First, don't forget to enter the Starfish giveaway!  I'm extending it a day and will be announcing the winner tomorrow morning!  Go here to enter.

I'm dedicating today's post to answering some questions I receive quite often, and I'm hoping this will be helpful to those of you who have the same questions, but just haven't emailed about them.

I studied industrial design at Georgia Tech.  Basically it means making products prettier and more functional - sort of like architecture for consumer goods.  Upon graduation, I began working at Goody Products, designing hair brushes and styling tools and later hair accessories.  It was a pretty fantastic job, and I learned exponentially more in the five years working there than I did in school.  I was exposed to some great opportunities, made some lifelong friends, and grew considerably as a designer.  However, I have always had the desire to have my own little design business and had been cultivating a passion and interest in graphic design, so after five amazing years when the timing was right for our family, I decided to branch out and start Chocolate Butterbean.  If you are interested below is a small taste of my Goody portfolio.  Some of these products are still floating around, and I saw one of the Luxe bobby slides at CVS a week or two ago.

I get this question quite often, and while I wish I could say yes, it is not something I can do right now.  I know there are many design companies that offer this service, and perhaps it is in the future for Lay Baby Lay, but currently I am focusing on Chocolate Butterbean and the Lay Baby Lay blog.  I hope that the boards I post here will give many of you the inspiration you need to create a nursery that is unique to your taste and style, and feel free to combine them with your imagination to make the perfect room.

I feel I am constantly battling the email inbox (as I know many of you are as well)!  I do read each and every one of your inquiries and feature those that I can.  I'm doing my best while managing a small business, and a sweet little 10 month old with lots of energy!  I will say the requests that work best are the ones that are more general, such as focusing on a particular color or color palette, or general "theme" (for lack of a better word!).  I strive to make each post as inspirational and perfect as possible, so I work with the requests that get the best results.  Another option for feedback is the Lay Baby Lay Facebook page.  I do answer questions posted there, and hope for others in the group to provide their feedback as well.  I would also love to see any photos of rooms inspired by Lay Baby Lay, so please send them my way!  

Currently, we don't have advertising on the site.  We are considering working on some layouts that will allow us to take on sponsors and advertising and have some fun ideas about how to make this happen.  Please rest assured that this will not compromise the quality of the content here - I hope it will only enhance it!

This is the question I get most often!  I use Adobe Photoshop in conjunction with Illustrator to put together the style boards.   Adobe offers free 30 day trials of their software if you want to give it a try before investing!

Chip and I designed Lay Baby Lay together and he is the master behind the code.  Unfortunately, we can't take on other blog design projects (and you probably wouldn't want me to - I don't have much experience in it, and there are definitely lots of improvements that need to be made to this blog!) but I will say it was created on a Wordpress platform.  We have some plans for future improvements on the site - so stay posted!