bonnievanvoorst.com

1. Tree of Life pillow cover from The Hunger Site, $12.95

2. 3-D Drawing Pad from Flight 001, $9.00

3. Charley Harper Flash Cards and Floor Puzzles from Barnes and Noble, $14.95

4. Sleepy Red Forest Fox from Sleepy King, $24.00

5. Mo’s Bacon Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix from Vosges, $12.00

6. Scribbles: A Really Giant Drawing and Coloring Book by Taro Gomi from Amazon, $13.59

7. Hand knitted iPod or iPhone case in Blue Grey from onaroll, $14.00

And one extra, because I just couldn’t resist- definitely not under $25 but worth it:

8. Handmade Marigold Flats from Smartfish, $95

And now that I look at all of these items together, I’m picking up on a subconscious primary color theme. This calls for watching The Grinch, drinking hot chocolate, making paper snowflakes, and channeling my inner kindergartner!

I just finished printing, cutting, and folding a big stack of Christmas cards, designed especially for my parents to send out this year! I’m pretty happy with how they came out. I’m also feeling pretty good about my own Christmas cards, which are almost all addressed and ready to be sent out. (This is A Big Deal, since last year’s cards weren’t finished until January and never quite made it in the mail. OOPS.)

This appeared in my Inbox today, much to my delight: a beautiful, graphic, FREE advent calendar download from the folks at Mibo!

Check it out! And while you’re over there, take a look at their other goodies, like their stunning 2010 calendar, available as a PDF download for only around $4. I also love their Wise Guys and Christmas Creatures.

My husband Rich recently finished his big project, completely rebuilding a bass! He got a bass for his last birthday, and for months has been ripping things out and replacing them himself. He’s now done and has an incredible, custom guitar that is exactly what he wanted. Super cool DIY, huh?

So, Rich’s parents arrive here in Sunny Florida from Freezing North on Saturday, along with one of my little brothers who is away at school up there, and we’ve been doing a minor overhaul of the guest room in preparation. This means that every one of the three times they will have visited our house, the guest room will have looked totally different. I think the direction we’re going now looks the most “like us”.

As soon as everything is done and cleaned up in there, pictures and details will follow!

I just used this font for rehearsal dinner invitations I was helping a friend put together, and it was classy, clean, and not too feminine. Love.

Many thanks to CreateGirl for including my record player on her recent post about color (Behr’s Brilliant Sea). Be sure to check out her round-up of lovely blues on her blog! I am especially loving the stunning blue coat she included.

Ahem. Pardon the pun.

But I really think you should all go and check out my husband’s newest site for his trio, The Mars Trio, here. These guys are incredibly talented, and the site is lovely.

Because you can never have too many typefaces in your arsenal, I now want this one, too: Emmascript.

Publix uses it (or something very similar) on some of its packaging, like their refrigerated teas: this may be swaying in favor of Emmascript more than normal. Publix’s sweet tea is Really Good.

Here it is:

I want to use it to make fall party invitations; it just looks sweet and relaxed.

If I had a spare few hundred dollars laying around, this just may be the Very First Thing I would buy with it:

Archer by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, designed for Martha Stewart Living

(Image from Hoefler & Frere-Jones)

Hoefler & Frere-Jones says this about Archer: “Sweet but not saccharine, earnest but not grave, Archer is designed to hit just the right notes of forthrightness, credibility, and charm.” It is a beautifully designed slab-serif, with a variety of weights wide enough to make me giddy. Every single time I see this typeface it makes me happy (like here) and I haven’t found anything that comes near it. I could, I suppose, just buy one of the smaller packages with fewer weights, but what if I REALLY NEEDED hairline italic? Or semibold? Or medium? Or bold? Or thin? So I therefore would need all 40 weights, for $399.

Worth every single cent.