This just in: blogging is a ‘good thing’

So I already know the answer to this question – But did anyone watch The Martha Stewart Show today? This just in – blogging is a big deal, and it only took Martha (and her staff of hundreds) 5 years to figure it out. Hmmm.

Now, as a loyal Martha Stewart fan, I was a little disappointed that she’s so late to jump on the band wagon. But – I have to say the show was pretty good! But I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE THE DAY where Perez Hilton and Martha Stewart would be on the same show. That’s right, he was a guest – on the MARTHA STEWART show.

Hell has frozen over.

Check out Martha’s blogging episode on her website.

Supressing the anger is SO hard when you’re all hopped up on sugary Pepsi!

Thanks for all your help guys, Re:Me sucking at the internets! You’re right I should just suck it up and learn!

AND NOW ALLISON’S GRUDGE FOR THE DAY:

I HATE PEPSI. Not really. Actually I quite like Pepsi. But as a bored unemployed graphic designer I HATE PEPSI. Here’s the story…

So I get home one day and grab a nice and refreshing can of Pepsi from the fridge. Ahhh, tastes so good. While sipping my deliciously sweet beverage I noticed that the can was different than normal, then I saw the “Design Our Pepsi Can” contest. And I thought HOLY CRAP! I AM BORED AND HAVE NOTHING TO DO!

I will do this.

So, I did. And I think it turned out pretty well! What do you think?

WELL I THINK IT DOESN’T MATTER IF THIS DESIGN WAS GOOD ENOUGH TO WIN A FREAKING NOBEL PRIZE because Pepsi’s site won’t let me upload my design – so therefore no one will ever see it. The size is right the file type is right. It won’t upload on Firefox, Explorer or Safari. And no where does it say that the contest is closed. (Plus the music on the website is absolutely DREADFUL.) So, I am frustrated and hoping that someone from Pepsi will see this blog and ANSWER my freaking emails!

Anyways, I figure if this design doesn’t even have a chance of showing up on a Pepsi can I might as well show it to you!

Sorry for the ALL CAPS — but I’m all hopped up on sugary goodness, and I was screaming in my head when I typed those parts. If you want to submit to big business than make your own pepsi can design here. (And when you’re done let me know if it works!)

Help! I suck at the internets.

Good morning lovelys!

So today I have been thinking about the internets (who hasn’t?). Since allisondoty.com still isn’t up (NEVER buy a Western Digital Hard Drive) I now have many different options as to how to start my new website from scratch.

Here’s what I’m thinking… Either I do it the best way I know how — building a website completely out of images, and just dealing with a slower loading time and inflexibility — or I make my own template, download WordPress, read WordPress for Dummies, learn some new stuff, and hope that my website will be running within 20 years (and by then WordPress will be comparable to a Commodore 64). Ah, decisions.

I like something like this a lot — Check out this designer’s wordpress site.

What do you all think? I need feedback!

Labor Day/Drinking Day

Nikki and Nick came to Boise this weekend! See how much fun you could all have if you came to visit me? We floated the river, drank every day, went to trashy country bars, ate TONS of food and explored the city. Sound good? I’ll put you up! (Wow, this suddenly turned into a desperate travel ad.)

Anyway, here are the highlights from this weekend!

An E taller than me

So I’m roaming around my usual web hot spots this morning and I come across something amazing. Holy crap, I am in home decorating heaven! Besides the hefty price tag I think these prints from New York’s OddHero studio are absolutely fabulous. And GET THIS — if you buy the large size, these babies are 6′ tall! Insane!

Since most of us aren’t in a stage in our lives where we can spend $800 on a 6′ tall bad ass typography print, I figure why not make one yourself? Open Illustrator, pick your favorite type face and design away! I know Kinko’s (ick) offers large scale printing for a LOT less, and you can customize your poster with your favorite font (Semibooooooowld) and use your own colors to match your space!

AND if you’re feeling a little artsy, screen print your heart out on an enormous sheet of butcher paper (shiny side down)! Pop it in a frame, and vawalah — you have a cheap and awesome print!

Always wanted to learn to screen print but don’t know how? Check out this REALLY thorough YouTube series called “A Better Way of Screen Printing.”

If you’re lucky enough to have the money, check out these awesome prints here. As for me, I’ll be bookmarking this site for a future project when I get my own place!

No job = So much time = Must find something to do = “Hey! I found a newspaper from 1995!” = This blog post

It’s a bleak world. With every newspaper layoff a respectful writer is forced to put on makeup and SPEAK his/her story to the world. Shameful. And it leaves me wondering … what the heck do I do with all these old newspapers?

My household has been a subscriber to the Idaho Statesman since before I was born. I have never known a time when newspapers weren’t littering the house everywhere. They are in the garage catching oil, stuffed in boxes mailed to my Grandma’s for Christmas, lining the guinea pig box, etc.

Well a couple smart cookies have figured out some VERY interesting ways for you to put your old newspaper to use (besides paper mache).

Knit with it

You ask “Why?” I ask “Why not?” Though I realize that knitting something comfortable out of newspaper would be virtually impossible, and you would probably develop permanent ink smudges on your derrière, maybe you could knit a door mat? Sounds good to me! Learn to make your own newspaper yarn here.

Make a kreepster sculpture

This one doesn’t really make much sense to me … but neither does all 3D art. But, if Make can deem this art-worthy I can mention it on my crap blog. See the dog/cat/gremlin/scream sculpture.

Light them on fire

Does this really need an explanation for its awesomeness? Buy your own Newspaper Brick Maker here.

And the best use of newspapers ever: Make a bad ass fort

This is pretty damn cool. My forts have only ever consisted of sofa cushions and picnic blankets. Just think, with a little engineering and a lot of trash you could make an entire newspaper dome! This sounds like a project for Bimmel and Melanie. And you can learn exactly how to do it here.

Now I know some of you might be secretly offended by this post, but remember I love newspapers too! And I also love recycling, because more recycling=more newspapers, which= more jobs … that’s how the economy works right?

Or is it more jobs=more newspapers=more recycling/trash.

Or is it more jobs=more money to spend on cable TV=less newspapers?

I hate politics.

So, if you’re feeling a little down, know that journalists all over the world (even the pseudo-journalists like me) are sad. A sympathetic writer from the Springfield News-Sun expresses these same thoughts in much better words here. Happy Friday!

Patterns of thought

Turns out I suck at making patterns. I also suck at thinking of patterns to make, and I suck at drawing my own patterns from scratch.

Told ya. The flower thingy is OK, but what the F*? I can’t even explain the large poop looking shape in the corner. Second try will be better … right?

To explain: Yesterday I was playing in Illustrator making patterns and having a hard time aligning shapes so they looked right. So, I found this great tutorial that shows Creating Seamless Patterns in Illustrator (the website is pretty cute too!). I tried it out and you can see my first attempt above.

I have been spending a lot of time on Etsy.com and since many designers screen print their own fabric designs and then sell them by the yard, I thought trying a pattern out for myself would be fun. Turns out designing a pattern is not as easy as it sounds. I tried many different designs before settling with the green one above, and something still doesn’t look right to me.

There’s so many cool references for those of you who like patterns (Lisa, I still have your snowflakes! You might see a pattern with them soon!). This woman in particular draws out her design on graph paper first and then scans them and re-traces them in Illustrator. See her whole design process here.

Check out some of Etsy’s best textile designers here.

And … my personal favorite Daisy Janie. See her Etsy store.

1996 called, it wants its friendship bracelet back

What to do with all this extra time? (Really? No one needs potholders? They’re FREE!)

I am boooored.

Voice of my mother in 1996- “You’re bored? You’re 10 years old! How are you bored? If you tell me you’re bored one more time you are going to your room.”

10 year old Allison- “But Moooommm, this house is so bo– … stupid!”

M- “Make a list of things you like to do RIGHT NOW, and then when you’re bored pick something off your list.”

A- “That sounds boring.”

M- “Go to your room.”

I bet you wouldn’t believe that this actually happened. Last night I went through my old desk and FOUND my list of things to do when I was a bored 10-year-old. Here are some highlights…

THINGS TO DO WHEN THE 1996 ME IS BORED:

1. Make friendship bracelets. (Seriously, NO ONE needs potholders?) Check out my anklet in the photo above. My 10-year-old self made it.

3. Rollerblade

4. Watch a Disney movie

5. Play basketball

9. Play the piano

10. Call Grandma

11. Paint my nails

12. Go to Russell’s (my neighbors)

18. Color

… and the LAST and BEST thing to do when the 1996 me was bored…

25. Make mixed tapes

2008 me really needs to step up in order to live up to such high standards. Now, let me ask you, what would YOUR ‘bored list’ from 1996 say?

Who needs new potholders?

Pyper says I need a tequila intervention. I think she is right, mostly because when I have nothing to do, I make stuff. So, after I called her and explained how I spent all day sewing myself a pair of pajama pants, and THEN proceeded to ask her if she needed any potholders, she gave me the smack down.

“You are 22 years old and you want to sew me pot holders?! You need a margarita night STAT!”

I have fallen into a frump slump. But, until my so called “tequila intervention” comes I have been searching the web for ways to keep myself busy.

Check out this awesome handmade flip book! This clever cookie used AfterEffects in the CS3 suite to capture frames from video. The site even explains how to make the ultra-cool binding.

Normally I would look at a flip book and say “why?” But these are presented so well, and I think they would be a great idea for a cheap wedding gift (all you need is footage of the couple) or an anniversary present. Plus, one of these would look great sitting on your coffee table.

Click here to see video of the flip books in action and for more detailed instructions. You can also download the AfterEffects template you need for free!

Random thought for the day

Semibold

(I miss you Kaci and Victor!)

Yay for free vector graphics!

I was looking for cute dot and bubble brushes for Illustrator today when I came across this set of free images on Adobe Exchange! Get your hippie flowers here!

For those of you who don’t know, Adobe Exchange is a GREAT way to find tools to help make your designs look fabulous! You can specify which program you will be using and find free brushes, actions, etc. Most of the tools are already rated too, so you can see which ones users think are duds. AND if you make a completely radical tool you can upload it to share with others! You do have to give them your email to download the free stuff — but it’s totally worth it, and I haven’t received harassing emails yet.

The “Hippie flowers” vector is featured on Adobe Exchange right now, so you might not have to sign up to download it for free, emphasis on MIGHT.

Happy Illustrating!

Summa summa summa time

Now that I am back from my vacation sunburned and unshaven, I have collected a few shots to share with you from the trip!

This is one of our last days out to sea before we headed back to Bellingham — which is the reason everyone looks so happy. Cramping 6 people into a 34′ sailboat can be really tiring. In case you’re wondering, my brother is the one with the goofy glasses on the far left.

This is to really illustrate what I mean when I say cramped. I, fortunately, was one of two people that didn’t have to share a bed — but UNfortunately that meant sleeping in a hole. The photo is pretty blurry, but you get the idea. The space between the stairs and the desk was only like 12″ so I had to step into my bed directly from the stairs to even lay down. A small price to pay to have a “bed” to myself.

During our first day in Canada we ran into a crazy, gray-haired, bearded man who wanted to show us the “8th wonder of the world,” supposedly he invented it himself. He told all of us to look into the sun with our eyes closed. Then he spun the little contraption showed above and it made patterns out of the sun — then at the same time he blew into and instrument that made a weird noise like a jet engine starting or something. It was SOOO trippy. Probably the closest to being high that I will ever get. With your eyes closed, it looked like a kaleidoscope on your eyelids. Overall my first experience with a homeless man in Canada was quite nice! He was a non-kreepster, very clean, and a pretty nice guy. The SECOND homeless man was NOT a good experience.

Our last stop on our trip was the lovely little town of Rosario in the San Juan Islands. We toured this mansion and it is pretty freakin’ awesome. Here’s the story: In the ’20s a ship yard owner was told that he only had 6 more months to live, so he decided to quit his job and spend his millions building a mansion for his family — an ultimately a final resting place for himself. Then he lived for 30 years.

And on that note, happy Wednesday!

Screw you Kinkos: Unique business signs

Hello all! I am back from sailing around the San Juan and the Gulf Islands! The trip was amazing — check my next post for pics.

Back to business: The first night we moored in Canada we were walking around Ganges Island and I kept noticing these beautiful hand carved business signs. The more I saw the more I started looking for them and noticed each sign had a small metal plate signing the work “Warren Langley Signs.”

You can see through the photos the craftsmanship and detail put into these signs (most of which are made from cedar).

Naturally, I looked him up right when I got back into an area with free wireless, and I found out the native Canadian has been making these beautiful hand made (and in most cases self-designed) signs since 1980. I have very limited experience in sign design — but I just wanted to share since these are truly works of art in themselves.

Mr. Langley’s site also has some pretty cool information as to how he makes the wood and stone signs. I have already decided that if I ever started my own business I would be giving Mr. Langley (who is quite a studly man if I say so myself – he has a ‘young Sean Connery thing’ going on) a call.

Check out the Warren Langley Signs site, and browse through his many sign galleries.

Summer vacation

Tomorrow I am leaving with the rest of the fam for a week vacation around the San Juan and the Gulf Islands! We will be sailing all around on my Dad’s new boat, called the Osprey. So, needless to say, I probably won’t be posting for about a week, but I will have lots to say when I get back!

Above is a sailing picture from our trip last year – and for some family news, my Dad and Julie are now officially getting married, so this is my new step family! It’s taking a little getting used to since I have never been or had a ’step’ anything before – but I think Julie’s family is exactly what our family needs!

So, to introduce you to some of my new family members, I have posted some photos showing their true personalities, below!

Jim Doty

Notice how calm (and almost gleeful) my dad is.
Now look at the angle of the boat compared to the horizon.

Julie Boschulte

Its our, “Itty bitty teeny weeny, yellow life-vested favorite Julie!”

Alex Boschulte

Epic Alex.

Kevin Doty

This was ri-dical-ous!

Erik Boschulte

Stunna shades.

These new transparent screens will BLOW YOUR MIND

Well, not really, since the screens aren’t really transparent. But some of these clever Flickr users figured out how to make a screen LOOK transparent (some, like this one, are better than others).

I tried to do this myself, and ended up failing miserably – mostly because my 2004 POS Dell is good for nothing.

MAKE YOUR OWN SCREEN LOOK TRANSPARENT:

1. Set your camera up on a tripod and frame your photo the way you would like. With most of the photos in the pool, the screens look more realistic when there is an image continuing off the screen, like the Grand Theft Auto poster above – something to keep in mind.

Some notes: Aligning your shot so your computer screen is flat and makes a rectangle will make this process much easier. Taking a side angle shot of your computer will complicate things.

2. Make sure your monitor is (somewhat) color calibrated. Otherwise your photo on your camera, and the photo on your desktop will look very different. If this is the case you can also dink around with your photo’s colors in Photoshop to get it as close as possible.

3. After setting up your tripod, move your computer monitors and take a couple shots without the monitors there.

4. DON’T move your camera, replace the monitors, and take another photo including your monitor. LEAVE YOUR CAMERA WHERE IT IS.

5. Now, with some photo editing software – any basic one will do – use the two images (lets call the image without the monitor, image A, and the image with the monitor, image B) to determine what section of image A should become your computer’s desktop background. Note: At no point should you be moving your monitor or your camera.

6. After cropping image A to be the exact replica of what is behind the monitor, save it as it’s own file and assign the image to be your desktop background.

7. If you’ve lined everything up neatly your screen should now look transparent! Take another photo (since your camera has never moved) and add it to this Flickr pool!

Check out the Flickr transparent screen pool for some other awesome photos.

This is a pretty fun experiment for the bored and curious. However, the screen is only going to look transparent from the EXACT angle from which you took the photo. So, if you would like to work at your computer and see the transparent screen, you will need to take a very close, straight-on shot, in order to see the effect yourself. If you are using the same computer to do the photo editing, this is especially hard since you can’t move the tripod.

This took a couple tries for me to get right, and even then my photo looked like ass because of my shitty monitor. You lucky MacBook users should have no problem.

Happy experimenting!