My holiday card 2011

Here is my submission to the Paper Source Holiday Card Contest this year.  I saw the flyer for the contest in the store.  I'm pretty much in there every time I'm near the mall.

I normally don't enjoy crafty/scrapbook hobbies.  But I'm not sure what came over me this year.  Must have been all those colorful powders and stamps.  Or that the winner gets a $50 gift card.  Very clever marketing, I must say.  I spent that much getting all the supplies. 

I love Christmas songs and wanted to incorporate that into my design.  I had the snowflake rubber stamps, so I sang every song I could think of with the word "snow".  I don't know how many times I wrote that phrase over and over until I got just the look I wanted.  ( I'm a tad obsessive).  I created the large white snowflakes using versamark, embossing powder and a heat gun to set it. 

I lined the envelope with vellum and stamped it using versamark.

And here it is. Yay!

Tis the season

 I can't believe it's less than a month away from Christmas.  While laying on my sofa with Thanksgiving food coma, I realized I hadn't started on my cards this year.  Am I the only one who thinks there's always more time than there is?  So here are some attempts at a modern Christmas card.

I love Christmas carols.  They're one of the best parts of this season.

 Cerulean blue is not so Christmas-y.

 Holiday gift tags.

Just goofin around. 

Ode to Summer Foods

Now that summer is officially over and it's cold and rainy over here, I've been dreaming about the delicious foods I had this summer.  Ok, some of these aren't exactly summer foods, but you get my drift. 

 Tomato caprese drenched in olive oil.  I miss you already.

Veggie lasagna.

Fried pork cutlets with pickled cabbage and spaetzle from Bratz in the U District in Seattle.  So good!

Morel mushrooms from the farmer's market.  They look very suspicious, but fry them in butter and they taste amazing!

In and Out. (We ate it in 108 degree Las Vegas heat.  That qualifies it as a summer food.)

 The best blueberry jam I've ever had comes from Pike Place.  Canter-Berry Farms.

 Iberian ham in Spain.

 Marinated potatoes and anchovies.

 Hooray for grilled summer vegetables!

 My husband smoked a brisket for the very first time this summer.  It was a little dry, but very delicious!  Isn't that what sauce is for?

10 Random Things in my Office (right now)

1. Seamus

 2. Glitter

 3. I stole these from the post office (kidding! they're free)

 4. Clown hat

 5. A snack

 6. Bucket o' corks

 7. Lip balm

 8. Hair clips

 9. Pretty label

10. Sponge Bob

if i were queen

This is a recent job for a client who wanted to have this poem written out so she could frame it for her niece.  It's such a wonderful, clever poem.  It turns out that my client's mother wrote it in the 3rd grade!  I snapped a photo of it in a white frame.  This would look really great in a girl's room. 

Winter Wedding Envelopes

 

Here is a job I just finished for a client.  I love this pale blue, or "bluebell" as The Paper Source calls it.  Perfect for a winter wedding!  This is the first time I've used this style on a wedding envelope, but I love it!  It's so different and I'm thrilled that the bride chose something unique.  I love languages and got a total kick of out of addressing these international envelopes.

How to address a German envelope

If you think filling out an American 1040 income tax form is bad,
you should try addressing a letter in Germany.

I am addressing envelopes to Germany.  My husband pointed out that I might have to write "Germany" in big letters in the lower right hand corner.  Really?  I remember doing that for my grandmother when she used to write to her sister.  I'd always add SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA in block letters across the bottom of the envelope.

So I looked it up.  And guess what I found?  A diagram of a properly addressed international envelope to Germany.  Is this a requirement or just a strong suggestion?  Because this could seriously cramp my style!

Scrap Paper

Paper Scraps.

Bible Verses

Birth Announcements

Birth Announcement

Hand lettered No. 10 envelopes.  I love this size!  We so rarely use them now.  Not even for bills.  Actually, who even mails their bills anymore?

These are birth announcements I created for a friend who recently had an adorable little boy.  They sent out photo birth announcements from tinyprints, but also decided to do special custom made ones for their closest friends.  What a great idea!

When it came to merging my lettering with indesign, exporting files to pdf and sending them off to the printers, let's just say it took me longer than most.  Many thanks to Alysia at Perfect Press who made sure it was perfectly aligned and print-ready!

Overall, the whole combining-hand-lettering-with-graphic-design was a great learning experience.  CS4 is not my best friend, but we are definitely getting along better than before.

Another envelope

This is a sample envelope I had created for a client awhile back.  In case you're wondering why there is a blue glass pebble in the photo, I put it there to keep the flap from hanging open.  My greatest secret out.

Tangled! Better than I thought

I'm way too old for princess movies and I think the last one I watched was Beauty and the Beast.  (Ok, I watched the Princess and the Frog.  But in my defense, I was on a very long flight.)  But I have to give a thumbs up to Tangled.  Not really worth the $21 to watch at the movie theater, but on blu-ray?  Totally cute and kinda clever.  I'm also a sucker for odd and cute sidekicks like Pascal here.