My First Day of the Artist’s Way

February 2, 2009 by carina

So I buckled down and finally started this morning. I must have subconsicously been trying to avoid it because I meant all weekend to get a pretty notebook to write in and it never happened. I also hemmed and hawed about making an artist’s date for myself…and just generally avoided this thing that I have committed myself to do.

But somehow this morning, I was compelled to start my week a little differently. After a rough weekend, I KNEW I needed to do my morning pages. Because I didn’t need to get into work until 9am, I was able to sit down at the kitchen table as my kids watched Dora and really get out my 3 pages. I didn’t have a notebook, so I just grabbed 2 loose leaf papers and wrote back and front on them

I won’t tell you what I wrote, but I will say I feel much better this morning. It was like venting before my day even happened. I really took it out on that paper!:) I did feel a little of my anxiety release itself into those pages. Whether that happens everyday…we’ll have to see. It would definitely compel me to continue writing them!

Either way, I’ve begun. If you want to do this with me, grab your spiral bound notebook and start sometime this week! Keep me posted so I’ll be motivated to continue too. I’ll continue to write each morning and I’ll post when I’ve decided on my artist’s date this week! And I’d REALLY suggest reading the fist chapter of the book as you do this. It somehow makes the entire experience a little more meaningful, a little more…therapeutic.

Valentine Day Card Freebies!

January 28, 2009 by carina 5 Comments

Jen and I both got up our Valentine Freebies at Card Nirvana! I think you’ll like these cards! Jen put up this fun striped valentine’s day card and I have up some mini 3 in.x 4 in. cards that I made for my daughter’s preschool friends. I probably will attach them to heart lollipops or some other treat (I’ll post it when I do them), but for now, we thought anybody who wanted to use them for Valentine’s Day could grab them in advance! The Valentine Stripe card is for photoshop users and the small cards (Valentine Kiddie Cards) are set in a pdf. You can just print as is (there’s a cute heart wallpaper to print on the back of the cards) or use the Card Nirvana pdf to TYPE IN YOUR INFO. It’s SO easy.

This is what the files look like that you get:

Happy Heart Day! Have fun with the freebies! If you use them at all post the link here so we can see what you did with them! You can download from 4shared just one card. I’d recommend just going straight to Card Nirvana to pick all the freebies up at once though:).

**The Card Nirvana download is no longer available! You can now download them directly from this link:

https://carinagardner.com/studio/freedownloads/valentineskiddiecard.jpg

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Bird Pincushion

January 28, 2009 by carina

I just saw this on etsy and had to share. It is SO adorable! The shop is called feltmates. The entire store is adorable (click on the photo see this item and click on feltmates to go to the general store). The obsession with birds goes on!

Quick Fix—Kitchen alcove

January 28, 2009 by carina 2 Comments

My quick fix today is a little project for those of us who need “temporary” fixes. Our home is rented and we can’t paint (yes, a totally nightmare for a designer!), so I have to come up with creative ways to deal with the eggshell white. I’m always to infuse color and I do this by choosing colors, patterns, and textures that I like, but are pretty easy to re-arrange or recover.

My quick fix today may not apply to your kitchen, but I think you could use this technique on anything…a bathroom cupboard, inner door of an armoire, inside of a closet. I’m using fabric, but you could use vintage wallpaper or wrapping paper (you’ll see I use wrapping paper as my pattern).

So here is my dilemma, I have this alcove in my kitchen that I display some of my bigger porcelain bowls. The vinyl pattern on the back is hideous, and there is hardly any contrast between it and the white dishes.
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So I decided to cover the back to create a high contrast between the dishes and the wall. I uses some wrapping paper to create my pattern. Just cut and fit to the size of the place you plan to cover.
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I cut around the pattern with the fabric I had chosen. I left about an inch of space around the pattern as I cut. I loved this blue and chocolate toile. I picked it up for about $5 in a discount fabric store while with Jen in San Francisco. I bought half a yard to fit my space.
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Here’s how I folded the corners. You could use masking tape to hold them down as you pinned it to the wall. i was too lazy though and just held it in place as I pinned.
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I just used thumbtacks to put these on.
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And there it is. Completely removable when I need to move and easy to get on. I did this with my two little girls in the kitchen and it took about 15 minutes. Plus, I can change it if I get sick of it!
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Quick Fix: Bathroom Shelf

January 26, 2009 by carina

Here’s my quick fix of the day! I bought this olive dish from EQ3 while in San Francisco with Jen. I think it must be sold out on the website, but it is 75% off in stores so if you are near one you should check it out. I knew I wouldn’t use it as an olive dish. I decided to use it for my “quick fix” and use it as a jewelry organizer. I have these open shelves in my bathroom that tend to get pretty messy…well see for yourself! With two girls, there are a lot of hair accessories and “stuff” floating around.

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Here’s my EQ3 find.
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And here’s how I used it.
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Just a little more cleaned up and easier to find things than before. Easy breezy!

San Francisco Day 2

January 26, 2009 by carina

San Francisco: Day 2
Day 2 in San Francisco was a rush around day since Jen and I had decided to paint her apartment. She had picked out colors the night before and picked up paint and supplies in the morning.
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Now that I have mentioned it, I must explain the 7 Layers of Hell. I feel as if I’ve explained this concept before, coined by one Lachelle Smith while Josh and I lived in student housing at the University of Minnesota. It’s basically used in the context of a situation in which you would hate to be doing forever (the reference, I believe comes from Dante’s Inferno). Such things may include washing dishes (Lachelle and Nick’s 7th layer), checking voicemail (a Jen Shaw favorite), or putting gas the car (yes, one of mine…don’t ask me why! I just hate doing it!).

Have a Layer of Hell you want to share? Go ahead. Oh ya, one of my layers includes single cruises (sorry, this is a reference to the post called Airplane Conversations).

Airport Conversations

January 25, 2009 by carina 1 Comment

Have you ever sat next to a conversation you NEVER wanted to listen to, but alas, there you were completely stuck. Tonight at the Long Beach airport (on my way to Salt Lake), I got stuck listening to a 20-something year-old conversation. It was like watching The Hills but in real life, and I hate The Hills. “Sarah from the airport” (as she referred to herself) managed to convince some guy that “Erica” had played him. It worked too. I slowly saw her convince him that he saw how “Erica” wasn’t a real person and had been a fake with him. “Sarah from the airport” could have written the book The scheming of womanhood. Her manipulation was so subtle and sly from the inside, while completely obvious from the outside(like watching a TV show). My analysis: “Sarah from the airport” liked the poor-manipulated boy and was jealous of “Erica.” Among “Erica’s” terrible traits: a drinker, a liar, and a player.

I’d like to meet this infamous Erica.

So there it is…the one thing I am FORCED to write about because I am STILL stuck listening to this ridiculous conversation about how “Sarah from the airport” hates drama, while she manages to create it. Classic.

Just be happy you are not currently stuck listening to this.

My first trip to San Francisco

January 23, 2009 by carina

Day 1: San Francisco with Jen

I have been on a part-business and part-pleasure trip to California now for 3 days. So I’m here to report on all the fun and fabulous things we have been up to. My girlfriend Jen lives in San Francisco (I am in Salt Lake City) and you can grab her perspective on this trip at theprojectgirl.

So Jen took me to her favorite cupcake place Sprinkles. I am a fan!

My favorite is white coconut frosting over chocolate, fluffy goodness! Who knew that happiness was so easily attained? I also had the red velvet (not at the same time…although I wanted to eat every cupcake they had there!). If you have a favorite, post it!

We spent the first day I was in town shopping the cool boutiques of San Francisco. Check out some of the shops we went to!

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Why do I love pretty things so much? These shops were filled with the most adorable things! Ahh, you will like this one…

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Hehee. Might be helpful, huh? Had to buy the book just in case…I’d hate to lose my soul! For some reason I am having trouble loading the photos of my very cute buys at the antique store, so I will have them up in the next post!

Initial Review of The Artist’s Way

January 21, 2009 by carina 4 Comments

So today I got on an airplane to visit my friend Jen in San Francisco. While on the plane, I started reading the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, which is my book of the week. I first heard about this book three or four years ago in a graduate class taught by Marilyn DeLong, which was about untended consequences in design. So I knew the concepts that this book proposed before I sat down and read it…and I have even tried some of these concepts based on my knowledge. Unfortunately, none of them stuck. Now, having read the first 33 pages of the book, I know why. Julia Cameron lays out two things that you have to do to help unleash your inner creativity…morning pages and the artist date. I have tried both without much success….here is why: I was uncommitted. I did them because I knew about them, had them explained to me, but I was praying for a miracle. That these two concepts would simply fix my creativity. Now that I am actually reading the book, I am realizing that the only way to do these, is to read the book and be committed.

Some of the concepts she has thrown out, definitely hit home. I think that you will find that it does too if you read it. So I am proposing the following: I am going to finish reading the book and try the experiment of doing morning pages and the artist date and report of what happens with me on the blog! How does that sound? I hope being the guinea pig will convince me (and you) that there are new avenues of creativity to be found.

So what are morning pages and the artist date? I am a little hesitant to tell you because I’m afraid you’ll do what I did…do them and not really be committed. But here they are so I can talk about some of the things she says in the book. Morning pages are three pages of stream-of-conscious writing when you first wake up in the morning. This is NOT a journal. It is a forum for getting all the “gunk” out of your head to leave you open for the rest of the day. Julia Cameron has a number of other caveats about how to do the morning pages, but for the purpose of my review, I think this definition works (again, you should read the book to get everything Julia Cameron says). The second tool she proposes are artist dates. You are suppose to dedicate a block of time (1 or 2 hours) to take your self on a date and do something that you really want to do or that would nurture you. Now, I don’t know about you, but this is VERY hard for me. Sure, 1 or 2 hours should be easy to come by during the week…but somehow those hours are never there. When there are kids, jobs, and cleaning to do, when is there time to ever take time for yourself? The sad part is, we with everything going crazy in our lives, probably need to take ourselves on a date the most. Agreed? Julia Cameron makes the argument that if you where in a relationship that you wanted to save, you would go to therapy, find a mediator, and try to save it. Why wouldn’t you do the same for yourself (and your creativity)?

So, I will start morning pages (I’ll find a beautifully designed book to make it more motivating) and I’ll set a time next week to do the artist date. Julia Cameron suggests 12 weeks of this. She says she’s been doing it for a decade. It helped her be more creative, perhaps I just need to give it a go if I want the same result? Man, I am so commit-a-phobic! I’ll report on the rest of the book ASAP and let you know what happens. If anyone wants to do this with me (always more motivating), please feel free to comment on this post and I’ll keep updates on this project going so you can post as well.

Quick Fix for My Tote Bag

January 20, 2009 by carina 5 Comments

So I mentioned that I needed to fill those pockets up before I went on my trip tomorrow…so here was my quick fix! I decided to use scrapbook paper! The great thing about scrapbook paper is that you don’t have to use it for scrapbooking (I hardly ever do). I love all the other uses I seem to find for it! I just cut three squares of My Minds Eye paper to fit in these holes…project finished!

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All about RED

January 20, 2009 by carina

I was in a very serious RED mood yesterday. The girls and I went into DownEast home and look at the two goodies I got!

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I am in LOVE with these candlesticks which are currently on my mantle…they accent the Anthopology planters which are blue, gold, and green and match the print which is blue and red. The best part? they were clearanced at $7.99 a piece! Hooray!!!

I also picked up this…not my usual choice…I don’t like photos in “wear” but I thought I would maybe do a cool project with this. Plus, it is a super-roomy tote. Discount: $14.99 at DownEast Home. It’s made by RedEnvelope.

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For a bag that will fit my laptop and all my “junk,” can’t beat the price!!! In fact, I need to figure out what I’m going to do to it soon because I’m going to take it with me to San Fransico tomorrow! It’s the perfect airplane bag!

I actually ended up buying a red shirt last night too…LOVING red!

Foreground and Background: Learning to see

January 19, 2009 by carina

I think you’ll like this first lesson…it’s quick, but has lots of examples, which is always fun! The best part is once you understand background and foreground and how it works in design relationships, you will be able to see it in your scrapbook layouts, designs, or projects. It will give you a new sense of how space works FOR and AGAINST you.

Foreground (also called figure-ground) is essentially the focal point, the area in the front of a space. The background is the area that surrounds that focal point. This can be easily shown with a letter.
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Many times it is easier to see the background if the color is reversed out. As a designer, you have the be very aware of what the background is doing (also called negative space) because that may help you rearrange elements so that the foreground or figure is remembered BEST and the background is just that…background.

Take a look at this example.
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This is a paper from my Bella BellaTM Collection at My Minds Eye. I’ve blocked out the background and foreground for you so you can see what I did. Even though there are several elements in this page, the two focal points both help create a dynamic background. The diagonal works both ways…from the bird to the tree as well as the blank space at the top moving between the two objects. It sort of makes an x. Do you see it? It’s what keeps this balanced. It’s not PERFECTLY balanced, which is what would have happened if the tree element had gone in the right-hand corner. Instead, it is moved away from the corner to give it a little more interest and to create that funky background-arrow (the negative space).

Many designers like to play with this idea of foreground-background. Check out this clip of 300. I am not promoting the violence (because wow, this is a bit violent for me!), but it does a great job of showing off (and extenuating) the foreground-background relationship. Be sure to pay attention when objects appear as one thing and then are transformed into another… Just watch the first 30 second to a minute of this and you will get the idea.

Did you notice the horse hair into grass (take a second look!) or the landscape into a face and helmet. There is such a high contract between the background and foreground in this that it makes the relationship prominent.

Here’s another one I love (notice how I am showing a lot of black and white? The relatioship is easy to see when there is such a strong contrast). Here’s Lemony Snicket’s end credits:

Designers really push the limits when they create illusions with the foreground and background. Check this out:

These is a classic examples of foreground and background used to create optical illusions. Do you see the young lady and old lady in the second one? I had to squint and squint to see the old lady and I even had to flip it in photoshop so I could stop looking at the young lady. Hopefully, you had better luck than me! (to see more images like this, go to

http://www.azhearing.com/optical-illusions.htm#yyy and take their test.

Okay, hopefully you get the gist of foreground-background. Just keep the background in mind as you build your images, patterns, and more.

How to Become a Designer

January 18, 2009 by carina 5 Comments

Becoming ANYTHING takes work, dedication, and passion. I know many people who really are interested in becoming designers. They want to know what they can do to become one. Many times formal training at a university is not an option, so I have a few words of advice of people who are interested in becoming designers or at least learning how to “see” like a designer. Before I get to the advice, however, I feel like you will find my words more valuable (or at least where I am coming from) if you know how I became a designer.

I didn’t go the traditional route to become a designer. I got my bachelor’s degree in Marketing Communications. It was safe for someone like me…I never felt “creative” enough to really be a designer. My senior year in my BA, I took a “creative advertising class.” The only problem was that I began to feel LIMITED because I couldn’t execute anything (all those good ideas going to waste!). You see, I didn’t know Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark, or InDesign. Not only that, but I really couldn’t tell if something was designed well. I could tell if the advertisement was executed properly but that doesn’t matter if the design completely detracts from the goal (and my sad skills always did).

In my frustration, I met a design intern, Jen Allyson at Continuing Education while I was the marketing intern there. There was obviously magic as she taught me my first ways of “seeing” the world a little differently. She taught me to pull out the ugly and inconsistent while pushing me to find the beautiful. My eyes hurt (literally hurt!) for 2 months as she helped me get together a design portfolio for the University of Minnesota so I could go to grad school. Grad School had always been the plan…but not design grad school. Somehow, I made it into the Design Communications program and went on to get a Masters and Ph.D. in design. I taught foundations classes, theory, typography, graphic design history, and packaging learning more and more as I taught. I made plenty of mistakes and had a few successes too. However, after 5 years of teaching, I found that I missed being a designer and needed to get back to my own creativity. I now have many outlets for my creativity (you can see my shops to the side) along with freelance work and in event planning. I had forgotten how much I LOVE being a designer and the passion I feel about it. (BTW, Jen is STILL my best friend, eight years later…)

Which comes to this blog and the information I plan to divulge on it:). I have to say first that I am not an expert, but I will bring to this blog all the design theory, tips, tricks, and information that will help you to learn to “see” as I did. If you are really, and I mean REALLY interested in becoming a designer, here are my first (and very broad) tips for you as you begin this journey. If you don’t want to be a designer, you just want to better decorate your home, energize your own creative spirit, or create a better scrapbook page than this is still the blog for you! I’ll have interviews with designers of LOTS of different things (graphic designers, industrial designers, interior designers) as well as posts on beautiful things, price comparisons for things I find absolutely delightful, design book reviews, and of course, previews of products coming to 2Peas, Card Nirvana, My Minds Eye, and more!

OKay, I’ve put it off enough….My Advice to get started designing!

1. Choose your medium

Are you completely passionate about your home? Do you move around furniture every chance you get? Do you doodle designs on napkins at the restaurant? Do you like the lines on a piece of clothing and want to imitate it? Finding your first medium is an important step. I say your first because design is like ivy: it creeps into every part of your life! I am primarily a graphic designer, but I love interiors too. I admire clothing designers, but I don’t feel the same passion for it as interiors and graphics (although believe me I will be glued to the TV for Project Runway like the rest of you!). So much of the design theory I add to this site comes from a graphic design background, but you’ll find it applicable to many other areas of your life you design.

2. Find ways to learn | Educate yourself

For most of you, formal training is out of the question. However, some tools are necessary and completely FRUSTRATING in this technology age. So if you want to learn how to digital scrapbook or design professionally, you may need to take a class on Photoshop or Illustrator. Believe me, it is way better than doing it the way I learned to do it: on my own. You can check listings at your local community college or rec center for classes or there are a myriad of online opportunities. I will try to scrounge up a list for you guys soon for those of you who want to go this route. I’d recommend for any designer to get your hands on magazines in your chosen field…so Communication Arts and PRINT for graphic designers. I don’t know what the official interior designer’s magazine, but for just pure eye candy I like domino magazine, dwell, and architectural digest. I will be adding several book reviews and recommendations over the coming blog entries so keep your eyes open, which brings me to my next point, which is

3. Surround yourself with Beauty

What I really mean is to become a designer, you have to re-learn how to see. Those of you who are designers, know what I am talking about. The only way to know the difference between good and bad design (a topic much too extensive to explore here: look for it in future post!) is to surround yourself with GOOD design. Now, I know you are thinking, how do I know if something is “good” design. For now, just try to spend time looking for things in your life that are beautiful to you…we’ll get into the “theory” of it soon enough. Is there a card you think is exceptionally beautiful? A couch that just makes you happy? What is it about these things that make you like them? Is it the way they look? How they function? Really think about the objects you have surrounding you and decided why you like or dislike those things. Check out websites for function (was it easy to navigate?) Did you like the colors? Did you like the shape? Read beautiful and inspiring magazines and books, buy pretty things to place in your home, decorate…in essence, LIVE BEAUTIFULLY! This is a tall order (I know, with two little ones and work, I feel lucky if I can get to the dishes), but what I am asking is SMALL steps. I plan on trying to take small steps to make my life more meaningful too…and I’ll share what I do with you and I can’t wait to hear what you share with me!

4. Practice. practice. practice.

Brillant design doesn’t come the first day of trying, nor the second. Even now, when I am working on a design, many times it is the 50th thumbnail that sticks, not the 10th. It sometimes takes getting through a lot of BAD design to get to something really good. Or I should say that sometimes it even takes a lot of good design to get to something great. So you are going to push your self. As Champ Bear would say, “Practice, Practice, Practice.” My designwork is certainly better now than it was 8 years ago when I first started out. Practicing your design work, whether in a scrapbook page layout, a furniture rearrangement, or wall-color choice are all ways to PRACTICE what your creative spirit needs. I say your creative spirit because WE ALL have creativity waiting to be released. Hopefully, with projects to come you will be able to do this! I certainly want to as I am ALWAYS needing new ways to develop as a designer.

Okay, so I gave you some tips, but the meat is to come. Welcome to design! Learning to “see” will give you more meaning in your life…don’t believe me? Continue to read and we’ll see. Perhaps all you need is a quick lesson on 1920s design, an inspiring interview with a designer turned successful business owner, or a post on the golden mean and how to use it. These are the little lessons that helped me learn how to be a designer and I hope they will make your life more meaningful.

Ready, set, design!

My Blog Move

January 17, 2009 by carina

Hi everyone! I just made the move from my blogspot site to this site (carinagardner.com). A little more freedom of design! You’ll find several new improvements on this site including image previews of my digital scrapbooking products coming out at 2Peas a week before they premier there (special sneak peeks for you!) and recent cards from Card Nirvana. I’ll hopefully get a lovely list of my favorite things going too (not just for your benefit but really for MINE…love to keep track of those pretty things). I’m also hoping to add some fun content for scrapbookers and designers alike. Some design 101,design book reviews, interviews with innovative designers…other fun things like that. Josh has taken over the family blogging (http://www.mormonmistermom.blogspot.com), but you’ll probably get posts from me every now and then about my family as well. I just know that Josh tends to have a more comical view of things:). Who can compete against that?

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated! Hopefully, many things on this site will be up and running within the week and I’ll be able to post on my Monterey trip soon!

Paris & Co.

January 13, 2009 by carina 1 Comment

Here’s a sneak peek at my new collection coming out at 2ps next Tuesday!