Hello Again

iPhone photo by Dogear Press

I think that this may be my worst blog gap to date. I can’t quite believe that my last post was on February 24th, mostly because it’s hard for me to grasp that two months have flown by so quickly. It’s become a perennial issue (and one that I think won’t ever get better), but I’m constantly faced with how to balance work with my other responsibilities and desires. In a culture of work, work, and more work, how do you carve out your own time? And how do you protect that from the external demands that always want a bit more of you? It hasn’t been easy for me to figure out a game plan for dealing with these issues. I’m hoping to hash through some of my thoughts and approaches to them in a future blog post.

As evidenced by the lack of updates here, my blog is something that has fallen by the wayside. I would love to be able to spend more time here, but I also don’t want this place (which was born from a desire to have a creative outlet) to be a source of stress, so I’ve decided to accept that I’ll let the posts come when they do – when I’m so inspired, and when I have time. So while I am a bit sad that I haven’t been able to devote more time to Dogear Press as a blog, I’m happy to say that I have been able to do some other creative work in the past few months. I’ve submitted a few entries to Minted’s “Eye of the Beholder” Art Challenge. Voting is currently open, and you should be able to vote until May 5th. I’ll share the other project when it becomes available.

I hope you are enjoying the arrival of spring (finally!), and I hope to be back here again before too long.

Five Days in Vermont

It’s been a long winter in New York City. After a tease of a beautifully mild weekend, this coming week promises one more foray into (and a hopefully a farewell to) the polar vortex. Given the cold days ahead, I thought I would revisit our New Year’s trip to Vermont. We drove up from New York on December 30th, skied for a few days at Okemo, rang in the New Year with burgers and Prosecco, and survived the first blizzard of 2014. Thank goodness for firewood and snow chains.

Click through for some more images from our trip to Vermont.

Christmas 2013 in Key West via VSCO Cam

If you follow my iPhone photography via Instagram or through my VSCO Grid, you’ve probably realized that I’m an unabashed fan of the VSCO Cam App. I love the app itself, and am just blown away by the amazingly talented photographers I’ve discovered through the VSCO Journal. VSCO has also been maintaining a curated VSCO Grid, and I was completely surprised and absolutely thrilled to receive an e-mail a few days ago informing me that one of my photos had been selected for the curated Grid (direct link to the photo: http://vsco.it/1idTdgP). The image is from our Christmas trip to Key West, while we were waiting in line outside the Hemingway House.

Here is the original image.

Click through for a few other favorites from Key West (all processed using VSCO CAM).

Hello in 2014

How it January 21st already? I can’t quite believe that my last blog post was in November. December flew by in a haze of work and (sadly) sickness. We spent Christmas in beautiful, sunny, and warm Key West and then transitioned to snowy, cold (but also beautiful) Vermont to ring in the New Year. The former was pretty beneficial for my health, the latter not so much. Thankfully, I think I am almost 100 percent back health-wise.

I have a laundry list of items to tackle, at work, at home (my husband and I are attempting Apartment Therapy’s January Cure – although we’ve resigned ourselves to having a January/February Cure), and also creatively (a pile of photos to edit, our annual New Year’s letter to design, future blog posts...). At least my to-do lists have become more fun thanks to this Rifle Paper Co notepad my sister gave me as part of my Christmas gift. I’m hoping to really get back into the swing of things soon, and find my routine again.

Image source

Wishing you a happy (if very belated) 2014, and hopefully it won’t be quite so long before I’m back here again.

Remembering to Enjoy November 2013

This is one of my favorite times of year, but all too often I find myself succumbing to the whirlwind crush of work before Thanksgiving (also between Thanksgiving and Christmas) and forgetting to enjoy the things I love about this season. It can be difficult to carve out time when faced with a never-ending laundry list of to-do items, but in the past few weeks I’ve tried to do something each day to (in my own way) celebrate this time of year. It’s been small things, like taking the time to light a few candles when I get home, sitting with a hot cup of tea and a holiday related magazine for a few minutes (mostly salivating over Thanksgiving meal recipes), buying some fall-inspired flowers, and this past weekend making my first pumpkin date bread (recipe via Williams-Sonoma).

Dogear Press Projects: Invitations for a Train-Inspired Second Birthday Party

A few weeks ago we celebrated my nephew Bryan’s second birthday. Given Bryan’s love of trains, my sister-in-law Jess planned a fun train-inspired birthday party for her little man (you can see photos of the festivities over at The Eagle’s Nest).

I was excited when Jess asked if I would design an invitation for the birthday party, and thought I’d share some of the design process here. Below is the invitation that Jess and her husband Scott ultimately decided on.

You can see the first three options that I sent to Jess after the jump.

Dogear Press Projects: Minted’s Baby Shower Challenge

Another Minted contest... and this time I’m actually posting within the correct voting window. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have been particularly inspired to enter a baby shower challenge, but now so many of my friends have had children that imagining the details of a fun baby shower doesn’t seem so foreign to me. I was able to complete one entry for the On the Way! Baby Shower Challenge and thought it would be fun to think about some décor elements to go along with my invite. I especially love the DIY painted cups! Click here to vote (it should be open later this afternoon and runs through October 21st).

Image sources top to bottom: (1), (2), and (3).