Re-decorating

This past weekend I decided it was time to clean. And by clean, I mean everything, dust, wash, mop, vaccuum, everything. And by doing this I gave myself the opportunity to redecorate everything. I decided to go with some fun bright colors since it is summer after all (the 90+ degree weather with crazy humid sure shows me that). Anyway, here are some pics of my redecorating!
There's my great little estate find (see previous post).

Print and photos by wmah! And you can buy the print at my etsy shop :) http://dameling.etsy.com/
And hey its me and my fam :)To see more pictures of my redecorating, see my flickr :)

Garage Sale Finds!

I found some great stuff this past weekend! Matt and I went out to West Des Moines so he could look at some records (he owns a record store). Although the records weren't good, my garage sale finds were! My first find was this awesome chair.

I found this at an estate sale for the grand total of $6! I love the back and the tapered legs! The upholstery is a little worn, but I plan on fixing that...maybe with my next find! This fabric was calling out my name when we stopped at another sale!

I found three unopened packets of this material of these great little birdies. Inside the packets were little instructions on how to make a tea cozy, typewriter cover, and telephone book cover, among others out of the fabric. It also came with some lime green fabric that matches the little green birdy perfectly.

And, finally my last awesome find!

This little tea pot was at the same estate sale as the chair. I couldn't pass up the little retro geometric shapes! It's a little more on the yellow cream side than the pictures show, but soon I'll be posting where I put my little tea pot!

It's Done.....

...well not quite, but it's getting close! The newsletter that is. I've been working on this newsletter for school. Basically it's trying to sell the art department to high schoolers. I had a really hard time trying to get the design down, for some reason. I think my main problem was trying to create a great design, while still trying to appeal to high schoolers. I'm not that far removed from high school, but looking back, it feels so far away.

I've definately got some more tweaking to do, but I think I'm on the right track now. Tonight I'm going to try and finish up the tweaking and hopefully have time for some other projects I'm working on...more on that later :)

Back to the Future...

...is one of the greatest movies ever! But this post isn't about Marty McFly (even though Nike just came out with the future shoes of Marty McFly). Mostly I've been thinking about my future, pretty much all the time. This year is my senior year at Grand View and I will graduate in April with a graphic design degree. Thus far I've been working at an internship, which I think is good experience and I enjoy most of my co-workers, but I think it's sucking out my soul. I feel like I'm chained to my desk and making things take longer so I actually have something to work on.

I've been thinking heavily about having my own business. Currently I've just been selling on etsy and a few Craft Saturdays. Neither have been extremely profitable, which isn't really why I make things. I love design as well, but I think I need to find something where I can combine my love of design and creating things by hand.

I've been checking out letterpress businesses as a possibility after graduation. I'd love to have my own press and go printing away, but being a poor college student, the press is a little out of my price range. One business I found which I absolutely fell in love with was Orange Beautiful. They're based out of Chicago and what they're doing is my dream. There's also Hello Lucky that has great stuff, along with Red Prairie Press.

Enjoy those links and see you soon!

Home Sweet Home

Oh home sweet home. This weekend I went up to my parents for a few days. The main excuse for my visit was to clean out all of my stuff since my parents are moving. Now they are only moving across town and by across town, I mean within walking distance as Ossian's population is just over 850. Even though they'll still be in the same town and within walking distance of the old house, I find myself being a little recluse about the whole moving thing. It's the only house I ever knew growing up. Plus it is a beautiful house and one of the older homes in town. The house was built in 1900 and two other houses on the street were built with the same floor plans.

While I was cleaning out my room, I snuck into the little dormer connected to my room and forgot how much I loved the pattern on the floor. I can only hope the future owners enjoy the pattern as much as I do. Until then, it will still be my home sweet home :)

Mini books :)

I found this paper at work that was old letterhead and it turns out when you cut off the logo area, it is the perfect size for these little wood covers and they make these great little books. I already sold one of them but I still have two in my shop (check them out at http://dameling.etsy.com/) and am in the progress of working on more....that is once I finished this newsletter for school....now off to work on that...

Total Cute-ness!

I just bought these on etsy tonight! Too too cute from junecrafts! I thought they'd be great for my kitchen in all its retro teal/red glory :) Just thought I'd share the cute-ness!

Thank You Mr. Flora

Last week my boyfriend and I were shopping downtown and happened to walk by this poster in a store window. Now being a graphic designer, I happen to like to look at the poster more for the design than anything else, and when I saw this poster I immediately wanted to find out where I could get one. Unfortunately I couldn't find a place to get one, nor could I find a pic of it online.

The main reason I fell in love with this poster was because of its obvious Jim Flora influence. For those that don't know Jim Flora's work, he was an illustrator and designer in the 40's and 50's and illustrated for RCA and Columbia records. His primary focus was on jazz albums and his work was influential to many of today's designers like Tim Biskup.


Luckily I have a few of his album covers and I hope to get the books of his work (The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora and the Mischievous Art of Jim Flora).

Here is the schedule for the Jazz in July Festival (hopefully I can get a copy of the poster soon and post it here!)


And here is the Jim Flora album cover that I think gave the most influence to the Jazz in July series. Please take a minute or two to check out his awesome work at http://www.jimflora.com/ or check out the blog about his work at http://jimflora.blogspot.com.

I Succumbed.....

Yes, I finally succumbed to starting my own blog. It's been on my mind for some time now, as I'm continuing to create more and more of an online presence to help along my etsy shop, and hopefully someday a full-time business. This is part of the goals I have for myself in the coming months. I need to finalize some of my other goals. I am at a transition point---this fall will be my last year in college and I would love to have an online business to support myself. Currently I have an internship and it has taught me I do not like office politics....

But I think that is enough for my first post. I hope you enjoy the musings of Ms. Danielle and thank you for your support.

If you would like check out some of my work, here are a few places to find it :)
http://www.dameling.etsy.com/
www.flickr.com/photos/dameling
http://students.gvc.edu/danielle.ameling