Disclaimer: There are no Sex & the City spoilers in this post if you happen to be one of those who haven’t seen the movie yet, it’s safe to keep reading

Last weekend I went with my girls (love them!) to see Sex & the City the movie. At the end of the movie we were all commenting on how much we loved the LOVE picture on the wall of Carrie’s refashioned apartment. It so happens that the 4 of us that saw the movie together are all artists/designers of some nature so we thought if we could just get a better look at that design we might be able to make something similar for ourselves.

It took me some digging around but I did get a hold of it!

The piece is actually a needlepoint wallhanging made of wool and silk (translation — not in Elysa’s budget) designed by Paul Smith called Love Too. I found The Rug Company who carries this beauty through Casa Sugar’s post Get the Look: Carrie’s Redecorated Digs.

I’m most likely moving in August so I do have it on my list to create something similar for my new digs.

Haaaapppppppyyyyy blogiversary to me [insert awful singing voices here]. April 20th was my 1 year blogiversary!

What I learned through my first year of blogging …

• It’s quite complicated to write an introduction to something that you’ve never done but I think this first year has turned out pretty close to what I planned - What is GenPink?
• For me comments make me feel like I’m in a popularity contest at school. I love it when I have a lot of comments on my posts. My first high commented post was Top 5 ways to entertain yourself when you are bored [at work]
• The more I blogged the more blogs I began reading and the more things I wanted to share with my readers. That’s how I first started deciding to do occasional roundup of fun things I liked around the web.
• Since the internet is such a vast sea of information it’s very cool when you are connected or compared to some of the big names. My first experience with this was being apart of The W List: Outstanding Women Bloggers and then came The Twenty Something Bloggers (20SB) network.
• After being linked with other bloggers I decided I wanted to have bloggers join my blog. I started having various guest bloggers in September and have continued this through the Twenty Something Advice series and then in March with The ABCs of Gen Y
• I learned that I loved it when other people blog about me. It’s fun to have 5 minutes of internet fame.
• I also learned that mini-blogging and twittering can be a fun edition to blogging.
• Something interesting I discovered is sometimes it’s the short posts that ask a great question spark more conversation that the more in-depth posts.
• With blogging as in life it’s fun to receive awards.

and last but not least … the blogging world has taught me that people love give-aways so

How do you enter? That’s fairly simple, just go leave a comment on any of my posts from the last year. I will keep track of all of the commenters from now until May 1 and I will announce the winner Friday, May 2. Linking to this post from your blog will get you another entry into the pot and linking to any of my previous posts/series will also get you a chance. So you have a possibility of being entered 3 times.

My life has been a complete and utter roller coaster the last week (maybe two) so I decided my advice for this Thursday is to myself … have some fun! Life is not as serious as you make it! There you go that’s my advice. And in keeping with my advice I decided I’d share with my lovely freaders my love of t-shirts. I don’t love just any ‘ol tshirt though. I have a love and appreciation (oh course) for designery graphicy t-shirts.

So I was very excited when I heard about a fun resource for t-shirt artistry. I’m sure everyone knows of Threadless. If you don’t you’re missing out. And today I’d like to introduce you to … dun duh duh Pop Culture Tees.

Featuring new designs from the hottest retailers and indie artists, tips ‘n tricks, and interviews from industry experts, Pop Culture Tees delves into the world of creative t-shirt design.

I have a hard time deciding but I think I’ll say this has been my favorite so far.

or perhaps this one

or maybe this (if it came in another color - perhaps pink!)

The moral of the story is go check them out!

PS - Olivia you’d like this one.

My name is Elysa and I am a creative snob. Well no not really, but I am definetly inclined to befriend creatives. I do know there are some people who, as they say, "don’t have a creative bone in thier body" but honestly I find that hard to believe. Either way, even those who don’t do art can still have an appreciation for art.

Being that I am a doer and an appreciator of art I have an affinity for discovering new (to me) artists on a regular basis. The internet makes this quite simple for me. Although there are several sites to discover new artists I love the simplicity of the website Artist of the Day. I like to start my mornings with some sort of visual inspiration, this website (well actually the feed) makes this quite simple for me.

On another note: I know there are several of you guys who are artists, you should submit your work and perhaps we will see you featured in the Artist of the Day feed. And when you become rich and famous remember the small people who helped you get there

Too much work to do today to blog so I thought I’d give you some linkage. Since my work entails "playing" in photoshop, illustrator and the other lovely Adobe programs here are some of my favorite adobesque links. By the way corporate design doesn’t call much for fun brushes and such but they are nice to have on hand for side projects.

Photoshop

• Anything and everything from PSDTUTS check out Best of Web-November that’s a great place to start
• 100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes
• 375 Free Photoshop Brushes
• 51 Text Effect Tutorials Every Designer Should See
• 60 Advanced Adobe Photoshop Tutorials
• The Best 80 Photoshop Text Effects on the Web

Illustrator

• Vector Magic
• Vecteezy
• Free Vectors
• Illustrator Techniques
• Illustrator Tutorials
• Smashing Magazine Collection of Illustrator Tutorials

InDesign

• InDesign Secrets
• Layers Magazine InDesign Tutorials

Do you find yourself doing the same thing you do for work in your spare time? I do design both for my work and for fun.

I am obsessed with changing my wallpaper on my computers (yes there are more than one). Between work and home I regularly use 3 different computers. I have a 23" Mac monitor at work that is amazing at home I have an iMac and a PowerBook. I used to change my wallpaper on each computer once a month, which means weeding through bunches of designs to find the perfect 3.

About a month about I found Desktoptopia and I have been in love oh wait it’s weird to love your computer very happy since the day I downloaded it. My favorite thing about it is I have it set to change my background every 5 hours.

My professors used to tell us that designers should have a gray or neutral background to not distract you in your working environment. I completely disagree, I think designers need inspiration. Or at least this designer does!

This is the background that came up today.

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I am in the process of redesigning GenPink (cue anticipation sound) so I found this post on How to properly steal the design of a website pretty entertaining.

First things first, admit it: you suck. You’re a moron and a cheat. It’s likely that you’ll never ever really achieve anything in life because you lack the talent to create or to do anything for yourself. In fact the act of dressing yourself in the morning is the closet you will ever come to doing something for yourself.

Since I mentioned the redesign, are there any features/additions you’d like to see on the new and improved GenPink?

I want this chair!

You can see more info about this crazy thing here via 9rules

After working 11 hours today I decided to spend my down time browsing the blogosphere and found a hilarious post through my blogging buddy Michelle - 8 ways to drive a graphic designer mad.

This couldn’t have come at a better time.

I’m going to add a #9 in there Groy -

#9 Text - Do everything possible to make sure that the designer has to key in all of the text for your project. You can accomplish this by sending over hand written copy or better yet FAX over your typed text. The fax will give the designer the privilege of retyping your text knowing that somewhere someone already typed all of this up. If the designer asks for digital files claim ignorance on sending attachments.

I found a great post today through sk*rt of The Magical List of Outstanding Women Bloggers. I am always excited to find new blogs to feed my addiction (and my reader), especially women bloggers.

There are over 150 women bloggers listed. One issue I had with this thorough list - it’s not categorized and there is no way to know what each blog is without visiting each one individually. I guess that’s two issues. So …

Here is the continuance of the outstanding women bloggers list, with blog descriptions. I look forward to making my way through these new blogs.

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