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Adventure in the Big D: The Artsy Part

I’m sorry to be MIA for the last couple of weeks! My bestie from Oklahoma came to visit me and I held the responsibility to entertain her all week long. It turned out to be an adventure for myself as well since we went to places I’ve never been to before. She’s majoring in interior design, so I knew I wanted to take her to places related to design and art. Here is a recap of the artsy/design-y part of our adventure.

Fort Worth Water Garden, designed by architect Philip Johnson and John Burgee. Ever since recommended by a friend, I fell in love with this place. This picture doesn’t do justice to how cool the experience is stepping down to the bottom of the water garden. Absolutely one of my most favorite spot in DFW.

Bass Performance Hall, located at Downtown Fort Worth. When I first saw it, I couldn’t believe that this beauty actually exists in Texas! It has the classic European opera house feeling to it.

Fort Worth Stockyard. The true Cowboy Town. I didn’t even know that there is a Cowboy Santa :)

Sky Lobby, located in JP Morgan Chase Tower. Stunning lobby with view overlooking Dallas.

Dallas Museum of Art. Can’t believe this is the first time I’ve been to this museum. Apparently, they have FREE admission every Thursday evening (although this will end starting next year), along with live jazz band playing at their Atrium Cafe for Thursday Night Live. The museum was quite okay. I love the Charles Rohlfs furniture exhibition a lot.

Design Within Reach. Most things here are not exactly within my pocket’s reach, but definitely an amazing store to go to.

1 Comment December 21, 2009

Friday’s Favorite Five

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I can’t believe it’s Friday again. School has been (unexpectedly) busy this week. I’m glad everything is all over next week and then we can move on to revamping our apartment a bit. It’s been a long time coming and this time we really can’t postpone this anymore due to my best friend coming from Oklahoma and sleeping over for a week *so excited*. I’m pretty sure starting this weekend there will be lots of early Christmas parties everywhere, so I hope you have a good one! Here’s my favorite five this Friday:

. New covers for old books by Mikey Burton (via Oh So Beautiful Paper)

. O’Keeffe Necklace from Anthropologie. It was clearly love at the first sight for me.

. Merry Christmas library card from Simple Song. Perfect for a library or book nerd, like me :)

. Stitchy Octopus christmas tree ornament from Anthropologie. Very near and dear to my heart.

. Christmas Ornaments by Erin Jang (via Design*Sponge)

. (i know this is the 6th one but…) don’t forget our 2010 Dessert Calendar is up for sale on Etsy! ;)

Illustrated Type by Katie Lombardo

I’m so in love with these hand-drawn illustrated typography by Katie Daisy Lombardo. She works mostly with watercolor and acrylic. I love her style and the colors are just delightful. Things like these really inspires me to learn more things to become a better designer. That’s why I’m taking Watercolor and Printmaking next semester :) So excited!

Back to Katie’s work, aren’t you just so blown away? I’d love to have any of her print on my studio wall one day :)

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3 Comments December 2, 2009

Book Delight: In The Night Kitchen.

The first day of the last month in 2009! Oh wow, time flies so quickly! I know I’ve been MIA on the blog for days. One of the reason is of course the Thanksgiving holiday. Then, the final week is also coming and I’ve just been busy with school stuffs along with preparing for more stuffs for my Etsy store. Right now, we do have the 2010 Calendar in wall format and desktop format (with acrylic jewel case), so check it out! :)

In the midst of all this, today I managed to (finally) pick up my library book orders. I was tempted to spend more time in the library, and i did (even though I was supposed to go straight home). My favorite section is the children’s books where I usually just sit on the aisle and start to just picking books and read. I was really intrigued by this particular book by Maurice Sendak. I knew about Where The Wild Things Are, of course, but didn’t know that he also wrote and illustrate this book. I just love his unique story line, wittiness, and illustration style!

I really, really like this particular “kitchen town” illustration, where the buildings are in form of kitchen utensils and stuffs like mixer, funnel, milk carton, etc… I want to live there! :)

2010 Dessert Calendar!

So, I finally took the plunge and went ahead to create the 2010 Calendar. Although it may be a tad late, I’m still proud of at least being able to finish it :) The concept was inspired by my recent obsession of confectioneries, cakes, or pretty much anything sweet. The calendars are printed on beautifully textured Mohawk paper via Felt.

Without further due, here we go.

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I just wish I can photograph it better. I rely on the natural sunlight for my photography since I don’t have a fancy SLR camera or expensive equipment and lighting. The sunlight today wasn’t so great when I was going to photograph it, but I really can’t wait to get the words out! :)

Here is the desktop calendar, which comes with acrylic jewel case:

And there’s also a wall calendar version:

4 Comments November 24, 2009

From my Calendar Swap Buddy

My calendar swap buddy, Barbara, sent me a letterpress calendar from Lark Press. I think the concept of this calendar is so, so great. Each month takes me to a different story. I really, really love the concept for January–a lovely poem by Robert Frost, “Stars” with simple illustration of constellation. Letterpressed poem is my new obsession now!

Each month’s concept and story are so wonderful and so well thought-out. I think a well designed calendar should represents a journey. This one definitely makes me look forward for the year of the tiger and start my new journey soon! Also, I’ve never had any letterpress calendar before in the past, so I’m definitely excited for this one. Thanks, Barbara!

Check out what I got Barbara on her blog.

1 Comment November 20, 2009

Etsy Finds: Tiny Painting

These tiny paintings by Cool Ranch Studio on Etsy would make such a great Christmas gift. It would look great on someone’s desk. Don’t you think?

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Art of Paper Quilling

I can recall that I learn to do some paper quilling back then in elementary school. However, I’ve never known that the art of paper quilling can be a DIVINE beauty. Yulia Brodskaya made it happen. These images below worth a thousand words. Here’s the black and white design from her portfolio.

How lovely are those! And the typographic treatment too! And here’s some more in color. So, so inspiring!

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4 Comments November 18, 2009

Kidrobot Holiday Edition

Oh, what fun! I’m liking Mr Krunk-A-Claus a lot. The mini Munny ornament is such a fun Christmas gift, too!

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2 Comments November 17, 2009

Magnificent Minimalism: TV Show Posters

Simple lines, clean and neat type treatments are sometimes the solution for our complicated design problem. I forgot about that lots of times. These TV show posters by Albert Exergian are a good reminder :) Don’t they make you smile? :) The two last posters are my absolute favorite TV show ever :)