Merry and Bright

This year I had the assignment of creating a holiday greeting card for an electrical company. I knew the greeting card would be hand delivered as an insert in a box of See’s Candies® so I decided to eliminate the option of an envelope allowing for something a little more unique, like a light up reindeer nose. One of the requirements for a holiday light up greeting card is adding text such as, “May your holiday season be merry and bright”

My inspiration for this job came from the Throwies campaign which my husband introduced me to a while back. After a little computer graphics and printing work, each greeting was assembled by hand using 3mm red LED lights and 3 volt batteries.

I hope your holiday season is as merry and bright as a LED reindeer noses!

For the Nerds Like Me

In one of my typography classes in school I had to purchase a little book called, The Mac is not a Typewriter and it pretty much changed my life. Well, maybe not, but it did change the way I type. Even though I am old enough to have actually had to use a typewriter, I am convinced that even those who have never used a typewriter are following outdated typewriter rules like I was, (and sometimes still do.)

Did you know that you should NEVER double space after a period? Now that we are no longer using mono-spaced, mono-sized type like we once did on the typewriter the double space just becomes an unattractive giant gap. Okay, you probably knew that one but I didn’t when I first read this book which was not all that long ago!

Re-reading this book again reminded me why it is one of my faves even up against a few pricey deign books I own. This book also includes things like using the right type of dashes in the right places, widows, orphans, proper quotation marks, the no-nos of underlining and a bunch of other exciting stuff for a nerd like me.

I am now realizing that I probably just totally turned you off from ever reading this book but seriously, you should at least check it out from the library. I wish I had the cash to purchase a copy for everyone I know!

P.S. The PC is not a typewriter either so this book applies to all computer owners.
P.S.S. I am exempting myself from having to follow every rule of type on this blog. So, if you do read it, please don’t consider me a hypocrite.

Ms. Julia Pott

The "My First Crush" animation was my introduction to artist and animator Julia Pott. Much later I saw these awesome temp tattoos in her etsy shop and then in October she released her animation for the Casiotone for the Painfully Alone-White Corolla video and I was more than pleased. Considering I have watched it a hundred times, I just can’t get enough of Julia Pott.

Faux Forest

Sometimes, when my to-do-list is lengthy, I become suddenly enticed to go on a cleaning spree. When I have downtime, I am much too exhausted to do any house tidying! I also have a talent for becoming magically motivated to create meaningless projects when I have a million important things to get done. This is why I was able to fabricate a little homemade wallpaper project that I have been meaning to put together for the last few months.

My inspiration came from a birch tree wallpaper by Cole and Son that I saw in a kitchen of my dreams a couple years ago. As a temporary alternative to being the owner of the imaginary forest, known as "Woods Wallpaper", I substituted wallpaper with wood-grained pattern contact paper. Not quite the same but an improvement nonetheless. I am thinking about adding a little woodland creature peeking out of the branches, perhaps an owl, what do you think?

And the winner is...

Congrats to the Kindred Family and Conor for winning the "squishy heart" giveaway! You will be recieving your postcards in the mail shortly!

Listening is an Act of Love

As you may know I am a huge fan of the StoryCorps project which is why I really wish I could go to this book tour which will be in Bolder tonight. Maybe if I get a million things done today I can reward myself by attending! Anyone want to come with?

Baby Shower Invites + Thank You Cards + Feel-Good Tunes + Giveaway!

This little baby shower invite was inspired by the mother-to-bes’ love and talent for origami (see origami paper background) and baby room colors of lavender and light green.

Being quite fond of origami myself, I decided to create a thank you card mimicked after the invitation. This is what brings me to my first GIVEAWAY of what I hope will be the first of many! TWO little lucky ducks will win a set of 5 "thank-you from the bottom of my squishy heart" postcards and as a bonus I will also include 5 envelopes just in case you'd like to convert postcard to note card.

All you have to do to compete is to name your favorite feel-good song as a comment. Any ol’ song that gets you going and pumps you up. For instance, my feel good song is Billy Idols “Dancing with Myself” I love to blast this little number when I am cleaning the house, going for a run, and of coarse dancing.

You will have until 1pm MST on Wednesday the 29th of October to post your song. I will then randomly select the two winners and the prize will be all yours. Good luckie!

I Just Can't Get Enough: Fancy Window Displays

One of my favorite things to be inspired by is a smart and fancy window display. I suppose any display really, with or without the window. The fun thing about a window display though is that it is like the package design for something you can open and then actually walk into. In fact, one of the things that I anticipate most about opening my own real life, three-dimensional little boutique, (paper boutique most likely), is that I will get to create my own store displays on a regular basis. Because the only thing I like more than being inspired by the perfect display is to create one myself with the hope of inspiring someone else.

(portfolio show display-when I discovered my love for displays was not just a crush.)