A farewell to orange

Dear friends, the time has come. This blog is going into retirement. I'm packing it a suitcase stuffed with coral golf shirts, pumpkin plaid shorts, and tangerine tube socks and sending it off to hit golf balls in the sunny land of old blogs that had a good run.

If you know me in real life, you know I've been talking about finishing up this project for... oh, a couple of years now. Blogging has always been just a hobby for me, and I've avoided turning it into a full-time business with big collaborations, brand partnerships, and sponsored everythings. I never even bought a real domain name, ha! I love graphic design, my bread and butter, and it has become too demanding to run this blog and get my client work done, which is always my first priority.

But I'm not disappearing. All the old posts will remain, plus we will stay internet friends. Here's where to find me:

How About Orange Facebook page (because I can't quit cold turkey, and will likely post more frequently there. Click "Get Notifications" under the Like tab.)
Me on Instagram
Me on Twitter
Me on Pinterest
My graphic design site blog
My graphic design Facebook page
The Oscar bingo mailing list (yes, I am still making Oscar bingo every year!)

Thank you, everyone, for your friendship, comments, and company for the last 7 1/2 years. God bless you and keep you, and make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

Amen.

Goodbye.

Um, leaving now. Okay. Right. Done. The end.

New work for Renaissance Ribbons

A fun surprise came in the mail today— a box of my latest designs for Renaissance Ribbons. I had a catalog of options they picked from, and then they requested a few color changes and a new design to add to the bunch, school buses. It's lots of fun working with those folks; they are delightful.


The tickets are my favorite. I amused myself by making the numbers tiny jokes that nobody is ever going to notice. 8675309. 5882300.


The stamps are fun.


And this zigzag stuff makes me happy.

These are now posted in the Renaissance Ribbons wholesale site for shops to order, and they'll appear on Renaissance's retail site in several weeks where you can buy them by the yard.

Various projects on my list

I've got an unending list of small projects for the house. So fun! It's like my own personal playground in there. Here's a sampling.

See that clear acrylic table in front of the couch in my office area? It's part of a set of 3 cheap nesting tables I got on eBay. I picked them because I liked how they didn't look bulky and I can rearrange them all the time. The problem: I keep running into them because they're clear and I'm a klutz. So I plan to draw some sort of design on them with a white Sharpie paint pen.


It could look cool, right? Here's an example of something related: the Timber Table from Gus Modern. (Photo from Gus.)


Next. A confession: I created an art forgery. I had a Rifle Paper calendar sitting around and decided that something flowery and patterned just like that would be precisely the thing to add to our patterned dining room. Except no Rifle prints come in 2 ft by 3 ft, so I painted one. Er, as artists like to say, "it's an homage to" Anna Bond? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

I don't know what came over me since I don't even LIKE really flowery things that much. The room made me do it. I'm having second thoughts and maybe I'll put something else there. Not flowery. More modern. Either that, or this canvas needs a frame. On the to-do list: solve this problem.




And then I have this parrot fabric. I'm thinking it could go on the folding chairs we'll pull up to the table when we have extra guests. I could spray paint the frames and reupholster the seats; people can sit on the parrots. OR I could decoupage them onto a tray and set a vase of greenery on those birds.

Those are three projects from my list of 500.

Illustrated wallpapers for Apple devices

Lagom, a company that creates contemporary paper products and gifts, makes some of their art available as wallpapers for iPads and iPhones. Find a selection of illustrated goodies free for the downloading right here!

Noisli soothing noise generator

When you're trying to work without distraction but need a little background noise, or you're struggling to relax and fall asleep, you might like Noisli. It's a website and app that lets you pick different sounds to play, including rain, a fan, white noise, crickets, and more. Play multiple sounds at the same time if you want to get crazy. The coffee shop is the best— freelancers feeling lonely at their desks can just turn on a background hum of people talking and dishes clattering. Instant fake human contact. Try it out.

Arrow iPad case

Alex has taken over my old iPad case, so Mum sewed me a new one from Orchid Arrows. The pattern is Erin Erickson's Gadget Guard, and I love it. Nicely padded with Soft & Stable, but not bulky. A perfect fit for my antique iPad.


The pleated pocket on the front can hold a charging cord, pens, small notebook, cash, love letters, or photos of your hamster.

The pattern has options for putting the zippers on the long or short side, leaving the pocket off, and sizing it for any device up to one inch thick.


Of course I requested orange zippers to go with the purply-pink arrows, but the turquoise zips Mum put on her own case with the navy background look almost as fabulous.


P.S. I just learned that Erin's patterns are all 25% off through Sunday, May 11. Correction: Monday, May 12. Go shopping!

Origami elephant desktop wallpaper

I made myself a new desktop wallpaper from an elephant I folded awhile back. I don't know where the actual elephant is anymore, but his likeness is now on my monitor. Should you need an orange paper elephant for your desktop, download him here (1920x1080 px).

To fold your own elephant, follow the instructions at at Origami Spirit.

Freshie & Zero modern jewelry

I'm not a huge jewelry person, but I love the simple, modern earrings and necklaces at Freshie & Zero— they're "made with love and a hammer in Nashville, TN." Beth Lawrence, the jewelry artist behind these handmade beauties, is a How About Orange fan and wrote in to share her work. As she says, these pieces are great for accenting any orange outfit without taking away from it.

So true. Though you likely dress in orange every day of the week, I bet the designs will even work on those very few occasions in which you can't. Like funerals and family portraits where you must all wear white shirts and khakis to humor your mother-in-law. Shop here!

P.S. This is not a sponsored post. I just like these.

Designs for Cloud9 Fabrics

I'm excited to report that I have a fabric collection coming out with Cloud9 Fabrics this fall! And get this: it will be printed on barkcloth. So retro. So cool. If you're not sure what that is, read this TrueUp post or go to a thrift store, locate some tropical print curtains from the 50s, and feel them. They're probably barkcloth. You can use it for upholstery, curtains, pillows, bags, and all the usual home dec projects. And shoes.

Better start combing vintage stores and Craigslist right now, looking for the perfect Danish teak chair you can reupholster. If you're in Cincinnati, you and I may end up in a fist fight over them. Fair warning.

Recently I had the privilege of working with Cloud9 on their new identity, which involved a redesign of their existing logo and the addition of a mark for Cloud9 Collective, their new designer label for patterns created by the hive of artists and designers they admire.







To get your geometric fabric fix in the meantime, grab a bit of my Arrow print from The Needle Shop. It would make a sweet messenger bag or fun accent chair.

Fabric sighting: Under the Weather bags

I just spotted these cool Commuter Bags in a couple of my Outside Oslo prints; the red one is Sticks and the gray one is Frond. Great lining colors! Find these and other accessories for cyclists here at Under the Weather, based in Ontario.

African/Dutch wax print fabrics

While browsing Etsy for artwork, I got distracted scrolling through African wax print fabrics. The fabric I put on the parlor lamps was a wax print. These textiles have a fascinating history; read more here. These were some of my favorite prints:
Above: Left; right.


Left; right.


Left; right.

Geometric lamp shade with tape

After swapping out this dining room light fixture for this one I love, our room got a lot dimmer. We needed extra lighting in a corner, so we bought a shelf floor lamp at Target. It was looking a little Asian, though, which is not part of the plan. So to distract myself from that, and since we're going pattern crazy in this room, I decided to give it a little sumthin' sumthin.' There are more than enough swirly lines in there already, so I made geometric shapes with this 3M 1/8" vinyl tape.


It's repositionable and removable for when I get tired of it.


I'm really pleased with how good it looks. You wouldn't even know it's tape until you put your nose right up there to inspect it.

Drawer pull

Happy Friday! I leave you with this photo of my ugly dresser drawer handle (it goes on this guy). The two hardware stores I stopped by last night didn't have any sleek, modern pulls that would fit the current holes (which are very large, and I'm not ambitious enough to try to fill them and drill new ones). So I'm stuck with the original "fancy" ones. The only gold/brass metallic spray paint I found, other than Krylon I don't like much, was Rustoleum's Universal Metallic in Pure Gold. It looks like this. Nope. I'll paint them some other color tomorrow.

Have a great weekend!

UPDATE: Now they're navy. I'm calling it a day.

Painting the dresser

I've finally gotten around to painting the Craigslist mid-century Drexel Touraine dresser for the dining room. It looked like this before:


I primed it with Zinsser Cover-Stain oil based primer and then tried out Sherwin Williams ProClassic Waterbased Acrylic-Alkyd Enamel. It's one of the new "hybrid" paints that acts like oil, but is actually water based. The paint store assured me it has great leveling properties so brush strokes will disappear, but that didn't prove to be the case for me. The surface looks quite brush-strokey despite my efforts to lay it down quickly and not over-brush it. It's driving me crazy, but maybe I'll forget about it once the dresser is in place in the dining room. I tried researching online whether I could add Floetrol to a water based alkyd to help it level and gave up in confusion— and, let's be honest— laziness.

I'm moving on.

I want to spray paint the hardware.


Should I make it look brassy? Pretend this statue lady's arm is a drawer handle.


Or let's get crazy: Hot pink.


Here's a hasty Photoshop mock-up with brass.


Here's a hasty Photoshop mock-up with pink. Heck, let's paint the fancy trim around the bottom, too.


But remember, it's going to live in this room with nutty fuchsia wallpaper. A vintage lamp with a sleek brass cylinder base will sit on top.

My gut tells me it would be pink overkill. After all, a respected colleague once informed me that restraint is the second rule of design. But man, that pink is FUN. Maybe in a room that wasn't already swathed in pink.

I was going to use the original hardware, but the mocked-up rectangles are making me want something simple, modern, and less fussy. I wonder if I could find something like that.

What to do, guys?

UPDATE: I couldn't find new drawer pulls, so I tried for a brass paint job and didn't like the spray paint I used. So they're navy.

Free fonts: Intro Condensed

The Black and Light versions of Intro Condensed are available for free here from Fontfabric. Personal and commercial use are fair game! These are two useful freebies, I guarantee it. Elegant, clean, and geometric. If you need more weights, buy up all their brothers and sisters and cousins at MyFonts.

Fabric sighting: store window

I stole this photo from The Needle Shop's Facebook page and shamelessly pasted it here. There's a rule that when you're excited to see your name on a store window, you have to show everyone you know and lots of people you don't.

The shop is promoting my mini home decor fabric collection, Arrow. The print is inspired by airport signage; I had travel on my mind. (I made Arrow a logo and marketing materials, too, just for fun.)

I expect there will be more Arrow sightings here in the next couple weeks since I can think of a few nifty projects people are working on— I'd love to share the before-and-afters, the tutorials, and finished products. They might inspire DIY projects of your own using your favorite fabrics. Onward and upward!

Easy origami egg holders

These easy origami egg cups are folded from 6" squares of origami paper. They took me just a minute or two each, and any decorative paper will work. You could whip up a bunch and put one at each place setting for Easter brunch. Coordinate the paper colors with a flower centerpiece and wrap the vase with a strip of matching paper. See how to make your own with this video tutorial by YouTube user 1petiteSorciere. Cute!

How to make a folding camp stool

Here's the guest tutorial I mentioned yesterday: a DIY folding stool made from scratch! This project uses more of my new Arrow fabric and makes a great side table, footrest, or portable seat. Here's LiEr to tell you how to make them.

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Hello! I am LiEr and I write a craft blog ikatbag that is part fabric, part cardboard and, occasionally, wood. Today, I am happy to be here sharing how to make these little wooden fold-up stools.

I made these stools in Jessica's new Arrow fabric for my three girls, in two sizes. The smaller one is for my 6-year-old and the two larger ones are for my almost-8 and almost-10-year old.



They also make good footrests for the director's chair in yesterday's post.



Though they are meant for kids, they can easily be sized up for adults, too. The dimensions in this tutorial are for the larger stool;



to make the smaller one,



follow the dimensions in the diagram below. The hardware for both stools are the same.

We'll be making the stools in two parts - the wooden frame and the fabric seat.

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