Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Contests!

As you may recall from an earlier post, I enjoy design contests. Mostly because doing the work is completely optional. If things come up and I don't have time to work on it, I miss out on possibly winning. But no one is waiting on me. There is really no pressure - it allows me to sit back and enjoy doing the work simply because I love doing the work, without getting frustrated with the lack of time to do so.

So recently when I was cruising the internet, I came across a site that is just what I was looking for! Contests... all the time. Many, many to choose from! I'm hooked. Haven't won any, but it's teaching me what customers want. What my strengths are. What my weaknesses are. Gives me practice!

Here are a few I've done thus far. Planning to do many more.




Saturday, July 21, 2012

Norwex

Fun little side project. A friend of mine sells Norwex products. After watching me, my li'l darling took over window-cleaning duty. Did a mighty fine job, too!

I got some pretty cute shots of her working away, so I made this for my friend to use in her advertising, if she so chooses. Great products! She is demonstrating the Enviro cloth and Window cloth.



Saturday, July 7, 2012

Coppertone Baby

Just wanted to share some PhotoShop fun...


Thank you cards for  gigi's birthday party  :)

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

I See You

So I didn't win, oh well. It was fun to try! There was recently a contest for the design of the 2014 Quadrennial Assembly. The theme is "I See You." This is my submittal. Though it wasn't chosen, I still enjoyed working on it. Hope you like it!

The theme is “I SEE YOU”. And the five sub-themes that will be developed throughout the event and each day are:
· I see you through eyes of grace
· I see you through the voice of compassion
· I see you with hands of justice
· I see you with a heart of joy
· I see you whole
 
 

Monday, June 25, 2012

Gloss vs. Flat

For Gwen's new room, I wanted to do a stars theme. With her birthday party theme being stars, I intended to buy decor that would transition well from party to bedroom.

I have always wanted to do a mural but always seem to talk myself out of it. So I thought this time, I'd start small. Subtle. I'd paint her room with flat paint and do a star design with the same color, only in a gloss finish. I didn't want the mural to take over her room. I wanted it to be faint, almost like a surprise when you realized it was there.

I think I accomplished my goal! Gwen didn't notice right away. Only when I was changing her diaper on the floor did she look up and gasp, "STAR!"  My heart is full ♥
Will post more pics once the entire room is done, but I wanted to post about the wall.

I didn't want floating stars. I didn't want a ton of them. So I decided to paint star garland, or necklaces. Three lines with stars attached.

To get the perfect arches, I first pinned yarn to the wall then traced it with pencil. The stars were traced around metal wall art.




Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Cake!

A bit premature, I realize... the party is not for a couple more weeks, but I had to share. This is the design that I did for Gwen's cake!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Change in Plans

Our house sold much more quickly than ever expected, which is a tremendous blessing, but the closing date put a bit of a damper on the party plans for li'l one. What is the silver lining? Design opportunity! I designed this piece to announce the new date for the party, as well as a map to the new abode.

So now it's a birthday party slash house-warming party!



Friday, April 20, 2012

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Look to the Stars

I am so excited about my li'l Gigi's upcoming birthday number two! My munchkin is growing up so fast, it's unreal. She has a few favorite things, such as the letter A, the color blue, the number 2... and STARS. I think she is going to be shocked when she sees all of the stars that I put up for the party. She'll be seeing Stars!

It's been driving me crazy to not be able to post pictures from the photo shoot that I did of her for the invitations because I wanted the invitations to be the first anyone saw of the photos. I got the prints in the mail on Thursday. I'll be getting them in the mail on Monday. Which means... I finally get to post pictures from the shoot as well as the design itself by Wednesday of next week. Finally!!!

In the meantime, I have continued my work on the upcoming 100th Anniversary Invitation for my Uncle's church in San Diego. I believe those went to print last week. Such a fun project!

Just as a reminder, we're approaching graduation season. If anyone needs invitations done, please let me know. I would love to help! And as always, contact me if you need designs for birthdays, anniversaries, adoption profiles, postcards... whatever!

Until Wednesday...

Monday, February 6, 2012

Blessed

God has given me an amazing gift. Thankfully, I have been able to share my gifts with my church, a great way for me to serve the Lord. Below are some projects that I have done for Evangel Presbyterian.













I am also honored to currently be working on the material for my Uncle's church in San Diego, CA. Plymouth Congregational will be celebrating their 100th Anniversary this summer. So far, I have completed the Save-the-Date mailer and banner designs. Soon to complete the official invitation and Sunday bulletin cover. I am especially honored because my incredibly talented Aunt is the one who hired me for the job. She is an amazing artist, former graphic designer herself. I used her stained glass window design that she did in the church as the theme for each piece.


Sunday, January 29, 2012

My First Day

So, today is day one of having a blog to showcase my graphic design work. My online portfolio. My hobby put on display. By no means do I consider myself professional. What I know, I've learned through trial and error and I happily admit that I learn something new with every project I take on. My next endeavor: Illustrator CS5! Merry Christmas to me! It was a gift from my parents this year, something I've had on my "Oh, how I want that" list for about a decade now. I literally cried when I opened the box. For those of you who know the design software at all, you may chuckle when I say that I use PhotoShop 7 (yes, 7) for everything I do at this time. Sad, I know. But it's gotten me by. And I know I have only skimmed even its capabilities.

My passion has grown over the years for design. I drew and painted in my younger years. I did independent study my senior year of High School and got a couple grants and scholarships. My freshman year of college, I was an Art major with focus on graphic design. But being the silly 19-year-old that I was, the fact that senior designers slept in the studio in order to complete projects was too big of a commitment. I switched to Business. But I have continued to hold a special place in my heart for design.

My first experiences came when I worked for a web design company after college. I learned some basics of the PhotoShop program from coworkers. Plinking my way through a different program (can't recall what it even was now), I did what I could. Lots of band pics - Andy's band, Sarcoma (calendars, profiles, logo, etc).  I learned more when I took a class at my next job, a computer learning center. The fire was officially ignited. I designed a 'why you should hire me' pamphlet to include with my resume, in hopes of landing a job more focused on marketing and design than just administrative.

As it thankfully always goes, God kept me on track to finally land at my current job. I don't do design there, but it still provides a creative outlet in its own way. I get to work with numbers, lots of data, and build systems and reports that make sense of all the data. There truly is a lot of overlap and it challenges me in so many ways. Graphic Design remains my hobby. It's truly the best of both worlds. I don't ruin what I love to do with forcing it to be my source of income. It's simply something that I can do for myself or for those in need of simple design projects (for a non-professional designer price).

After struggling with infertility, we had planned to adopt a child. Part of the process included creating an Adoption Profile, which is given to expecting mothers. I have done two of my own as well as another couple's and very much hope for the opportunity to help other couples wishing to adopt to create theirs. I created an identity for that specifically, Glimpse Designs.

I hope that this blog will bring more side jobs for me, invitations, announcements, photo manipulation projects, calendars, logos, identity pieces, etc.