Orange home

Orangify your home with these furnishings! Rug, dishes, sofa, bookcase, screen, chair, bins, pillow.

Orange wardrobe

Orange Week continues! Top, unmentionables, solid dress, socks, striped dress, shoes, jeans.

Orange art

Welcome to Orange Week, featuring a healthy dose of orange goodness every day. I'm on vacation this week, but pre-scheduled posts will keep the blog living up to its name. Artwork kicks things off! Perhaps you need gin, Johnny Cash, bikes, or a llama?

Or try birds, kitty, coffee, or cart.

Free font: Trocchi

If you're up for a Friday freebie, you might go grab Trocchi, a Clarendon-like slab serif type family by Vernon Adams. Bold and regular weights are available for download right here at Font Squirrel.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day holiday, everyone! I'm on vacation next week, but I've prepared some posts ahead of time. I'm designating it Orange Week. Prepare to feast your eyes on orange galore! I've scoured the internet for the best orange things to put on, carry around, gaze at, sit on, and decorate with.

Make a simple, stitched vinyl wallet

My hubby Alex likes to carry around a slim, fold-in-half vinyl wallet sometimes, but his isn't quite the right size to fit a dollar bill folded in half. He has to perform some kind of weird origami quarter-fold to make cash fit, so I thought I'd see if I could make a better one.

Tragically the fabric store didn't have orange vinyl, but I made do. I used one color for the outside and another for contrasting pockets. (I folded the wallets a little bit crooked in the photo above so you can see a hint of pocket peeking out.)

These would be simple gifts to whip up as graduation presents or Father's Day gifts, and especially fun with cash or a gift card tucked inside.

The measurements I used:
Outer piece = 4.5" x 6.5"
Each pocket = 4.5" x 2.5"

Or adjust as needed to make business card holders, recipe card holders, you name it.

On the outer piece, get crazy with your sewing machine and stitch some lines using contrasting thread. I made some straight stitches on one version, then tried one of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine that I never use.

Instead of backstitching to secure the ends of the decorative stitches (that's unsightly!) pick at the last stitch on the reverse side until you can pull the thread from the front side back through and then knot the loose ends. Secure all the stitches this way.

Then sew on the two pockets by stitching around the edges of the wallet. When you're finished, slice off any overhanging bits with a rotary cutter and a ruler to tidy up the edges.

Free vintage printable images

Vintage Printable is a fascinating (though difficult to browse) archive of vintage photos, illustrations, and page scans. Files vary in resolution and the usage restrictions are a bit murky; most state "image in the public domain believed to be free to use without restriction in the US." I wouldn't build a corporate ad campaign based on "believed to be," but you could certainly make yourself some wall art, desktop wallpaper, or fun projects for personal use. Via Curbly.

Free Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials

Those who want to learn useful techniques in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and photography might be interested in Nicole's Classes. Find an ever-growing series of free video tutorials, how-tos, and downloads. Or sign up for classes you can take at home in the comfort of your pajamas (one of my favorite working uniforms, I admit). New, helpful content is posted every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Here's an example of one of the goodies offered on the site: printable Summer Reading bookmarks in two designs. Help yourself right here and learn a couple of Illustrator tips along the way.