MUSINGS: CRAFT YOUR LIFE FROM DAYDREAMS

hi everyone, welcome to my second installment of musings! we're leaving monday for a two week trip to the east coast and the anticipation has got me thinking...

i love traveling.  when i have a trip on the books it's just about all i can think about.  it consumes me, i can spend hours daydreaming about what i'll see, eat, wear.  the people i'll meet, the people i love who i'll visit.  i get excited for the smells, sounds and tastes that will be new to me.  the airports, trains, planes, taxis, and hotel beds, i love it ALL.  but the thing i love most is the feeling i get when i'm in the midst of it.  i feel somehow more alive, more myself, more open to what life brings me.  

traveling, for me, is that thing that really moves me.  it's what stirs the creativity inside me, it feeds the adventurous part of my spirit, it expands my sense of self to encompass the entire world rather than my tiny little at-home world.  i feel most like myself when i'm away from home and outside of my comfort zone, if that makes sense.  it's one of the most fulfilling things that i do.  

and so i wonder, why not more?  

what is it that moves you, that really makes you feel ALIVE?  is it a part of your everyday life?  should it be?  in writing this i'm reminded that we're truly responsible for crafting our lives, shaping daydreams into realities.  so, i'm going to be spending more time day dreaming and more time crafting.  here's to all of us having the lives of our wildest imaginations!  xx- sarah

* is that graphic not killing you with awesomeness?  we have aileen cheng to thank for that!  best. designer. ever. 

aileen and kevin's house

my friend and go-to designer aileen (responsible for the birds of a feather website and a house in the hill's logo and blog design) just shared her home on design sponge.  and it's so cute that i have to share!  aileen and her husband kevin were buying their home around the same time that we were, so as we were going through the process we traded war stories about dealing with the banks and then eventually moved into our new homes around the same time as well.  i'm kind of blown away with how much they've done to get settled in their place already!  i love how light, modern and clean it is.  it's so perfectly suited to their style.  hope you love as much as i do!  {more after the jump}

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hip hip, we're all shiny and new!

it is with a very humble thrill that i present to you the new site design today!  remember on friday when i wrote "should all go as planned you'll be looking at a freshly remodeled house in the hills..." well that was a TERRIBLE thing to write!  i was practically BEGGING for trouble!  so of course, only a matter of a couple hours after i hit publish on that post, what had been a completely smooth and perfect design / construction process with aileen and scott turned into a mad scramble to REBUILD and modify the entire site in the course of a weekend! this was due to a last minute realization that squarespace (my hosting platform) has a major and unforeseen flaw that makes their latest software version completely useless to me. AHHHHHH! i spent the entire weekend worshipping scott for being the best programmer to walk the face of the earth and cursing squarespace for wreaking havoc on my site launch.  but, it's done!  and i couldn't be happier with it!  more after the jump...

before i go back to gushing about aileen and scott, here are a few updates i hope you'll appreciate...we have a search bar, people! finally, no more looking through every recipe i ever posted just to get to the sweet potato tacos from late 2011!  i also now offer subscribe by email (yay! get yerself signed up if that's your thing!).  and my crafty photoshop icons have been replaced by aileen's sleek designs.  SO MUCH BETTER!  what do you think? i hope it's a much nicer place for you to come and spend time with me!  

now, the gushing must continue.  aileen, i'll never be able to thank you enough for all the hard work you put into this!  you so far exceeded my expectations it makes me think i lack imagination.   as always, your attention to detail and beautiful, clean, well-thought design inspires me and makes me feel so lucky to have the opportunity to work with you!  i so look forward to many more design projects together.  scott, i am blown away by your skill and level of professionalism.  you made this process a breeze, and when things went south two days ago i was only mildly panicked because you'd already shown me that i was in the best possible hands over the course of the project. i am so grateful for your hard work and the attention you gave this.

to you friends, thank you for hanging in there with me over the past 6 months as i've been working on this! you are my favorite part of this blog and i promise to work my hardest to make it worth every minute you spend here!  and last but most certainly far from least: mr. lou mora, thank you for looking at every design revision with me, wiping my meltdown tears yesterday morning and being the best husband and dog-father i could ever ask for.   *on the off chance i ever win an oscar i will modify all of this into an acceptance speech*

good day my friends!

*image source

a house in the hills is getting a makeover!

hi everyone!  thanks so much for your rad comments in the radisson hotel giveaway, i read them all.  it was so great to get a peek into your lives and read where you'd go and why!  there were also some stories that really pulled at my heart strings, i'm so grateful this was a random contest and not something where i'd have to choose!  the winner has been chosen and notified.  hopefully i'll have more opportunities like this in the near future for those of you who didn't win.

on another  note, i have exciting news!  i've been working with the amazingly talented aileen cheng on a blog re-design.  we're going to make this place easier to navigate, better to look at and add in a few new features to improve it overall. below is a sneak peek, the  new logo!  since we technically don't live in the hills anymore, but i still have attachments to the name and the idea behind it, i wanted a new interpretation that better reflects where we're at.  aileen, you're incredible.  the logo is beyond what i could've hoped for, especially with the random mess of inspiration i gave you.  how you manage to crawl inside my brain and produce exactly what (even when i have no idea what that is) is really incredible. thank you a million times over.  blog friends, i hope you like it, i can't wait until you see the rest!

birds of a feather patterns!

here are some of the patterns super-designer aileen cheng came up with recently when working on our birds of a feather branding. i think they're so great (i may be biased) and will be incredible worked into our packaging for things like cd's/cases, stationary, business cards, etc (they're already in use here). i'm officially pattern obsessed.