designing away

Okay, I'm totally behind on blogging, but I'm going to do my best to keep it up -- at least weekly! Lots has been going on lately ... mostly by way of design projects that have been cropping up. I've had at least 1-2 a week! Exciting.

A baby shower invitation and decorations for the event, a wedding invitation, a t-shirt design for our church youth group, and the cover of a songbook! Fun fun fun. I can't show all of the designs here yet, but here are two:

a baby shower invitation for my best friend

a t-shirt design commissioned by our church youth group, art directed by me

I am loving the design process for these events - each idea is very organic, and sometimes I find myself getting an idea after a night of sleep. It's quite refreshing to see them come to fruition with some sketching and reworking. My little notebook is filled with ideas, and some of them may not become a reality, but I like that other projects ride on the wake of those little thoughts. Sometimes it's difficult to be consistently creative and challenge yourself to think out of the box, especially when there is so much swirling around the internet. I feel blessed that there is so much creativity spilling forth right now. More to come!

an attitude of gratitude

I am really digging this site here where Leah posts thank you notes to various inanimate objects, people and the like. Clever and oh-so-optimistic! Such a great concept. Go check them out!

shoe love

A little while ago I got these fun gladiator sandals from Piperlime - a friend calls them my "Jesus sandals" which is fine by me. They're fun and comfy! And since it's still pretty warm around here, so these babies are going to stick around for the anticipated heat wave next week. Stay cool!

bring may flowers

This sweet calendar caught my eye while I was browsing one of my favorite sites, Madewell Clothing. It has hand drawn details and quirky little comments for each day of the month. Click to see it larger.

Isn't this one for May 28th great?

Every night this week in our calendar is filled, I wonder what it would look like if I drew it all out.

the dailies

I think it's so neat to take a sneak peek at what designers go through in a day -- what their thought processes are like, their work flow, what they find inspiring as they go about their daily routine. Over at Design for Mankind, artists/designers/bloggers are featured in The Dailies, an ongoing feature that is essentially, a "day in the life of _____."

Most recently, they featured Sally Shim of shim+sons -- who is now living in Busan, South Korea with her husband and two sons. The photos from her day were just so quaint and had moments of lovely quiet and I really enjoyed reading the whole post. It's also a neat idea to record what your day is like and what you were doing when. Maybe I'll take a stab at it one of these days.

image from sally shim for design for mankind

as time goes by ...

I'm still in denial that it's 2009 already. And I've really been slacking on getting a planner and/or calendar. I've seen tons of calendars everywhere in blogland, but hadn't really seen one that caught my eye until now. This one by Valery Design Works is so whimsical - I really love the fun looking toucan-birds with teeth on the front - what are those (click to see it larger)?

2009, you know what that means -- my 10 year high school reunion!
Valery Design Works 2009 wall calendar $30