Planning to be Organized || Design Love

A quick glance at my pinterest boards will show you that I am slightly OCD and slightly obsessed with organizing, especially pretty ways of organizing.

I've used planners throughout high school, or at least I started off each school year using a planner, but every year I got very bored and unmotivated to use it mainly due to it's plain design or not very helpful or useful layouts.

As I've started to  prepare to head off to college this fall, I knew I wanted to find a planner I would actually use. The only problem was...there was none that I really, really liked. So instead (and call me crazy if you wish), I made my own. I used the same digital scrapbooking software that I've used for the past four years to design anything and everything from my logo to my blog headers to my fb headers (because I'm still haven't caved and bought photoshop or other "real" design software).

And so with absolutely no calendar templates and no "shortcuts" I designed an entire 12 month, 365 day planner for the 2014-2015 academic year.

Each monthly spread has a place for notes on the side as well as important holidays/feast days and my family members' birthdays.

And each weekly spread has a place for goals for that week as well as a daily Scripture reading assignment. (I'm a huge planner and have found that the only way I can successfully read my Bible each day is if I have daily reading selections planned out.)

And each weekly spread has room for additional notes on the bottom of the left page and there is a different quote on each left hand page. :) 

I even designed some pretty note book type pages for the back :)

So there you have it, and yes it's true I did spend a ridiculous amount of time on this project of mine, but I am so in love with the results and I can't wait to start using it in August. :)

-mk

A Peak Inside || Design Love

Last summer we switched some bedrooms around, my brother moved into my former bedroom in the basement and I moved into our former office/computer room on our family room level (we live in a split level house).

My previous bedroom was painted tan (my choice 5 years ago, after being sick of the HOT pink bedroom I picked out as a 10 year old). However, starting sometime in the last year or two I began to really dislike the tan, so when I knew I was going to get to start over from scratch with my new bedroom I took to pinterest to figure out what I was really drawn too. And after going through all my hundreds of pins in my "someday house" board, I realized that I LOVE grey walls. There is just so much you can do with a grey base! And so I found the perfect shade of grey and announced to my parents that I wanted my new room to be painted grey...well they did not see the potential that I saw. lol. So last summer, my dad painted my room and kept saying the whole time how he felt like he was painting a prison cell (he's a little on the dramatic side :P).

But once it was dry and I moved in and decorated, my whole family had to admit that grey was a pretty great choice :)

And that camera on the right? That's a pencil sharpener :D

I suppose you can say my style is pretty eclectic but it always comes back to turquoise, hints of vintage, and art. And I love giving things a new purpose, like using Japanese vases as my pencil holders, and a spiral clothing rack in place of a wardrobe (my room doesn't have a closet) and a vintage cabinet for a dresser :)

My sister says my room reminds her of a studio loft for some reason...I take that as a compliment!

-mk

P.S.

For those of you wondering, I found the spiral clothing rack online by googling "round clothing rack". And almost all the art on my walls is either my paintings or photography, the exception being the square rose picture, the black and white NYC postcards in the white frames, and the tiny Paris painting. Oh and I made all my decorative pillows by finding pillows in the shapes I wanted at thrift stores and sewing new covers out of skirts/shirts that I also found at thrift stores.  :)

Capitol Cherry Blossoms

I've never been in D.C. when the cherry blossoms are in bloom before, and I knew it was something I wanted to see this year! Cecilia and I decided to spend the day in D.C. this past Saturday and it was a glorious day. Sure it was extremely crowded, but the weather was perfect and we still had a blast.

We started our day out at the Botanical Gardens next to the Capitol building before walking down the National Mall all the way past the Monument to the Cherry Blossoms.

-mk

The J Family || York, PA Family & Lifestyle Photographer

It was a gorgeous day, the light was perfect and I could not have asked for a better family to photograph! Although it took a lot to get their little guy to smile and look at the camera, we managed to wiggle some smiles out through the help of bubbles, swings, and tickles. ;)

Thank you for once again entrusting me to capture your beautiful family! :)

-mk