The Sprague Lab

Thanks to a good night’s sleep, the typical “It’s not Wednesday anymore!” high I get on Thursdays, and my chance to get some work done, today was way better. Thank you for the well wishes. :) Everyone around me (ants included) must have understood that I so did NOT need a repeat of yesterday, and in fact, I needed a better day than usual, just to make up for how much yesterday sucked.

10 for Thursday:

• Know and love Jason Gaylor and his FREE Photoshop brushes of deliciousness? (Yeah. Me too.) Have you checked out FlyGuy? He created an incredible set of Dr. Seuss Photoshop brushes, among others, and the best part? Just like Jason’s, they’re FREE for personal use. Holy cow. Go grab ‘em, and leave him some love.
•  I happened on this great web application that lets you design your own modern bedding. These designs are  AMAZING, and you can pick all your own embroidery colors. Super cool for the “someday when I have money” file… Sure, you can get a silk one with custom embroidery for $800.00, but the cotton numbers are actually pretty reasonable.
  
•  I’m becoming a bit of an etsy junkie (at least for lurking/looking/playing with the really killer user interface they have over there - proving again that you can take the girl out of the user interface design job, but you can’t take the user interface designer out of the girl… or the editor, or the instructional designer, or the general reading nerd… ;)). Crafters unite to make cool stuff! I found this super-cute handmade stained glass pendant. Everything from this designer is so cool! Got any favorites on Etsy? Link me up!
• And another Etsy find. I LOVE this artwork. Wow. I totally want this one for Elliott’s room.
• Those Were the Days monthly scrapbook kit club has moved to a new home. Kirsten, with the help of her designers, puts together some seriously AWESOME kits, mixtures of patterned paper, seriously COOL embellishments, and (hooray!) matching cardstock. Inspirational layouts designed each month by Nisa Fiin, Kristina Contes, Amanda Probst, Danielle Calhoun, and Caroline Ikeji. Some real heavy hitters there. :)
• My newest issue of Domino magazine, which recognizes my need for really clean-lined, modern decor, but pushes me into the eclectic stuff in inspiring ways. Pretty good for a magazine, I say. They showed me this couch from Room + Board, which they showed me that I really MUST have for our front room (formerly dining room with navy blue paint and a really busted old chandelier, now empty room with great paint, great natural light, a red vase full of in the corner, and a train table). We are saying, no. We do not want a dining room to be the room you walk into when you enter our house. Wainscoting, shmainscoting, right? We are just not dining room people. Not yet. Not mini-van people either, come to think of it. Are these two things related?
• I checked in on my beautiful shoes over at Anthropologie, and yep. Still love them. I think it’s time to buy. I remember the days when I didn’t have to think very hard about buying shoes or not. Then I had two kids, quit my job, and bought a house. Many more things to take up the cash every month. Many fewer opportunities for splurging on shoes (even ones that sing to me).
• Spied a beautiful necklace over there as well. I really have this thing for light bright blue and green/blue these days. It’s showing up all over the place and totally catching my eye lately.
  
• The new Beacon Hill and Chasing Butterflies lines from Daisy D’s. More of the same grungy romantic distressed papers, but in brighter colors. But the real knockout are their rub-ons - same great digi-flavor as their MT release, but with cool new themes  (new sets here, and here, and here). Sets perfect for All-about-me pages, family pages, boy pages, and for Mother’s day. Not the shmoopy Mother’s day, either. But cool Mother’s day. :)
• As much a favorite as a PSA: A reminder that if you’re looking for Fancy Pants the scrapbook company, do not type Fancypants.com, or you’ll be unpleasantly surprised. Even googling brings you tennis underwear, a Bob Hope movie from 1950, and a very random video game… so just for the record, it’s Fancy Pants Designs.
• And yeah, I know this is #11. But I just saw this one on the news, and sitting here with the laptop, had to go check it out. There’s a guy who has started up a company at Justin.tv. It stars Justin, who is streaming his life, live, 24 hours a day, via a video cam and mic attached to his hat, and a cell broadcaster in a backpack he wears. He’s playing poker right now. :P You can watch him sleep, eat, you guessed it. Totally a live version of the Truman Show. But it’s cooler than this. Check out this article on it right here. So what does “live vlogging” mean for us?
  

 Your Top 10!

And now the challenge:

For tomorrow, blog about your Top 10 - 10 things that are making you happy right now. Doesn’t have to be scrapbook products, or handmade jewelry, or anything fancy (ahem… pants designs), but I hope you link me up, and then tag a few friends. Let’s see if we can get some love out in blogland for a Friday, okay? :D

Post back to this thread with your blog entry, and on Monday I’ll draw for a couple of RAKs, ok? :D 

See you tomorrow for PSF!