I have a million guilty pleasures. Really, my days are simply full of them in one form or another. It's probably not healthy to have so many, let along indulge in them as often as I do, but I do nevertheless, and I'm that much happier because of my lack of willpower.

Tuesdays are now "Guilty Pleasures" Day. I will share 3 each week, and would love to hear some of yours!

• Ghost Whisperer - This is what I watch at night when David isn't home to snicker at me. I love this show.
• Black fingernail polish - I simply love the stuff. Giving myself a manicure tomorrow.
• Little Caesars Pizza - And it has to be the pre-made, $5, been-sitting-in-the-warmer-for-God-knows-how-long pizza. Pepperoni. I can't think about it too much because I might gag, but Freakin'. Yum.

There are few things I love more in life than a design job that goes EXACTLY as planned. Sometimes there is just a perfect click between a designer and client, and my most recent logo design had a click that was almost audible. Before I get too philosophical about the goings-on of this design job, let me wrap this up...

A perfectly pleasant lady from Amewsme Photography contacted me last week to create a logo for her blossoming business. (This is the same photographer as the one who did the fabulous photos for BBs News - Wonderful!) She wanted a whimsical logo featuring 2 birds and a hand-drawn birdcage. She sent me lots of samples and gave me some great color ideas, then, she let me run with it. This fabulous logo is the result and we are both so please with the outcome.

In love...

This is the first of what I hope is very many really pretty desktop backgrounds I want to offer for download here on emmarie Designs Blog. Below you'll find links for "regular" and "wide-screen" versions. Just click the link and save the resulting image to your hard-drive, then load them on your desktop. If you have a Mac you'll do this by importing it into your iPhoto first. Windows users can just load it straight from their local folder.

This pretty pink circle design was inspired by the Mac background of tree rings that has had it's home on our desktop for weeks. David is a dendroecologist, which means we have tree ring things all over our house. I needed to make some girly tree rings. So, this is what I came up with. Enjoy!

Regular - 1280 x 1024 
Widescreen - 1680 x 1054

We went for a short walk the other day and returned with some darling photos of Lily. I just had to share.

The fab lady from Viva la Violette, who I met on Etsy over a year ago is having a crazygiveaway on her blog! I love Viva's stuff. We have collaborated on a couple of projects, including two Alice in Wonderland gift sets and a soon-to-come silhouette locket. She just announced on her insanely cute blog that she is starting monthly giveaways, and her first is going on now!

So visit her blog and enter! She's giving away 4 stationary sets, 2 sets of recipe cards, AND a $10 coupon code to her shop. Really, you can't get much better than that.

Go!

That's right. I'm looking for a new desk. My current one is fired.

Here are some that I've found searching the net. Now, the hard part: deciding.

VIKA GLASHOLM/ VIKA ANNEFORS from Ikea

VIKA AMON/ VIKA ALEX from Ikea

EXPEDIT from Ikea

Cottage Desk from Target

Hmm... whichever shall it be??

Lily had her first ever girly sleepover the other night, and apparently had a complete blast. Oh, the good old days. This hilarious photo of Lily on the slide is probably my current favorite photo of her. Stinkin' hilarious.

And this next one is only a crumb of things to come. They look as if they're sitting there talking about some boy or something. Gees.

Anyhoo, off to do some work. Ciao!

I'm not getting married, or anything of the sort, but I have become insanely entranced with wedding goodies. Most of the blogs I follow are wedding photography blogs, and I'm in love with Nonpariel, a new online magazine full of wedding goodies. You have to check this out. I'm in love...

I haven't done a project update in weeks. I have been gloriously working like a madwoman, but have finally found a few moments to share what I've been doing.

Eileen Garcia Photography came to me wanting me to clean up and simplify her blog. That's precisely what I did, and here is the result. This woman takes fabulous photos and is simply one of my favorite photo blogs.

Glitter and Pearls came to me as a start-up wedding blog. I created a custom logo as well as a custom Wordpress blog template. She shows such fun wedding ideas. You have to check her out.

Next we have 2 Birds in Love, who sells the most unique little bird seed favors. Love them. When I move I'm going to buy a few to put on our back porch so Lily can hear them "ticka ticka" {don't ask me, that's what she hears the birds say}. I created 2 Birds a shiny new logo, as well as a clean and sophisticated eCommerce template.

Hazel Brown Designs came to me wanting me to revamp her website and offer solutions for a simpler seller interface. We transferred her over to the ever-loved Pappashop and built her a new crafty template, as well as a new Wordpress blog template.

And we have Tapas Trays, who bought the works. Tapas Trays is a boutique selling fabulous handmade glass entertaining pieces, such as appetizer trays and coasters. They are spectacular! I purchased a wine coaster that I received this weekend and I am utterly in love with it. I plan to do a review of it for you all this weekend. Tapas bought the emmarie Supreme Package, which allowed me to do just about everything, making her site, blog, newsletter, web ads, and print items flow with a seamless similarity. I immensely enjoyed this project, and am so excited about the results.

And finally, we have Lily Burkman who came to me referred from another of my fabulous clients. Lily Burkman was wanting a bright and funky website to compliment her gorgeous products. My Lily is getting one of these towels when her site is ready to launch. I created Lily Burkman a new logo with a funky hand-drawn day lily flower, and created a new eCommerce template for her site.

So this is what I've been filling my time with for the past couple of weeks. I have a few more projects that I'm working on currently and will present those when they're ready.

Ciao!

Yup. Fungus.

Our new home in North Carolina is a log cabin. I love the rustic feel of being surrounded by woods, but hate country decor. With a passion. Really hate it. Haha!

So, I've done a lot of thinking about how I can make our new house contempory and classy, while still keeping a very natural feel, without crossing that very fine line into rustic country. Yeehaw. One way I'm going to do this is by filling my walls with modern nature photography, framed with crisp white mats and black frames.

With that said, Lily and I went for an adventure yesterday looking for fungus. Here are our finds...

And, of course, I can't go anywhere with a camera and not take pictures of Bug.

We had a lot of fun. She's a nut.

But I'm thinking that my vision for our new home will come together quite nicely. I'll be in search of fungus for a few more weeks I'm afraid. I absolutely love how these turned out!