Happy Labour Day!!

Enjoy!!

P.S. Check out Don’t Lick My Pants for a lickable doggie Labour Day greeting :-)

It’s a Major Award

Gayle at Planet M Files gave us an award—a major award even!! It’s actually called It’s a Major Award, and this is what it looks like and what it’s for:

“This award is for anyone who likes to smile and/or laugh, and just generally spreads that along in the blogging world we all travel in.”

Thanks for letting us know that we make you smile and laugh, Gayle :-)

Now we’re supposed to pass the award along to bloggers who make us smile or laugh. Well, that’s hard to do, because pretty much every blogger we follow brings a smile to our faces every day :-) We’re going to give this award to a couple of cheeky & funny bloggers who tell it like it is (and aren’t afraid to use four-letter words!!)

• Sara (without an H) at Sara Says Awesome
• Sassy Girl at Hot Piece of Sass

And also, this award goes to Katie at Sunshine and Bubblegum and Erika at Oops I Craft My Pants {Off}. Because really, blog names like that just have to make you smile :-)

Have a smiley Sunday!!

Don’t Lick My Pants

Because I’m not busy enough with work and school and getting my interior decorating business up and running and life in general, and because I really should spend even more time in front of the computer, I let my dogs talk me into creating a blog for them called Don’t Lick My Pants.

They insist that they’ll do all the work, but you know who’s going to get roped into doing it for them. Just like when your kids promise that if you buy them a puppy, they’ll feed it and walk it and brush it and pick up the poop…. you know who ends up doing minesweeping in the backyard.

Anyway, apparently all the cool dogs have their own blogs, so who am I to stand in the way of canine coolness??

If you have a dog, want a dog, like dogs, or if you’re just curious to see what three dogs with too much time on their paws have to say, then go sign up to follow Don’t Lick My Pants!! Because we’re their only follower so far, and they’re kind of bummed about that. And just like human bloggers, they like comments too :-)

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Is life a Premium Picnik?

Hubby gave me a Nikon D60 DSLR camera a couple of weeks ago as an early anniversary present. YAY!! And I’ve already managed to drop it on pavement. BOO!! But it was inside a soft bag that was inside a backpack and it didn’t drop from too high up, so I’m sure it’s OK, right?? And don’t these things come with built-in “Oops” features to protect themselves from boobs like me?? You know…

“Oops, you dropped me, but I’m OK.”

“Oops, you spilled lemonade on me, but I’m OK.”

“Oops, the dog licked my lens, but I’m OK – just don’t let him pee on me!!”

Anyway, I took a bunch of pictures on Monday,which I finally downloaded onto the computer but still need to sort through. I’ll post the best ones soon and take you on a little tour of Ottawa.But to get to my point — I’ve read about Picnik on quite a few blogs, and I started playing around with it yesterday. It’s got lots of neat features — love the one that straightens crooked pics!! For those of you who use Picnik, I’m wondering… is it worth investing $25/year in the premium package?? I guess it depends on what you want to do with it, but generally speaking, are the premium features cool enough and different enough to be worth getting??

Please let me know what you think. And if you’ve never tried Picnik, you should check it out. It’s fun to play around with :-)

Thanks!

Rewind Wednesday: Designer-wear, Shopping, and a Colourful Discovery

Hello DesignTies readers… today is Rewind Wednesday!!

First off let me shout out a great big THANK YOU to all of our blogger friends who have participated in previous Rewind Wednesday blog parties!! Kelly and I are so very appreciative of your support, and we hope that a few of our readers made it over to your blog for a visit! From this point forward, though – well, unless we change our mind (which we could!) – we’re going to be a bit selfish with Rewind Wednesday and keep it to ourselves. I hope you don’t mind!!!
Also… we had originally planned on running Rewind Wednesday just through the summer. You know… to free up some summer-fun time! But wouldn’t you know it, life gets in the way of all plans! What do I mean? Well… Kelly and I plan on continuing with Rewind Wednesday through the next 4 months. I hope you’ll continue to enjoy our re-played archived posts for a little while longer!

So why are we keeping Rewind Wednesday through the fall?

If you’re a regular reader of DesignTies you know all about Kelly’s design class plans for the fall. And wouldn’t you know it, I’m taking classes this fall too! Yep. I’m enrolled in two courses at our local college: “Colour Theory” with Maria Killam from Colour Me Happy AND, like Kelly, I’m taking a beginner’s drafting course too. It’s a total coincidence that we’re taking the same courses – on opposite sides of our country – I promise! Anyway, we’ll both be busy with school. Not too busy to continue to write great posts for DesignTies, but busy enough that having one free day will make all the difference. I’m sure you understand!
So… in acknowledgement of our much anticipated 4 months of drafting and colour study, I’m re-playing a post I wrote about colour combination discovery! Enjoy!!
What do Dolce & Gabbana Eyewear and Coach Leatherwear have in common? I’m sure if I put some real thought into that question I’d come up with some great answers for you! :-) Actually, these designer accessories-wear came to my attention the other afternoon when my husband and I took his daughter - beautiful Ashley - downtown to purchase new glasses. She’d had her eyes (pardon the pun!) on these D&Gs for several months and was excited that she was finally going to get them. Let me tell you, they look fantastic on her… but then everything looks wonderful on Ashley!!
As we strolled Robson Street window shopping and watching people, Ashley pulled Brian and I into Coach Leatherwear to show us a wallet she’s saving up for. I’m such a bump when it comes to designer-wear – my kids are regularly rolling their eyes at my lack of sophistication and knowledge! True to form, I’d never heard of Coach Leatherwear. As you can imagine, Ashley was excited to introduce this store – and it’s lovely accessories – to her Dad and I.
As wonderful as all of these handbags, wallets & shoes were, all I could see were the fabulous colour combinations! Yep… the time I spend on Maria’s blog Colour Me Happy is starting to rub off… I’m looking at colour everywhere! HaHa!! And – lucky me – I had my camera in my “D&G” knock-off bag (pictured to the right… and purchased obliviously in South Korea; I’d never heard of Dolce & Gabbana at the time and bought it for it’s convenient zipper. Ever practical!)!!
Everywhere I turned in the store I was taken with the colours used in their current line of accessories…

Ashley was laughing at me as I took photos of beautiful things. But she was a little curious, too. I said to her, “look how they’ve combined these colours – you could decorate a FAB room using these combinations!” I was on a roll– and whether she was interested or not (probably not!), I started telling her about colour, texture (pleats in the bags) and pattern (the Coach “C” graphic) - how important they are in decor and how the display-designers had used the same techniques to pull their accessories together in interesting, eye-catching ways.
Of all the displays, this one caught my eye. Everything in the store was bright and fresh – greens and pinks tempered with a browns and blacks. Here, though, they’d taken yellow and paired it with goldish-beige (is that a colour, Maria?!)… almost a grey. So much more subtle then the other displays. I loved it!
And I knew right away that I wanted to search through our favourite blogs for examples of rooms decorated in this colour scheme.

Let me share with you what I found: (Clicking on photos will take you to the blogs where these lovely rooms are discussed)




So what do Dolce & Gabbana Eyewear and Coach Leatherwear have in common?
Well, for me… if it weren’t for a D&G purchase and a D&G knock-off bag carrying my camera… and if it weren’t for my wonderful step-daughter’s love of all things designer made :-) I wouldn’t have discovered Coach’s beautiful, colourful accessories… and I certainly wouldn’t have been motivated to search out these fabulous examples of the pretty colour combination out in blogsphere!

Thanks for exploring a little colour with me on this Rewind Wednesday!!