Portfolio: Hand Done Type

A few friends recently put together a weekly, collaborative type challenge called Type Club 2014. They passed the link on to a handful of creatives they know, and the results have been really beautiful to see.

The premise: Each week a new quote is posted. You can interpret this quote any way you like, using any medium you like. There is a time "constraint" of one week. This "constraint" creates a deadline and a push for you to share the "final" piece with everyone else with out belaboring your work through social media.

It's a great exercise, and fun to see the interpretations and beautiful design from everyone.

Original art by Caroline Hutchison for Linalulu Paperie

Original art by Caroline Hutchison for Linalulu Paperie



Portfolio: Forever Young Print

When my sister-in-law, Lindsay, was still pregnant we had talked about doing a calligraphy print for the nursery for baby to be. She brought up the song "Forever Young" by Bob Dylan. A personal favorite of mine, and such a sweet sentiment to hang in a nursery. Fast forward to February, and baby to be is the beautiful Olivia Mae!

My favorite line in the song reads "May you build a ladder to the stars | and climb on every rung", and thus I chose the night sky theme. (Plus it gives me an excuse to work in gold ink). I love how it turned out, and love that these words will bless Olivia for years to come!

Collaboration: Desktop Wallpaper

I had the pleasure of working with Chelsea on a new desktop wallpaper series for her blog, Lovely Indeed. I found the blog through my typical route - looking through other bloggers list of blogs they follow, and boom - instantly fell in love!

Chelsea has such a fun and vibrant style, I couldn't stop looking through her pages of wonderful DIY's and fun photo's. I follow her on both her blog and instagram, and when she called for calligraphers to work with I just had to follow up with her.

I used a Nikko G Nib with Dr Martin's Bombay Ink to create this quote.

I used a Nikko G Nib with Dr Martin's Bombay Ink to create this quote.

She gave me a few quotes to choose from and I felt  connected to this one by Susan Polis Schutz. With a forever winter and only a glimpse of spring around here - I have longed for the days of warm sunshine. My calligraphy seems to sing paired with the stunning original photo by Chelsea.  Thanks Chelsea for such a fun project!

To download the desktop wallpaper visit Lovely Indeed, here.

Sketches: Spring Flowers

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When I was at the grocery store earlier this week I was immediately met by the friendly faces of these beautiful tulips. I had to purchase them; I had to take them home.

It's funny how a quick trip to the market for butter can spark such an unexpected inspirational find.

Aren't they lovely! So full of beautiful color!

Aren't they lovely! So full of beautiful color!

(Left) A simple Sketch of the flowers  |  (Right) Water color and Ink

(Left) A simple Sketch of the flowers  |  (Right) Water color and Ink

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Creative Quotes

I stumbled across this beautifully written article, Women vs. Women, and a little thing called “self-respect” from Wit & Delight.  To the point, and very thoughtful - this piece examined why  women should build one another up and not tear one another down. We have our own strengths and our own path to walk as individual women. We will always benefit from support from each other on these travels. Great food for thought.

Handwritten By Caroline Hutchison of  Linalulu Paperie

Handwritten By Caroline Hutchison of  Linalulu Paperie

Portfolio: Lindsay's Baby Shower

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To celebrate my sister-in-law, mommy to be Lindsay and baby, my mother-in-law hosted an adorable baby shower in their honor! I was so excited to add my calligraphy to the (already) wonderful decor and joyous celebration.

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Beth out did herself with her theme "She's about to Pop!"  by including all things "pop" worthy including cake pops, blow pop champagne "poppers", poppyseed muffins and so many other delicious treats!

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Valentines Week!

Valentines Day is Friday and I thought it would be fun to pull some fun aspects of the holiday (like the fun decor, recipes, vibrant colors, and cool crafts) and celebrate them here on the blog.

No, I have never one to go nuts for the holiday, but I do appreciate the aspect of a day to remind those we love that they are special in our lives, and shower them with pink and red candies. Winter is long enough my friends, especially this year. Why not have a fun, festive, but goofy holiday to break up the winter chill?

calligraphy by Linalulu Paperie

calligraphy by Linalulu Paperie

Portfolio: Aagaard Wedding | Invitation Suite

A while back I gave you a glimpse of the process I went through to come to this beautiful invitation suite, here and here.

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The bride was inspired by the mix of antique finds of her own and the bold mix of patterns seen at such stores like Anthropologie and J.Crew. With this in mind, we created a pattern and monogram that was repeated through out the suite.

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The finish product was a sweet mix of hand-done elements - like the screen printed booklet cover, and the engraved invitation- with an elegant simplicity to allow the importance of the text to shine through. The mix of the subtle but bold nature of the pattern on each piece gave a modern feel to this classic style of invite.

Advent: Love

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The shortest week in Christmas is the fourth week, which symbolizes love. This candle signifiesy the love of God that surrounds and fills us at all times, but  we recognize it in a special way in the Christmas story. There is no greater power than love. We love, because God loves us.

Life Lately in Pictures

I haven't had my iPhone long, but it has become a necessary tool in my daily design work. It is fun to to go back through and see the small fragments of memories captured in everyday pictures

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With Christmas and the New Year approaching quickly, there has been a lot of gift wrapping, snow shoveling, and ever increasing more work on projects for my Etsy shop (coming 2014!) I'm thankful for these small blinks of life captured, and they make me excited to share with you what is to come

Advent: Joy

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In the third week of advent, the theme is "Rejoice" or "Joy" . The spirit of joy  comes from the words of Paul, “The Lord is near.”  This joyful spirit is marked by the third candle of our Advent wreath, which is typically rose colored.  One moves through this week feeling a part of the waiting world that rejoices because our longing has prepared us to believe the reign of God is close and reminds us that Christmas is only a week away

Advent: Peace

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"It is through remembering that we again look for signs of Christ’s coming in Advent. In hope, courage, and faith dare to speak with the psalmist: 'Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.' ” Rev. Anna Fulmer

Advent : Hope

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With December coming so rapidly upon us, we leave Thanksgiving behind for the season of Advent. Advent derives its meaning from the Latin meaning word for "coming". In the weeks before Christmas we prepare, we wait, we long for the coming of the new born Christ

Sketches and Suprises: B is for Beauty

I have the amazing privileged to work along side a talented group of designers at my full time job. They constantly are introducing trends, smarter design solutions, pushing one another to create stunning design solutions.  

One of those instances is what the team calls Infused Inspiration Fridays: Challenges.

Started by a small pool of our design team, about a handful of us on the team gather and execute a predetermined design challenge once a month on Friday afternoon. Someone on the team creates a "challenge", in which we are given a set of guide lines, and a set time limit. The challenges have ranged so far from creating a pattern inspired by fall decor to creating a music album cover with only a set of words and images.

This past week our challenge was to use one image and the word "beauty" to create something that we believed represented beauty.

 

My interpretation of our teams Infused Inspiration Friday Challenge - read below to see the guidelines!

My interpretation of our teams Infused Inspiration Friday Challenge - read below to see the guidelines!

Here is an example of the rules: 

 1. Download assets. Link sent in email.
2. Create your interpretation of “beauty” only using:
—the word “beauty”   — this image
3. You have the one image and one word. In addition you can use any color, any font, any size, any medium (on or off the computer), and anything you can create using the word “beauty” and this image.
4. You CANNOT add any other images or textures. 
5. Your final piece must use this image and have the word “beauty” written somewhere on it.
6. You have 25 minutes to design and print your piece.
7. Present your piece to the team at the round table.
8. Have fun! 

Each time it is incredible to see not only what myself and my teammates produced in a short time, but how wide of a range of thoughts and talents are represented in this fun exercise.