mochie-roo link round-up

Well, here we are - Friday has come again! I am going to Telluride today, just a little day trip. Tomorrow I have a bicycle ride to do (Durango Fall Blaze). The fall weather is proving to be delightful. Hope you have something fun planned!

We lived off of the most delicious breakfast burritos for breakfast this week ... I made a big batch last Sunday. They were:

• mashed sweet potato (boil the potatoes until soft and then mash)
• organic eggs, scrambled (about 1.5 eggs per burrito)
• black beans
• fresh pico de gallo salsa
• organic maple sausage from Sunnyside Market
• feta cheese
• wrapped up in Stacey's organic tortillas (made locally)

Wow are these tasty and good for you, too - plus they will keep you nice and full!

I thought I would share a round-up of some of my favorite posts from my MOCHIE-ROO blog (which is now replaced by this blog). Enjoy!

the truth about dog food
unique business cards
meaningful
pumpkin overnight oats - must make soon!
Inside of a Dog book reports
typography & the dog
dog heaven
studio space envy
looking in to the past
homage to the square
he ate it
all of my everyday palettes
and some particular favorites: (1) (2) (3) (4)
vintage Christmas card specimens
family trees
old ladies & gents
some favorite color palettes from design-seeds
did you know? some interesting facts about dogs
all of my posts about my watercolor pet portraits
etsy favorites
jenn ski
pinterest-worthy

There are quite a few, but I promise there is some pretty good stuff in there!

*remember the day*: multiple typefaces

I am now offering my *remember the days* with multiple typefaces. I will curate typeface sets; 3 typefaces that work well together. The above design incorporates Zamenhof, League Gothic, and Pluto. 

scandinavian interiors

Scandinavians sure do know how to do minimalist, cozy, modern, rooted interior design. I love this interior design aesthetic; and I especially love Room & Board's American take on it.

Here is a round-up of some great Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish design.

{photos from 1 2 3 4}

fashion tuesday: transition into fall

With the weather still nice and fairly warm, it doesn't matter that it is officially fall. Comfortable jeans ans tees with sandals are still in order, with a few stand-bys in case it gets a little chilly.

 

{Leigh & Luca Foil Crows scarf}

{rag & bone Pocket Tee}

{Hudson Jeans "Collin" skinny jean in Libertine}

{Splendid Nautical sandal}

{rag & bone Darlington cardigan}

{Fiorentini + Baker Eternity boot}

shop MyRevolve Boutique

color monday

lovin' the colors in these, although they are not very fall-ish, are they?

 {from Raw Color}

{from Workman}

{from Owens & Co.}

{from Oh Joy!}

{from castle}

{from Uekou77 tumblr}

{from Present Painting}

fall has arrived

Happy Autumn and Happy Friday! 

(yesterday was officially the first day of Fall)

*fall has arrived*  fine art print available in my Etsy shop

10x10" fine art print of my original fall leaves design with anonymous quote

limited edition - only 25 available
{see how fun it looks framed here}

Some links to gear you up for Fall:

boots that will carry right through into winter

a light jacket

and a vest to go over it

my favorite jeans for fall (good with flip flops, flats, or boots)

some fingerless mittens

a yummy recipe for fall's tomato harvest

fall typography print

autumn leaves watercolor fine art print

recipe for hot apple cider (have you ever made your own?)
fall on Pinterest

I don't know abut your neck of the woods, but this list is premature for the beautiful weather we have been having here in Durango, Colorado. It has been warm and sunny with an ever so slight breeze, in other words - perfect! The colors are just barely beginning to turn, so I bet the coming weeks will be perfect for catching the fall colors at their orange, gold, and red finest! Making this list makes me a excited for fall, but knowing winter follows makes it bittersweet. 

What do you love about autumn?

new wedding invitation design

{click to enlarge}

Custom color palette available.

Available soon in my Etsy shop  ... or email me to order.

new birth announcement design

{click to enlarge}

Available soon in my Etsy shop ... or email me to order.

watercolor pet portrait: bailey's portrait framed

 

Look how awesome the portrait of Bailey looks framed!

style & storage

it is nice when form & function work together so nicely!

{available from Serena & Lily}

mark twain bike quote print

this Mark Twain bike quote fine art print is now available in my hello there, design etsy shop!

8x10" fine art print - printed on Hahnemuhle 100% cotton, acid free, photo rag, 308 gsm fine art paper

The quote is from Mark Twain's "Taming the Bicycle":

I thought the matter over, and concluded I could do it. So I went down and bought a barrel of Pond's Extract and a bicycle. The Expert came home with me to instruct me. We chose the back yard, for the sake of privacy, and went to work.

Mine was not a full-grown bicycle, but only a colt -- a fifty-inch, with the pedals shortened up to forty-eight -- and skittish, like any other colt. The Expert explained the thing's points briefly, then he got on its back and rode around a little, to show me how easy it was to do. He said that the dismounting was perhaps the hardest thing to learn, and so we would leave that to the last. But he was in error there. He found, to his surprise and joy, that all that he needed to do was to get me on to the machine and stand out of the way; I could get off, myself. Although I was wholly inexperienced, I dismounted in the best time on record. He was on that side, shoving up the machine; we all came down with a crash, he at the bottom, I next, and the machine on top.

We examined the machine, but it was not in the least injured. This was hardly believable. Yet the Expert assured me that it was true; in fact, the examination proved it. I was partly to realize, then, how admirably these things are constructed. We applied some Pond's Extract, and resumed. The Expert got on the other side to shove up this time, but I dismounted on that side; so the result was as before.

The machine was not hurt. We oiled ourselves up again, and resumed. This time the Expert took up a sheltered position behind, but somehow or other we landed on him again.

He was full of surprised admiration; said it was abnormal. She was all right, not a scratch on her, not a timber started anywhere. I said it was wonderful, while we were greasing up, but he said that when I came to know these steel spider-webs I would realize that nothing but dynamite could cripple them. Then he limped out to position, and we resumed once more. This time the Expert took up the position of short-stop, and got a man to shove up behind. We got up a handsome speed, and presently traversed a brick, and I went out over the top of the tiller and landed, head down, on the instructor's back, and saw the machine fluttering in the air between me and the sun. It was well it came down on us, for that broke the fall, and it was not injured.

Five days later I got out and was carried down to the hospital, and found the Expert doing pretty fairly. In a few more days I was quite sound. I attribute this to my prudence in always dismounting on something soft. Some recommend a feather bed, but I think an Expert is better.

The Expert got out at last, brought four assistants with him. It was a good idea. These four held the graceful cobweb upright while I climbed into the saddle; then they formed in column and marched on either side of me while the Expert pushed behind; all hands assisted at the dismount.

The bicycle had what is called the "wabbles," and had them very badly. In order to keep my position, a good many things were required of me, and in every instance the thing required was against nature.

Against nature, but not against the laws of nature. That is to say, that whatever the needed thing might be, my nature, habit, and breeding moved me to attempt it in one way, while some immutable and unsuspected law of physics required that it be done in just the other way. I perceived by this how radically and grotesquely wrong had been the lifelong education of my body and members. They were steeped in ignorance; they knew nothing - nothing which it could profit them to know. For instance, if I found myself falling to the right, I put the tiller hard down the other way, by a quite natural impulse, and so violated a law, and kept on going down. The law required the opposite thing - the big wheel must be turned in the direction in which you are falling. It is hard to believe this, when you are told it .

And not merely hard to believe it, but impossible; it is opposed to all your notions. And it is just as hard to do it, after you do come to believe it. Believing it, and knowing by the most convincing proof that it is true, does not help it: you can't any more do it that you could before; you can neither force nor persuade yourself to do it at first. The intellect has to come to the front, now. It has to teach the limbs to discard their old education and adopt the new.

The steps of one's progress are distinctly marked. At the end of each lesson he knows he has acquired something, and he also knows what that something is, and likewise that it will stay with him. It is not like studying German, where you mull along, in a groping, uncertain way, for thirty years; and at last, just as you think you've got it, they spring the subjunctive on you, and there you are. No -- and I see now, plainly enough, that the great pity about the German language is, that you can't fall off it and hurt yourself. There is nothing like that feature to make you attend strictly to business. But I also see, by what I have learned of bicycling, that the right and only sure way to learn German is by the bicycling method. That is to say, take a grip on one villainy of it at a time, and learn it -- not ease up and shirk to the next, leaving that one half learned.

When you have reached the point in bicycling where you can balance the machine tolerably fairly and propel it and steer it, then comes your next task -- how to mount it. You do it in this way: you hop along behind it on your right foot, resting the other on the mounting-peg, and grasping the tiller with your hands. At the word, you rise on the peg, stiffen your left leg, hang your other one around in the air in a general and indefinite way, lean your stomach against the rear of the saddle, and then fall off, maybe on one side, maybe on the other; but you fall off. You get up and do it again; and once more; and then several times.

By this time you have learned to keep your balance; and also to steer without wrenching the tiller out by the roots (I say tiller because it is a tiller; "handle-bar" is a lamely descriptive phrase). So you steer along, straight ahead, a little while, then you rise forward, with a steady strain, bringing your right leg, and then your body, into the saddle, catch your breath, fetch a violent hitch this way and then that, and down you go again.

But you have ceased to mind the going down by this time; you are getting to light on one foot or the other with considerable certainty. Six more attempts and six more falls make you perfect. You land in the saddle comfortably, next time, and stay there -- that is, if you can be content to let your legs dangle, and leave the pedals alone a while; but if you grab at once for the pedals, you are gone again. You soon learn to wait a little and perfect your balance before reaching for the pedals; then the mounting-art is acquired, is complete, and a little practice will make it simple and easy to you, though spectators ought to keep off a rod or two to one side, along at first, if you have nothing against them.

And now you come to the voluntary dismount; you learned the other kind first of all. It is quite easy to tell one how to do the voluntary dismount; the words are few, the requirement simple, and apparently undifficult; let your left pedal go down till your left leg is nearly straight, turn your wheel to the left, and get off as you would from a horse. It certainly does sound exceedingly easy; but it isn't. I don't know why it isn't, but it isn't. Try as you may, you don't get down as you would from a horse, you get down as you would from a house afire. You make a spectacle of yourself every time.

During eight days I took a daily lesson of an hour and a half. At the end of this twelve working-hours' apprenticeship I was graduated -- in the rough. I was pronounced competent to paddle my own bicycle without outside help. It seems incredible, this celerity of acquirement. It takes considerably longer than that to learn horseback-riding in the rough.

Now it is true that I could have learned without a teacher, but it would have been risky for me, because of my natural clumsiness. The self-taught man seldom knows anything accurately, and he does not know a tenth as much as he could have known if he had worked under teachers; and, besides, he brags, and is the means of fooling other thoughtless people into going and doing as he himself had done. There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of life - life's "experiences" - are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never knew one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side. If personal experience can be worth anything as an education, it wouldn't seem likely that you could trip Methuselah; and yet if that old person could come back here it is more than likely that one of the first things he would do would be to take hold of one of these electric wires and tie himself all up in a knot. Now the surer thing and the wiser thing would be for him to ask somebody whether it was a good thing to take hold of. But that would not suit him; he would be one of the self-taught kind that go by experience; he would want to examine for himself. And he would find, for his instruction, that the coiled patriarch shuns the electric wire; and it would be useful to him, too, and would leave his education in quite a complete and rounded-out condition, till he should come again, some day, and go to bouncing a dynamite-can around to find out what was in it.

But we wander from the point. However, get a teacher; it saves much time and Pond's Extract.

Before taking final leave of me, my instructor inquired concerning my physical strength, and I was able to inform him that I hadn't any. He said that that was a defect which would make up-hill wheeling pretty difficult for me at first; but he also said the bicycle would soon remove it. The contrast between his muscles and mine was quite marked. He wanted to test mine, so I offered my biceps -- which was my best. It almost made him smile. He said, "It is pulpy, and soft, and yielding, and rounded; it evades pressure, and glides from under the fingers; in the dark a body might think it was an oyster in a rag." Perhaps this made me look grieved, for he added, briskly: "Oh, that's all right; you needn't worry about that; in a little while you can't tell it from a petrified kidney. Just go right along with your practice; you're all right."

Then he left me, and I started out alone to seek adventures. You don't really have to seek them -- that is nothing but a phrase -- they come to you.

I chose a reposeful Sabbath-day sort of a back street which was about thirty yards wide between the curbstones. I knew it was not wide enough; still, I thought that by keeping strict watch and wasting no space unnecessarily I could crowd through.

Of course I had trouble mounting the machine, entirely on my own responsibility, with no encouraging moral support from the outside, no sympathetic instructor to say, "Good! now you're doing well -- good again -- don't hurry -- there, now, you're all right -- brace up, go ahead." In place of this I had some other support. This was a boy, who was perched on a gate-post munching a hunk of maple sugar.

He was full of interest and comment. The first time I failed and went down he said that if he was me he would dress up in pillows, that's what he would do. The next time I went down he advised me to go and learn to ride a tricycle first. The third time I collapsed he said he didn't believe I could stay on a horse-car. But next time I succeeded, and got clumsily under way in a weaving, tottering, uncertain fashion, and occupying pretty much all of the street. My slow and lumbering gait filled the boy to the chin with scorn, and he sung out, "My, but don't he rip along!" Then he got down from his post and loafed along the sidewalk, still observing and occasionally commenting. Presently he dropped into my wake and followed along behind. A little girl passed by, balancing a wash-board on her head, and giggled, and seemed about to make a remark, but the boy said, rebukingly, "Let him alone, he's going to a funeral."

I had been familiar with that street for years, and had always supposed it was a dead level; but it was not, as the bicycle now informed me, to my surprise. The bicycle, in the hands of a novice, is as alert and acute as a spirit-level in the detecting of delicate and vanishing shades of difference in these matters. It notices a rise where your untrained eye would not observe that one existed; it notices any decline which water will run down. I was toiling up a slight rise, but was not aware of it. It made me tug and pant and perspire; and still, labor as I might, the machine came almost to a standstill every little while. At such times the boy would say: "That's it! take a rest - there ain't no hurry. They can't hold the funeral without you."

Stones were a bother to me. Even the smallest ones gave me a panic when I went over them. I could hit any kind of a stone, no matter how small, if I tried to miss it; and of course at first I couldn't help trying to do that. It is but natural. It is part of the ass that is put in us all, for some inscrutable reason.
I was at the end of my course, at last, and it was necessary for me to round to. This is not a pleasant thing, when you undertake it for the first time on your own responsibility, and neither is it likely to succeed. Your confidence oozes away, you fill steadily up with nameless apprehensions, every fiber of you is tense with a watchful strain, you start a cautious and gradual curve, but your squirmy nerves are all full of electric anxieties, so the curve is quickly demoralized into a jerky and perilous zigzag; then suddenly the nickel-clad horse takes the bit in its mouth and goes slanting for the curbstone, defying all prayers and all your powers to change its mind -- your heart stands still, your breath hangs fire, your legs forget to work, straight on you go, and there are but a couple of feet between you and the curb now. And now is the desperate moment, the last chance to save yourself; of course all your instructions fly out of your head, and you whirl your wheel away from the curb instead of toward it, and so you go sprawling on that granite-bound inhospitable shore. That was my luck; that was my experience. I dragged myself out from under the indestructible bicycle and sat down on the curb to examine.

I started on the return trip. It was now that I saw a farmer's wagon poking along down toward me, loaded with cabbages. If I needed anything to perfect the precariousness of my steering, it was just that. The farmer was occupying the middle of the road with his wagon, leaving barely fourteen or fifteen yards of space on either side. I couldn't shout at him -- a beginner can't shout; if he opens his mouth he is gone; he must keep all his attention on his business. But in this grisly emergency, the boy came to the rescue, and for once I had to be grateful to him. He kept a sharp lookout on the swiftly varying impulses and inspirations of my bicycle, and shouted to the man accordingly:

"To the left! Turn to the left, or this jackass'll run over you!" The man started to do it. "No, to the right, to the right! Hold on! that won't do! -- to the left! -- to the right! -- to the left! -- right! left -- ri -- Stay where you are, or you're a goner!"

And just then I caught the off horse in the starboard and went down in a pile. I said, "Hang it! Couldn't you see I was coming?"

"Yes, I see you was coming, but I couldn't tell which way you was coming. Nobody could -- now, could they? You couldn't yourself -- now, could you? So what could I do?"

There was something in that, and so I had the magnanimity to say so. I said I was no doubt as much to blame as he was.

Within the next five days I achieved so much progress that the boy couldn't keep up with me. He had to go back to his gate-post, and content himself with watching me fall at long range.

There was a row of low stepping-stones across one end of the street, a measured yard apart. Even after I got so I could steer pretty fairly I was so afraid of those stones that I always hit them. They gave me the worst falls I ever got in that street, except those which I got from dogs. I have seen it stated that no expert is quick enough to run over a dog; that a dog is always able to skip out of his way. I think that that may be true; but I think that the reason he couldn't run over the dog was because he was trying to. I did not try to run over any dog. But I ran over every dog that came along. I think it makes a great deal of difference. If you try to run over the dog he knows how to calculate, but if you are trying to miss him he does not know how to calculate, and is liable to jump the wrong way every time. It was always so in my experience. Even when I could not hit a wagon I could hit a dog that came to see me practise.

They all liked to see me practise, and they all came, for there was very little going on in our neighborhood to entertain a dog. It took time to learn to miss a dog, but I achieved even that.

I can steer as well as I want to, now, and I will catch that boy out one of these days and run over him if he doesn't reform.

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.

watercolor pet portrait: bailey

Unfortunately, Bailey is no longer with us; she passed away a short time ago. Ash had Bailey's portrait painted as a gift to her Mom (also Bailey's Mom).

Ash says of Bailey, "She was our Diva. We called her little bear because of the way she would grab onto things. She loved the cold and snow as well as stealing loose socks. Squeaky toys were her favorite and she always played with them when we were trying to watch a movie or show, like 'look at me!' Bailey was the most cuddly dog and always put a smile on your face. She will be in our hearts forever."

From the photos that Ash sent me, I worked from a photo of Bailey on a colorful patterned rug looking up at the camera. This photo offered a great perspective of Bailey's sweet face and I loved the rug as the background. I knew the patterned rug would be painstaking and challenging - that is the nature of detailed patterns like rugs. A saving grace with the run was the little bit of variation in it; it is not a perfect, strict pattern like tile, bricks, etc. 

From the photo, I "zoomed in" on Bailey and made the 5x7" portrait be more Bailey and less background rug. I wanted to showcase the beautiful colors of the rug, but I wanted Bailey to take up the largest amount of the composition.

I love the way Bailey's portrait turned out. I feel like the curliness of Bailey's fur shows, and I love the way the color and pattern of the rug turned out.

Rest in peace, Sweet Bailey.

lovely

Some typographic concepts I am working on for Nectar - to evoke strong, beautiful women. The first uses just one typeface, while the second uses a bunch of different typefaces. And, hey -- I got to use this palette!

listen to: lana del ray

I am listening to: Blue Jeans by Lana del Ray and impatiently anticipating the release of Blue Jeans and Video Games.

I think she has a beautiful rough, raw sound. I cannot stop playing these two songs.

dogeared dog bone necklace

 

Great gift for the dog lover in your life.

My Mom got it for me.

Message:

make a wish and put on your necklace. there is so much we can learn from our four legged friends! they can teach us all about unconditional love and loyalty. wear your necklace as a reminder of the special bond you have with your best friend.

design seeds: cake tones

LOVE this palette for a *remember the day*

photobooth fun

{click image to enlarge}

As you can see, we had a bit of fun at the wedding we attended this weekend ... they had a photobooth at the event, which provided the six of us many rounds of fun!

interbike

ohhhhh-eeeeee, I wish I could go to interbike, the international bicycle expo. I would have no reason to go - I am not a vendor of any kind in the bike industry, I just LOVE bikes.

Is there a trade show that you would love to get into whether you are a part of that industry or not?

have a fun weekend

We are heading to Denver this weekend for a wedding. What are you up to?

YUM. {Oh Joy! eats lunch with}

Houseplants. I don't have any - I couldn't even keep bamboo alive.

Love. Love. Love this bakery in Telluride. We NEED one in Durango.

Also Love. Love. Love this bakery & cafe in Phoenix - we need one of these, too.

Sound like any 2-year olds you know?

 Beautiful bride braid & amazing wedding.

I think it is a "best town" - for sure!

Interesting.

fashion passion: Club Monaco Fall Preview

{Photo above: kick-ass rain cape from Seattle-based Iva Jean}
{Photo below: I heart bicyle prints & posters.}

Have a fun weekend!

vintage holiday card: your input kindly requested

Right before the holidays last year, I created an illustrated vintage holiday card. I did not have enough time last year to have it printed, but this year I would like to print it as a flat note card and sell it in my Etsy shop. My thought is to sell it as a set and as individual cards.

But, before I can get it printed, I have to decide which colorway to go with. You see, I colored the illustration four different ways, and I have narrowed it down to two. Now, I must decide between the two - which colorway should the final card design be printed in!?

I am calling on YOU for input - which do you like better? Leave a comment below and let me know. Anyone who is kind enough to give me some feedback will receive one of the cards once they are printed!

Colorway #1 larger:

Colorway #2 larger:

My feeling is that #1 is more vintage-feeling and that is what I am going for, but obviously I want the design to be something that potential customers will like! 

What do you think?

(*If you leave a comment with your input below, also shoot me a quick email with your mailing address so that I can make good on my pledge and mail you one of the cards this holiday season once they are printed!)

black walls

Surprise - black paint can looks awesome on your walls.

{the decorista}

{fresh home}

{fresh home}

{mod frugal}

{desire to inspire}

{pinterest}

{desire to inspire}

{web urbanist}

{houzz}

{desire to inspire}

stripes

Doesn't it feel good when you have an item of clothing that you love, and then you read somewhere that that item of clothing/style/color/pattern/whatever is the sh*t. Now, I am not a die-hard, follow the runway fashions kind of girl, but I like to know that the outfits that I whip up and put together out of my humble and casual wardrobe are working.

Take for example this top:

I wasn't always big on stripes; especially in blue and white they feel too nautical. But, this top won me over. I have been loving wearing this Splendid tank all summer, mostly with cut-offs but in the past couple of weeks, it has enjoyed a pairing with my new Rag & Bone jeans which I have been cuffing:

Well, then I come across this image (Marissa Webb - J.Crew head of womenswear - looking sharp!) on Happenstance (image originally from Page 6 Magazine):

Now, I am still (1) a sweater layered, (2) a pair of orange pumps, and (3) some gold necklaces away from Marissa Webb's ensemble, but I would like to imagine that I am rocking the Durango, Colorado version of this outfit.

And, that makes me smile - or rather this is the only photo I have of myself wearing this top!


Follow my RevolveClothing.com purchase habits in MyRevolve Boutique - CCM: Chloe Christine Marty.

What is your favorite piece from your wardrobe right now?

too may palettes

There are way too many color palettes out there screaming to me! When I started making *remember the days* I made my 27 nifty little color palettes to choose from. Easy, right? NO! Because every day (no exaggeration) I come up with or come across a palette that some one NEEDS to have for their remember the day! I am going to put these palettes into posts tagged "color" so that I can direct *remember the day* purchasers-to-be to posts with that tag to select a palette.

Check out these beautiful palettes:

 {from Creature Comforts}

{from Design-Seeds}

 {from due design daily}

And, the new palette I created for the *remember the days* in my etsy shop:

recent *remember the day* designs

 

some recent *remember the day* canvases