I have a new toy.. it’s a free iPad app called Adobe Ideas. It’s become a nice little tool when researching colour which is what I’m doing at the moment for my next Uni assignment. We have to design a brochure for a new restaurant that serves North American West Coast cuisine… oh and by the way, if anyone can define that for me that would be so helpful. To start off I’ve been looking at restaurant interiors and using the top photo my little Adobe Ideas produces a 5 colour swatch that I then draw and colour with to create my swatches. I then put this into Photoshop to work out the Pantone equivalents to these colours. It’s a great time waster… I mean research tool.

As you know the Etsy colour searches don’t work at this end of the the colour (or should I say non-colour) spectrum. But the keyword search yielded many gorgeous results. Here’s what I found:

TOP: Old New Again’s Handmade Hook Vase. I know it’s technically not my target colour but it was sitting on the treasury when I started my search. That little bunch of flowers made me smile.
MIDDLE: TippyThai’s Hemp/Cotton Carry All Tote. It was the pintucks that made me choose this bag. I just love it’s simplicity.
BOTTOM: YYStudio’s Pure Wool Cape Poncho Cloak. I absolutely love this. I think it looks gorgeous and don’t you think it would be so nice to wear? This entire store has just become an instant favourite for me.

Things have been a little quiet on my blog front… apologies. I’ve been settling back into normal work hours, fighting a cold and trying to make a start on my first Uni assignment which is due in a couple of weeks. This semester I’m doing Digital Publishing and Typography and part of my first assignment is to create faces out of fonts. We are not allowed to distort the characters but we can rotate, scale and reflect. Here’s two that I have come up with. My snobby man and my rich madam. The snobby man was my first attempt and I sat down to attempt a ‘pretty girl’ and he sort of evolved. My rich madam was my second attempt at a ‘pretty girl’. She may not be pretty but she doesn’t care because she’s incredibly rich! I’m not getting as much help from my fellow students this semester so I might appeal to you for a little feedback from time to time. I hope that’s OK. Feel free to comment on these two.

Cheers,

{images via flickr – click image to go to source page}

The colour of clear water on a warm day… I can only dream! It was -4 (that’s celcius) and white with frost this morning. My colour search did me proud this morning and here’s what I found:

TOP: Jose Lampreia’s A Bit of Red Fine Art Photography. I just love the effects added to the photo to give it that old world look. Works perfectly on a rose don’t you think?
MIDDLE: Crafterall Handmade Work’s Island No. 6 Original Papercut. I just found these intriguing and I love the colour combinations. I think this would be perfect in a beach house.
BOTTOM: DrikaB’s Azure Antler Jute Basic Tote. I confess I have long been a fan of DrikaB’s bags. I love her choice of fabrics and her signature jute striped handles and trim. One day I’ll have to add one to my collection. Is it possible to own too many bags?

{images via flickr – click image to go to source page}

I started this quilt before moving and finished it just after we bought our new house. It was a fitting ‘house warming’ present for our new home. One small problem… as good as I like to think my maths is, something went awry in converting this pattern from a small lap quilt to one that would fit a queen bed. It never did sit right and you would think even when laying it out on our bed (above) that I would have figured that out. Regardless I persisted in putting it on our bed and we happily made our bed with this ill fitting quilt for about 6 months. Then one day… the cyclist accidentally put it on the wrong way, and guess what, it fits much better. It did not even occur to me to try this – he’s so clever. Has this ever happened to you?