Philadelphia Skylines

So I convinced my friend Mike Morris @designsophy to let me blog about these pictures he took of his hometown of Philadelphia. They are completely inspiring and the incredible skylines take me back to a time when I fell in love with my husband in NYC. (Unbeknown to me ‪‪— though I think everyone else knew before I did.) I was, ironically, also there on a business trip/cocktail party for Pneuma Books (owned by the awesome Brian Taylor) with Mike, who was my senior designer at the time.

Mike & Brian hired me right out of college after interning for them for a while. They pretty much taught me everything I know about good design and typography. Mike was shocked to know I didn't know what greeking was. I was shocked there was something called greeking. More like geeking.

They showed me the true elegance of the em dash and the importance of kerning.

Hard to believe it's been 10 years.

So, without further adieu ‪‪— ‪check these out. Nice work, Mikey.

Photos by Mike Morris @designosophy

Largest Design Show Yet - Middletown, DE

I cannot wait! I did a search for the house on Google - I think this is it! Gorgeous!

The Designer Show House is returning this spring to Middletown, DE to the oldest house in Middletown, circa 1800s. 12 leading interior designers, including my friend Barbara Pettinella from the Decorating Den, are donating their time and resources to redecorate the house. A total makeover.

This stone house is 7,000-squarefoot, includes seven bedrooms, boasts five fireplaces, has 8-foot-wide pocket doors, a ballroom and original 10-foot fluted Corinthian pillars in the formal parlor.

Details:

The house will be open to the public Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, from Friday, April 8 through Sunday, May 15, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

217 N. Broad St., Middletown, DE

Tickets are $15 and may also be purchased at the door. The house will be closed on Easter Sunday April 24.

The organization will also offer private garden tea, garden lunch, and evening wine tours. To make a reservation, call Barbara Cooper at 302-437-5640 before March 22 for best date selection.

See you there...

New Launch!

We're happy to announce the new website launch for Refine Your Design - check it out below with some new business cards to boot!

www.refineyourdesign.net

Logo for Balanced Wellness

We're lovin' this logo we did for Balanced Wellness. Organic meets Celtic five-fold.

Protecting Endangered Species — Animals that Need Your Help Now

Well, it looks like the WWF (no - not the world wrestling foundation) put the word out that we're interested in protecting wildlife and endangered species. This week we received 4 pleas for donations from 4 different wildlife organizations. All sent free stuff. Maps. Decals. Address labels. Stickers. Calendars. We felt pressured to donate to them all! But we felt our dollar would go farther if we chose one. So, we did our research and chose the organization we felt aligned with our own agenda.

That's why we chose the Sierra Club. They are addressing the animals that need our help now — and they are doing so through land conservation and more than taking donations — they are sending petitions to our Congressional leaders to work with the Obama Administration to restore and strength Endangered Species Act protections. (The free rucksack is a bonus.)

Animals that Need Your Help Now:

• Yellowstone Wolves: The wolves in and around Yellowstone have been hunted, nearly 200 killed who wandered outside the protection of the park. Sierra Club helped reinstall federal protection for the wolves in the region.
  
  
• Polar Bears in Alaska: This threatened species has gone without assistance for over 3 years due to the protection act's inability to stop the oil drilling in their habitat.
  
  
• Florida Panther: Fewer than 100 left due to highway accidents and loss of habitat.
  
  
• America's Grizzly Bears: Previous protection lifted, the bear's habitat is also being destroyed by the pine beetle, which is consuming one of their main sources of food: the whitebark pine. 40% of the grizzly's habitat is without protection, only surviving in the lower 48 states due to the protections afforded under the Endangered Species Act.

For more information or to help with this cause, visit www.sierraclub.org.


(Photos from Sierra Club)