I've been completely, 100% slacking these past few weeks. The past three months have been a complete whirlwind. I promise that the weeks were shortened to hours, and a whole month would pass in a matter of days. Argue with me if you'd like but ask any school age child I'm sure they would agree!

Anyways, a lot of big changes have been happening since May and I can't wait to share them! As this summer dwindles down to its final few weeks I hope to be spending a lot more time on this lovely space. I'll give more details soon!

Who is Miss Chelsea?

If you're curious where my blog name came from, you can find that story here.

I'm Chelsea - almost was Carla Ann (a combination of my grandparents middle names - Carl & Ann - but my parents changed their mind on that one!)

I grew up the daughter of a hairstylist and an auto body mechanic. If that doesn't have "hands-on perfectionist" written all over it, I don't know what does.

Truth is, I'm all over the place, I love altering, envisioning, beautifying, fixing, manipulating, exploring, and just plain figuring things out. I sew, I quilt, I scrapbook, I blog, I travel, I read, I shop, I love antiques and most things "old", I enjoy finding a story behind something. Naturally, I ended up in the art field. I'm more of a hands-on kind of gal, but the computer and I get along quite well.

I graduated with a BFA in Visual Communications in May of 2009, and have been working as a graphic designer for a liquor distributor ever since the summer of my junior year of college. There's never a dull moment around the house of booze, and I've learned more than I may ever need to know about bars, cocktails and POS (point-of-sale, not pieces of shi-caca!)

I'm passionate about learning, but not necessarily in the school sense. I can't just sit on a coach watching tv, my mind goes wild and starts yearning for something more... if I see someone planting flowers on HGTV I think "I want to grow sunflowers!" and go buy a packet of seeds. That's what TV does to me... adds more busy-ness to my life!

I've inherited a love of travel. My grandparents have gone all around this great earth, and in my mind it goes hand-in-hand with my desire to learn. I thrive on being completely immersed in a new culture and having to basically "learn your way out".

Much of my personality can be summed up by my astrological sign. I'm a Libra. I have a very critical eye and notice details, comes in handy with a career in the arts, not so much in real life. I pick things apart and over-analyze something to it's death. I always consider the opposing view and others feelings (Probably why I chose yellow as my favorite color as a kindergartner. I don't even like yellow, but I didn't want it to feel left out when everyone else was picking pink and blue and orange!)



To be honest, I started blogging as a prerequisite to graduate (somewhere to show my work, a virtual portfolio) but it has since become something so much more. I love having a space to share me, my thoughts and my life, everything I am and hope to become. I have loved meeting all my "invisible friends" scattered across the country and enjoy being able to look back on everything since I began writing!

May showers bring may flowers!

I haven't posted on here in about a week - my apologies - between graduating and adjusting to working full time again things have been a little crazy!

I'm still trying to shake that mindset of getting off work and stressing out about projects that are waiting for me at home. I'm getting better though. Give me a break!

Anyways, I was at Lowe's a couple weeks ago and found myself wandering around the seed aisle. It's not that odd, really, I can remember being a little girl following my mom around the yard while she planted flowers. I would like to say "I remember helping my mom..." but in all actuality I probably just trailed behind her with Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets in tow. 

I blame her for my newfound obsession with growing things. I'm not sure if I have this subconsciese feeling of worthlessness or what, but the fact that I can plant zinnia seeds and they are sprouting in 2 days is the perfect instant gratification a girl like me needs!

1 packet of giant sunflowers, 2 packets zinnias and 2 packets aster seeds later I am now officially an obsessive gardner. I literally feel like I could sit outside all day and watch them grow and be perfectly content. 

I think I need to get a puppy or something. Ay yi yi! In the meantime I'm lusting after these lovely ladies 

19-piece garden tool set - in PINK!

Tell me that doesn't make you want to go plant something! ;)

Possibly the most fun I've had all day

I have to turn in my portfolio tomorrow, and have been putting this off all semester. What is it about creating business cards for yourself that is so difficult? If I was making these for anyone else I could have knocked em out in a day, but for I've changed this lil baby about 60x over the course of 3 months. It's actually quite ridiculous, I know!

They may not be the best, but I think one of the fun parts about being a designer is that you have the freedom to change things like these. In 2 weeks I can update the colors and print new ones, if I run out in 3 months I can change the whole design, heck, if I get married, change my number and begin designing via morse code I can adjust all of that. And it's expected! No one wants to see the same boring thing on your business cards for years and years, what's the fun in that?! I'm supposed to be "creative" so you better believe I'm gonna be!

(I'll be printing these hot little numbers tomorrow... I'll be sure to post pictures of how they turn out!)

I'm having my cake, and eating it too

Last minute Lucy that I am, I waited until the week of my graduation to order my cake for the open house. To be honest, I'm not even a big cake fan. I'm one of those people who picks the small, middle piece and then scrapes all the icing off. So while I gave my best closing arguments, mom and boyfriend still convinced me that other people eat cake and we needed to have a cake at my open house. 

If you can't win you might as well join em, right? So I walked into the cake store aiming to be their Most Difficult Customer of the Day award. No, I don't want a round cake. No, I don't want buttercream icing. No, I don't want any writing on my cake. No, I don't want 3 tiers. and No, I don't want anything on the top of the cake. 

C'mon, I'm a design student - did you really think this would be easy? 

After flipping through all 12 of their photo albums I decided to play the create-your-own-cake game. (Figures that this was the one day I didn't have my sketchbook and pen with me). A good 20 minutes later we settled on a square topsy-turvy cake (the ones where they look like one layer is going to slide off the other). The bottom layer would be red velvet cake with cream cheese filling and white fondant, the top layer a vanilla cake with raspberry filling and red fondant. The pattern on the fondant is still undecided, we settled on diamonds of the opposite color, but the lovely lady gave me until Wednesday if I changed my mind.

You better believe I'm taking this Indiana University color scheme to the limits! 

So, being lil miss google-addict, the minute I got home I was searching high and low for cake ideas. These are some of my favorites I've found.... I just love the smooth, matte look of fondant! 

I can't decide if I want to dive right in and eat these or put them in the middle of my kitchen island as a shrine until they melt and/or get moldy (I'm not sure how fondant ages - are you?). I've always had an addiction with Ace of Cakes, but now I just want to create how to do these myself!

I'm getting a little worried about only having two layers. That figures - my stubbornness comes back to bite me in the ass yet again. Oh well. I think I'm going to print these pictures off and go have a little heart-to-heart with the lovely girls at the bakery tomorrow.