Lavender Kay

Good morning!  Thank you again for finding your way over to my new website!  I am so excited to move forward with Lavender Kay, and I appreciate you all being a part of it!  Today I wanted to post some instagrams from last weekend.  It has always been a dream of Jonathan’s to go to the Prefontaine Classic track meet in Eugene, Oregon and last weekend we got to go!  It was so much fun!  We got to see a lot Olympic medalists, and our personal favorite, Nick Symmonds!  Here are a few pictures from our trip!

top left: Jonathan and I at Pre! / top right: the 800m race with Nick Symmonds / bottom left: our favorite market in Corvallis – we had donuts outside before we left for Eugene / bottom right: outside Hayward Stadium before the race

Hi friends!  Thank you for finding your way over to my new blog design!  To re-subscribe you can just type your name into the little icon to the right, and you should be all signed up!

Today I am SO excited to share with you a branding project that I have been working on for awhile!  I got the opportunity to design the logo and business cards for an amazing non-profit company called Desert Serendipity.  The owner refinishes and sells vintage furniture, and she has made some amazing pieces!  This company is even more amazing because the proceeds go to Rehema/Instep Children’s Home in Kenya.  Now that is a company I want to buy my furniture from!

This was a really fun project for me, and I am so happy with the final product!  To start, we wanted to tie together modern and vintage elements to the brand.  For the logo I knew I wanted a design that would translate well onto a custom stamp so that it could be used on a diverse group of marketing materials.  Also, we wanted to have an illustrated element on the logo so that it could be used as a way to recognize the brand.  I love how the modern furniture turned out along with the splashes of paint behind them.

For business cards, we decided to go with a vintage theme and design them as old library cards.  Each business card slides into a cute kraft paper envelope, and then the logo is stamped onto the front of each envelope.  Here are a few pictures of the finished product.

 We had a custom stamp made for the logo, and we thought it would be fun to have the option to use black or white ink.

This project was a blast to work on, and I am so happy with how it all turned out!  Also, thank you again for making your way over to my new site!  I hope you like it!

Hello!  Today is a big day!  I finally get to check off a major goal from my January goal list!  I am so excited to announce to you all that I have finally chosen a new name for my blog! And, along with my new name I have created and designed a new website/blog.  This is something I have wanted to do for a long time but was intimidated by the idea of setting up a new URL and committing to a more permanent name.  But, I have finally taken the plunge so I present to you, lavenderkay.com!

I chose the name, Lavender Kay, because Kay is a very special name to me as it was my mother’s middle name, and I just like lavender.  This project has been a labor of love, and I have spent a lot of time getting it ready.  I am still working out all the bugs, and plan to make many more changes as time goes on, but I couldn’t wait any longer to show you my new site!

I really wanted to make it so that you didn’t have to re-subscribe to the new site, but I haven’t gotten that part figured out so if you don’t mind, I would love it if you re-subscribed to my blog at lavenderkay.com.  I would be sooo sad to loose any of you as followers, and would be honored if you just took 30 seconds to re-subscribe!  I also wanted to say thank you to you all for following along with me on the exciting journey!  I have loved reading your comments, and can’t wait to share so much more on my new site!

To celebrate my new blog, I have put together a new post on lavender kay that I have been wanting to share with you for a long time.  I worked on a really fun branding project that I would love for you to check out so stay tuned!

Good morning!  Can you believe it is Friday already?!  Do you have any plans for the weekend?   We are headed to Portland today, and Eugene tomorrow so it will probably be a pretty busy weekend!  We are REALLY excited for tomorrow because we have tickets to the Prefontaine Classic track meet!!  This is a very famous track meet Jonathan has always wanted to get tickets to.   The race we are especially anxious to see is the 800m race because it has almost all the runners from the Olympic finals, and should be a pretty good rematch!

I am also really excited to share some big news regarding my blog on Monday!  It is something I have been working on for a long time, and I can’t wait to share it with you!  So stay tuned for Monday, and have a wonderful weekend!

Hi dear friends!  I know I have been MIA lately, and I am so sorry.  Life threw a couple curve balls at us the past couple weeks so we have just been trying to recover from everything.

Two weeks ago I got a call from my dad letting me know that my Grandpa passed away.  It was very sudden, and definitely not something we were expecting.  He was ninety years old, but in good health and still living on his own.  He had just bought a new red car earlier this year, and was still playing pool with his friends every week.  My grandpa was one of the kindest and most loyal people I have ever known.  He had an amazing calmness about him, and it was a quality I deeply admired.  I will always cherish my memories of him.

There was a memorial service for him in my hometown last week that Jonathan and I drove home for.  He was also a WWII veteran so there was twenty one gun veteran tribute for him at the grave site.  Both the veteran service and the memorial service were very healing experiences for me.  It was special to hear stories about his life, and the way he loved others.  He will be greatly missed.

One thing I found that was especially hard about loosing my Grandpa was not being near my family during this rough time.  It was hard to feel like I was dealing with this grief alone.  I felt like I needed to have some quality time with my sister to really deal with my emotions and reflect on my Grandpa’s life.  But I will say, my amazing husband was so loving and supportive through the whole process, and I am so very grateful for him.

A lot of things have been going on since my last post that I can’t wait to update you on, but today I would like to just end with a cheers to my amazing Grandpa!  We love you Grandpa!

(image, via)

Hi there!  How is your week going?  We have been busy doing a lot of traveling lately so I thought I would share some of my recent instagrams from our travels.  We spent a long weekend in Kennewick, Washington awhile back so that we could fit in as much family time as we could before we move to the mid-west.  It was wonderful getting to play with our sweet nieces and nephews!  We also drove to Spokane a week ago to see friends and participate in Bloomsday.  The weather was perfect, and it was just the trip we needed to refresh us before our big move!

top left: walking through manito park with my sister / top right: our old house / bottom left: my sweet niece and nephew / bottom right: mojito party after we saw the great gatsby

Hello!  How is your week been treating you?  Ours has been pretty busy like usual!  As I am nearing the end of my program, the projects are piling in, and I am definitely starting to feel the pressure!  But, for the most part, the projects are pretty fun and exciting so I can’t complain.

Yesterday morning Jonathan finished up a 24 hour shift (thats right, 24 HOURS of work!), so we decided to celebrate with a curry picnic.  The weather is getting consistently nicer each day making it officially picnic season!  So we packed up a our tasty curry dinner with some mason jars and a bottle of wine and headed to the park.  It was fabulous being out in the sunshine soaking up some  fresh air!

I also thought it would be fun to round up some picnic season essentials.  The fabulous Kinfolk partnered with Apolis to bring us this picnic/garden bag.  Isn’t it amazing?!

1. Comfortable Tee 2. Picnic Bag 3. Sandals

Can you believe it is already May 7th!  I feel like this year is flying by, and I can barely catch my breath!  Jonathan and I are starting to look ahead because we realized we are moving to Milwaukee in six weeks!  I seriously can’t believe it!

To be honest, I have so many different emotions about moving.  Mostly, I am SO excited!  It will be so fun to explore a new city.  I am looking forward to feeling more settled too.  It has been weird living in Oregon, knowing we will be moving in a year.  With Milwaukee, we will be able to settle into the community and make friends.

On the other hand, I am overwhelmed by all the things we have to do before we leave.  My to do list seems to double in size every day!  And, it will be a major adjustment to live so far away from our friends and family!

But overall, I am overjoyed to move to Milwaukee!  I am ready for a change and an adventure!  I found the above picture when I was doing some research for a school project and I thought it was such fun map of the city.  It was designed by Marisa Seguin, and you can check out her other illustrations here!

Have a fabulous Tuesday!

Good morning! Happy Friday!  What are your plans for the weekend?  I am super excited because Jonathan and I are headed to Spokane for the weekend!  The annual Bloomsday race is on Sunday in Spokane so we plan to run it.  As most of you know, I am not a runner but my sister and I plan to run as much as we can and then just have fun walking the rest.  I am also really excited to see all our friends one more time before our big move!

Here is what I have been crushing on lately.  I LOVE this striped pencil skirt from J. Crew!  It’s just so beautiful and you could wear it with so many different things!

1. Cute tank 2. Pencil skirt 3. Wedges

Ps.  Sorry if you got an email last night about this post, my blog was acting strange!  Have a great weekend!

Hi friends!  I am so sorry I have been MIA!  Life has been a little hectic lately but, I am really hoping to get back to a normal schedule soon.  I have some exciting news I hope to share with you soon too!

In the mean time, I designed a May desktop calendar for you!  Enjoy!

 To download, right click on the picture and choose to open in a new window.  Then when the image shows up in a new window, right click and choose desktop background.