Maine

I'm heading to Maine tomorrow to spend the week with my family. I'm beyond excited as I've never been to Maine, but have all kinds of glorified pictures in my mind of what it is going to be like. I'm imagining beautiful trees, rocky beaches, and as much lobster and seafood as you can eat. I pulled together a few Maine pictures of what I hope my vacation is like. If you have any Maine recommendations please leave them in the comments.

mbrigid

kportimages

looseends

looseends

SW▲MPY

looseends

On Bradstreet

moran. // photo

moran. // photo

My Summer List

Cuba Gallery

I feel like I just blinked and half of summer has passed me by! It is seriously almost July!

So to make sure I don't waste any more time I have made up a list of things I want to do this summer.

This is what I have so far. I may add to it as I go along. But I think this is a pretty good summer of activities if you ask me:

Go Sailing

Ride Bikes

Take more photos (especially polaroid)

Learn to make homemade ice cream

Get a membership to the DC Library

Go on picnics

Visit the monuments at night

Go tubbing down the river

Make Lemonade

Go to the Georgetown Flea Market

Do a creative project for myself

Watch at least one outdoor movie

Visit one museum

Go to the beach and fall asleep listening to the waves

Wander around the side streets of Old Town Alexandria

Go Kayaking

Read a good book

Visit a Virginia winery with friends

Play bocce

Have as many cookouts as possible

See Strasburg play baseball

Weekend in Pictures

Happy Monday! I'm trying really hard not to dread work weeks and stop living just for the weekends. But its really hard. Especially now that the weather is nice and all I want to do is play outside!

Had a picnic at Iwo Jima this weekend. This is a great picnic spot with views of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Capitol Building.

Had a little fun compiling multiple pictures into one.

I think Max Power enjoyed the picnic and relaxing at the park too.

Saturday Turner and I rode our bikes to check out H street's farmers market. This was my first time biking in the city and I have to say it wasn't too bad! Still need to get used to it though!

It was at the end of the market though so a lot of vendors were out of stuff. So then we headed over to Eastern Market.

And to pick up a few more things for a fresh yummy lunch we went to the grocery store.

I waited outside with the bikes and our farmers market goods. While waiting I noticed the fun textures and colors of the bike rack and pavement.

After our farmers market lunch we took another ride over the Anacostia and back around by the Nats stadium. I got in lots of city biking practice this weekend!

Saturday night my friend from North Carolina was in town so we took her out to H. Street. I usually try to take all my out of town friends to Sticky Rice because their sushi is just so darn good.

Yes we are immature and still play with our food.

Sunday morning I had brunch at Matchbox with my bible study girls. Most people don't know that Matchbox has a seriously banging brunch and is not just a pizza place. And on Sundays they have live jazz music. I love their cinnamon buns that come in a skillet.

Another exciting happening of this weekend that I don't have pictures of is my sister had her baby on Sunday! Its been a roller-coaster week for my family with the passing of our dog and the birth of a new little boy! We are extremely excited for my sister, brother-in-law and their new addition to the family. Unfortunately I can't meet the little dude until our family vacation in July. But I'm counting down the days and beyond thrilled for my big sis!

Rest in Peace Abby

Last night my mom called to let me know my dog of 14 years had passed away. This is the first real time I've had to deal with a pet of my own dying. And I have to say it is like losing a member of the family.

We picked out Abby when I was 11-years-old. My sisters and I had agreed on a name before we even picked out a dog. So when I went with my mom to see a golden retriever puppy and we learned her name was Abby, the very name we had decided on. I convinced my mom it was fate and she was to be ours.

I have to admit she was an awfully naughty puppy. Chewing up so many things my dad threatened on multiple occasions to bring her to a farm. Luckily he never followed through on his threats and she grew into the most loyal sweet dog our family could ever ask for.

She was always there to give you dog kisses. She'd stay up late at night to keep my dad company while he read. Then when he went to bed she'd scratch at my door to sleep on the floor next to my bed all night. Even when I was away at college she would sometimes stick with this routine, sleeping in my empty room.

Abby was always under my mom's feet while she would be cooking. I think because she liked to be close to us, but mainly to catch any scraps. I can't really blame her though, my mom was a total sucker for her puppy dog eyes and would quite often throw a few treats her way.

She always looked like she was smiling a little dog grin. Maybe she was just panting from being tired, but I like to think she was happy when the whole family would get together.

She was the most loyal dog my family could ever ask for and we will remember her for that always.

Weekend in Pictures

This weekend was an amazingly beautiful weekend in DC. Besides the short thunderstorm on Friday I barely spent any time indoors, which equates to the perfect weekend to me!

Friday night I had a girls night where we all brought ingredients to make pizza and watched a chick flick. The perfect activity when its the end of the week and storming outside.

Saturday we spent the day at Breaux Vineyards in Virginia with a group of friends. It was seriously on of the most perfect days. We do this sort of thing almost every other weekend in the summer and I highly recommend it as the perfect group activity out of the city.

I made to share with the group strawberry crumb bars from the strawberries I purchased at the farmers market. You are allowed to bring outside food as long as you don't sit on the patio so we all brought our own picnics. (Recipe adapted from this blueberry crumb bar recipe)

It was dog day at the vineyard so we brought Max along. (Though you can bring your dogs any day) He ended up chewing through his leash when we weren't looking and we had no choice but to let him run free. Luckily he makes friends easily and by the end of the day half the vineyard knew him by name.

Relaxing at the vineyard.

I was sneaky and got a group shot from afar.

Several rows of grapes were open for us to roam up and down with. So I ran back and forth with max.

Katie with max in tow.

Max loved running up and down the vineyard rows.

Sunday we took our bikes to Rock Creek Park. I had never been, but there are some amazingly beautiful bike/walking paths.

The paths run along with a creek which makes it extra beautiful and relaxing.

Owl Themed Baby Shower Invitation

A few weeks ago my mom, sister and I threw my oldest sister an owl-themed baby shower. Truth be told I've never thrown any sort of shower before and I had such a blast planning it. It was slightly difficult planning with me in DC, my middle sister in North Carolina, and the shower in Boston where my oldest sister lives. But I think we pulled it off well with one full day before dedicated to hectic running around!

I'm sharing the invitations I designed for the shower today and will share pictures from the event tomorrow. I first got inspiration for the owl theme from a gift my brother-in-law gave to my sister when she first got pregnant. It was a modern owl stuffed animal made out of vintage fabrics. They eventually built their nursery theme around it.

My sister has a green and white birch rug in her dining room, which is where I pulled the birch trees into the design. I mainly chose the colors to be bright, fun and playful with the main color palette being turquoise, brown, and orange. They were a lot of fun to design, especially since they were for my big sister.

Stay tuned tomorrow for pictures of the designs I created for the actual shower!

Good Morning: Time to Fly a Kite

Nono Fara

Time for the Weekend

julia stotz

So glad it is almost finally the weekend. This has been one super long week. I've been working non-stop on a million design projects this week. And while that will continue through the weekend, I can't wait to get out and about and enjoy the beautiful weather. There is a ton of stuff going on in the district this weekend. Here are a few highlights that I might check out:

Its that time of year again when Embassy's open their doors for the Around the World Tour. While I've never checked one out, I hear they are fun and a great way to get a crash course on a culture. Maybe this would even satisfy the travel bug I feel coming on....at least for a few weeks. Go here for the full schedule.

So many farmers markets are starting this weekend! I'm so ready for some fresh local produce! H Street NE, 14th and U, and Mount Pleasant all have markets starting this Saturday. And Mount Pleasant is having a free concert series from 2-7. I can't imagine a better way to spend a beautiful saturday then walking around a market and listening to live music.

Barracks row is having their tasting event along 8th street on Saturday. For $5 you can taste food from 14 area restaurants, which sounds like a great lunch to me!

I'm anxious to check out the photography exhibit: Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibit opens this weekend and runs to September 6th.

Those are just a few of the many events that caught my fancy for the weekend. What are you hoping to do this weekend?

I'm on Twitter! And a few other new things...

First things First........I'm finally on twitter!!! At first I was putting it off because I didn't understand the value. And then I just couldn't find a good handle. But I finally committed and made the jump.

So make sure to follow me at DesigningInDC

Also I'm sure you noticed the new blog header. And sort of a new name, thats kind of what I'm in the midst of working on.

I know I've been very on and off since I got sick in January. Which makes me sad because this blog used to be part of my daily routine that I really enjoyed. And then everything kind of got thrown into disarray when I ended up in the hospital. And I've been struggling to get back into routine. But another reason why my attention has been pulled elsewhere is because I've been really focusing on expanding my new freelance business.

Design District is the new name for my design business and I'm currently working on getting my full portfolio website up and running. Once that happens I hope to revamp the look of my blog as well. But for now at least I have a new header! Also I've been mulling over where I want to go with the content of my blog. It will definitely stay the same topics but I'd really like to reign it in a little to be more personal about what I'm working on or experiencing in DC. So we shall see!

I've also put some of my design work on flickr while I get my portfolio up. I hope you will check it out!

I know I've pulled the disappearing act several times as I've been dealing with my health, but I'm really excited about everything I have in the works. And I hope this is the start of something even better than before!

And just one more time: follow me on twitter!

Rainbow Birthday Cake!

A few weeks ago was my nephew's first birthday and my sister and I thought it would be fun to make a rainbow cake. It started out in our minds pretty simple of just separating the batter into different pans and putting food coloring in each one. I have to say it did not turn out that easy, but still totally worth it. We basically had a full ROYGBIV cake (minus the indigo). And it looked completely awesome when we cut into it. I was slightly creeped out by consuming all that food coloring and eating unnaturally bright food, but a few weeks later I still seem to be fine.

We used a basic yellow cake recipe and tripled it for all the layers. Then had to bake 2 layers per shift because that was all we could fit. My sister made a basic buttercream frosting and did all the layering with frosting separating each color. Now if only my nephew were old enough to appreciate all the work!

A full slice of ROYGBIV Cake.

He may not appreciate the work that went into the cake, but I do think he enjoyed eating it. Even if half of it ended up on him.