Happy Valentine's Day Weekend!

Happy FSOG Day (aka pre-Valentine's Day)! FSOG will be sure to get all the ladies revved up for tomorrow! LOLJK but seriously - Happy Friday!

What's all this emoji nonsense?  Those are *some* of the Valentines I'm giving to my BFFs this year!  That's right - I took the emoji route because, well, who doesn't like emojis?!
For one of my "serious" Valentines, I took the classic heart+arrow+banner watercolor approach and added a little sass.  I tried doing a pretty 3D version with Illustrator (ughhhh) and Photoshop but it just wasn't coming together AT ALL...then I tried to do a pretty little illustration in the style of my new design crush Lauren Hom, but it just wasn't doing what I wanted it to do (because I'm not as pretty or as talented as her *sad face*) so I went with my pretty, tried-and-true method: watercolors, hearts, banners and arrows.  After a few crude sketches, I arrived at what you see above: "You'll always be my shorty".  I tried a different kind of card stock, which was interesting because the calligraphy ink bled in weird places.  That could have been a result of uneven pressure, probably.  Oh well!  My Valentine received it early and he loved it!



So what's with the Cheesy Pick-Up Lines zine?  Well, I saw Gala Darling's #MEGABABEMISSION for February: Make a MiniZine and at first, I wanted to go serious with a cute guide to ATL's prettiest art pieces (which I will probably still end up making, tbh) but in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I wanted to take emojis and make a list of cute and cringe-worthy pick-up lines for a laugh!  Print one out if you'd like!

Do you have any fun Valentine's plans?

Full disclosure: I'm normally not a huge Valentine's Day fan but for some reason this year I feel like spreading the love - not just to my BF, but to EVERYONE!  

The Soundtrack to my Birthday: "Pompeii"

Today is my birthday and I'm celebrating by enjoying the various covers of "Pompeii" by Bastille that Lauren has lovingly posted on my FB timeline!  It's running joke with us and that song, so it's kinda mandatory on a day like today :)  Enjoy!


NEW FAVORITE: Anthem Lights









This kid is amazing!!



Beautiful acoustic version from Bastille themselves:



And, of course, the HOLY GRAIL of "Pompeii" covers:


Obviously, the next logical step is to record our own cover of it ;)
I hope you have an awesome day!

PS - there are WAY MORE covers to check out!

Instagram Jams!

Found some cute Deery Lou stationery from FOREVER ago!  I may or may not have sent a letter (or two!) // My guy and I got creative with some Shrinky Dinks I found while packing // I followed fellow ATLien, Erica Loesing's tutorial on Design Sponge and created my own embossed cards!  I also played around with my faux calligraphy! Is it too early to start thinking about Valentine's Day already? // Lauren took my guy and me to experience Ration and Dram last night and it was AMAZING!  I mean - look at that guitar-shaped dessert!

Happy Friday!

Instant Adventures #11 + Hospital Fun!

I was trying to write a post about my Mom's knee surgery but I just couldn't get my words right so here's a photo post instead!

1. Rowers gonna row on the Chattachoochee
2. A cute face found outside of Pressed Panini Bar in the Marietta Square
3. Delicious Mint Chocolate Chip gelato from Sarah Jean's Ice Cream in the Marietta Square
4 - 6. Instax Minis of the traffic I sat through during the busiest Friday ever: Music Midtown, the BET Awards,  1 of 7 Garth Brooks concerts, and a Braves game all going on at the same time!
7. Channeling my inner Fly Girl with Lauren 
8. My Mom's knee after surgery
9. Fancy hospital breakfast
10. Second breakfast, of course!
11. My Mom and me right before she was able to go home :)

Hope you all had a great week!
Happy Friday!

Weekend Adventures

For my Gratitude Journaling, I'm trying something new. I got insanely inspired by Michelle's Get Messy posts so I decided to try and illustrate items that represent some the things I was grateful for that day - starting with Friday.  I didn't want to make them too text-heavy but I did fill out Saturday and Sunday with some text after I took the photos to explain, you know, things like why I illustrated a 1.75 liter bottle of Grand Marnier* and why there's a random Ron del Barrilito bottle** just kinda hanging out on Saturday's page...
I'm having fun with the illustrations but I don't think I'll be able to keep it up much longer.  Things are about to get pretty hectic around here!

How was your weekend?

*The Grand Marnier was a Thank You present from Lauren's parents.  As one of my Maid of Honor duties, I did the envelope calligraphy for the invitations.  It was so much fun! :)

**My aunt is in town from Puerto Rico and we sipped on some Barrilito Saturday night.  Yay bonding! :)

Fake Animal Facts: Dinosaur Edition

If you don't read Carly's blog, Zauerbear, you're seriously missing out!  Her blog is full of magic and wonder in the best possible way!  About a month ago, she posted a wonderful game: Plastic Animals Scavenger Hunt, which prompted me to host my own - with a twist.
My friend works ridiculous hours at his job and while I was waiting for him to get off work one night, I decided I'd make the last few hours of his shift fun by hosting my own scavenger hunt only with dinosaurs and fake facts instead!



Armed with little dinos and tags, I quickly scribbled a few fake animal facts and attempted to hide them around his workplace.  It didn't work exactly the way I wanted it to but he appreciated the sentiment!
I'm going to try again at my job and see if it goes off a little better...

Happy Thursday!

Weekend Adventures

While I don't mind moving, packing stresses me out. I mean, like, A LOT.  I always get hyper-aware of all the stuff that I have and it makes me feel really bad.  But I don't think I'm the only one, right?  At least with that awareness comes the hidden treasures of what you have, exactly, and it's like finding new stuff all over again!

1. My "found treasure" Mockba messenger bag
2. My "found treasure" random collection of flags
3. Kiki, the cutest kitten in the Universe
4. Exploring Atlanta's Westside Provisions 
5. Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams - my most favorite combo ever: Salty Caramel + Vanilla
6. The most delicious smoked chicken

How was your weekend?

Vegetable Tattoo Prank!

Guh!  I'm such a space cadet lately!  Between looking for an apartment (long story), work, and everything else, I spaced on telling you all what those Tattlys were for!  I ordered veggie tattoos from Tattly for a prank that went over swimmingly!

Okay - some backstory: one of my co-workers gets a tattoo every year on his birthday.  His most recent was an artichoke.  Thinking it represented his (fairly new) Veganism, I asked what it was all about.  It had NOTHING to do with him being Vegan or sustainability or anything - it had to do with one of my favorite things: Sacred Geometry!  The artichoke represents the Fibonacci Spiral - the closest thing to perfect in nature.  You might be familiar with it if you read The DaVinci Code...or watch Ancient Aliens...or Spirit Science!

In an attempt to poke fun (in a light-hearted way), I ordered the veggies a little too late so we had to wait for the next filming cycle to come around so that we could execute it perfectly.

A few weeks ago, the production crew and I picked out our vegetables, tatted ourselves up and came up with silly (and meaningful) representations for the most hilarious prank!



So clever, aren't we?!  Here are our tattoos in left to right order (with their "meanings") :
Jeremiah -> Tomato: It represents the cosmos
Brad D. -> Artichoke: The Fibonacci Spiral and Golden Mean
Brad T. -> Eggplant: It represents the Pythagorean Theorem
Tom -> Corn: It represents that you have to peel back the layers to reveal what's inside
Mark -> Carrot: It represents Mu, the coefficient of friction (that one was amazing!)
Katzi -> Radish: It represents the duality of male and female

Needless to say, Brad was delighted!  He even declared it the "biggest burn of 2014".  I even had other office members sport their veggies throughout the week to let it drag out as long as possible.  Ha!  At least we know we can poke fun and it's all out of love!  :)

Happy Thursday!

Weekend Adventure: No sharp objects, please!

It's that time again!  The busy season at work.  And once it picks up, it doesn't stop for about 2 1/2 weeks or so.  Somewhere in there, the photo above happened!  My clumsy self decided to get really clumsy and I almost cut my damn finger off!!  Luckily, I didn't have to get stitches, but still - how could I be so careless?!!

I probably can't say anything else about this for a little while but know that all is well!

If you want to see a bloody collage of my injury, click here!  :)

I hope you're having an awesome weekend!

Instant Adventures #5

I think I might've went a little crazy with J, my "man muse", apparently.  What are ya gonna do?  #sorrynotsorry

1: J's secret love letter (to someone else)
2: Trapping J in a mime box
3: I've got lightning bolts coming out of my hands!
4: My lightning bolts appear to have trapped J
5: My wall o' J.  I was feeling very street photographer-y yesterday and I think it was because J was wearing a pretty nice outfit.  Naturally, I had to take lots of shots.
6 - 8: Cotton Mill Lofts
9: Atlanta

Hope you're having an awesome Saturday!