Gosh, its been awhile since we’ve done one of these! In Seattle we are having a stretch of insanely beautiful weather, and while I haven’t been at my computer pinning a ton, I have been feeling inspired and I thought I’d pass some of that inspiration along. These are my five favorite recent pins:

This palette for summer entertaining (with the added bonus of being able to reuse for the wedding)

This rope tub from the Container Store. Patio ice bucket, blankets for outdoor movie night (can you tell I’m feeling summer in my core)

A simple but INSANELY beautiful arrangement of garden lilacs. From Martha, of course.

My friend Lexy painted these votives. I just bought a couple similar ones from Target to play with for colorful centerpieces, and I may DIY the rest with this technique so cut down on costs. (Lexy also just found out she’s having a baby GIRL. Go leave congrats!)

DYING over this Canned with Love Stamp. Want to put it on my birthday list, but I will have already canned so many things before August, I’m not sure I can wait.

You can find me on Pinterest here and D on pinterest here. Leave your pinterest link in the comments, we’d love to be friends!

From the depths of my study carrel, it came to my attention that its National Architecture Week again. I’m hoping to share some current inspiration and stories later this week and maybe next, but until then I thought I’d share posts from last year’s NAW and some of our other architecture inspired posts.

Architecture Week 2012 Post Roundup

Material Juxtaposition

Why Can’t Architects Wear Pink

And. .  . NEON!

While I’m at it, I thought I’d ask – what would you all like to know about the field of architecture or about particular buildings (historic and current)? I’d love to talk about our field of study more in this space, but it would be great to know what would be most fascinating.

Have you guys seen Tammie Bennett’s new Dear Universe project? She’s combining her awesome illustration skills with a weekly prayer to those in need. Its really very heartfelt and clever – go follow along. I’ll be sharing more on a recent collaboration with Tammie in the next couple weeks, but needless to say she’s pretty awesome.

Anyway, the Test Takers prayer illustration is really hitting home right now. After a couple years of procrastination, I finally got off my butt to study for my Architect Registration Exams.  Every year I kept saying I’d study in the fall when the weather got crummy, but then it would be the holidays, and then suddently springtime again and I couldn’t justify wasting the Seattle summer. But, with the wedding on the horizon, I figure I’d better get my act together before I have Erik home as a major distraction

I won’t bore you with the nitty gritty but the basics of the exam are that there are 7 portions (each taken individually), all of which have both a multiple choice section as well as a graphic “vignette” where they give you a word problem and you have an hour to draft up a solution using their stone-age proprietary software. My first test is tomorrow! I signed up for one that was a medium-level difficulty topic for me, not super hard, but also saving the easiest ones for the end to hopefully coast through this fall. My goal is to have them all done by this time next year. These tests are what finally enable you to legally be called an “Architect”, so it’ll be nice to cross that one off the Life List.

So, if its quiet and/or uninspired around here, you probably can know the next test is pending and send me all the good testing prayers and vibes you want – I won’t turn ‘em down!

Wedding planning is coming along. We have our venue, our photographer (who also shot our engagement photos), and I have a dress (! more on that soon). Oh, and I have shoes. So really, I’m set haha. There are a couple of really fun design projects that I’ve enlisted some blog friends to help with along the way, so I thought I out to share our inspiration board that I’ve put together.

I knew from the building that I loved the richness and texture of renovated industrial venues. I’ve been constantly inspired by the fetes i’ve seen thrown at The Foundry in NY and Lucques in LA. So, we were looking to set that as the backdrop and infuse the decor with a bit of fresh color for the springtime, and some midcentury touches to reflect our vintage aesthetic. After a couple of iterations, this is what we came up with:

My favorite color is obviously turquoise, and erik loves bright warm oranges and yellows, so we’re balancing that against the brick backdrop. And add in twinkle lights and some sparkle, naturally. I’m hesitant to really pick “wedding colors” per se, I think we’ll just go with what we love and it will all come together organically (or in a giant colorful explosion). Either way, we’ll be ecstatic.

I was originally going to share the evolution of this board to show how it evolved after we really started to look at how it was reflecting US and not just what I thought was pretty. But thats where the exciting news comes in. Later this spring, I’m going to start contributing as a “Blogging Bride” over at the lovely site Engaged & Inspired. I’ll be sharing weekly inspiration and lessons learned from our wedding planning journey, so I’m sure I’ll be getting more in depth into all our inspiration over there. I’ll let you guys know once those start and can’t wait to let loose all the details!

One last post to wrap up the love month we just left behind Last week I shared with you my contribution to the 2013 handmade valentine swap and I promised I’d show you what I received. In short – they were all amazing!

This year my swap partners were Nikki from The Salty Pineapple (coincidentally also my Alt Summit Roomie!), Michaela from Develop and Capture (a fellow Seattleite!), Cristine from Christhingsss (all the way from the Philippines!) and a new non-internet friend, Allyl. I also arranged to swap Valentines with my local bud Andrea Victoria, but I was a bad bad friend and failed to hold up my end of the bargain But don’t worry, I’m sending something else special to make up for it

These gals all created such special little treats, including confetti (in my personal fave color scheme), heart themed office supplies and a CUTE turquoise pin for me to wear (hello wedding!). I didn’t catch Christine’s lovely card in these photos because it JUST arrived from the Philippines a couple days ago, but she shared her wonderful work here and you should DEFINITELY go check them out.

Aren’t these all so amazing? I’m always blown away by the creativity of my friends online and in real life.

These also gave me a chance to play around with my new 50mm 1.4 lens. What do you think?? Sure makes photoshoots in the Seattle winter a whole lot easier.