This is just awesome. Typolade makes chocolate type. When I get my lettpress up, it would be amazing to give these away as promos. If I have a lot of money, that’s what I’ll do. For know, I will just look in awe.

octopi cups by scot spratford of CAKE as found on design public.

No, not me…

But Zack!

This spring, Zack and the ATL boys will hit the road with Fall Out Boy and cruise to an arena/venue near you. You can check out their tour route and buy tickets where ever you live closest! It’s just craziness!

The Raven’s and Joe Flacco are playing the Steelers (errrrr) tonight at 6:30 pm. I’m super excited with purple pride. It should be a good game, so watch it. Go Raven’s!

Yulia Brodskaya is an illustrator and graphic designer originating from Russia. She makes these amazing Papergraphic images that are absolutely beautiful. It makes me think I should have taken illustration and fused in the typography the way she does. It’s just awesome.

So Sarah from orange-element (and good old VC) tagged me as someone she’d like to know 7 things about that she didn’t already know. Let’s see…

1. I can curl my tongue into a clover shape. I can also do the hamburger, hotdog, and flip it upside down.

2. I have a famous brother. Zack is a growing punk-popstar in the band All Time Low. He just recently bought a nice car and moved out to Huntington Beach, California.

3. I played Varsity Field Hockey in High School. We were ranked number 1 in the state my senior year. I was on the All-Division 1st Team, the All County team, and the county All-Star Team. I was the Prep Player Profile of the Week on Fox 45, I won a High-Five Award on Channel 13, I scored the winning goal to win the county championship my junior year, and I made a hat-trick as a dominant midfielder. I loved field hockey and I wanted to play at DE, but I got a really bad case of Mono right before college and I didn’t have the energy or strength to do it. That’s when I tried out for A Capella.

4. My dream is to be a singer. I always wanted to be an artist, but I think that was because I had the skills since I was a little girl. I was so quiet growing up that no one even knew I could sing. Now that I’ve gained the confidence to do it, I’ve realized that there’s nothing else in the world like singing in front of other people. And it’s what a really wanna do deep down  inside.

5. I went to Italy with my best friend when I was 16. We signed up for a foreign exchange program in our sophomore year of high school. I don’t know what our parents were thinking, but I got shipped out to Italy for 5 weeks, 2 weeks of which I stayed with a family in their gorgeous home in the hills of Tuscany. I swam in the pool every day. I learned how to speak a good bit of Italian too, but of course I don’t remember any now.

6. I took swimming lessons with Michael Phelps. We were in the same swim class at Meadow Brook when we were 5 years old. They asked me if I wanted to be on the swim team and I said “no.” What was I thinking! I also went to elementary, middle and high school (and graduated) with him.

7. I am a tragic romantic. I am in love with love. Real love, not just sappy love. Romeo and Juliet love. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, Jack and Rose, Bella and Edward, LOVE. We knew it when I bawled my eyes out at Titanic when I was twelve. My family thought there was something wrong with me because I was practically hyperventilating. I believe that having love the way Jack and Rose did (minus the tragic ending) is the most important thing in my life and everything else pales in comparison.

©2009 Samantha Merrick

I decided to apply to an art competition and… I was accepted! It’s at Fontbonne University in St. Louis, kinda random but who cares. It’s a minature show, meaning nothing could be larger than 8″ x 8″ in size, and it’s the first step to applying for other painting competitions and gallery shows. Yay! So I thought I’d share. If you are in the area between February and March, check it out for me. I’m sure there are going to be lots of cool little paintings there.

The Twilight Saga has ’sucked’ me in. I’m obsessed. I bought the book Friday and I finished it Sunday night. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I had to get the second book on Monday, which I did at 9:30pm, just before they closed. At 4:30 in the morning last night I was done. I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t even fall asleep. It is mesmerizing.

At first I was skeptical of the books because I heard of their likeness to the Harry Potter series, and I didn’t want anything to make me feel like they could be better than that. But to me they aren’t even close. Harry Potter is about childhood, mischeif and magic. Twilight is about love. Romeo and Juliet love. My favorite kind of love. There’s nothing more important in the world to me than love, and if you feel that way too, you must read this.

I’m off to buy the next book.

I’m exhausted. Even more so than I was before Christmas trying to run around and get everyone the perfect gift. And the New Year is coming and everyone is asking everyone else what they are doing. I think Max and I have officially decided to do nothing with each other. We will hang out at home, make dinner, watch Zack play on MTV at 8pm, and maybe stay up to see the ball drop, maybe not. New year’s day will be the only entire day Max and I will get to spend with each other because of his exhausting work schedule. And I say I’m tired- Max is working everyday AND trying to fit all of the required holiday events in. Phew!

I haven’t really thought about what to put on my blog throughout the holiday. Most people will put up New Year’s Resolutions and the Best and Worst Lists of 2008. I am looking forward to a productive new year of making and designing lots of fun things and painting new artwork. So that’s what I plan to put up. We’ll see what happens. New blogs to come January 1st. Happy New Year!

For five weeks in the fall, Nancy was an Artist in Residence at Atholton Elementary School in Columbia. I was fortunate enough to be able to assist her on Fridays. We collaborated with the fourth and fifth graders who worked in groups to paint panels for murals that went up in their schools’ stairwells. The fourth grade picked the theme of the Rainforest and the fifth grade picked the Chesapeake Bay. Each week we went and taught the kids how to draw, trace, paint and collaborate together to make all of their panels match up to make one huge mural. Here are the results:

As you can see, the unveiling process didn’t go exactly as planned, but all the kids and parents were thouroughly excited and impressed at what they got to see. There was a small ceremony where Nancy and I got to stand up in front of everyone and just say a few words. It was wonderful to work with the kids and then see how excited they were to see the end result of their hard work. I had so much fun! And the best part was that the kids really did it all themselves. They drew what they wanted to, they painted the colors they wanted, and Nancy and I barely painted or touched up any of the panels. I hope I get a chance to do this again!