Jens Lekman – Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo

Jens Lekman – Sky Phenomenon

I would encourage everyone to dig deeper into his quirky catalog.  Especially the song “I Am Leaving You Because I Don’t Love You” Spoolwork Remix

Let’s face it. I pretty much wish I was born in 1934 like my grandparents so I could have lived through mid-century America.

I have been waiting my whole life (not an exaggeration) for mid-century style to come back.

I got a new soundtrack on CD the other day — Promises, Promises — and I really love the album design. It’s a musical based on the 1960s movie The Apartment, and so has a delicious mid-century feel.

love love

Add that to … I have been thinking about the direction I want the design of Lemon and Raspberry to go.

The site officially launched in May, with a free Wordpress template that I customized to the best of my limited ability, with photos I took of lemons and raspberries for the visuals.

I’ve also got an ebook half written, with the layout roughly started by my marketing partner, and I’m aiming for a mid-September release.

So, yeah, I should start thinking about what I want to do design-wise for real.

Vintage-inspired, mid-century awesomeness.

So I thought that a mid-century, vintage inspired branding of Lemon and Raspberry would be so fun! Something that *feels* contemporary (not old/vintage) but still inspired by mid-century style.

In order to get some ideas of what I like, I thought the best place to look for mid-century contemporary design was probably Vintage Ad Browser.

Good-bye hours and hours of my life.

I literally only got about 1/3 through 1 decade of 1 category.

This is going to take awhile ….

Here are some fun ones (all from the 1950s):

I started with the travel ads (love) and got more ideas for more projects ….

How much fun would it be to use vintage ads for a location in your scrapbook/travel journal for a trip?!

Like this one when you go to Oregon, or this one when you go to Switzerland, or the Arizona Biltmore or this other one for your trip to the Bahamas (Kaitlin)?

Fun ephemera to stick in whenever you need a transition, or as background to journaling or a title page …

But wait! there’s more!

TWA had this fantastic series of ads …. all with the exact same layout but with different stories …

[View with PicLens]

And, my personal favorite …. Southern California:

SoCal vintage ad (1950s)

I even found one for Rome …. And I’m sure I can find one for London and maybe even Alaska (next year’s vacation)

Super excited to set aside a Saturday to just immerse myself …. There are so so so so sso oooo many vintage ads uploaded to this site! I can’t wait!

Vintage Ad Browser

Take a look!

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Today I have a guest post up at My Sundry Musings – a blog friend of mine (Catherine) who is taking herself on an Hawaiian vacation and asked me to fill in a post for her!

So fun … (so jealous)

I’ve blogged 5 tips for better summer vacation photos! Take a look, leave a comment and let me know if you have questions!

One of my absolute favorites is This American Life.

So brilliant. Every episode leaves me thinking about my own stories, or those of my friends. Wishing I could write like that. Wishing I saw the world the same way, noticing the every-day things that were just so interesting. I generally always have some small commonality with at least one of the stories. If not that, then definitely sympathy.

A recent (to me) episode, however, left me wondering if I was the only one who listened and didn’t find some commonality.

The episode is called Fear of Sleep, and (like ALL This American Life episodes) I recommend you take the time to listen to it.

It is about several different people/families who have problems with sleep for various reasons. Some sleep walk, some have a million bugs in their house, some equate sleep with death. Very (very) reminiscent of Nightmare on Elm Street.

I really really cannot relate at all.

I love sleep. I really love sleep a lot. Granted, I wish I could get by on less sleep because there are other things I’d like to do with my time, but still.

When I have a chance to sleep in … I take it. In fact, sometimes I feel like I’m making myself stay in bed/try to sleep longer than I need to just because I love sleep so much.

When Andrew and I are on a long drive (to Phoenix), and I have nothing really to do but read or listen to music … I sleep. Feels lovely.

I’m fairly certain I equate sleep with escape. It’s like a stress reliever for me. Serious rest that my brain really needs.

When I was in school and had too much to possibly do, I still always made sure I got 8 hours of sleep – 8 hours that my body could really relax cause I wasn’t thinking about my to-do list.

Probably the reason I only pulled 1 (one!) all-nighter all through my (8) college years.

What do you think? Any one else out there love sleep as devotedly as I do?

But, I think maybe that’s a post for another day.

Right now, Andrew and I are just trying not to kill 2 plants out on our balcony that gets almost ZERO direct sunlight. Both these plants live on the half-wall of our patio. The patio faces almost exactly true north, so the only direct sunlight we get is REALLY EARLY in the morning and all the way over to one side. Just a tiny triangle for about 45 minutes.

Except that triangle happens to be right above the doorway of the people below us, so we’ve been asked to not put plants there …. Just in case.

So even less sun.

I was satisfied with not even trying and waiting til we have a house with a yard and more than an 18″ sliver to put plants in …

Andrew’s more ambitious than me, for sure ….

When we moved in, the Keegan Grosses brought us this GORGEOUS succulent plant…. which mean it has lived 4 months so far. Pretty impressive

A week or so, Andrew came home from his parents’ house with this basil plant.

I do love basil …. especially with tomato and mozzarella ….

We actually pulled off a couple leaves just the other day to use. It still seems a bit little, but as long as it stays alive I’ll be happy.

Any tips for us?

I love the breezy, lazy delivery of this songs, beautiful and delicate.

First, in June I photographed Kristian and Stephanie’s wedding down in Orange County at the Wayfarer’s Chapel. They came in from Oregon to get married in this glass chapel …. I only shot the ceremony and portraits, but it was so so gorgeous.

At the beginning of July, I joined Renee Bowen in photographing a wedding at Middle Ranch.

sidenote: This was the *first* wedding I’ve photographed only 45 min from my house. It was so nice to just go home afterwards, rather than go to a hotel.

sidenote #2: I love second shooting. I connected with Renee via Twitter. Twitter rocks.

Finally, last weekend I second shot for [b]ecker – an Orange County wedding photographer. This was a Catholic wedding with a Korean wedding as part of the reception activities. So fun!

If you want to see more images from these weddings, keep an eye on Teegan Photography!

Somewhere in storage I have a huge wad of all-connected keychains from any number of places. A lot from vacations (pretty sure there is a Yellowstone keychain and a Washington DC keychain at least), some I just liked, at least a few that I made (remember lanyards?).

But that was all before I really had any keys.

Now that I have to be responsible for locking things behind me, I just don’t have the pocket (or brain) space for fancy schmancy keyrings.

Andrew is even worse….

Andrew’s keys (above)

• 2 keys to our apartment (1 for the common-area gates and one for our apartment)
• 1 mail key
• 2 (or 3?) keys for our storage unit
• his car key
• my car key
• key to his parents’ house
• 1 whole ring for work keys (I think there are 4 or 5 different keys for his work)
• Ralph’s rewards card
• library card
• This does not include the entirely separate key ring he keeps at work for a different studio he occasionally works at.

My MAIN keyring:

• Ralph’s rewards card
• library card
• Border’s rewards (that I never use)
• 2 apartment keys (common-area + apartment)
• 1 key to Andrew’s parents’ house
• my car key
• 1 key for my office (I also have an access card for the building but I almost never need it, so it’s not on the keyring)
• ‘99 keyring given to my entire high school graduating class.

My secondary (never used) keyring (honestly, I only have a vague idea what these are):

• bike lock keys (1 or 2? I wonder where those locks are)
• I think one of those keys is to my parents’ house, but I have a vague memory of them changing their locks. So maybe not.
• Those (in the right of the image) *might* be keys to the storage unit. Or might not. I really don’t know.
• All kinds of rewards cards. Including to my college bookstore. And Fry’s (in Phoenix)
• Andrew’s childhood ID bracelet
• Amy and Andrew heart tag (made by Andrew on one of those dog-tag vending machines years and years ago)
• TFS (Target Financial Services) bone-shaped clamp keyring. From when I worked there.

What is on your keyring?

Yes, that says ‘Monday’ ….

No, this is not my WHOLE to-do list.

This is just the stuff that should have been done last week, but I hung out with Andrew in the mornings before work instead.