Beautiful cookbooks

Hello everyone! How are you doing? I'm feeling a little blah right now, and am spending a lazy Sunday lounging around the house. There's laundry to wash, crisp white sheets to go on the bed, and a healthy dinner to be made. Hopefully the cure to this cold I feel coming on! We've been around a lot of heartache this month. Some wonderful times with friends also, but still some things that weigh heavy on the heart. One of my favorite distractions last week was wandering around the bookstore! I found a lot of cookbooks that were so gorgeous that I had to share!

To start, Volt Ink, the cookbook by the Voltaggio Brothers:

Aren't those photos absolutely GORGEOUS?

Next is Recipes from an Italian Summer

Again, just beautiful.

Eleven Madison Park:

Ruhlman's Twenty. I really just loved the cover and spine of this book!

Finally, They Cook and Draw has a cookbook!

Whew! Don't you just love them? Any of these books would make a great coffee table book or Christmas gift! Don't you think?

images: The Washington Post, Cool Hunting, Amazon, Eater, Michael Ruhlman, Amazon

Pretty packaging : The Bitter Chocolatier

I just discovered this packaging on the Dieline through their Student Spotlight. It is absolutely gorgeous, with clean fonts, die-cut labels and organic, natural materials. LOVE the humorous labels "My Girlfriend Dumped Me." and "My Entrance Exam Didn't Go Well."

Don't you love it and wish you could buy it? What a great hostess gift this would make!

Images: The Dieline

blue baby bash

I hosted a baby shower for one of my best friends earlier on this month. Actually, it was the Saturday before we started demo. (Genius timing, I know.) It was a great time and all of the details came together as planned. This usually happens when you are a completely obsessive planner. Because many people are out-of-town, we had a group of about 8, which was perfect for the house in its then-state. I was able to have a sit-down lunch and everyone had a place to sit. I forgot to take photographs of the invitation, so I'll do that ... when I have a new camera ... and our house is in order enough for me to set the invitation down .... Our dining table:

The bar-top:

 

I completely forgot to take a photo of the banner I designed with his name, "Evan Andrew" BUT, wait! There's evidence. You see that string in the upper left of the above photo? Yup, there it hung!

The game and favor table:

The most important part, THE FOOD: What? You thought it was the mom-to-be? You silly, silly person. (I kid, I kid. Holly, I love you!)

You're probably looking at this thinking, "only greek salad and cupcakes?!?" That's right ... Those and the vodka slush created the most hopped-up baby shower EVER. Really, we did have a couple entrees, but suffice it to say, I am NO food photographer.

Anywayy, here's some other details:

Thymes by Zeus Jones

I spotted this collection on the dieline a few weeks ago and fell in love! It was designed by Zeus Jones for Thymes luxury bath products and they really hit the nail on the head. The packaging and branding is so gorgeous and completely judging this book by its cover, I want to own it all! So lovely, don't you think?

images: thymes, Zeus Jones

graphic design by Caleb Owen Everitt

I realized that I hadn't talked about print design in some time, so I went in search of some beautiful graphic design work. Of course I found it on the dieline. This particular job done by Caleb Owen Everitt is superb. Love the natural color scheme, love his use of typefaces, love that everything seems unique AND functional. Love it all!

Have a great day!

images: Caleb Owen Everitt

pretty wall art

Hello everyone! I have had this image set aside for a while and never found the "perfect time" to share it. So, why not now? I just love everything about it, most especially the wall art. It gives the room such a cohesive look and seems so easy to do! I hope you have a great start to your week!

image: mary ruffle

Christmas wrapping

One last day of work, then I'm off to spend time with my family for the holidays! I'm really excited and everything is coming together nicely. As promised, today I am going to share my approach to wrapping this year. I wanted to do something elegant, but also somewhat festive and fun. What do you think?

I printed the gifts tags on ivory cardstock and cut them out with a 3" circle punch. I used three shades (two reds and one ivory) of embroidery thread and black lace ribbon to add texture and contrast. The paper is a smooth kraft from Ikea, which I picked up a few months ago. The origami flowers are from this tutorial on Folding Trees, which was shared with me! I used a metallic ivory textweight stock for the flowers.

Happy wrapping everyone! I'm off to do a few more.