here's an idea: TTFN sign

We're big Winnie the Pooh fans in my family and we each have a character to represent us -- mine is Tigger! I decided to pay homage to my favorite bouncy tiger with this sign above my front door :)

My apartment is on the second floor but you enter at ground level and go up a private staircase to get there, so I thought I'd put a hello sign at the top of the stairs to greet guests when they're arriving (I haven't decided what that one is going to say yet..) and a goodbye sign at the bottom for when they leave.

It was so simple it doesn't even require a DIY post -- I just bought wooden letters at the craft store (already painted white) and attached them with Command strips. The whole project cost like $12. I haven't been super cautious about being renter-friendly (I got a list of how much each thing will cost to replace when I moved in and I'm just planning on owing some money when I move out, lol) but this project is definitely renter-friendly and so fun! :)

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room tour part 3: my studio

Well this part of my room probably looks pretty familiar lol ;) When I'm not standing awkwardly in front of this wall taking pictures of myself to post here, I use this space for drawing, painting, packing orders, sewing... basically everything that isn't sleeping or computer-related. I have oodles of storage behind the curtains so my table is completely freed up for work.



I got this at K-Mart earlier this year (it was like $7 I think, so worth it!!) but I had no idea what to do with it until I remembered my paint-storage issues. Before this I was keeping my paint under my bed and it was such a hassle to get it out, so I was painting a lot less. I've definitely picked up my brush a lot more often since I found an easily accessible (and cute!) storage option :)



The wall on the left is my Hypatia wall. I'm planning on adding more custom portraits of her over time. I fluctuate between smiling when I look at it and feeling like there is a giant pit in my stomach, but I'm so happy I made this little art grouping. In a way it makes me feel like she's still always in my room.



I love my little hanging pen cups! They're actually planters from IKEA, hanging from a metal bar from the kitchen organization section. One of my favorite things to do at IKEA is look for alternate uses for items. I get a lot of organizational things from the kitchen area, and under my table I have a cabinet from the kid's section (the perfect short height for under my table!)



A few weeks ago I realized I needed a little cart on wheels for the space next to my desk. I looked online for hours before I found a cart on etsy that looked really similar to this one -- and then I remembered that I already had it in the basement! Is there anything better than looking for something and then realizing you already have it?! :)

The shelving unit on my floor used to be on my wall but was re-redistricted when I got my new tv. I actually like it better here! That used to be completely unused space and now it's totally functional. Well, if you can call "displaying Office bobble head dolls" functional ;)

The carrot pillow (from Ikea) keeps my door from knocking into the shelf when it opens.



I use the extra purses hanging behind my door to store things when they aren't in use! The pretty floral bag was a handmade (HANDMADE!) present from Casey a few years ago.



I've had the wooden "Kate" in my room for as long as I can remember. I use floral glass cups (another Ikea purchase) to store my business cards for when I'm packing orders. They're the perfect size!



I got the Mary Poppins ornament in Disney World last year. We shipped all of our souvenirs home rather than take them on the plane and this one was broken when I opened the box :( Her head and umbrella and one hand had snapped off. I glued her back together though and you can barely tell there was any damage -- but I still think I might consider snatching up another one on my next trip, if it's still available.

I like having a color wheel around when I paint since I don't feel like I have a really good eye for matching colors and somehow that helps. The postcard is Pam's painting from The Office!! It came in this kit (which also includes the world's best boss mug!)



I had to squeeze Arrietty in here somewhere..

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room tour part 1: my office

I've been talking about doing a room tour for so long I decided to make this one super duper jumbo-sized! I broke it up into a few posts, each focusing on one specific area. I thought that would be fun and also help the posts to load a little quicker :)

First up, my office! If you can call it that... it's actually a closet with a table in it. But it works perfectly and the size is just right for me. When I think about my ideal "forever home" I picture something pretty tiny. I've just become so accustomed to living and working in tight quarters that I can't even imagine living any other way. I like my cramped, cluttered space. It's so cozy!

The collage above my closet is by my friend Vivienne and the painting was a birthday gift from my  brother. I was upset that Turner Classic Movies was changing their nighttime intro so he painted me a stylized screenshot of the old one (you can watch it here at 0:31)



This screensaver is probably cliche now but I use it as my clock when I'm packing orders on the other side of my room (I'm always racing against time to finish & make it to the post office before they close!) I hate wearing my glasses so the huge text is perfect lol.

The die-cut jumbo ice cream print is one of my favorite things I own! I bought it from Everyday is a Holiday (Jenny and Aaron are also the super talented dynamic duo behind the cute apple pie print that's to my right in all of my outfit posts!) The cross-stitch of "That's What She Said" was a Christmas gift from my mom. I love having subtle Office references sprinkled around my room (...and not-so-subtle ones. The trophy on my desk is a Dundie award!)



To free-up desk space for my tablet and planner, I got a keyboard tray from Ikea. It came with a black foam insert which I promptly covered in vintage fabric. So much prettier - and equally functional :) My keyboard seems to be biting the dust now.. I'm having a heck of a time getting the letter "k" to show up on my screen without pounding the key as hard as possible. argh!



The clear plastic purse was from forever 21 (last year, I think) and I use it to hold extra notebooks. The Hibernate pennant is from Stay Home Club. The photo is a still of Dirk Bogarde and Julie Christie from one of my all-time favorite movies, Darling.  If you haven't seen it yet I highly recommend it! Mandi recently posted a nice review with some great screenshots ... you can take a peek here :)



Somehow I've been acquiring a little stuffed animal collection (and a stuffed person.. they had a Mary Poppins stuffed doll at the Disney Store in Times Square last year. It's pretty awesome!) so they all reside under my table at the moment. Even though he's much too small to actually be one of my cats, I always think the Tramp doll is Arrietty when I see him out of the corner of my eye.



I recently downloaded Danielle's happy face decals (available at Kitschy Digitals, here!) to cute-ify my printer! Isn't it just adorable?! The kit includes so many cute decals, I keep looking around my house trying to find more things to apply them to :)

Sidenote: This is my new printer (my old one broke about 2 weeks ago) It's a Canon Pixma MG6320 and so far I really love it. I think the print quality is top-notch and it has a smaller footprint than my old one. And of course I'm definitely smitten with the fact that it's white instead of black. My only complaint so far is that it doesn't always detect when I have paper in the tray, and sometimes the rollers leave marks so I've had to reprint. When I have some free time I'll call Canon to see if that can be fixed. I had so many issues with my old Lexmark though that so far this has really been a walk in the park :)



A little perspective so you can see where the closet/office is! And I had to sneak an Arrietty photo in here somewhere ;D

Part 2 will be up tomorrow! yay! :)

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room tour

There's a tour of my room over at teenvogue.com if you'd like to take a peek! It also includes pictures of my walk-in closet that I've been meaning to share here for over a year.

I'm planning on taking my own photos and doing something of a director's cut here next week (providing the sun finally comes out and lets me take pictures soon!) I didn't get to pick which things were featured in the article so a lot of my favorite knick knacks and little corners of my room didn't make the cut and I want to share those with you!! :) I'm also working on a follow-up to my storage solutions for small spaces post! yay!

I haven't actually done a room tour here in about two years and so much has changed since then! Mostly little things, but to me they make a huge difference. I should actually do a whole room evolution post since my room has changed so much over the years. At one point my walls were dark purple, my ceiling was orange and I had all dark wood furniture and jewel tone bedding. Seriously! I think my heart died a little during that period of pastel deprivation ;)

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a little bedroom update!

It's amazing what a few tiny changes can do to a room! My room feels so much more fresh and airy now, and all I did was paint my bed and add shelving storage underneath. I think the new color makes my room feel SO much bigger! I have a pretty tiny space and having a dark wood frame taking up about 1/3 of it definitely made it feel more cramped.



I pieced together three different sized ikea expedit bookshelves to fit around the perimeter of my bed. They fit so perfectly it's like it was meant to be! ;) I'm probably a total dork for saying this but I'm absolutely giddy about the storage. GIDDY I tell you! I have boxes and they're organized and nothing falls on the floor when I pull them out!! wheeee!! Also, my Dunder Mifflin boxes fit perfectly in the expedit. yay!



While at ikea I found these gorgeous glass cups, too. I got four to hold my various business cards for packing orders and another four that I stashed away for my future house :)  They also had matching bowls so I picked up four of those, too. I want to have mix-and-match dining things so I like the idea of slowly piecing together a collection over time.





At the foot of my bed I'm using the shelving for my records. There's a little space where the two shelving units meet so I'm using that for records I'm currently listening to, and rotating records with fantastic covers on the front for display. It's wonderful to be able to pull a record out to listen without all of the other records falling over lol :)





Lots of Hypatia in this post! Every time I wanted to take a picture she was there lol :)



I've wanted to organize under my bed for so long... I store a lot of stuff under there (I have a whopping 22" space between my mattress and the floor thanks to a tall bed and 6" risers!) but it was just kind of crammed in there all willy-nilly. Whenever I pulled stuff out a landslide of other stuff would cascade onto my floor. But not anymore! :)



It would have been a huge hassle to actually move my bed to paint it, so I painted all of the visible parts and then taped the paint chip to the inside of the frame. I do have some leftover paint, but this way if I ever use that up (or, knowing me, lose it) I can always finish up the job with the exact same color.

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studio sunday

I did an interview and showed off my little studio on Chickiedee today! You can take a peek here! :)

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calendar sneak peek!

I've been drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing, and I am FINALLY... almost finished. I have just one illustration left, and then my 2013 calendar will be complete :) I thought I'd share some sneak peeks first, mainly because I'm just so happy with how it's coming along so far!

These are definitely my favorite flapper doodle drawings. I haven't been this smitten with my own work in a long, long time. It's a nice feeling :) I'll be listing all of these as prints in my shop over the weekend, and if you like what you see, the calendar is available for pre-order here!







ps. I got the first shot by duct-taping my iphone to my ceiling and using a self-timer. I put a piece of paper between my phone and the duct-tape so it wouldn't damage it, and it worked great! Also, my sweater and shorts are both from asos. Just in case anyone was wondering :)

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what my walls are wearing

I get a lot of comments and questions about this wall that serves as a backdrop in 99.99% of my outfit photos. So I thought I'd share a little bit about what's on it today! The color is Frosty (I can't remember what brand now, but this is the paint swatch for it) although I think it looks just a tad more blue in real life than it does in my pictures. Now here's where I got everything that's on it...



1. Striped painting with two girls by Valerie Pensworth. Her etsy shop is closed now and I can't find another place where she's selling her prints, but she's one of my favorites!

2. Girl with a prism shooting out of her eye by Dada Dreams. I have a couple pieces from her.. I absolutely love her bizarre quirky creations!

3. Two portraits by Elizabeth Bauman. The blue one is a commissioned painting of my Grandmom Eve! Elizabeth sells prints and originals on etsy, and I highly recommend her work! She's also an incredibly sweet person :)

4. "Home is where my cats are" embroidery by me

5. Dirk Bogarde portrait from Immortal Ephermera on ebay. If you ever are in the market for classic film memorabilia I highly recommend Cliff! He's a classic film expert and super nice guy!

6. Jane Fonda collage from catwalk on etsy. I have a few more collages by her, too! I'm really smitten with this one that's in her shop now.

7. Floating head on purple watercolor by Amanda Blake. I love Amanda's work and I'm thrilled to have an original painting from her. I also have a gocco print in my office (not pictured in this post) of a girl holding a levitating egg.

8. Everything Will Be Okay screenprint by AJB + MTK on etsy. They don't have this in their shop right now, but someone on flickr asked me where I got it & wrote me back later to say they were able to special order one.



I'm in love with this apple pie print I got from Everyday is a Holiday! It's perfection. (And the fact that it makes me think of cozy fall nights with hot cocoa and my mom's apple pie definitely doesn't hurt!)



1. I got this French cat print at a little poster store in New Hope, PA but it's also available online. I found a 24x36 one on amazon here, but basically if you search for "Le Chat Domestique" you can find a bunch of them!

2. "You never know what's around the next corner" print by Heidi Burton. I LOVE Heidi's work -- it always cheers me up! Her shop is currently on vacation but you can view a close-up of this print here.

3. Another Heidi Burton print! This one says "Let your inner child out of its box sometimes to help with those important decisions" with word bubbles reading "Let's wear pajamas to the bank! And speak with Russian accents!" It's adorable! You can view the close-up of this one here.



1. Anna Karina painting by me. You can get prints in my society6 shop if you're so inclined ;) (ps. I also have prints of that portrait I posted two weeks ago here.)

2. Dress pattern painting. It's just a painting I did of some of the patterns on my favorite dresses. That's also available as a print in my shop, here.

3. Another painting by Elizabeth Bauman. This one is also very special, it's a commissioned piece of my grandmom and mom on Easter when my mom was a toddler! My grandmom and my mom both have prints of this one and I have the original :)



1. Only my cat understands me air freshener from Perpetual Kid. I love the look on the cats' face.. it's like "SAVE ME!!"

2. "Make art" mantra collage by Catwalk on etsy

3. Watercolor painting of the Dunder Mifflin Office building by Pam Halpert (ok, technically it's from the NBC store lol... it came in this kit)

4. Giulietta Masina collage from Catwalk on etsy (told you I liked her stuff!)

5. Eureka sheriff's patch from The NBC store.



1. This office cat is something I just printed from home. I couldn't find the original source online (I saw it on pinterest) and the highest quality images I could find were like 500px wide, so I just printed it in super bad quality then touched up the edges with pencil. It looks pretty cool though, regardless of the pitiful resolution since I fooled around with it once it was printed. If anyone knows the original source though I'd really like an authentic print!

2. Dwight bobblehead from The NBC store

3. All of the tulips are from Michaels. Maybe a DIY project though? hmm..



1. Print of an oil painting by Vivienne Strauss. Vivienne works in watercolor, oil and collage and I love ALL of it. This particular painting is one of my all time favorites!

2. Sunday in New York lobby card. I can't find another one of this exact card on its own, but it's available in a set from MoviePoster.com here. (Although please don't buy it, I might want to myself, haha! It's my favorite movie ♥)

3. Girl with the pink beehive that's actually a cat by Carol Roque. Was this made for me or WHAT?! I'm in love with it!

... well I think that covers everything! If I left anything out that you're curious about, just let me know in the comments :)

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