Notebook

Mumford & Sons at Red Rocks in Colorado

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:21:00 GMT

Sometimes you need a 5 minute break to get the creative entrepreneurial juices going again. Go ahead... indulge and enjoy.

The Best Creative Talk ...EVER

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 07:00:00 GMT

I've yet to have the opportunity to attend an industry conference even though it's something I'd love to make time for. Until then I watch live talks via video when I can.

This is one of my favorites...

The video features the amazing graphic designer and speaker, Aaron James Draplin of www.draplin.com.

Free Download // iPhone + iPad Stripes Wallpaper

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 08:05:00 GMT

Here is an iPhone wallpaper + iPad wallpaper
I designed as a free download for you. Just click on the links above to download.

Enjoy!

Linked In Company Pages

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:55:00 GMT

I recently discovered Linked In's company pages. It took me about 15 minutes to set-up and encourages more engagement from possible clients.

A few things you can do with your Linked In company page:

Add your logo and image that reiterates your branding.
Post status updates that show up in your followers news feed to engage with your target audience. An easy way to do this is post links to your blog posts.
Add your products or services so your potential client/customer can learn about what you have to offer including a short description, picture and a link back to your website where the product or service is offered.
Showcase relevant groups to provide trust and show which groups are essential to what your company offers. This lets your potential client/customer know what is important to your company. You are allowed to add 3 groups to your profile.

Here is an example of our Linked In company page:

Styling Text on your Adobe Business Catalyst Hosted Website

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 19:38:00 GMT

After your website has gone live and you've taken over the reigns, you now have full access to managing your website page content. Sometimes you will need to style this text and you will want it to look like the rest of the content on your website. Below, I will show you a simple way to create headlines, paragraphs and text links.

First, log in to your Business Catalyst CMS Admin section. Then navigate to the page you would like to edit by going to: Site Manager > Pages > Page you would like to edit. Then follow the screenshots below.

For Website Headlines and Paragraphs:

For Website Text Links:

Be sure to hit PUBLISH after your website changes are complete!

Our Spontaneous Train Ride to Siena, Italy

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:26:00 GMT

I took a break from posting on our Europe trip because things have pretty busy here at Paper & Crush. So taking a little break from client work this morning to bring you another post!

On our first day in Tuscany we decided to go to the small local train station to become familiar and check times for our upcoming train ride to Rome. While we were there, we decided, "Hey, where can we go right now? We have nothing planned let's take the next train somewhere." Siena it was! We had no plans to visit Siena but oh I'm so glad we did. Maybe it was the spontaneity of it all but it really turned out to be one of our favorite cities in Europe. We first walked through the historic walled city entrance, weaved our way through the old, narrow streets, walked upon some chalk artists (amazing!), and then ended up in Piazza del Campo (historic city center) where we had the best gelato in all of Italy.

Our Other Travels:
Tuscany, Italy
Geneva, Switzerland
European Family Adventure

Website Redesign for a Non-Profit // Guest Post

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:00:00 GMT

Nancy of Rooms That Rock 4 Chemo contacted me just before the summer for a website redesign for RTR4C. It was obvious to me that it desperately needed a redesign and I am so happy that Nancy recognized this too.

See a glimpse of the "BEFORE" and learn why this non-profit was well deserving of a redesign on my guest post over on Rooms That Rock 4 Chemo's blog.... A Website Redesign for RTR4C.

Portfolio // Valiant Charter Academy Logo Design

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 06:00:00 GMT

CLIENT: Valiant Academy Charter School

PROJECT: Logo Design

SUMMARY: Logo Design for a new Colorado Springs, CO charter school.

Ready to Get Your Project Started? Fill out our Client Questionnaire.

How the Rio 2016 Olympic Logo was Created

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 19:00:00 GMT

Making of Rio 2016 from Tátil Design de Ideias on Vimeo.

A short video that tells the story of how the Rio 2016 Olympic logo was created.

Why we downsized our home and bought a fixer-upper

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 06:00:00 GMT

As we were planning our trip to Europe this past summer I began to think more about how we as a family love traveling and wished we could do more of it. We had just bought this brand new, big nice house in 2010. It was 3400sqft. and so beautiful BUT it was so hard to keep clean, full of rooms we didn't use very often and after paying the mortgage there was not much leftover to do anything fun. Another factor was this house never really felt like home. To be honest, I didn't really hang anything on the walls until it was time to stage it for selling purposes. I've always wanted to restore an older home like the one I grew up in. For some reason living in an older home full of character has always been more appealing to me.

So...right before we left for Europe (like 2 weeks before we were to get on the plane) we sold our house. We sold it within a few weeks of putting it on the market which didn't allow enough time to even process this big change we were making. We immediately put an offer on a bungalow built in 1919 we had our eye on. It was a fixer-upper walking distance to mountain hiking trails. And, it was only 1850 sqft. Big change. Did I mention that we have two boys, 7 and 9 years old? Yes, ideally downsizing sounded great but now this was really happening. We were even reducing our carbon footprint. BUT, as a mother living with boys this immediately freaked me out. Now that we are in our home, I will say that instead of avoiding the Nerf gun fights I'm usually apart of them or sitting on our deck enjoying our full grown trees and listening to the creek across the street, in attempt to escape the chaos of little boys. So, there have been adjustments but overall it has been just fine despite my worries.

Now the plan is to live in this fixer-upper house for 1 full year before making improvements. We'll see if we can stick to that plan. It has a ton of potential and an incredible location so close to the mountains.

So...here are a few pictures of our previous home.

And...here are the pictures of our new to us fixer-upper home.
(note: these are the MLS listing photos)

See what I mean? It's a BIG change and once we start the remodeling process I'll be sure to document it here. I've already bookmarked a ton of Interior Design and DIY home decor and remodeling blogs. Once that 1 year mark hits, hopefully we'll know exactly what changes we want to make. I will say that we have already ripped the upholstery off the bathroom walls, that was in Week 1. I couldn't take it, so down it went and we painted the walls grey and put up a new shower curtain. I'm sure we'll make more cosmetic changes like this to get us through Year 1. I'll try and post those updates as we make them. I still need to get some art on the walls in the bathroom and then I'll share the bathroom makeover.

If you're considering down-sizing, take a look at Zero Waste Home. Bea and her family downsized from 3400sqft to a 1400sqft home and has reduced their trash to nearly zero. She has honestly given me such inspiration and awareness of our own trash that we now recycle and compost more than we put in our trash bin.

Portfolio // Website Design for Rooms That Rock 4 Chemo

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 06:00:00 GMT

CLIENT: Rooms That Rock 4 Chemo - Launch Website

PROJECT: Website Design & Development and Logo Refinement

SUMMARY: Website design for a non-profit organization helping transform chemotherapy rooms worldwide based in San Fransisco, CA. Rooms That Rock 4 Chemo connects interior designers with hospitals and clinics that provide outpatient chemotherapy. Since its founding in May 2011, their custom-designed rooms together host over 40,000 patient visits per year. It was an absolute pleasure to design a website for such a deserving organization. They have garnered a lot of press in their short existence and I am excited to see Rooms That Rock 4 Chemo grow and help transform many more chemotherapy rooms.

Ready to Get Your Project Started? Fill out our Client Questionnaire.

Portfolio // Ecommerce Website Design for Snow Caps Sled Dogs

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 06:00:00 GMT

CLIENT: Snow Caps Sled Dogs - Launch Website

PROJECT: Website Design & Development, Ecommerce

SUMMARY: Ecommerce Website design for a dog sledding company based in Breckenridge, CO. Snow Caps Sled Dogs is a family run kennel that shares their passion of mushing with all of Summit County and it's visitors. This was a fun site to work on. How could it not be fun going through lots of pictures of cute little dogs?!

Ready to Get Your Project Started? Fill out our Client Questionnaire.

Tuscany, Wine Tasting and the Backroads

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 18:33:00 GMT

I think all of our jaws dropped when we finally arrived to our Villa in Montespertoli, Italy, where we were staying for the next 5 days. I felt like we were in the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun. Completely and utterly amazed by the beauty of this wine region.

Our Villa and the view:

We wanted to go wine tasting and started out on a backroad with no specific plan. My favorite way to explore is to have no plan or at least be open to veering from the plan. We came to a fork in the road and just picked. We were obviously bound to find a place to taste wine. We were in Tuscany!

Along the way we came across this church and museum completely way out in the country. It was closed but that didn't stop us from getting out and exploring the architecture and scenery.

And back on the road, we eventually came to this little building with a sign for wine tasting. Stop the car! I'm pretty sure Chuck and I tasted every wine possible. In case you were wondering we did not spit any out. Who does that?! Also, in case you were wondering, we were traveling with my mom who graciously did not partake so she could drive. We did buy several bottles to enjoy back at our Villa though. I wish I could have found a way to bring lots of wine back to the States. It was so cheap. Some places sold wine for as little as 2 Euros/bottle. Remember that when you are buying an Italian wine here in the States!

Our Other Travels:
Geneva, Switzerland
European Family Adventure

Visiting Family in Geneva, Switzerland

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:55:00 GMT

Chuck's uncle lives in Geneva right now so we made sure we planned a visit with them while we were in Europe. Looking back, I wish we would have planned a few extra nights with them. My kids love spending time with family and as we left the next day to head to Italy they were pretty sad that they didn't get to spend more time with "Uncle Joe". This melts my heart because growing up I had great uncles all around me growing up and my kids don't have a lot of extended family in Colorado where we live. Okay, here are the pictures I promised. Enjoy!

Driving into the city it was beautiful building after beautiful building. In one of them you can even see the reflection of Lake Geneva. We drove in on a Friday and everyone was getting off of work so as were sitting in the lovely traffic we noticed that everyone was gathering together around the lake for happy hour. There were a few carts set up serving drinks and it seemed this was just the usual thing for a Friday after work to start the weekend.

Once we arrived at our family's house we were treated to an authentic Swiss fondue dinner complete with Swiss wine. I should have taken more pictures but I was too busy enjoying every bite! My son was loving his time with his Uncle as you can see. After dinner we all headed out for a late night walk through the Old Town of Geneva, Switzerland. I love walking through cities at night when they are all lit up and it seems Europe lights up all of their cities as they should!

As we were leaving Switzerland and headed towards Italy we drove through the breathtaking Swiss Alps.

European Family Adventure

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Over the summer, my husband and I and our two boys (7 & 9 years old) spent almost 3 weeks traveling around Europe. My mom lives in Germany and my husband uncle lives in Switzerland. They are both there for just a few years for their jobs. So we thought if we are going to do this we want to do this now!

Map of Europe created by English Muffin Shop

Our travels took us to Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria and France (in that order). Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing photos from our trip, country by country. I started this post thinking that I would fit it all into one post. Ha! There is no way so here is a sneak peek of what's to come.

The jaw dropping streets of Rome, Italy.

Sitting at a cafe on the streets of Paris, France with a view of the Eiffel Tower.

One of the many sidewalk flower markets in Paris, France.

Dinner at a restaurant in the Austrian Alps.

We took almost 2000 pictures and while I won't be able to share them all. I will be going through them little by little and posting bits and pieces of this incredible experience. I've always had a travel bug and now I know I've infused this into my boys. They already want to know where we are going to travel next! Oh boy...