featured!

Hello everyone!! 


Sorry for the absence! My life has been uber busy with design work and other happenings. This past weekend I went to NOLA for a bachelorette party! I will post some hilarious pics on that soon. We had an 80s theme night, and it was muchos fun! 


In design news, my thank you card was featured on Design Milk! Check out the entire post here. It featured 30 modern thank you cards, and there are some really awesome ones in there!

THANKS, DESIGN MILK!

It's Feb 29th! Happy Leap Day, yall! I hope everyone's Leap Day wishes came true! 

I KNOW MINE DID!

you are beautiful

There is a movement in Birmingham. It uplifts people. It promotes positivity. And I'm obsessed. It's also kind of a secret.. Although if you live here, you've probably seen the messages.

Isn't it great? They are all over town. 

On old buildings..

On top of them.

In cursive..

In color.

Note the Alabama A. OBSESSED. And another AL shape:

Oooooo I wish I had a print of this!

This one is at the Peanut Depot on Morris Ave. downtown. And ya know, being from the peanut capital of the world, I am quite pleased with the placement of this one.

This one was my favorite. 

I use to pass it everyday. For some reason, it was painted over. 

This one was painted over too.. but in my opinion, it was for the better..

HA! Auburn orange and blue! 


Who paints these? Who knows?!? It's like we have our own Banksy! 
(He's a street artist from the UK, and his identity has never been revealed. I just watched "Exit Through the Gift Shop" this past weekend, which is a documentary about street art and had interviews with Banksy, among other things. I quite enjoyed it.) 

ANYWAYS.

All this made me want to create a couple of posters. I may try some more fonts and layouts later on, but I like 'em so far! 


Here's one for my alma mater, Auburn University:

 Don't worry, I did a Bama one too!

Let me know if you want one! 

{All picture above are from the You Are Beautiful Birmingham facebook page. Go like em, yall!) 

with every page, turn turn turn

I just turned three times because there are three new pages, y'all! 

(Do you like how many of the bloggie titles are song lyrics? It gives me something to sing while I write.)

Two of the pages are up top there: dining room and living room. Now that many projects have been completed, and my house is finally coming together, I figure it would be nice to gather all the pictures in one place. Most are from the before and after posts I did last month, but as the rooms are updated, I will add new pictures so anyone looking for just house post can find them there! I'll add more rooms as I get them finished!

The third is a sweet new baby facebook page! I'm going to post little tidbits on there, like where I find all my goodies, photos of glorious things I find, and pictures of projects that may not warrant an entire bloggie post. I'll also start posting the bloggies on there once they're finished (I'm going to ween them off my own profile). I hear Google is taking away the "following" feature (over there on the right) so I would love to see who all likes what they're herring! Sadly, fb wouldn't let me have a lowercase "i". Le sigh. You'll still know it's me from the ever present fish logo though! Click here to go like the facebook page! 

I added a link to facebook and pinterest up on the top right of the blog. I'm still trying to figure out how to add the buttons, so in the meantime, I just put some text links up there. 

ENJOY!

nice shades

I finally got some shades up in the den! (WOO!) I found them at trusty ol' Garden Ridge (across from Sam's in Irondale, for those who live here). Let's have a looksie! 

I needed three to fit my long window. They're actually vinyl, made to look like bamboo.

And check out that price: $9.99 each! I looked at custom curtains online, and it was going to cost me from $120-250 dollars for the choices I liked! I checked for one long one to fit the window, and three short ones, and none of them came close to $30 total.

I unprofessionally hung them up with command strips.. lame, I know. My window casings are made of metal, so rather than fight with that, I decided this was the way to go. The good news is you can't really see it. 

Here it is right before I hung them with the wilt-y white curtains. 

Ta da! 

This was right after I hung them, without fixing the curtains..

In the daytime! 

I probably should've cut the warning tags off so there wasn't a shadow behind the shades. Oopsie.

I love the look! 

Whatchu think, D-man?

(he cocks his head to the side like this whenever you ask a question)

I love it, ma! 

I'm thisclose to being finished with this room.

Who am I kidding? Rooms are never finished!! 

Do you like the watermark I added to the bottom right of the pictures? I decided in this age of pinning and pulling photos from bloggies, I should probably put a stamp on my pictures. Now people will know where to go to find this color obsessed home owner.

PS- If you want to follow me on Pinterest, click here! 
And yes, I do have a board solely devoted to Cam Newton. JEALOUS?! 

my new website, yall!

My new site is live, yall! 

CHECK IT OUT HERE: 

www.fishandlinedesign.com

I built it myself, like I did with the last one. It's easier to navigate than the old one in my opinion. I figured it's a step up, and it'll do until I get a professional one made.

Do you need a website? They are super easy to make. I'll give you the pros and cons from the two sites I've used: Weebly and Wix. I'll start with the first one I used.

WIX:

pros:

1. tons of background options 

2. lots of fonts to choose from

3. easy to drag and drop

cons:

1. it's a flash site (aka doesn't work on iphones/ipads)

2. since it is flash, pages aren't displayed on separate urls (ex: it would always say fishandlinedesign.com, no matter what page you were looking at, as opposed to fishandlinedesign.com/invitations)

3. you have to pay to have your own domain name (if you dont pay, they provide one for you, like rachelherring.wix.com)

WEEBLY

pros: 

1. you can use your own domain name fo' free!

2. easy to drag and drop

3. you can edit the coding (i know just a wee bit so it was nice to be able to tweak colors and whatnot)

cons:

1. you have to pick a specific layout in the beginning with set color schemes (although some colors are editable) 

2. it's more structured than wix. some things cannot be moved around.

I guess it's just a matter of preference. I purchased my domain name through GoDaddy and it was easy to change the records to point to the new site, so if I ever want to go back to Wix, I can. 

I hope everyone likes it! It's definitely a work in progress, so I'll constantly be adding things.

EEEE! 

bzzzzzzzz

I have been a busy bee! Between house projects, Etsy orders, design contest duties, and building websites, I have barely had time to bloggie! It is nuts over here in my little world. 

Good news is I actually finished a project this weekend, so there will be a post on that later! I also finished up an Etsy order for 50 Class Reunion invitations and RSVPs that were shipped out today. It takes so long to cut each one out (le sigh) but it was worth it to get it sent out! 


The fashion show work is in full swing with designs to be sent in every couple of days. One of the layouts is for a light post!! I don't know why, but that makes me so excited!!! IT'S SIX FEET TALL! 


I have been updating my website, along with helping my dad create one for his business. I have been telling him he needs one for YEARS but he's finally agreed since customers recommended he have one. He told me he thought he'd be dead before he had to learn all this computer stuff (not funny dad!). Between teaching him URLs, SEO, and emails, it has been quite the learning experience. Ol' dad can build a car from the ground up, but he doesn't know how to turn on the computer.. he thought an email address was the same as a website. He's slowly coming around though! 


My schweet pup pups are wishing my schedule wasn't so busy. Diesel is staring at me now wishing I'd let him on the couch.

Before I peace out, I'll give you some bloggies that I love to read (and that have been updating more often than myself), so maybe you can satisfy your DIY reading until my next update! (I'm talking to you, Drew..):

www.younghouselove.com 
(full time blogger couple who DIY with their house. they just redid the kitchen. amazeballs)

www.yellowbrickhome.com
(DIY couple in Chicago. the girl does pet paintings!)

www.abodelove.blogspot.com
(this girl lives in Bham and went to Auburn! all you Aubs out there, check out the man mountain room.. totally jealous. actually im jealous of her whole house)

www.alifesdesign.blogspot.com 
(awesome interiors pictures. you'll want to pin them all, i promise)

http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/
(lady who does interior design and DIY to fill the spaces, along with pretty interiors pictures)

ENJOY! 

fauxdenzas!

There's a new type of furniture lurking out there in the design world, and it needs to be a part of my life...

the fauxdenza. 

How perfect/beautiful/amazing is this?

And it was a DIY project! This one was made by Morgan at The Brick House. Check out the how-to post right here. 

Here is another by Anna from Door 16:

Oh lala! 

Here's one from Jen at Made By Girl.

I'm obsessed with those pulls. GIMME! 

This one was shown on thelennoxx.com. I love this blue stripe on the wall! 

The best part is these are so easy to make! Just purchase wall cabinets from ikea, then mount them low on the wall. Ikea cabinets hang from a mounting bar, and according to most of these bloggies above, they are super easy to install. The only "problem" is that the tops of the cabinets aren't finished, so it has to be covered with something. The wood wrapped ones are my FAVORITE.

Who wants to start a petition with me to get an Ikea in Birmingham?!?! 

class reunion season!

I've had several Etsy orders and inquiries recently with my Class Reunion invitation I have listed on there, so I thought I would share them with everyone! Maybe someone out there is planning theirs right now..

It's just one design, but these are the different variations I've done.

Here is the original for my parent's 40th Class Reunion last year. It's a Save the Date that was sent months before the event. 

Here is an Etsy order I created. I gave the client a couple of options:

She ended up choosing the white one below.

And she wanted wording on the back. I suggested that it be turned into a postcard. I think it turned out pretty nifty! 

Here is the latest one I've completed!

And she requested an RSVP card be made:

Let me know if you want one! You can order them through my Etsy page. I need to come up with a new design for my own class reunion next year! TEN YEARS, YALL! Can you believe it?!?! 

I've been quite busy with Fish + Line stuff, so there haven't really been any house project updates this week. I've got several planned for this weekend, so hopefully I'll have more house related stuff for you next week! 

bad-ace.

How awesome is this?

via

Someone made this out of MDF and thrift store drawers. 

Hmm.

I'd like to take the physical challenge. Anyone have any drawers lying around??

orange you glad..

I chose orange!!!

There are other colors in the mix as well. It all started with this painting I found at the thrift store for $6.

This picture really doesn't do it justice. It's much more vibrant in real life. I was originally going to buy it for the frame (to spray paint of course), but the more I looked at it, the more I liked the color combination. 

Especially since my mom had given me this bad boy a looooong time ago: 

It's from West Elm! How chic! I haven't had anywhere to put it, and now it will go toward my new bedding plans.

THEN, as if it was a sign from the design gods, I found this at the Antique Mall in Hoover. 

It really is a sign! Vintage 7up with all the colors from the painting! You know I'm a sucker for old signs. Or big red stars..

Look how good they look together:

Here's a picture with the flash. Again, neither of these pictures look exactly like it does in real life. 

Look how perfect they look with the blanket!!

So, ladies and gentlemen, my color palette will consist of these colors:

Light aqua/robin's egg blue

Orange

Dark teal

Bits of lime, plum, and navy

Neutrals will be brought in with golds and creams

Totally different from the ol' primary color explosion downstairs, eh?!

I went to TJ Maxx yesterday, and found this pillow! How awesome is it?!?! 

(How lame am I to get excited about a pillow?) It's shimmery, and the little leaves shake when it moves. So much so that when I showed it to my roomie last night, I danced with it and sang "I like the way you move!"

PERFECT MATCH!!!!

They also had these lovelys! There are two there tied up, but you can't really see the other one..

I'm going to use the green curtains that use to be in the den (you saw them in the pics from yesterday). I threw my dark navy jeans in the pic so you could see the how it would look with that color in the mix, because it's going to be used in the room as well! 

With the flash! I feel the need to show both, because the colors in real life are somewhere between these two.

Ooooo weeee, I can't wait for it to all come together!!