Blog — "cards"

When I was a kid I first got into art in the form of drawing. I loved drawing and still do. Many times my sister and I would receive brand new sketch books, colored pencils, markers, or something of the like from our parents for Christmas. This year was no different. When I opened a Christmas package my parents had sent me, my mom had picked out a fabulous set of markers with almost every color I'd possibly want. The markers were perfect timing to add to a set of Sharpies that I had recently purchased in attempt to try something new.

I'm not really one to stick with the same design style all of the time. In time that I have started my business, I've offered paper cut cards, digital designs of all sorts, combinations of digital design and paper cut, and digitally hand drawn images through my tablet. What I really wanted to offer were my own drawings as they are. So I've been working on some new Valentine's Day cards that will be made from my own free hand drawings with marker.

Here's a glimpse of the process so far.





I started with a small piece of drawing paper and began my design. As you can see, the last three are the finished master drawings. What do you think so far? I'll be posting the final cards once the rest of the process is finished!

I spent yesterday stuck at home with no voice. I woke up and my voice was just a whisper and I knew I wouldn't make it even a half day through school. While I could have caught up on grading tests and other such things, I decided to take the less practical route and spent the day designing. I've been trying to reach my goal of getting 200 designs in my shop, but it has been slow going. Today, it seemed, was just what the doctor ordered to get the job done-- no voice and stuck at home with plenty of design inspiration.

In the end, I came up with six new designs. Two of which I wanted to share the inspiration behind. Yes, I turned again to Pinterest and found some lovely colors and ideas!





Are you just as productive when you're home sick for the day? Days like this make me want to forget about teaching all together. Maybe some day.... :)

It's been a rough month for me to be quite honest. As I wrote about earlier this month, October 7th would have been my grandfather's birthday. He passed away a year ago on the 20th. Every year, my mom, who owns an artisan bakery, has a huge feast in which she invites her regular customers, family, and friends to enjoy many of the foods that she serves throughout the year. It is her big thank you to all that are somehow involved in her business. I've been meaning to go home for her feast for some time and felt that this year would be the year, especially since this year's was in honor of my grandfather and many of my extended family members would be there.

However, I was not so lucky. Months in advance, I began searching for a plane ticket to South Bend, the closest airport. A ticket normally costing $250-$350 was now $783. I checked airfare prices the following week in hopes they would be different. $849. The next. $972. And finally several weeks before. $1443. I could have flown to Paris for half that price. Or to Sydney for only $500 more! Why were these tickets so expensive, you might ask? Well, it's called an old college football tradition-- one single game that is quite a huge deal: Notre Dame vs. USC.

Growing up near South Bend, I was always exposed to the ridiculous nature of Notre Dame football-- 2 hour waits to eat dinner at a restaurant on home game weekends, bad traffic in South Bend, trying to do fall clothes shopping in a mad house mall, friends not being able to book hotels for their visits to town, annoying tourists in a quaint little town. And now this football game was ruining my plans to be with my family.

Needless to say, I've been in a funk this weekend and needed to find a way out. So I did the one thing that I knew would at least sort of help and I made myself busy. So busy, in fact, that I did all of this in one afternoon:






Yes, I realize that I may be crazy when it comes to the Valentine's Day themed cards, but I had to get the ideas on paper before I forgot them. After a long, productive day we took a long walk across Patterson Park to Yellow Dog Tavern for dinner. It was a nice ending the day in cool, crisp air and enjoying dinner in a cozy pub. It wasn't my mom's feast, but it was certainly a fantastic way to end the day.

I've been working very hard to get out of the graphic design based cards recently and restock my shop with some more one of a kind paper cut designs. Honestly, the paper cut cards are my biggest challenge as I find it difficult to come up with fresh ideas other than layering coordinating colors of paper. I am trying to work my way through my built up stash of paper-- it is somewhat overwhelming to be honest. So I stuck with a stack of solids and two patterned stacks yesterday. After much hemming and hawing, I finally made these cards.





The first set seems to bright and colorful which I really enjoy, especially with the matching orange envelopes. I had high expectations for the second set, but after making it I realized that these were some seriously manly cards. Andrew's dad has ordered stationery from me in the past and suggested I make some cards that catered more to the male customer. I struggled with coming up with more masculine designs upon request, but now by accident I don't think these cards could be any manlier! So those green ones are for all you manly men out there!

All I need is a relaxing weekend and the creative juices start flowing. Not one, but two new stationery designs and that's quite the record for me! And I am completely obsessed with them. New faves! Check them out.





What do you think? The aqua and orange ones are my favorite of the two, but why is that surprising considering my obsession with aqua.