Inflatable Bike Helmet

This is serious. Revolutionary.

After Corey's Auto-Ped accident a few weeks ago, I am even more conscious of getting stuck by a car. I'm not suggesting we wear these at all times, like when we're just out and about walking, but for bike riding, hell ya. I think these could come in especially handy for my friends who are "too cool" to wear a helmet around Denver whilst riding their bikes. It looks like a scarf or something, so don't fret, my too-cool-for-school friends, strangers you don't even know, passing you riding down Broadway won't even be able to tell you're wearing a helmet.

above: the helmet after it's been inflated

below: the helmet how it would look most of (hopefully, all of) the time

You might be skeptical, I was! Please check out the video here, so you can see the inflation process.

txt msg

Text messaging. It's taken over our lives, I can't remember a day when I didn't send/receive a text message. I'm not upset about this, I love to text and receive texts, it's so easy!

I just read, on the Nielson Blog, that kids ages 13-17 send/receive more than 3,300 texts per month, now, I'm all for texting, but that's crazy. It scares me because often times, when I am talking to a high school student, which I do often for my job, they have a hard time looking me in the eye or, even worse, a hard time having a two minute convo with me without checking a text message half way through.

So, here it is, I don't really care how much anyone texts, I love it, I text all the time. But, I do care if you can't have a conversation with a real, live person because you're not used to or comfortable with face-to-face interaction. Also, if you're so obsessed with texting that you can't go out to dinner or coffee with someone without checking your texts every 5 minuets, you might have a problem. Try putting the phone down, for a whole day and see how you feel.

Do you know how big Africa is?

Corey, Ben and I bought our tickets to the Middle East and have begun to plan our trip, yahoo!!

Last night we were all sitting around doing some research about where we wanted to go, what we wanted to do, etc. and I came across this map, holy moly, Africa is big, check it out.

The size of Africa equals the USA, China, India, the UK, Eastern Europe, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France and Japan combined. You can check out the map, close up, here.

Minnesota | NACAC

I just got to MN, where I am staying with my friend Megan while I work at the NACAC conference in downtown Minneapolis.

liz and meg at Universal Studios, like, forever ago :)

The NACAC's are a series of college fairs across the country that attract tens of thousands of prospective students. I'm so excited we chose to attend the MN NACAC!

It's like fall here in MN, it's not 85 degrees during the day, like it is in Denver...I may have mispacked...

But, it does feel like October here, which made excited to show you pics of these glitter pumpkins. I want to do one of these for our house....if it ever turns in to fall in Denver!

Magisso Cake Server

The coolest new (?) way to serve cakes and pies, check out this video demonstrating the Magisso Cake Server...obviously, I think I need one.

You can check out more Magisso products here.

October | Breast Cancer Awareness Month

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month I think we should all go out and get ourselves one of these boob scarfs!

tats

I've been thinking of getting inked for a while now...

I don't want a tramp stamp, like this lego lady, but a beautiful color tat intrigues me. I'll let you know if I go through with it. I've been talking about getting a tat for about 10 years, seriously. So, typically, what happens with me is if I talk about something for too long without doing something about it, it means I probably won't ever do it. But, I do really want to get inked, so I guess we'll see. For now, I'll have to live vicariously through Lego Lady.

Puppy Statue, awwww

My dad has this statue in his garden, right next to the door that everyone goes through to get into our house. So funny!

Merl

Meet Merl. He is the western squirrel I met in Estes Park, if he wasn't $270 I would have Merl on my nightstand.

Feather Weave

amanda getting the bait feathers ready ;)

One of my main homies, Amanda T. is a fabulous stylist and super hip and fashionable. So, when she showed up at volleyball a couple of weeks ago with a feather weave, I knew I had to have one.

All I had to do was show up at her house with a pliers and she'd provide everything else...I forgot the pliers....

fitting my feathers, properly, in my hair

In Lieu of pliers, she used a hammer (see pix above and below)

Her hands were sweating as she hammered inches from my skull, but it's what you have to do to be super hip and cool.

At the end of the night I had a little bit of plumage for all to see. More pix to come. I'm now officially obsessed with these feathers in my hair.

If you want to get it done don't forget the pliers.

Wall Calendar

I found this wall calendar scarf here, at Design3000, the best little design shop out of Germany

I don't hang a wall calendar in my house as I can rarely find one that I like, but I like this guy, what an interesting concept; just keep pulling until 2012.

Coffee messages

There is a RMCAD grad who was on the Today Show recently, showing how he uses art in his everyday life, creating art on the tops of people's coffees when they order them at his coffee shop, click here, to see what I'm talking about.

Then, I found these coffee stencils here, and discovered that you can customize your coffee messages to say whatever you want, like, if you love cats you can do what this person did, below.

Or, if you love me, then you could go a different route and do something more like what's done below.
Regardless, coffee is fun again, thanks to these coffee stencils. Or, if you're in the area, head to Santa Fe Art District and try out Mike's special coffee art.

Tri for the Cure

I invited some of my friends to train for and compete in a triathlon with me this summer. At first they were skeptical, then with a little bit of convincing, they signed up. What a great way to stay in shape and be able to get together with friends during the week.

It worked out great, there were 5 of us doing the tri, the Liz's, the little bird and the Amanda's. We would meet for volleyball games and then do a training run. The northern dwellers would swim at the northern pool together, we rode bikes in mountains to train, etc. It was rad.

The tri we decided to do was Tri for the Cure, a breast cancer cure tri. Two of my chicas ended up raising a bunch of money for the cause. I didn't even even set up a fund, they really inspired me to try to do more the next time I do a race for charity.
As the date grew closer, the nerves began a shakin', but once we got some wet suits, went to the expo and chilled out a bit on my front porch, I think everyone started feeling better. I had no doubt that everyone was going to exceed their own expectations and rock the socks off everyone at the race!

By the time race day came, one of my lady friends had to drop out of the tri...b/c she's PREGNANT, WOO HOO :) She still came and supported us, you rock Liz!!

We all talked the morning of the race, the little bird was going for a PR, but the Amanda's and I decided to all stick together throughout the tri, so that we could make sure everyone finished and tried super hard the entire race;)

We couldn't totally stick together throughout the swim, but we had a pact to wait at our transition zone before moving onto the next portion of the competition. This worked really well, we didn't let each other rest too much between the different legs and we ended up really pushing each other out on the course.

Some of our AWESOME support team. Thanks to everyone who came out to cheer!

The triathletes after the race...we were sort of pooped. We chilled on the couch for a while before heading to get cheese sticks and ice cream cake...ahhh, I love triathlons!!

All in all I think everyone had a great time and I know that the two newbies are super pumped to do another tri. Once you start doing these races I think you really do become hooked. I know I am.

we climbed a 14er...before work

Mariel and I both had the chance to go in late to work on Monday. "Yay", I thought to myself, "I'll get to sleep in". Little did I know the little bird that used to live in my basement wanted to get up at 2:45, drive to the mountains, hike up some rocks in the pitch black and summit a 14er, drive back, shower and head into the office...

Off to Torrey's we go...

I took this pic AFTER we hiked to the summit of the 14er

We hiked for most of the morning in pitch black, which ended up being really good, since I had no idea how much further I had to go to get to the top.

We met an art teacher from St. Louis who took this pic for us at the top

It wasn't a total "sunrise summit", since we weren't at the summit at sunrise, but we were close and the views were still a-mazing!

about 3/4 of the way up

The sun, almost over the range

Mariel, about 1 hour into our hike.

We ended up summiting right as a huge cloud cover came atop the mountain, obstructing our views. Oh well, at lease we had some great views climbing up and down.

I almost didn't go on the hike b/c I wanted to "sleep". I am so glad I went, I can sleep when I'm dead.

Cigarette Art

I love me some good installation art! Unfortunately, I took this pic in a bathroom, I wonder what people were thinking when they heard me snapping away in the stall?

Made totally out of, what else? Camels! Typically, I hate all things smoking related, but I just couldn't resist liking this piece.

ear-mazing | screen printing fun

Nikki, one of our amazing faculty at rmcad, taught me how to lead a screen printing workshop on campus...I loved it. I have a new found hobby, screen printing! She had the screens pre-burned, but taught me how to do everything. Nikki does everything from making her own screens to mixing her own paint colors and creating her own squeegees.

Nikki testing out a screen with Karen and Eliza

Dalby making his very own screen printed t-shirt with help (?) of Daniel

Below is my finished product. I made E.J. a cute little outfit for the fall. What's cuter than a 6 month old in a onsie with a giant pink ear on it?
After my trip to Meinengers Art Supply store I have all the necessary supplies (Photo Emulsion, a screen, squeegee, etc.) to start screen printing in my garage, now I just need some more images (besides pix of Britta) to start Screen printing, so if you have any ideas send 'em my way!

Elizabeth : The Baby Whisperer

Elle: Before the baby whisperer got to her.

Elle: After the baby whisperer got her

1. bacon 2. beer

Put the two together and you've got bacon beer. See pic below :)

I was at the Sandlot last weekend and someone passed a cup my way, "I think you'll like this", they said. Boy did I! It was a bacon flavored beer. wow. I did some research and couldn't find too many of these around. I could down one of these easy whilst eating a baked potato...a night out dancing with the chicas...not so much.
above is an example of one of the few bacon beers I could find. I suggest you go to the grocery store, buy a potato, head to the liquor store, buy a Smoke Porter, head home, bake the potato, pop the top and en-joy!

It's Not About the Bike

It's about the beer.

We went on a bike ride from our house, over the river, through the woods, around the lake, up the hill through Aurora to Dry Dock Brewery.

Our Journey to the Brewery.
We made it...
And Jer was working! Sweet Brewery though, they sell growlers for 8 bucks. We've had many a growler in our fridge; I have lots of favorite brews from here, including their Hef, I.P.A., Vanilla Porter (more of a winter brew for me) and I tried a new one after our bike ride, I can't remember the name of it, but it had a lingering of honey in it, amazing!

Visual Vinyl

Visual Vinyl | A free event at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design

FREE WORKSHOPS · KTCL LIVE REMOTE · GIVEAWAYS
Tomorrow, August 19, 4 - 7 pm

Join us on the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design campus tomorrow for Visual Vinyl—where old school meets new school and music meets art. Come discover what makes RMCAD so special with a series of workshops that bring together art, music and sustainability.

The FREE workshops will include:
- reworking vinyl records into bowls and cuffs
- book binding using vintage album covers
- screenprinting with a musical theme

The crew from KTCL (93.3) will be on-hand doing a live remote and giving away a ton of goodies including an iPod Nano and Flip video camera.

And remember, if you haven't visited RMCAD yet, we have an Open House tomorrow right before the Visual Vinyl event—check-in starts at 1:30. You can meet with faculty, your admissions counselor and reps from financial aid, get a tour of campus and even get your portfolio reviewed.

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I'll be working the Screen Printing workshop in The Carpenter Building, come find me...we'll screen print together!

16 oz mug

This is such a perfect gift for so many amateur photographer friends I have. A mug that looks like a Cannon 24-105 mm lens, it even comes with a lid that looks like a lens cover!

You can buy one here, don't be surprised if YOU get one of these for a gift one of these days :)

Chocolate + Bacon

They've done it folks. Merged two of my favorite things, chocolate and bacon.

Even though these two items, separately, are some of my favorite things, I still had some reservations about merging the two to make one product.

Alas, I was not disappointed. Dark chocolate with a smokey, salty, bacon flavor...delish!

To my office mates: I have some of this delish chocolate in the fridge in my office, please come try it. Even if it sounds gross to you I encourage you to come have a little nibble, and if this concoction sounds like a dream come true to you, then by all means come take a giant chunk!

I need to get a piggy bank to start saving for a...

PULL BEHIND TRAILER!! holler!

My dad and I used to go hunting in a pop-up trailer...I never thought it was cool. Until now. I have fallen in love with the idea of owning a trailer. You can camp anywhere, you never have to stay in a grody hotel room, oh ya, and THEIR AWESOME.

Our pop-up growing up was nothin' to look at, a basic, boxy, off white trailer. Check out what they look like these days.

They also have these types of trailers called T@bs. I love them, they are so sleek looking. Their kitchens are all in the trunk area which is pretty cool. The kitchens are pretty big as far as trailer kitchens go.
And I loooove these add-ons for the T@bs, little screened in porches, you kind find all sorts of accessories here. R-A-D.
Trailers for bachelors...or super sweet chicas. Leather interior, is that a fireplace?!, skylights...yes please :)
As you can tell, trailers have come a long way since my childhood hunting trips. Dad, I think we should go with the leather-clad T@b trailer with a sun porch out front...everyone in Southern Iowa would be sooooo jealous of us...but don't even think about wearing your dirty, 'ol, smelly hunting clothes in here, this place is nice :)