Orchid You Glad?

Here's the next in my series of botanic garden-inspired prints. The orchids at the U.S. Botanic Gardens are amazing. The different colors and patterns are almost shocking. This was my favorite one (mainly because I'm a little obsessed with pink... talk about shocking, I know).

This is the first stripe I've made so I was unsure about the process but really it was pretty much the same deal. Maybe I'll use this pattern from my DIY Keds that I've been craving? I'm getting ready to order some fat quarters of fabric from Spoonflower to mess with as well. 

I used Kuler again to pull the colors from my photo. You can download them here. Which do you like better the all-green or the green and pink? Should I try something else? As always, try click on them to see the big version and try it out on your desktop! It's a fun, end-of-summer color splash.

Botanic Garden Inspiration, Minus the Snark

When people talk about inspiration I have to admit I sort of tune it out. I feel like its one of those fake things that people brag about. "I'm sooo inspiiired by traaavel." That being said, I had a moment this weekend though where I was like, "Oh, I get it!"

I've talked in the past about where Snarky Beagle doodles come from (I'll give you a hint, the stork doesn't bring them), so on a trip to the U.S. Botanic Gardens I was a little surprised I found myself snapping tons of photos of different beautiful, natural patterns.

Obviously, no one here is shocked that flowers are an amazing inspiration. My favorite is the top right with the pink stripes.

But I also couldn't believe how amazing some of the succulents they had were. The colors and patterns had me staring at them (that is until I melted in the humid 95 degrees temps). So stay tuned for some Botanic Garden-inspired patterns I'll be working on (as soon as I'm done with two 10-page papers for grad school... much less inspiring).

What's your favorite photo? What do you get inspired by?

UK Vacation Finds

So now that we've been back from vacation for two weeks, we're finally finally finally settling down and things are getting back to normal. May and June have been insane with work-cations and (hallelujah!) real vacations... tacked on to work-cations. I feel like calling them "work-cations" makes me feel slightly less depressed about how many consecutive nights I spent in a hotel, thoughts?

One of my favorite things about traveling is picking out cool, unique, memorable souvenirs. Related /unrelated, Kevin says my personal style is that of an old lady.  So here's what I got and you can be the judge. (I'll also mention I've been formulating a follow-up personal style post and I think most of these fall somewhere in my spectrum. Stay tuned!)

On our day in York, home to York Minster the largest cathedral in Northern Europe, we ran across a local artist fair. I saw this print of a cow and immediately thought NEEEED. The artist also had similar... we'll call them "up-the-nose-shots" of various farm animals. Kevin said I'd be sorry I didn't buy a sheep as well and I have to admit now... he was kind of right. Does anyone have a farm I can borrow? Love those sheeepies.

We spent several days in Harrogate, Yorkshire which is an old "spa" town and what I mean by "spa" is that there was sulfur water and old ladies came and sat in it. Hm. Anyways, there's pretty good shopping and I ran across a designer shop from London, called Cath Kidston. I loved the fun florals (cough, old lady-ish I knooow). After much deliberation, I chose this fun green zip wallet.

Lastly, we went to Edinburgh, Scotland where I learned that Scotland's main exports are wool, more wool and whisky. So Kevin bought whisky and I bought... wool. Since I'm not Scottish and therefor not beholden to any particular plaid, I chose this blue, yellow and white scarf. It's super soft so... thank you sheep!

Overall it was a great trip and I love my purchases. We did also expand our candy collection and when we finally dig out from under the ENTIRE SUITCASE OF CANDY BARS I'll write some more blog posts.