Smorgasbord Saturday - 04/21/13 to 04/27/13

Smorgasbord Saturday: a smattering of links highlighting my favorite blog posts, pins, etc. from the previous week. 

Love stuff like this! A dad draws a different picture on his kids' sandwich bags every day.

There are lots of pretty art prints in Kyle Naylor's Society6 page. I love this and this especially.

24 cats that are so single right now.

There's a costume for everything.

What type of pinner are you on Pinterest?

The Image is Found is by far my favorite "strangers'" photography blog. This post featuring their son, Jasper, reminded me of Opie Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show!

Read more...

Louisville Loves - Grind

Alright, I don’t think it's much of a secret among my friends and family that I love Grind. This Louisville gourmet burger food truck is my favorite local food truck. Nothing makes me happier at Louisville-area events than when I spot their black and white vehicle open and ready for business. I always look for them first at the Flea off Market, The Moth StorySLAM, and whenever there’s a grouping of food trucks at local events.

 Photo from my Instagram account - ejstivers

One of my favorite aspects of Grind is that I can get my burger “salad style” - meaning, no bun, but extra lettuce and a variety of other toppings. I love their classic Grind burger with cheddar cheese and a fried egg added on top. DELICIOUS! Although that is my fave, I have tried some of their other burgers and never been disappointed.

My mom's and my food from Grind at the Flea Off Market

I really appreciate that Grind uses local grass-fed beef and also aims to please their customers. As someone who eats no grains and no legumes, I appreciate their thoughtfulness in offering salad style burgers. It’s a relief to not have to go through my regular spiel of “Can I get a burger, with no bun...”

Grind's website
Grind's Facebook page

Note: This is not a sponsored post - I just like spreading the word about local places I enjoy!

Read more...

Quotation - Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's really important to me to incorporate beautiful things into my daily life. I'm not sure if it's because of my predisposition toward the melancholy or what, but I'm always thankful when I have a chance to rest and reflect on something visually beautiful (it doesn't take much to bring me to tears at an art museum!). One of the ways I try to make sure that beauty and art have their rightful places in my day-to-day grind is by incorporating meaningful quotations into my projects. 

All high beauty has a moral element in it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

For this project, I already knew what quotation I wanted to use. I've had this quotation drawn on the chalkboard in my room for several months already. It's something I read every day and I've been more and more convinced of its truthfulness. To me, it reflects the truth that beautiful things come from God. Sure, there are a lot of things wrong and evil with the world, but the fact that there is still beauty and art and creativity reflects God's graciousness toward mankind.

I've been trying to incorporate more hand-drawn text into my graphic/digital work. It's something I've done "unofficially" for some time, but for whatever reason I've been slow to do much hand-lettered work for actual projects. Thankfully I have a great community of friends through church and they have really encouraged me and my creativity a lot recently!

I used a photo from a location-hunt for a friend's 2011 wedding for the background. I used Photoshop to alter the photo and then added text from Illustrator. This project was executed for my own personal use. 

Read more...

Brooch of the Month - April 2013 - The Rhinestone Bow

April's featured brooch is one I got a couple years ago as a Christmas present from my parents. I saw it on Etsy and knew that it had to be added to my Christmas list! I didn't expect to get it though, so I was really excited to receive it.

As I was posting this, I got curious about why fake jewels are often called "rhinestones." According to Wikipedia, the name comes from the fact that the original fake gemstones were rock crystals gathered from the river Rhine. Interesting!

Read more...