Design inspirations

I've had some positive feedback regarding the redesign (many thanks to my wife who is full of patience and kind words even when she wishes her husband would spend time with her instead of the computer :) so here's my reply.

I don't do designs for hire, yet anyway. haha I'm just starting school again so time is limited, but I think it would be fun to do a little project once in awhile. Let me know what you've got in mind and maybe I can point out possible ways to achieve it.

For those of you thinking about web design but maybe "dragging your feet," here's some inspiration:

• Best of CSS Design 2008: The websites we use everyday seldom invoke an emotional response deep within out heart. Here are 50 that did for me late last year. Especially true for Viget Inspire (just beautiful!), Carrot Creative (smooth use of jQuery navigation) and Nine Lion Design (dark texture, bold contrast and warm ambiance)
• Nature Inspired Painted Background: This was the tutorial that got me "painting" again (see my attempt above) and generally interested in art once more, this time in the digital sphere.
• 17 Techniques for Creating Designs Inspired by Nature: Interestingly enough, I started looking into my designer feeds (I subscribe to 15 rss feeds on design that provide constant inspiration) and found this article, posted one day after my redesign launch, that outlines many of the principles I used this time around. It's a great starting point for someone who's thinking about being interested in learning more about maybe playing around with design :), especially if you're into nature photography.
• Web Style Guide 3: This book (yes, the entire text of the book in available for free online) is for those who already have design experience, but are looking into web standards and SEO and creating complex corporate websites. It takes a very conservative approach to web design, but is a good anchor and balance when your design needs to meet usability and interaction halfway.

A year ago, my wife started getting into food blogs, and I was blown away at how vastly enormous the food blog network is and how I had never seen a glimpse of it until then. Design blogs are the same - it's a whole new world out there and once you're in, you're in for good. Life just becomes one big design.