COCKROACH KILLER 911 AND OTHER ORIGINAL PROPOSED IDEAS

A lot of times ideas are born. A lot of other times ideas pop up at the most ridiculous times, unprompted.

Like a sneaky little cockroach visitor, whom you're attacking with supposedly deadly roach-killing spray, while simultaneously squealing, being terrified, and maybe cussing like a sailor as it shimmies underneath your bed to die in peace. What we single gals need is a Cockroach Killer 911 hotline—for moments like these, when there's no manly man around to do the dirty work/spare you from being so absolutely ridiculous.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest (and that cockroach out of my bedroom), let's take this a step further. My major tends to presents projects that are very open-ended and require a great quantity of fresh ideas to get things rollin'. That's where the importance of research comes in. So, rather than snapping my fingers and shooting out a clever logo for a well-thought-out company, I choose to dive into a sea of visual inspiration and just about drown, until out jumps a mood board:

This time around I'm swimming through mid century era chairs to propose to this hypothetical design world a modern furniture collective. Mid-20th century is a time period that holds hallmarks of exceptional aesthetic furniture and interior design classics. This proposed furniture design collective, named “Modern Minted,” is a fictional cooperative enterprise of designers producing extremely well-crafted, re-interpreted mid century modern pieces. I'm such a nerd.

Also, want to be a cool white person? Casually mention how you hope to one day afford an original piece of furniture by [insert name of obscure architect here]. There's one thing I learned from my research. Oh, and that cats look just naturally at home in an Eames chair.

As one of my personal heroes Charles Eames once said, "Take your pleasure seriously." I would encourage anyone trying to come up with any creative idea to allow yourself to hold your breath and go under; work your way through the enormous quantity of inspiration in this world (in this case, history); kill a few trees printing it all out and literally surround yourself by it. It's a fun process, it really is.

Let's talk about fun while we observe this weird, ridiculous "M"atching game I made up in order to create a logo for Modern Minted...

Along the lines of pleasure and letters, one of my most favorite hobbies is lettering. Here are some pieces of my sketchbook lately (and consequently a little peek into my brain):

            

Let's be honest, I love Avicii, I'm itching to travel, right away, but the Lord brings me peace right where I am.

And where I am ain't so bad. This past weekend, Saturday specifically, was packed full of good times. Starting bright and early with the annual Syrup Soppin' festival in Loachapoka:

It was a rainy, wet morning but we got some sweet breakfast and poked through some local vendors' stuff, a great deal of that time spent at a jam/jelly booth exploring shelves of everything from Mountain Dew Jelly to watermelon rind preserves and talking to the woman who makes them about her favorite recipes. The morning was full of photo ops, old mustached men, fiddles, and small children waiting in line to ride that pony. And then we can't forget getting schooled on arrowhead/spear making by this man in fringe.

After we sopped up all the syrup (not really), the afternoon was spent carving a pumpkin (but not in the way that you're thinking) and preparing a few things for an upcoming venture into letterpress to make a poster and some Christmas cards. 'Tis the season! ? You'll see.

Seeing as we nor any of our friends have cable, watching the away game that afternoon turned out to be quite the adventure. We hopped around a few different places but looks like the Sister(brother?)hood of the Traveling Pom Pom was a successful good luck strategy because the game was awesome and we won and oh, WAR EAGLE.

 

Here, as you can see, we have joined an elk for the 4th quarter nail-biter.

In true Auburn tradition following the win and a round of high fives we all (elk excluded) ran to Toomer's Corner to celebrate! Rolling wires instead of trees is weird and I also got smacked upside the head by an industrial-sized roll of toilet paper but none of that seems to matter in the thick of all that plush white.

 I decided this cheesin' photo op called for the classic "#1" hand gesture, and appears this man in the bottom photo decided to toss his hands full of discarded toilet paper up in the air in the same spirit.

Celebrating at Toomer's Corner is one of my all-time favorite Auburn traditions, because it's like the entire population of Auburn crawls out of the crevasses of the town to immediately appear, Cottonelle in hand, to cheer and create this white wonderland together. Nothing will beat slipping/running over ice to get here after we won the national championship three years ago, but this time was a close second, even though it was an away game!

And what better way to celebrate further than dressing up like a crazy European and cramming into a sweaty room full of people raging, dancing the night away.

AND the Ten Kittens got to come out to play, y'all. How purrfect is this shirt?

 #meow

Saturday turned into Sunday, very little sleep was gotten, but I can't think of a better reason to wake up early than to letterpress. all. day. Ok, maybe a few better reasons. Like catching a flight to Europe or, I don't know, eating donuts or something, but hey, it was fun.

Your favorite little GDES elves slaved away all day in Santa's letterpress workshop to create some custom Christmas cards to sell! If you're interested and/or you love and appreciate our hard work and ink-stained efforts, come out to the CADC Pumpkin Carve on Friday and find us: you can buy one for $2 or 3 for $5! That's a steal. Buy 'em up. Made with caffeine, lots of patience, some pizza, and tons of love.

This was my first experience ever with letterpress, and it was definitely a messy crash course but I had so much fun. Learning a new skill, even if you have to sacrifice sleep and a whole day for it, will always be worth it. We all love paper goods, that gritty handmade quality, and there's just a sweet sense of satisfaction from getting to be a hand that makes it.

As October wraps up, I'm trying to stay focused and remember the intentions I set out at the beginning of this beautiful month—to complain less, work diligently, and listen more. I'm always learning and lately it's been a whole lot, both skill- and life-wise. To borrow a good word from our favorite sugary festival, I'm aiming to be soppin' up all these ideas and experiences without becoming overwhelmed by them. The rest of this month will consist of wrapping up this second design project and another book cover and a severe lack of sleep and energy is on the horizon, but hey I could get away with being a cast member of the Walking Dead for Halloween, right?

Keep up the good vibes, life, keep the coffee coming, and someone call me if 1. you want to volunteer to run this Cockroach Killing hotline or, 2. you need a hug too, because I know I could always use one.