Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone had a great time over break. I know I did!
Here's to 2011!

things lately...

Things have been a little crazy with the holidays and new year coming up. But here are a few things I've been up to that are not work related.

Hanging with MaLady and Ugly Sweater Parties.

Found this at the Marketplace for only $5.
Thinking about fixing it up a bit.
But checkers are fun :)

Also found a bunch of cute frames at the Market Place in Columbia.
I freaking LOVE that place. Its a giant indoor flea market. So much amazing finds :)

and then of course, baking cookies and getting fat.
Homemade sugar cookies and icing.

Cookies: 1cup butter, 2/3cup sugar, 1 egg,
1tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp. salt, 2 1/2cup flour

Icing: 3/4cup powered sugar, 1tb butter,
1tb milk, 1/2tsp vanilla, 1/4tsp lemon juice.

Bake cookies at 350° for 8-10 minutes.
Frost with icing when cool. Mmmmm...

These are just a few things I've been doing in the meantime. Been hanging out indoors a lot due to freezing weather and icy roads. Game nights have become a recurring activity with friends.

Started working on a list of resolutions for the new year.
Definitely looking forward to 2011 and all it has to offer.

mozel tov, sissy

My sister is graduating from college today!
My how time flies. I feel like it was just yesterday, it was me taking the plunge into adulthood.

Good Luck, Jess. The Best is yet to come!

santa, baby

Hope everyone had I great holiday break. With thanksgiving over, and the christmas season in full swing, I've been scowering the internet for some friendly cyber-monday steals. I have a goal to be the best Secret Santa! Yay. Anywho, while in search of great gifts for others, I came across a couple of things I wouldn't mind for myself ;)

My sister is supposed to be getting me the Female Brain, but I couldn't resist putting it on my list for the world to see. I've already read it, but it is absolutely amazing. I think everyone should read it! And that means you too!

1. Storm Necklace by Modcloth, 2. Season 5 How I Met Your Mother on Amazon, 3. Suede Ankle Boots by Forever 21, 4. Cute fingerless gloves by fredflare, 5. Navy Blazer by Forever 21, 6. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins on Amazon, 7. The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine on Amazon, 8. LOST poster designed by Ty Mattson

I've been cutting...

things out of paper.

I don't want to be an animal

AND THAT IS THAT! HA!

aging like a fine trashtalking s.o.b.

Today is the 235th birthday of the united states marine corps.
My father was in the service for 22 years (16 years of my life)
and retired a Master Sergeant.
We lived in 5 states
(NC 3 times, Indiana, Tennessee, Hawaii and Missouri)
7 different schools.

Marine Prayer card (with my edited text of course)

The dandelion seed is the official flower of the Marine Child.
Me and my sister were talking about getting a tattoo of it for awhile now.

I really feel that growing up a brat was the best way of life. Not only do you get to travel all over, and continually learn the art of making friends (thank god for facebook! I've reconnected with so many), but you also get to live in a world of extreme patriotism and loyalty and honor and truth...that civilians just don't understand. We've been out since 2000, and the one thing I have learned in that 10 years is that people have a serious lack of those values.

All I know is that I miss living on base with all the ache in my heart. I miss the sound of helicopters and planes doing runs over your house and school. I miss watching a group of men in matching fatigues PT on my way to school. I miss going to the commissary and the exchange. I miss going through the gate and having an MP check your plates.I miss the high and tight, the dressed blues, the dog tags. I really miss it all.

Me and my pop in '91 (my first day of school in Hawaii)

This is my Marine. My hero. My dad.
He's pretty awesome.

Happy birthday! And thank you for all that you do.

falling back as I may...

today i woke up before my alarm and it was glorious.

After a rather productive weekend of cleaning and clearing out the house (as well as a large rather over due donation to Goodwill), I awoke this morning with nothing so much as a yawn. The weather was amazing, so I tried to spend as much time as I could in its 70+ degree splendor since the sun will set an hour earlier tonight. Can't believe its November!

So in between working on web graphics,
I took a 3 mile jog through the park and read on the back deck.

Glorious day, indeed.

Sometimes to get through the day...

I daydream about mermaids.

Halloween Update

This year, I was at a loss for what to be.
So this was very last minute.
I also had a request from a friend to build their costume as well
(where the Cash Cab comes into play)

I was a Giant Mizzou Foam Finger.
It was kind of hard to manuever around in that get up but I made do.
Cash Cab was pretty successful. My friend look super identical to Ben Bailey and even walked around with questions...a correct answer got you a piece of candy :)

My favorite day of the year is pumpkin carving day!
I just LOVE baking the pumpkin seeds. We doubled up on our
pumpkin quantity this year just for more seeds.

They were delicious.

Here are 3 of our 4 pumpkins that were carved and ready for the trick or treaters.
Our puppy MaLady is not a fan of Halloween. Too much stranger danger walking around.
She stood at the door in preparation for children all night.
She was prepared for the pounce.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Preview

Featuring Ghosts of Halloween's Past

Halloween is my favorite holiday, for only the most crafty of reasons.

The weather aint too shabby either.

2007 - Britney Spears on the Cover of an US Weekly

Opens to full page spread.

The tradition of the Cardboard box begin

2008: Foreigner's Jukebox Hero

2009: Andy Samberg's I'm on a Boat

2010: Halloween Preview...?

The Legend of the Cardboard Box Continues...

Butterflies

I've been trying to get more into the handmade things,

and thought that a wedding gift would be the perfect endeavor.

I kind of got the idea while rummaging through my quote book

from college and just playing around. Came up with the

design just while goofing around with an xacto knife.

The absolutely gorgeous frame is from this

delicious vintage resale shop in Columbia

that is quickly becoming my new favorite.

And the full view presentation.

Some people don't settle for anything less than butterflies.

Happy Wedding to Tara and Andy!

Mizzou beat Oklahoma that day :)

2 cheers for a fabulous day.

2 Marathons in 13 Days

This year, I had set out to run 4 marathons totaling my completed races at 10 by the end of the year. The Kentucky Derby race was back in April and the Portland race was on July 4th. The last two marathons were in October just 13 days apart in Minneapolis and Indianapolis. While I was anxious because I had never done them that close before, I set out to complete my goals. One of my new year's resolutions was to set a new PR for the marathon so I set out go get things done.

Minneapolis (#9) was pretty great. My husband and I stayed with my college friend who is from the area and we even got to see the Mall of America. My average is roughly 5 hours and 25 minutes, but I finished this particular race in 5'35 - It was a beautiful fall day, perfect weather and a absolutely gorgeous course.

Indianapolis was just 13 days later. The only training I did in those 13 days for this race was walk a couple of miles every day. I dont know why I always get so nervous the night before, but again I began to panic. I am always in denial that I am even running a marathon until 12 miles in when I start to think "holy crap, I'm doing this" By mile 19, I began to notice that i might just beat my PR and I began to run faster. I had never come close to 5'03 since I set it in Denver in 2008 and I was actually on pace to beat it. It was pretty exciting and that extra adrenaline really helped kick things into gear. I ended up beating my PR by 2 minutes! YAY!

So there you have it. I can finally say it. 10 IN 2010!

I am 10 marathons and 10 states deep into this thing so there is no quitting now. Only 41 states left to go (if you add DC to the mix...which I do)

NOW ITS TIME TO REHYDRATE!

This is at a bar and grill called Claude and Annie's in Fishers, IN after my 10th marathon. I may or may not have sang karaoke to Foreigner's Jukebox Hero...

Homemade Wine Holder

In celebration of the first Read Wine Meeting I started researching little wine holders to help bring in the grown up feel of book club. So I found this template to create your own on Design Sponge where you use the leg of an old pair of jeans. Since I was lacking in the "old jeans" department, I decided to modify the template a bit and just used 2 mitch-match patterns and this is what I came up with:

I think it turned out pretty good. Mmmm, Riverboat Red.

I really like how it turned up and it was a very talked about accessory at Read Wine so I'm thinking about making more of them for gifts and what not. I think it would work well for winery trips or birthday and bridal shower gifts.

Fun stuff.

Fun Bridal Shower Gift

I always like to be different for wedding gifts. Like I usually give games or something that has some sort of memory of the 2 of us. But when I saw this, I thought it was adorable and thought I would give it a go...

Denny and Rachel are always bbqing and entertaining people, so when I saw this salsa mortar and pestle gift idea in a Martha Stewart Living magazine and thought it was really cute. I decided to take it a step further and give it some identity by designing these little personalized recipe cards.


I hope they enjoyed their gift and their wedding was amazing.
Congrats guys and hope you guys have an fabulous life together.

See you at the Illini game!

I Want To Ride My Bicycle, I Want To Ride My Bike

Introducing, the newest love of my life...

Yellow Thunder

Urban Assault

Last year was the inaugural year of the New Belgium Urban Assault Scavenger Hunt in St. Louis and Me and Adrienne volunteered at the mystery location (which was the art museum in Forest Park). I had been hopeful of getting a bike before the next year's event so that I could participate. Alas, the time of the year came and I ordered my bike just a week too late. Oopsies. So I did the next best thing, Volunteer again.


My husband did it with me this time too. It wasn't too hard to convince him when I told him you got free beer. We went to a wedding the day before so this was the perfect breakfast. It was supposed to be another smothering hot August day in St Louis but it actually wasn't that bad.

The object of the scavenger hunt is to promote biking in your city and the race is actually 10 different locations around town and you have to figure out the best ways to get to each of them. Its a very creative way to help you find out new trails in your area.

Our job was at the finish line this year, telling the bikers where to put their bikes and to run to the obstacle course for your finish.

That will be Me next year! I already have my bike...

For more pictures of our Urban Assault adventures, click here.

Read Wine Book Club

One of my new years resolutions was to read more. Well I haven't exactly done that since the weather turned to spring, so to get myself back on track, started talking it over with some friends about getting together a book club. Well Me and Adrienne can never do anything without turning it into a personal design project so this is what we came up with.

READ WINE BOOK CLUB!
(pronounced Red Wine Book Club)

First rule of book club, wear high heels.
Second rule, bring a bottle of wine to the meetings that inspired you from that week's book.
Third rule, occasionally read.

And there you have it. We even started a blog to rate the wine and books, but also to inform people at want to join our ranks later on. Our first meeting was this past Wednesday and it was a pretty good turn out. We had 7 high heeled ladies with wine and ideas. Our first book was chosen out of a bowl and my choice actually won, Flashforward by Robert j. Sawyer. Spoiler alert, I already read this book but I just REALLY wanted someone to talk about it with because I liked it so much. So sue me.

Next meeting is September 8th where we discuss Flashforward (yay) and pick out our next book.
Happy Reading,
Smash

Resolve Hair and Vein

One of the newest clients of Farfetched Studios is Resolve: Hair and Vein. Been working on a lot of rebranding for them lately. And it all started with a new logo and business cards.

As well as a brand new website, linked to all of their social media sites that we also created. Cindy wanted something that was very gender neutral because a lot of her clients are in fact men and she didn't want to scare away any other potential male clientele with a feminine look and feel. It was a fun project and we look forward to working with Resolve in the future.

Working with Black Twig Communications

Spent a couple of days with Black Twig Commications as they needed help making a bunch of web banners for a cable company in New York. I just thought it was cool to work with the images of some of the movies I saw this summer.


Percy Jackson was AWESOME! And I love my superheroes, even if they are DC comics (I AM SOOOOO GOING TO COMIC CON NEXT YEAR!). Ha. Couldn't do anything about the type. That was supposed to remain consistent with the Cable Company's Brand. Just thought I would share some of what I've been up to lately.

Portland (Sauvie Island) Marathon

Went to Portland, Oregon for fourth of July Weekend to run the Sauvie Island Marathon. It was an absolutely amazing race. Flat and gorgeous. The island was made up of strawberry, blackberry, blueberry, and raspberry farms. I wanted to stop while running just to eat the stranded berries by the side of the road. I totally recommend this race to any first time marathon runner or someone trying to set a PR. If I would have actually trained for this race (and the weather wasn't so freakin hot in St. Louis), I might have done this very thing. Actually ended up running the last mile and a half with my shoes in my hand, crossing the finish line barefoot.

The next day, we set off to explore the glory of Portland, Oregon. The International Rose Garden was a favorite. It had the most amazing views of the mountains and downtown Portland. The Vietnam memorial was very reminiscent of the DC memorial. Hard to believe Maya Lin got a B on that project because it always gives me goosebumps staring at your reflection through the names.

On the third day in the Pacific Northwest, we trekked north through Washington State to get to Mount St. Helens. We actually climbed all those stairs just days after running a marathon! AND proceeded to hike a good 10 miles or more to see the magnificent sight of Mount St Helens and her destruction.

This was a wondering vacation (if I can call a marathon that). There were so many visitors centers all the way around the mountain with all kinds of interactive things for people to do and learn about the mountain and 1980 eruption. Yep, this year is the 30th anniversary of that eruption which killed 57 people. It was absolutely amazing.

The Fruits of Our Labor

Started an indoor garden back in February and really got her going outside back in April. Tilled up a 9ft x 13ft lot in the backyard and made way to corn, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, onions, carrots and cucumbers. Proceeded to pot a bunch of cherry tomatoes and pepper on the deck so that they were ornamental as well as a delicious treat :)

Cherry Tomatoes potted on the deck

Sweet corn on the cob

Got a vegetable strainer as a wedding gift from a friend and made salsa using all the ingredients from my back yard. It was the most delicious puree, restaurant style.

Here is another view of the tomatoes being pureed.

And then the aftermath of a lot of hand cranking

HOMEMADE SALSA