Fall Nails

I'm craving darker, deeper hues for my nails these days...but I still need a pop of color to perk up the rainy days ahead. I really love the rich colors here. And how cute is that polka-dot lid on the Top Shop polish?

Top:
butter London, in Silly Billy
Tom Ford, in Fever Pink
NARS, in Fury

Bottom:
Topshop 'Cream' Nail Polish, in Sketch
Ciate 'Tweed & Tails' Paint Pot
butter London, in Royal Navy

Hope you have a fun long weekend!

Book Review: Just My Type

Here's a confession: I judge books by their covers. For that matter, I also judge restaurants and clothing stores by their logos and signage, too. I can't help it. I have a bit of a font problem. So much so, in fact, that being out and about is dizzying for me. I can't drive down the freeway without analyzing billboards, road signs, and bumper stickers. As I drive, I'm identifying fonts and solving problems with spacing. I've even told Bryce, "I could never eat at that restaurant. They used the wrong font on their sign." Yikes. My name is Christina Williams, and I'm a fontaholic. Feel free to stage an intervention.

It's probably no surprise that I picked up the book Just My Type: A Book About Fonts. Not only does it have a great cover...excellent use of spot UV with the black-on-black, but the words inside the cover are great, too. Garfield examines everything from printing methods, to movie posters, road signs all with a sense of humor. He touches on some hot-button font controversies (Comic Sans, anyone?) including the IKEA font change and movie posters gone bad. Scattered throughout the book, you'll find history lessons on some of the more enduring, timeless fonts and the people who created them. I highly recommend this book. But I warn you: You'll never look at a billboard the same way again.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

We lived in San Francisco a number of years ago when Bryce was in dental school. Our big splurge came in the form of a Friday night out to eat. I'd strap Hudson into his carseat in the backseat of my white Pontiac Sunfire coupe, pick Bryce up at school and we'd head downtown to Chipotle. We'd go all-out, ordering chips AND guacamole with our meal. We spent our date night chatting about our respective days, people-watching the art student crowd so plentiful in the neighborhood, and passing Baby Hudson back and forth so we could each get a bite every once in a while. This became our tradition for many Fridays. 

And to top off our evening, we'd either walk to Beard Papa's for a cream puff (which is a delicacy deserving a post all of its own), or we'd head over to the Tom's Cookies station at the mall. I almost always got the butterscotch oatmeal cookie; but the one with the giant Reese's peanut butter cup baked into the middle was a close second. After dental school, Tom passed away, and the shop closed. No trip to San Francisco has been the same for me since. When I get homesick for the City that stole my heart, I whip up a batch of my own Oatmeal Butterscotch cookies. They'll never be the same as Tom's, but they do bring back a lot of great memories.

If you'd like my recipe, I created a little printable recipe card just for you. 

Download my printable recipe card here.

New Kids in the Shop

Photographing my new paper goodies has been on my to-do list for way too long. One thing that's a tricky about moving is figuring out the light in the new house. It takes me a while to find the location with the best light at just the perfect time of day. I'm still fine-tuning things a bit, but I've got a huge stash of new stuff just begging to hit the virtual shelves in my shop.

The first two items in the new lineup are versions of my classic recipe cards. This time a pink polka-dot and a grey lattice print. Stay tuned as I wade through the stacks of other new items.

Paper Popsicles

Charlotte has a newly-discovered love of crafting. And I'm tickled pink that she's happy for hours cutting and gluing and creating. I don't even mind that she's used up all of our paper plates and straws and rolls and rolls of tape making her inventions. I love seeing the workings of her imagination become reality.

Over the weekend, we raided my paper stash and my craft supplies to see what we could come up with. We settled on making paper popsicles. Their simple shape makes for a quick, easy project. And I just happen to have piles and piles of popsicle sticks around that I'm happy to put to good use.

Charlotte picked all the papers and taped the sticks on the back. Glitter paper is a huge hit with the 3-year-old crowd. She assigned me the task of cutting out the popsicle shapes. Later that evening, I caught her gluing wiggle-eyes to the popsicles, and then the Popsicle Family put on a little play for us. That Sister Popsicle is quite a sassy little thing, I tell you. If you're not into Popsicle drama, I think they would make cute decorations or invitations to an end of summer BBQ.

P.S. I created a little printable Popsicle Template, so you can just print, cut and get to work. Download the template for free here.

Happy Crafting!

Trick it Out With Macaroni

It's pretty clear what my week's been like when the highlight is a Bubble Guppies music video. The other main events of my week included a stomach virus and a trip to the DMV. Not a the same time, thank goodness. But Bubble Guppies win, hands down.

After our cookies were thoroughly tossed, we logged some serious couch time while the body aches subsided. I spent the entire night in the hallway; alternately helping, caring, cleaning and pacing between the un-sick children's rooms paranoid that I could hear them woofing, too. Every time one of the kids gets sick, I panic that I'm going to get it, too. Then my stomach starts to hurt (hypochondriac, much?) But I'm not a cookie-tosser by nature. I thought this was just another one of my psychological stomach aches...but no such luck. I joined the party, too. Being sick and being the mom is just downright cruel.

Anyway, after having a pretty big bummer of a week, this video made my day. Not to mention that my kids love the song Poker Face...so even they thought this was funny. I've caught myself numerous times today singing "p-p-p-pencil" case. Just listen to it. I dare you. ;)

Now I gotta go get some macaroni so I can make one glammed up pony.

A Summer of Change

This summer has been a whirlwind. We moved to a new state (again). We bought our first house (terrifying and exciting all at once). And B started a new job. School starts next week for the kids. 2nd grade for Hudson and "official" preschool for Charlotte.

I'm still recovering from all the packing and unpacking...and I'm a little overwhelmed with all the possibilities of decorating our first home. But it's coming along nicely. And then there's the yard work. I guess one of the benefits of moving into a home with an established yard is that we don't have to baby and nurture it and hope things grow. We have exactly the opposite problem. It's a jungle out there. See that large purple branch behind me? It looks particularly menacing. Like it's going to wrap itself around my neck. Or at least tap me on the shoulder and pretend it was the geranium next door. I'll sneak out tonight with my pruning shears and teach it a thing or two. If I don't come back, you'll know where to find me.


One of the more minor changes this summer is that I finally decided to embrace my naturally wavy hair. My hair was stick straight for years...until this guy came along. Now that I'm back in Utah, I've reconnected with my favorite hair stylist, and she gave me remedial lessons on how to handle my crazy hair. It sure beats wrestling with my flat iron every morning. 

And one mention that's way overdue. My new glasses. The kind people at Firmoo were sweet enough to send me a free pair. They were so easy to work with. My pupillary distance wasn't listed on the option menu when I ordered my glasses (I must have a freakishly beady eyes), but I shot them a quick email and they took care of it lickety-split. The glasses took a little getting used to. I'm used to having my lenses thinned down since I'm blind as a bat. But after a while, I keep finding myself reaching for these glasses over my others. Since their glasses are so inexpensive, I thought I'd be disappointed in the quality, but I'm pleased to say they're wonderful. This style is the one I got. And they have a program going where you can get your first pair free. Check out the links for more info.

I'll be back soon with some new paper goodies for my shop, and some bits and pieces of my progress on our home. Have a good rest of your summer!