Testing, testing 1, 2....

I all, I need some help. In case you haven't noticed I've been on an extended blogging hiatus.  I returned recently with the renew desire to blog only to find out that my domain has expired. Well this is a major bummer. I'm hoping I can working it out all though I'm afraid that someone may have snagged www.designevolutionblog.com out from under me. Until I (hopefully) work this all out I reverted back to my old blogger domain http://vertigodesignevolution.blogspot.com/. Can you do me a favor and let me know by leaving a comment if you received this post in your reader. I'm trying to figure out if I need to fix my feed settings. This is so not fun, bare with me please :( 

p.s. Happy Thanksgiving!

A Look Back & Moving Forward

Nick and I have made a somewhat crazy decision considering we will be getting married in 4 months. We decided to sell our condo. The time is right for house hunting, the spring market means a lot of new inventory and prices are still relatively low. Of course, before we can settle into our dream home we have sell our condo. Now that the place is officially listed is making me a bit nostalgic. This will always be the first home we ever owned and I'm going to miss it. I decided to pull together a home tour so you can see how our condo has progressed over the past almost 5 years.


I'm going to break this post up into a few otherwise it would be really long. Let's start with the living room. Our living room and dining room are actually one large space. It's nice to have so much space for entertaining but it took me a long time to settle on a furniture arrangement that filled the room well. 


I moved around furniture often. Much more often then you can see in these photos. I thought I would spare you the less than successful arrangements. 


Here are the photos of the living room from our listing that were taken two weeks ago. Surprisingly the house still looks exactly like this. I feel like I've been cleaning non-stop. Selling your home is hard work. 

I've taken a lot of pictures and rearranged a lot of furniture in past 5 years. Stay tuned there is much more to come.

Are You a Framework Girl?

TaDa! Here is one of the other projects I have been working on these past few weeks. A new online magazine launched May 1st with my illustrations in one of the articles. Framework Magazine, founded by Bria Lear, is a lifestyle publication dedicated to sharing the essentials of stylish living. Framework is the modern girl’s digital guide to personal style for everyday living.


My illustrations are featured in an article titled "Weddiquette" on pages 52 - 61. Go check it out. It's was rather timely for me to be illustrating an article about wedding etiquette.  I'm so happy with how the shoes and the wedding bands turned out, I should create paintings of my own rings and shoes to have as keepsakes of the day.

Take a look at Framework Magazine and let me know what you think. There are some interesting articles and I think it's very well written. I am happy to be attached to this new project.

GMCLA & It Gets Better - What I've Been Up to

I think I owe you a "Since I've Been Laid Off Update" just like I gave you a Wedding Planning Update and I'll have a more in depth one for you soon but for today I just wanted to let you in on a few things I've been working on. Especially since I've been MIA, I promise I have a good excuse.


This past week and half I've thrown myself head first into a PR project and I'm learning as I go. My oldest brother is the Interim Executive Director of the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles (GMCLA). How cool is that? Most recently the GMCLA has teamed up with the It Gets Better Project to take the message of "It Gets Better" offline and produce a touring stage production that will include a mixture of music, multimedia, and live theater. At each stop of the U.S. tour performances will be presented in tandem with a weeklong series of community outreach activities to strengthen local LGBT support networks.


Hundreds of hours will be volunteered by the artistic and producing team to create this show, but money is still needed to help fund the show’s development costs. Equipment is also needed to stage and tour the show, including microphones and other audio equipment, instruments, costumes, props, set materials, and road gear to house it all. In order to fund the production the team has created a Kickstarter campaign. The goal is to raise $75,000 and with only 6 days left we still need to raise about $20,000. 

I've been busy emailing bloggers and newspapers, tweeting celebrities who are active in the LGBT community, creating Facebook ad campaigns, and reaching out to any connection I have.  It's hard work but I have to say, when you are passionate about the project it's very rewarding and doesn't feel that difficult. I'm confident that the goal will be met but we can use all the help we can get so please forward this on to anyone you know who might be interested in donating or writing about the project. Here are the important links: 


GMCLA & It Gets Better Kickstarter Campaign 


GMCLA & It Gets Better Multimedia Press Release 


Want to hear something crazy? I tweeted to Lady Gaga about the project and  she actually has the video posted to the Born This Way Foundation's blog. Nice to know that she actually reads what people write to her. 


My final plea to you - please pledge, share on facebook, tweet, blog, tumble, add the widget to your sidebar, etc. Thank you!

A Wedding Update

The wedding planning is coming along nicely. We have a lot of the important vendors booked but there is still a lot to do. The officiant is booked, he is actually the first person we hired after deciding on a venue. Mitch married Nick's cousin was a total riot. We are not very serious people so it will be nice to have a ceremony with a little fun built in. My dress has been ordered since December (sorry no pictures, it's a surprise) and I finally picked out bridesmaid dresses. I swear choosing a dress for my girls was harder than choosing my own dress. Now we can shop for the fun things, like shoes. We have also decided on the entertainment and just yesterday I booked the photographer! Finding a photographer that fit my style but also my budget was difficult but think we are going to be really happy with the choice of Kate Leigh. Her photographs feel very intimate and natural, there are no awkward poses or forced smiles. Here's a few of my favorite shots from her blog. 













I have to tackle flowers next and to be honest I'm not sure where to start. I have an idea of what I like but I don't have any experience with vendors so I'm open to any suggestions you have. But please don't suggest Saipua, their flowers are gorgeous but I can't afford them. I also really need to get started with my invitations. I plan on designing them myself (as I did with my save-the-dates) but I would like to have them professionally printed. Aside from those two large tasks I'm sure I have a million other things to get done. 

Photo Credit: Kate Leigh

BYW Road Trip Continued

Remember how I told you that the Blogging Your Way NYC Road Trip workshop was so inspiring that my head was spinning. Well, I wasn't joking. I told you that the only photos I took were the few polaroids I shared but I completely forgot that actually did take a few photos. I thought you might like to see some shots of the light studio and of Holly in action.









The studio was so gorgeous, look at this amazing light!  

I've Been Sketching & Painting

I want to be purposeful with my new found free time so I have been spending a few hours every afternoon developing my painting and sketching skills. I often put a lot of pressure on myself to create something grand so I'm treating these like water color doodles. It's working well for me.  I actually finish the little creations that I start and I'm pretty happy with the results. I'm also learning how to use Illustrator right now so that I can create better digital sketches.  I'll share my progress with that soon. 

Inspiration for the legs found here and for the Geronimo Balloon here.

I am also trying out new mediums. I just recently starting painting with gouache. It's like watercolor paint but the pigment is more concentrated so the colors are much more vibrant. I look forward to playing with it more. 

Dip Dyed Curtains

I've had plain cream colored curtains from Ikea hanging in my living room for many months.  I came up with the idea that it might be cool to try and dip dye the curtains to create an ombre effect.  Friday I finally decided to tackle the project. What I had in mind was something like these curtain panels: 




Gorgeous, right? The final result of my dying experiment was this: 




Not quite as gorgeous.  I had originally wanted to leave the top of curtains white like the ones in the photo above but I touched them with my dye covered hands so I had to continued the gray color all the way to the top of the curtain. You might also notice that my curtain panels are not exactly the same. I attempted two different dye methods which yielded slightly different results. With the panel on the right I submerged all of it in the dye and then slowing removed the panel so that the bottom would be darker than the top. For the panel of the left I worked from the bottom keeping each section submerged for about 30 seconds. I think I had more success with the second method but should have kept each section submerged for longer periods of time. 


I would also like to try one other dye method. I'm interested to see what would happen if I just dipped the bottom half of the curtain in the dye and leave it there for several minutes to soak up the dye and have it organically travel up the panel. In my head it would look really cool but I have no idea how it would actually turn out. Which is why I would suggest experimenting with inexpensive curtains like these (I believe these curtains cost $15 for the set) because I'm not too upset that they didn't turn out exactly as I hoped they would. 


Photo Credits: Top Photo - The Connaught Mayfair Hotel, Bottom Photo - Me

Snapshots From My Desktop

Water color doodling...

Rory Beca for Forever 21

I have been trying to limit the amount of shopping I do at Forever 21 because, let's face it, the clothes are pretty much disposable. I am willing to break my Forever 21 ban for this new collaboration with Rory Beca. This resort collection is calling my name with its dreamy palette and water color prints.  That asymmetrical dress hem is actually growing on me and the sheer panels are sweet and sexy.




Check out the entire collection here.