Pause:: Yes it is.

cw: No. The boxes Barbies come in, that's pink.

me: That's Barbie Pink.

cw: Right. Pink.

me: There's Barbie Pink. There's Baby Pink. There's Pink Pink. There's lots of pinks.

cw: Well that's not pink.

This went on for quite some time. And when I got home I checked my nail polish box and there were six pink polishes—they're all different, yet still pink.

From left to right we have:

Free Spirt

Dreamy Poppy (Barbie Pink?)

Spice Things Up

Wall Street (now that is a Conservative Pink)

Faith (Pink Pink)

Broken Hearted (this was the one I was wearing)

Cherry Charisma (Red!—I just liked the name!)

Anyway, I promptly removed Broken Hearted and applied a thick coat of Free Spirit. No one calls my nails conservative.

A Teapot by Any Other Name...

Sometimes the best part of a product is it's name. And sometimes a good name is like really delicious frosting on top of an already delicious cake.

Here, have some frosting and eat the cake up too.

Spots-of-Tea Pot

Anthropolgie Find

Little Miss Sunshine

This eternal cynic loves yellow. Makes sense too, seeing as "Yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy... It arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy."*

My most recent display of admiration was the application of "Highlighter" to my basement wall. It screams.... yellow. "Cheerful sunny yellow is an attention getter. While it is considered an optimistic color, people lose their tempers more often in yellow rooms, and babies will cry more. It is the most difficult color for the eye to take in, so it can be overpowering if overused."**

Here's some other recent yellow scores:

Want to see what your favorite color says about you? Reference the links below.

* color-wheel-pro.com

** infoplease.com

A List of Lists

I'm a list maker. Partly out of necessity—ideas and important to-dos are constantly vanishing from my congested head—and partly out of the OCD satisfaction that comes with crossing off items on a list.

For the compulsive list maker, there's Listography; an autobiographical record created by listing favorites and experiences. (there's also music listography, future listography, love listography, and friends listography)

Here's a look at this my week in lists:

Songs I Repeated (obsessively)

Funeral - Band of Horses

Come Downstairs and say Hello - Guster

Friends with Lofts – Nether Friends

The Weight - the Band

I'm Shakin' - Rooney

Uummannaq Song - KT Tunstell

Do you Love me – Guster

Movies I Watched

IQ

The Happening

Tiny Furniture

All the Presidents Men

Marley and Me

TV I Watched:

Dawson's Creek - Season 1

Beverly Hills 90210 - Season 2

Castle

Dawson's Creek - Season 2

Big Bang Theory

One Tree Hill - Season 7

Power Ballads I belted out on the Treadmill

Making Love out of Nothing at All – Air Supply

Teas I Drank:

Celestial Seasonings Honey Chamomile

Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer

Climber's Maté

Pickwick Purely Peach

Pickwick Sweet Orange

Meijer Peppermint

Pickwick English Breakfast

Places I Ate:

Starbucks

Red's on the River

Fat Boy

Angel's Thai Cafe

Arnie's

This Little Monkey went to Market

Ever since completing Year 1 of Weekminds, where I made a monkey every week for 52 weeks, Monkeys seem to be popping up everywhere—specifically of the sock variety.

I don't know if this observation is due to a heightened conscious awareness on my part—or if I inadvertently, single-handedly started a trend :)

What's particularly notable is how some of these sock monkeys are made without socks! I'm a big fan of CrankyPants on Etsy!

1. CrankyPants' cranky pants

2. Cranky Quilt

And per usual, when word gets out of an "unintentional collection" marvelous trinkets appear in the mailbox. Check out these stellar toe socks from my aunt in Alaska. There may not be monkeys in Alaska, but they sure do appreciate a warm pair of socks!