A New Year Begins

Colourful Stationery

A New Year begins with a blend of old and new. I decided to actually use some of the scrumptious stationery that I keep saving for a special day, a special project. Why not start the year by making 2010 special, I thought, and broke in my orange leather note and sketchbook with some sketches for fabric designs.

One of my Christmas presents was a new diary from Swedish Ordning & Reda, whose range of funky, colourful stationery make your eyes smile!

For daily use, I like the calligraphy pen and packs of gel ink pens from earth-friendly, minimalist and innovative Muji from Japan.

Origami To-Do Notes

The box of delightful origami paper has been salvaged from my collection of paper treasures and I’m using it for notes and to-do’s. It felt like a bold step, but I wasn’t prepared for just what a huge difference it makes to my days! It’s a simple technique. I write down one thing to do on the back of a piece of origami paper, and when the job’s done the origami paper goes on my notice board, creating a beautiful collage, and a rewarding, visual payoff. It’s so inspiring and tactile to handle and use these gorgeous origami papers daily, and in a casual way.

A Personalised Computer Desktop

Now that my desk has a little stack of purple and orange stationery to keep me inspired and on track, I cleaned up my disastrously messy computer desktop and populated my current projects with Luminous Purple and Orange Folder Icons. Then I weeded out my RSS feed, e-mail subscriptions and bookmarks to a minimum.

Now I feel happy and wildly virtuous, and I think I’ll put-off sorting out my e-mail and have lunch instead!

A box of origami paper.

Origami to-do notes.

Tags: carpe diem, getting organized, goals, Japan, Luminous Folder Icons, motivation, organized, origami paper, productive, productivity, seize the day, stationery, to-do list, workspace

As summer deepens, progresses, turns towards autumn, my balcony garden turns into shades of blue and purple that bring bumblebees and butterflies to visit. Lavender with bluish-purple flowers and slender, aromatic, grey-green leaves. Mint and chives in purple blossom. The purple haze of Perovskia, Russian sage. Tuscan Calamintha with its cloud of light purple blossoms and its intoxicating scent! Salvia Caradonna, is a real drama queen, with exquisite regal purple flower spikes, on purplish-black stems stained with reddish violet, towering above the foliage! And deep purple, almost black, aubergine ripening.

All these electrifying shades of blue and purple as well as a getting the late summer blues, has inspired me to create both a collection of icons and a wallpaper.

Oh, I love purple! My balcony garden has given me so much inspiration for a much anticipated, brand new collection in the popular series of Luminous folder icons! This time it’s a volume of Purple folders.

This colorful series of icons is my take of the folder icon in Mac OS X Leopard. A minimalist folder icon to help you stay productive with neatly organized projects, and in style too! The series comes in a wealth of colours, to brighten your digital landscape and make it personal or to color code your projects.

You’ll find the Luminous Purple Folder Icons on the Icons page.

This summer I’ve been experimenting with minimalist, geometric compositions.

Blue and geometric, is the theme for my new desktop wallpaper. Inspired by September’s birthstone, the sapphire. Members of Club Marmalade Moon also receive a September desktop calendar with this motif.

Save this wallpaper to your computer.

Tags: blue, desktop wallpaper, folder icons, gardening, gem, geometric, Luminous Folder Icons, minimalist, purple