Blog — "design a day"

Today's design is all about triangles. I'd gotten back into the paper cutting groove when I was without ink for a few days so I decided to keep at it. Here, I've used a mix of patterned paper and solid paper for the triangles. Sticking with the main patterned paper, I used green, grey, and aqua and my other colors and added layers.






By the way, does the patterned paper look familiar? That's paper from Katie's Wish. The same Lake digital paper set I used for the Etsy Greetings Team challenge last month.

I forgot to post my design! Can you imagine that?! Truth is, I was so excited about the arrival of my ink that I completely put this on the back burner and didn't remember until I woke up about, eh, 16 minutes ago.

So my design for yesterday is as follows---






I love the colors and the mod look. Textured sea blue card stock, textured apple green card stock, all on a white linen flat note. A little modern looking 'hello' finishes these up. Plus, there you'll see another wonderful colored envelope that I just recently added to my shop! So bright and bold! These are my new faves! ;)

Day 21 has arrived. That means I am in the home stretch for my 30 day design fest! Not that I'm finding a shortage of creative inspiration. Today alone I've created another three designs as I prepare to ship a box of note cards off to my mom. She has an amazing bakery back home in Indiana and no matter how biased you may think I am, I still have yet to find bread as good as hers here in Baltimore. First of all, she uses a wood-fired oven that my dad built. Second of all, there is no bakery in Baltimore that I know of with a wood-fired oven. And third of all, her bread is just amazing.

Lucky for me, I was able to enjoy a slice of her wood-fired white sourdough today during my lunch. She had snuck a loaf of bread into her carry-on luggage for me when she and my dad visited over the 4th. So I popped the loaf into the freezer for safe keeping until my bread stash at that moment was depleted. And yum! How delicious it was!

Long story short, my mother also happens to let local artisans sell their items at her bakery. She had offered to let me do the same. So as I began preparing a box full of cards, I suddenly had all sorts of creative energy arrive. An now being ink-less at the moment doesn't seem as horrible as I had thought it had been! In fact, I am enjoying the paper cutting once again.





These one of a kind lovelies were made to go along with some wonderful meadow green envelopes that arrived in my paper shipment yesterday. You'll be sure to see more envelope colors in the coming days! And lucky for you, these aren't making their way to Indiana and are still available in my shop!

Where has the day gone?! I can't quite believe that it is 9:15 and I am just writing this at the moment! Today was a very productive day, I must admit. I got back into my yoga routine, reorganized my entire work area, went through the shipment of paper and envelopes that I received today, began copy editing work for a friend that is self-publishing a novel, ran to the post office, and tried to finally buy a bike (more on that later). I made three new designs, made dinner, and watered the plants and flowers outside. Which of course, that meant a thunderstorm with heavy rain just had to roll through. That's how it always works!

So anyway, on to the design aspect of today. I went back to the basics. No printer again since the ink won't arrive until Wednesday. While reorganizing my paper stash, I found some great stuff to accompany my new envelopes. Today was all about cutting paper, which is how this all started anyway, and I love it!







I love the texture of this card. While there are unfinished bits in the design of this card, there are also neat and geometric circles. The two compliment each other well. And as a final addition, I included one of my new periwinkle envelopes-- the quality of this envelope is absolutely phenomenal!

Disclaimer: This design was printed with ink that I will not be using again. Am I happy about that? No not really. In fact, I'm super disappointed. I had a bit of an ink emergency. It involved a new recycled ink that I was trying out. As you may know the majority of my paper is recycled and produced using wind power. I am a bit of an environmental tree-hugger-- I'm not going to lie. Even my students call me a tree-hugger, and I accept it for what it is. So I like to offer environmentally friendly products as well. I've accomplished that on the paper front, so I wanted to conquer the ink as well.

It didn't work.

The colors were all messed up.

I did a ridiculous amount of trouble-shooting that involved lots of ink being wasted.

I gave up, for now.

So here is my design--




--but those aren't really the colors they should be. So yeah, I'll give you an update one I get some of those glorious Epson printer cartridges back in my hands. The difference will probably amaze you as much as it amazed me. Let's just say that the pink should be cotton candy pink, the brownish/orange should be a mango orange/yellow, and the blue should be a dark iris purple. And had I used Epson cartridges instead of my poopy recycled cartridges that's exactly what they'd be. Oh boooo. But hope you enjoy the design anyway! :)