I had a bell quote floating around my head and I went with “The bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe” from the Polar Express but after it was posted I remembered the one I REALLY wanted to use “All that the children could hear was the ringing of bells” from Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales (which his read of is just about my favorite thing to listen to around Christmas despite the fact it’s about 20 minutes long).
But voting is open so please please please go vote for the one above or the one below:

You can click on the images to get to their pages on Minted.com!

Back up to this past weekend where my last pairs of flip flops and more of our couch were half destroyed by the little pup and — light bulb– we have an idea. The only issue was I really expected the images to be of older kids. All the families were of a Mom, Dad and wee baby. Maybe it’s just my family but all the Christmas cards we get are of various school age children and/or pets so I had to adjust and use our pup. Whew!

Anyway, as always, if it doesn’t win, in 90 days I can sell it myself AND as a matter of fact, putting up all old minted non-winners onto etsy and hopefully the new site is one of my goals for this week! But hopefully it’ll just win.

And NOW I think I’ll get some of that food and tea I was thinking about 2 hours ago.

I think it’s a little more Urban Outfitters than the rest so I’m excited……buuuuut since it IS going off in a little more of a different direction I’m thinking I’ll wait to post it until the submission date gets closer. Or I’ll say “screw it” and post it later on today so I can forget about it for awhile since I’m already throwing it out in the world now. It’s about 50/50 shot.

Also in the news- I bought a new hat. This is not the most flattering photo but I was mid-thought whether I should choose the LEAST expensive wine or the SECOND least expensive wine to not seem so cheap (I bought both instead! Choosing is overrated.)

(image by Modern Toile photography [link to come!])

And new Earth Day inspired news is that we’ve joined Boston Organics. I’m not sure if places like this are everywhere yet but I’m sure they will be soon. We’ve signed up for the cheapest 1/2 fruit 1/2 veggies every other week plans so every other Friday a box of delicious goodies show up at our door. It’s like a cross between being in a cooking show and being rich (I pretend a magical butler picks the food and leaves it for us)

(image from farmfresh.org)

We ate kale the other night. KALE, people! I had a kiwi for desert the previous night instead of a Reese’s peanut butter cup egg leftover from Easter. I think the plan tonight is to roast up the zucchini and potatoes on the grill since it’s getting nicer. Hm, come to think of it, if anyone knows if you CAN grill zucchini and/or potatoes with good results-let me know that as well.

BUT– I wanted to let you know that the voting is open on Minted for the baby shower invitations. I have two designs in the running so if you like– you can go vote here.

And if THAT isn’t enough to make your Thursday go by quick enough I found this which would be an awesome addition to my Harry Potter/Natural non-flower table centerpieces:

From Once Wed — the rest of the post, filled more drool-worthy gorgeous pictures can be found here.

And LASTLY if you still need more:
This is awesome and if I have to make it “wedding-y” I’d say just about everyone in our wedding party would have run around shrieking with joy like a girl if they got these. Bear Sleeping Bag (I can’t remember where I saw it first but oh if I had to guess I’d probably say Mighty Goods, Swiss Miss, Not Martha or Pygmalion in a Blanket

And these are my new favorite blogs: I Suwannee, The Lil Bee, 100 Layer Cake, and Shelter.

Whew, and if you’re STILL here go to flickr and search for “dutch tulip fields”.

And with THAT I bid you good day.

Anyway, standing outside on Saturday morning in the freezing cold waiting for the pup to do her puppy business I started wondering if I’d ever get to sleep in again. Because it starts with the dog and then once you have kids, I’m sure it takes like a decade before they understand the joys of sleeping in, and quickly through my mind flitted “…First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage…”

And I thought, damn, that’s a slightly less out there idea for a baby shower invitation than my last one so upstairs I went and:

So the submission deadline was supposed to end last night at midnight but it doesn’t look like anything is closed down so maybe a week until voting starts? I’ll keep checking and let you know.

Have a great Monday*

*House and 24 are on tonight– see Monday can be tolerable!

I just wanted to let everyone know that the Every Second Counts birthday card is now available at Minted.com. You can get to it by clicking here

Here’s a little reminder of what it looks like:

They’re also having a new “Baby Shower” invite for “Modern moms-to-be and their friends search high and low for baby shower invitations that say “fun and modern”, not “cutesy”.’

Yeah… I think I can do not “cutesy”. I just submitted this one which I’m calling “For Apatow” (as in Judd Apatow, of Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad and many other examples of awesomeness)

So as you can see it’s roughly a billion times less cutesy than most baby shower invites but it’s for people who are pregnant and – shocker – have a sense of humor and I think a lot of times we forget the two can overlap.

Lastly, and I hate to mention this, let me know if you see a boob instead of a belly in the design. I think it funny (don’t ask my why) that babies can pop out their mom’s belly buttons and I really liked how the “p” in “knocked up” just fit right in but it’s a belly not a boob.

I also created a second colorway choice, a thank you card and a mailing label for the series for them so I’ll make sure to let you know when they’re available to for purchase!

The contest was: “Kids’ birthdays come around every year and parents seek to find invites that are void of clichés and aren’t too cutesy. We asked designers to create playful, fun and modern birthday party invitations.”

I chose to use Alex as my inspiration who was looking for a party that they were thinking would be centered around clowns, music or art. Here was the description I included along with it:

I think the intersection of clowns (circus), musicians and art is probably Hatch Show Print so I created an energetic Hatch inspired bday invite that rocks ages 1-101.

Since 5 year olds will usually tell you their age quite precisely I thought counting it in seconds would be a cool way to explain how old you’re turning. Also once you hit the questionable years… the ones I’m entering… where all of a sudden big numbers are looming– though I don’t care- 30 ain’t gonna kill me!– some people might feel more comfortable obscuring the info just a teensie bit.

Hope you enjoy– again– I’ll let you know when they’re debuted!

AVAILABLE NOW: Click here to see Every Second Counts at Minted.com

Alex, the child in question, had possible themes listed as : Pirates, Party in the park, Clown at party, Art party, Musician at party. I figured the intersection of clowns (circus), musicians and art is Hatch Show Print (I know, I mentioned them last post too). But really to be 100000% honest- I went to a burlesque show for my friend’s birthday party this week so I think that may have got my mind in the old school poster mindset. I didn’t write that in my inspiration section, though, because I didn’t want to freak out parents in case they could see it later! No one wants to be in a “child’s birthday” mindset then fall down a rabbit hole to “pasties”.

Anyway– be fruitful and vote for me when voting round opens in the New Year!!