Want:

Tattly designy temporary tattoos.

Started by the super-awesome Swiss Miss (aka Tina Roth Eisenberg), Tattly tattoos were born from everyday temporary tattoos looking, well, childish and clip-art-y. So what's a designer to do? Start her own line of temporary tattoos, of course!


If I can't afford to hire Jessica Hische to design me a real tattoo, this is definitely the next best thing.

As Tina says, "Life is too short to drink bad wine and wear ugly temporary tattoos. Right?"

Right.

Want:

I pity the fool that doesn't have this Mr. T teapot + mug set. Now quit yo jibba jabba and go out and get one. And don't give me no back talk, either.

First name mister, middle name period, last name, T. (I just added that one because it's my favorite. Did you know it's from Silver Spoons??)

(link found via swissmiss)

Want:

Whoa.

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a blog called Chair Whore, which A) I love, and B) describes me rather well--if only because when I see a chair I love (which happens often), I HAVE SUCH A REACTION. It's almost like shoes--except I have a closet for shoes. If I started buying chairs the way I buy shoes... well, let's just say that it would put a strain on my marriage.

But a girl can drool; and drool I did when I found this gorgeousness over on design*sponge yesterday:



The Farmhouse chair, from Bend is beautiful. First of all, it comes in orange (everything should come in orange). If an item is available in orange, I immediately stop and look anyway. But holy cow. WANT.



The Lucy and Ethel chairs are lovely, as well--but the other chair on the Bend site that made me stop in my tracks is the Bunny.

The great thing about these chairs is that they're versatile, and can be used indoors and out. Well, and they come in orange.

Fun stuff

How awesome are these salt & pepper shakers, made to look like D batteries?



Or this iphone decal, made to look like the Polaroid OneStep Land Camera?



Oh, also? That little lever on the Photojojo site? The one that says Do Not Pull? Yeah, you should totally pull it.

(salt and pepper shakers via Cameron Moll, Polaroid iphone decal via SwissMiss)

Boo-boos and Band-Aids

We are people with children--3 to be exact. Which means that we always have Band-Aids on hand.

Always.

But, being that these 3 children are girls, we don't have Band-Aids of the flesh-colored, or even clear variety. No, we have Scooby Doo, Littlest Pet Shop, Hello Kitty... I could go on, but you get the picture: if it's pink and has some sort of popular character on it, we have it. One time Mattio had to actually go to the drugstore to pick up plain, flesh-colored Band-Aids because (and who could blame him?) he wouldn't put a Barbie Band-Aid on his cut (I almost typed boo-boo. See what these children are doing to me?).

I doubt very much that Mattio would use these super-awesome, adult AND child-oriented Band-Aids, but I know I would:



Cynthia Rowley Band-Aids? I will gladly put you on my boo-boos.

Designzilla

I just love weddings. I love that they are full of happiness and joy. You'd be hard-pressed to find something sad at a wedding--unless you count some unfortunate bridesmaid's dresses.

However, all you bridezillas out there might be interested in this: The Dessy Group (which has very lovely bridesmaid's dresses, btw) has introduced the world to Pantone Weddings. That's right, with Pantone Weddings you can:

Design inspiration boards that show off your favorite colors, styles, accessories and inspirational photos.

Share your inspiration boards with your wedding party and vendors via email or post them on your wedding website or blog.

Coordinate your colors with Pantone Color Swatches that you can leave with your bridesmaids, florist, wedding planner & more.

Being a designer, not a bridezilla (but yes, a little bit of a control freak--maybe you can call me designzilla. Oooooh, I kind of like that), I can honestly say, Holy crap! This is BRILLIANT!

Playing with this, it makes me wish I could get married all over again, so I could bring a little designzilla to being a bride...

(via HOW Magazine)

In Italia

Identity designer and illustrator Felix Sockwell took a 2 week class in Italy, and shares his sketchbooks with us:





A-ma-zing. Be sure to check out the rest of this peek inside his mind over on his blog. Makes me long for a 2 week trip to Italy, blank sketchbooks in hand... (also? Said trip will be financed by some bazillionaire so I can just draw and shoe shop, all. day. long.)

Let's hope it's a Monday Puzzle

Found via Twitter last week, a building--in the Ukraine--that's painted to look like a crossword puzzle:



Which is pretty cool in and of itself; I mean, you have this big white wall, right? Why not do something cool with it?

But wait, there's more:

Questions for the puzzle can be found in various locations around the city, on monuments, theaters, fountains, etc. Each evening people meet at the building to check their answers. The way this works is that in the day time the puzzle is empty. But at night special florescent lights come on, and the answers in the puzzle become visible.

That. Is. Awesome.

More stuff I love

This business card:



A card for a developer, with a behind the scenes peek at all the code? Excellent idea! (My husband is a developer--I wish I came up with something like this for him!)

Check out webdesignerdepot for 99 more really cool cards--some you've seen, others you haven't... either way, a lot of these cards are great!

(thanks to Andrew Kelsall, via Twitter for the link)

Love it!

I want this shirt!



Visit Typography Shop ("Our Neue Blog." Heh heh heh) for all the font addicts in your life. I think I may have to get the kiddies some shirts as well--I love the tagline on that page, too: "Teach your children well. About type."

I love it!

(thanks to HOWmag, via Twitter)

Unleash your inner Pollock (without the mess)

Ashlee discovered Jackson Pollock in elementary school; ever since then, she's been after me to recreate one of his paintings. My excuse was, once the weather gets warm, you can do it in the yard. Well, warm weather came and went, and she (and I) forgot all about it. But every once in a while, she'll be reminded of just how cool it would be to drip paint on a canvas; and on those occasions my answer is always the same: In the warmer weather, in the backyard.

Well now she doesn't have to wait. Discovered via a friend's status on Facebook, you can now unleash your inner abstract artist--very neatly, I might add:



Madeline and I made this one tonight--and, might I add, she (and I) just thought it was the. coolest. thing. ever. Go here to make your own--just drag your mouse across the screen, click to change colors.

And no having to wash the paint off your hands (or carpet!).

Tilt a whirl

I love the effects of a tilt-shift photo: you know, those pictures that look as though they're made of teeny-tiny models, but are in fact, real photographs of real settings.

You can check out a gallery of tilt-shift photos here (which are way cooler than mine), or better yet, make your own via tiltshiftmaker.com!

Here's 2 I made from photos of the final game at Yankee Stadium--look at that tiny model Derek Jeter!

Gift for geeks...

...or for anyone who loves their iphone (or who wants one really, really bad; but is not willing to commit to AT&T):



iphone coasters!

When Anne Taintor is a bit too girly... perhaps a set of these will do. What would be really cool, is if you could by add ons, the same way you would buy from the app store.

Cool stuff

Last week in my travels, I came across these funky little Pantone Nesting dolls (seriously, can we appeal to my inner design geek any more?):



Over the weekend, I had a chance to explore Yar Rassadin's site a little further... and wow. The pendulum bookcase? The honeycomb lamp? Angel/devil salt/pepper shakers? Beautiful, beautiful stuff.