I didn’t have an immediate vision when I was asked to design Melissa’s* baby shower invitation. Instead, I poked around for inspiration and found an image of vintage floral wallpaper online to use as a starting point. The pattern was cute and quaint, so I decided to take the quaint factor even further and create a design reminiscent of homemade crafts.

I love how a simple invitation can inspire party planning. Imagine—this is the type of shower where you’d serve blueberry cobbler. Where the fabric napkins come in assorted blue-and-white patterns. And where the table centerpiece is a white spray-painted tree decorated with hanging blue heart-tags!

*Names will always be changed.

This morning we walked about a mile in this suffocating heat (boo) to pick up our new artwork from the framer (yay). I bought this piece, “Pathway in the Rain,” from artist Nancy Park Barnes several months ago. The photo doesn’t do it justice—in person, the various layers and textures are so interesting—and I love how it ties together all the colors in our living room.

Now, just to clarify, I would probably never have chosen the grass-green couches myself (“Astroturf couches,” as someone once called them), but we’re volunteers, housed in a clean, fully-furnished apartment, so we try not to complain. Instead, I’ve done my best to neutralize the green by bringing in various shades of beige, tan, and terracotta. Plus, to make it seem like the green wasn’t a mistake, I’ve sprinkled other green accents around the room.

It has worked out amazingly well—when people walk in, they don’t just see Astroturf anymore. Now if I could only figure out where to hang this piece…

I’m a huge fan of black lace when it’s refined and ladylike, but I obviously can’t afford the Fall 2010 runway looks from Dolce & Gabbana, Christopher Kane, or Louis Vuitton (runway images below from Elle.com). Nor would I want to, since I’m about to give birth to a second child and can’t possibly imagine an occasion where I’ll have the opportunity to wear that kind of gorgeousness.

So instead, I’m ordering this ruched lace top from Forever21. Not only can I afford it, but even if I don’t get my pre-pregnancy body back, it’s inexpensive enough not to fret.

I recently entered a logo-design contest for a new company in North Carolina that guides restoration of natural ecosystems and historic homes. Most of the other entries were flat, simple, abstracted—and many of them quite good. I didn’t think it made sense to give the company another abstracted option when they had so many good ones to choose from already, so instead I went a different route and designed a more detailed, illustrative logo.

When you know nothing about your client, it’s impossible to know what they’re looking for, but I was excited to give them an illustrated option that felt like a smart cross between traditional and modern—hello, “restoration!”—and perhaps even stand out in a sea of two-color logos.

Perhaps knowing we’ll end up back in the U.S. next year is what makes me cling desperately to any expression of Mediterranean style. So when I saw DwellStudio’s New Peacock Citrine Duvet Set, I actually whimpered. This is what I want to come home to every day.

And while I’m sprawled out on this bedspread, by the way, I want to reach over and turn on Crate&Barrel’s Swell Table Lamp.

Well, hello. This is intimidating. For years I wrote silly, and sometimes emotional, accounts of my personal life, but now I’m redefining this blog to plug myself back into my profession and keep record of my work.

Not that “profession” is a very accurate term. I don’t actually have a profession, since I’m a stay-at-home mom. Yet once upon a time, I was a graphic designer, and I was passionate about—and getting paid for—creating beautiful things and problem-solving every day. I miss that.

So I’ve come back to this space to write about a part of my life that is so deeply meaningful to me that I can barely go five minutes without thinking about it. No one, in thousands of miles, knows that this part of my life defines who I am. People—are you there?—I’m back, and I’m seriously going to write about design.

Except… you’ll soon learn that there’s really nothing serious about it.