here we are...

Oh boy... where do I even begin... 
How does one return to blogging after a 5 month hiatus?

First let's establish the reason for my nearly half year departure from something I worked on so meticulously in the past - a wedding. Not just any wedding, my wedding. Yep, that's right, I return to you as someone's wife (which still sounds strange to me after ten freaking years).

Around the time of my last post, wedding planning/designing/crafting, insanity began to shift my life balance in to dangerously stressful territory, so I had to cut something out for my own peace of mind, and unfortunately my blogging platform had to give. Incidentally I have so much to say/post/document, but so little time to play catch up on everything. As I sit here typing this out, my head is filled with our upcoming trip to Europe in just two short weeks... Basically getting things back to normal, i'm afraid, seems damn near impossible.

As much as i've enjoyed working on My Week posts over the past year or so, moving forward I think I am going to have to edit things down a bit more. My plan is to focus more on the the big events, trips, milestones, etc. and less on the every day. Please bare with me as I continue to catch up on those promised posts from the past year (Telluride, San Francisco, John Day, every little wedding detail, birthdays, and soon our honeymoon).

One day in the not so distant future I will be back at it, but for now please allow me to get things in my life back to my version of "normal".

In the meantime, I leave you with our wedding website (that I worked super hard on) to comb through, as well as our awesome preview video! 
And one of these days I promise you will see some "new" posts popping up.

♥ 

happy murderous winged baby day

I heard someone call it something like that and I thought it was hilarious. I mean, the baby DOES have arrows after all... I wouldn't trust him. 

I am actually pretty excited for today (despite Pat being out of town, as usual) because: 

1. I am not sick for the first time in several years!! (I have been dealing with a bit of a Valentine's Day curse where I always have a cold of some kind over the 14th) 

...and...

2. Guenther is coming to town tonight so I get to have some girl time this weekend! We are going to make a "fancy" dinner, drink "Valentine's Day themed" wine out of ridiculous glasses (you will see what I mean later), and watch Mary Kate & Ashley movies... "Why would anyone in their right mind want to willingly watch those horrible things?!" you may ask. Because they are the perfect amount of cheesy girliness that no boyfriend, fiance, or husband would ever allow in his presence. Oh yea, we will probably eat a fair amount of sweets too. 

[[ a silly thing i just made for some reason. ]]

Anyway, 

Happy V-Day Y'all!

P.S. Why did I just say "y'all"?? That was weird... I think I have been reading WAY too many posts from bloggers who live in New Orleans lately. It could also be from working on menus for one of our properties in South Carolina (suddenly I want fried chicken)... Hopefully I will never have to put you all through that again. No promises. 

luchador

I picked up a little freelance work this week for a restaurant in Bend called Barrio. You may recall that I have done some work for them in the past. This time, I was recreating their Luchador image and putting it to use on some banners and stickers. I think this guy will look pretty sweet rolling around town on a food cart, what do you think?

[[ work in progress. the final. ]]

hey, i made that...

One of the perks of my job is having advertisements that I created running constantly in major Oregon publications... like this one in Portland Bride & Groom. Stumbling across photos is always a nice surprise, and this one was shot by Kimberly Kay, the photographer of the lovely wedding photos we featured. 

[[ my ad in portland bride & groom, shot by kimberly kay photography. ]]

childrens menu

I got to spend a large portion of last week working on a Childrens Menu for a restaurant at Brasada Ranch. Obviously I was in a really good mood those days. Whats more fun than working with cartoon bunnies and owls?

Check it out.

[[ childrens menu sample pics. ]]

a little local side work

I am a busy lady who is constantly working on something... and I realize that I am absolutely terrible at posting my actual design work on the blog! Perhaps that will be one of the New Years Resolutions for 2013 (which I am totally slacking on since I have yet to write any out and we are well in to January). Anyway, I have been doing a little bit of freelance work for a local restaurant called Barrio and stumbled across my quick little ad the other day in Central Oregon Magazine. Check it out.

[[ barrio ad in central oregon magazine. ]]

c & g wedding invitations

I think it is first worth mentioning that this post is long overdue, but when we decided to stop by the hop farm this weekend, I knew it was finally time to take some pictures of these. 

Last spring (2011) I began working on some custom wedding invitations for a coworker and her fiance who were getting married in July. This was my first wedding invitation suite and I was really happy with the way that it came out, as were the bride and groom.

The wedding took place at Chateau Rogue in Independence Oregon which is a beautiful farm property owned by the Rogue Brewery. When me and Pat visited for the first time a few weeks ago, we understood the appeal for the summer wedding, especially for these two, who are very outdoorsy.

[[ custom wedding invitations for cassie & garrett meigs created by me. ]]

The hops growing in giant vines around the property became a large inspiration for these invitations, as well as the rustic elements from the farm itself. The tag line "Hitchin' at the Hopyard" was created by the groom, and set the pace for the overall design. Vintage scientific illustrations of the hops were used as a visual piece throughout various elements of their wedding day. For the invitations themselves, I took an etching and colored it to match their palette. The fonts used were meant to evoke the casual farm spirit of the property. I also illustrated a vine like boarder to organize various elements, and make the "C & G" logo. Since Cassie, the bride, is a GIS analyst, she created the map which I worked in with directions on the back of the invitation.   

An economic footprint was an element that the bride and groom wished to keep in mind when designing, so we used specially ordered 100% recycled papers, and chose a local and sustainable printer to take care of the production. The returned RSVP cards were used as decoration for the ceremony as well, which provided them with a second life. The envelopes were specially ordered kraft paper to match the set.

Lastly, custom glasses were created based off of the invitations which served as place cards, glassware for the evening, and finally take home favors for the guests.

joyeux anniversaire

I have my second batch of California Adventures to start posting, but first I wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my bestest friend Meguenther!!!

I made her this glorious card this morning (pardon my French if it is incorrect, I took Japanese in high school, so I know not). I kinda like this one. Perhaps I will try more like it.

[[ birthday card for megan. ]]

See you this weekend my love.
butta.

may the fourth

Somehow my calendar accidentally got synced with part of Pats, so this morning I got a strange notification on my phone saying "Star Wars Day!" Apparently May 4th has been proclaimed Star Wars Day because of the following phrase, "May the Fourth be with you." Seriously, ask any guy, he probably knows. So Pat, since you were so thoughtful to make sure I was aware, I thought I would make you a little something in honor of this very festive of... holidays?

[[ star wars day. ]]

friday the 13th

I saw this quote earlier today, thought it was funny, and thought I would make my own little picture.

Happy Friday the 13th, I hope it is filled with many cocktails
...not zombies.

[[ friday the 13th. ]]

b & a wedding invitations

Our good friend Brad is getting married this summer to his long time girlfriend/fiance Alia. She approached me a while ago about potentially doing their invitations for them and I of course agreed, but it was not until about a month ago that the subject was brought up again.

They had a style in mind as well as their wedding colors and had already sent out electronic save the dates, so I only designed the invitation itself, which is very heavy on typography arrangement. I utilized a bit of ornamentation to organize the text and customized the font used for their names to fit better within the piece. Originally there were no boarders at the top and bottom, but Alia expressed that she wanted those upon her final review, so they were added at the end. The couple did the printing themselves on a textured paper they received from a friend. The map was created by Alia, who is a GIS analist, and was printed on the back. The turn around/working time on this was about two weeks as time between my jobs allowed.

Here is the final product.
(Their wedding colors are blue and orange, Alia provided the RGB values).

[[ final invitations. ]]

b & a wedding invites

Right now I am working on the wedding invitations for me and Pat's friend Brad's upcoming wedding. These are not quite as involved as coming up with the concept for the invitations I did last summer since they are more interested in combining fonts and I am working off of two style examples given to me by the bride Alia. Hopefully I can wrap these up this week. I am still playing around with color a lot, theirs are variations of the blue and orange you see below.

[[ works in progress. bw & color tests. ]]

the ruddy duck

Continuing on with some of my design projects I thought I would throw up some logo design I did for a restaurant at Running Y Ranch called The Ruddy Duck. I worked on this a while ago but overall like the way my marks turned out. The client expressed the importance of having an actual Ruddy Duck (which is a certain kind of duck) represented within the logo. The restaurant itself was described to me as upscale ranch dining. I decided to play with brush strokes to add some rustic style and give the overall duck imagery a nice sense of abstraction. (I wanted to make sure it did not turn in to a cartoon). I also played around with some other elements, such as the lake and cattail plants known to grow in the area. It is hard to tell from the small scale of these, but I treated the type in the same manner as the other elements by adding brush strokes. Here are just a couple of the final renderings. (They went with the top one). 

[[ ruddy duck renderings. ]]

And here is a little preview into my process via some rough rough rough sketches. 

[[ ruddy duck sketches. ]]

country cake shop

I threw up this post a while ago about some of my current freelance projects, primarily focusing on little sneak peaks of a logo design for Country Cake Shop. Well, as promised I have a few completed projects to put up on the blog, but figured I would start with this one.

Pats old friend Sara is starting up a new bakery called Country Cake Shop specializing in special event concoctions and I agreed to work on a new logo for her. (I had done some ads for her other project Baby Cakes Bakehouse about a year ago as you might remember from this old post). She wanted the shop to be represented by a barn/country cottage that was a little bit cutesy but also rustic and a bit realistic. I worked on a few different directions but she ultimately decided on this one. I made everything from scratch in Illustrator over a few nights, and we agreed to call it a professional trade, so now whenever I am ready for a wedding cake I have that covered. :) This is definitely one of my favorite ways to do business with friends. Her shop should be up and running soon.

[[ country cake shop logo design. ]]

currently i am...

Yay almost Friday!!

I have been super busy this week working on some logo design for a new special order cake shop. I am trying to wrap it up before I have to dive in to a web redesign for my freelance gig, so fingers crossed for a direction they are happy with tomorrow.

I know all I do is post these little work in progress collages, I swear one of these days I will actually post some of my finished designs :) I have some logos and wedding invitations that could use showcasing after all.

As usual here is a sort of preview into what I am doing that does not really tell you anything at all about what I am working on. I know, I am weird, but I like to keep it that way until things come to a close.

[[ bakery logo wips. ]]

the light

Tomorrow I am going to a service for Dan, my step dads father, who passed away shortly after Christmas. Everyone wants it to be more of a celebration of his life than a wake, but I am still not entirely sure what to expect. I would imagine that regardless emotions will be running high this weekend. I know that some of his friends will be bringing their classic cars over to the house in his honor since Dan was really in to preserving classic cars himself, had quite the collection, and even won several awards.

I was looking for something to go along with this post and found a great quote when I was breezing around on FFFFound. I decided to take the quote and make my own representation of it. I know that everyone is having a tough time right now, and I find this to be extremely relevant, even if it is from a very famous and lovable story. Remember to smile, laugh, and enjoy the moment, no matter how bad things may seem to get, it is what he would want after all. :)

[[ harry potter quote, styled by me. ]]

lots of purple again today. a happy accident. 

busy. busy. busy.

I have this tendency to have a million ideas/projects going on at one time! There are never enough hours in the day for all of the little things I want to do for myself on top of those I am working on at my job, so sometimes certain things get pushed back to make way for more pressing ones.

Among some posts I have coming up this week, I am also working on updating my Flickr, getting caught up on Facebook photos (which does not sound like a big deal, but I have been slacking all summer, and now people are harassing me), Updating my blog design a bit, getting the wedding invites I did posted, etc, etc, etc. Oh yea, and just having a life in general. A million things!

Here are a few snapshots of some real and conceptual projects in the works. It is about all I can muster up for the day.

[[ current works in progress. ]]

Ok. Now, back to work.

happy birthday proper lady !

Today it is my sister Leah's 29th birthday. Happy Birthday Leho!

I seriously do not remember where this whole notion of "proper ladies" came from, but we are always saying that to each other (often in poorly executed British accents). When I turned 25 Leah told me I was no longer allowed to drink too much and dance on tables since I was 26... I informed her that I was only 25, and therefor had another year to do so. However, I have decided that as long as we are able we shall "drink champagne and dance on the table" all we want. Even if we are "proper ladies".

Miss you. Love! I hope you are having a great day with super secret, or epic, birthday plans. Check out the super sweet bday card I made for you... Proper indeed.

[[ proper lady bday card by me. me and leah being silly in nyc. ]]

while we are on the subject of birthdays...

I was going to post about the surprise I had for Pat on his birthday last week, BUT after making some birthday cards for my mom and little sister that took WAY longer then I thought it would, I am spent. Lots and lots of image layering. My computer is a little bit mad at me right now.

[[ for madre. for meagan. ]]

Have a great weekend!! I know I will.

happy birthday laaaaaaaaaaady !!!

Today is one of my bestest friends in the worlds birthday!! Ms. Tiffany Williams!!!!! (yes, I know you are married and your last name is now Peterson, BUT, you will always be TiffWill to me) I love you, and hope you are having a fantastic birthday! I am going to do everything I can to see you tonight! Or at least this weekend!! (I'm not a jerk I promise, I am at a concert that I bought tickets to a while ago by the way to anyone reading this... Though, I kinda feel like one for not being at your party).

[[ look its coopy! ]]