thesmalleyfamily blog

I looked… I didn’t see any shoe stationery!

I Heart Shoes Personal Stationery

Here is my third entry to the minted.com contest.  The contest ends tomorrow, which means voting will open shortly after – they don’t post the day voting begins, so keep checking.

Paris in Pink Personal Stationery

I was asked to go to DC for a job. It was a good opportunity and I was going to be able to support another job as well. So I went there Wednesday and came back Thursday. It was a quick trip but I was happy to return to DC. I haven’t been there since moving in July 2006.

If you know me then you know that I would plan to cram as much as could in the time I had. I didn’t have a lot of time, let alone free time. I was so busy I didn’t get to visit with many of my old co-workers.

I did have two items on my list that I wanted to do Wednesday night which was the only night I had. I wanted to have crabcakes for dinner and I had to visit Paper Source. After a long day, two co-workers and I had had dinner at Legal Seafoods not far from work. This is where I enjoyed my crabcakes and smiled after each bite. It was great.

After dinner I was dropped off at my hotel where I quickly checked-in, visited the room to change, and then charged toward the metro on my mission to Paper Source. I was not disappointed. After the 20 minute metro ride on the blue line and a more than half a mile brisk walk, I was surrounded by wonderful paper and swirling creative thoughts. I left with much of what I wanted and was even able to cram all the goodies into my small suitcase and full laptop case for the flight back.

It was a good trip – work-wise and personal-wise. I will now be busy designing and implementing the website I was tasked and with designing all creative things for Holly’s baby shower.

Here is my second design submission to the “Keep in Touch Good Housekeeping Challenge” on minted.com.

Happy Spring Flowers Personal Stationery

OK!  I designed this really cute design for minted.com.  Minted.com is a great site that offers many, wonderful designs for just about any kind of greeting card and customized stationary you would like.  They allow designers to submit their own designs for their contests.  Winning designs get cash prizes and the opportunity to have their design offered to customers from their website.  There are many great designers on the website, so there is a lot of competition.  It would be great to win a contest and have my design offered on the website for customers to purchase!

This current design is called “Keep in Touch Good Housekeeping Challenge.”  You submit original designs for both  stationery note cards and matching skinny wrap labels.  The skinny wrap labels are very unique to minted.com.  I LOVE them!  Check them out…. and of course check out my design for this contest.  So far there is one, but I hope to submit a couple others.

Dotted Butterflies Personal Stationery

This design was inspired by the theme for Holly’s nursery and baby shower!  The colors are similar to the ones included in the nursery bedding; and I’m creating a butterfly mobile with paper similar to the design in the butterflies.  LOVE!!

It’s been just about a WHOLE year since my last post, which was Rob’s birthday… OhMyGosh!  Let’s try this again.  I’ve updated the blog with a new design and fun new header image.  I hope to change out the fun header image every season, hopefully…  I have big plans for posting design tips, projects I’m working on, and just general life things…. So keep checking back. 

It’s Rob’s birthday!!!!!

So this is my first blog for 2009! And I’m writing this from my new toy – my iPhone. It’s really cool. I hope to be better at writing and updating my blog this year.

Rob and I have been off work since December 24 and we have to return to work tomorrow. It will be difficult to wake up early. We were in Indiana most of the vacation. We were able to visit with many friends and family. We returned back to St. Louis on New Years Day so we would have time to ourselves to rest and take down the Christmas decorations. It’s been a great first holiday break as a married couple!!!

So, I imagine some of you are wondering how the two kitties are getting along in the house with us. Well, they’re getting better. There were some stressful times where we’d hear them going at it, but they have pretty much calmed down. We joked that there was a racial divide in the house – black vs. white. It’s gotten better, but they still aren’t BFFs, and maybe never will be. They can be in the same room together and they do many of the same cat things, so I don’t know why they just can’t hang out and do those same things together. Below are two pictures I took of them in the same room. They try not to get close, so this show how close they usually get.