finding time for "love"

well. seems like life is getting really busy here lately. christmas is coming, and chick-fil-a is slowly starting to take over my life.
amidst all the chaos, i had a chance to drive down to pike county to see my beautiful niece and nephew and take some pictures for their family christmas card, here is the latest proof i made. let me know what you think.


Next sunday i will be starting some christmas cards for the Smith family, Kelly, Michael, and Cooper (their dog.) Check back for a post showcasing their fun family!

i love russ. a lot. even when i try not to.

Marriage is such a great reminder of Jesus and his faithfulness to us.
We can fail over and over again, but He is always there.
And somehow he always shows me He.

I glogged again, and this one is for my husband.

so, i haven't put any textures on these yet, but i wanted to try out a collage look... and i thoroughly enjoy them.

reasons why i enjoy these in a collage:

number one.
i love the fact that the smaller pictures are all put together to make one large image. and since i am not a "professional" photographer, the lower quality images don't scream "unprofessional" so loud since they aren't standing alone... and all together it looks much more professional.

number two:
i have always been a fan of piet mondrian. he was a dutch painter, and he primarily used grids in all of his work, and i feel like i am just sticking pictures inside the squares of his paintings...
he also used bold primary colors, to create a very modern look, and i think that is why i liked the last one, and just made a spot of red...

and lastly:
as i was making these collages, my personal desire to make family christmas postcards increased tremendously.
can you imagine how cute these would be on a postcard stuck to your friends' refrigerators showing off you and your family?
plus, postcard postage is considerably less than mailing a christmas card in an envelope!

the cost to mail a postcard: $0.27
the cost to mail a letter: $0.42
easy choice in my opinion.

let me know if you're interested, i would love to do one before christmas to test it out, and then i will sell them. First come, first serve!

let's all throw out some prices of what you would pay for a christmas postcard... let's say a minimum of 50 postcards, personally photographed, designed, and printed for you to mail. what would you pay?

miss grace hankins

okay, so it has been a ridiculously long time since my last post, and i sincerely apologize, BUT, it is a good thing that I have stayed busy, cause that means there will be a lot of "catch-up posts"

Since it is very very ridiculously late at night, I will only give a small hint of what is to come from my designer life... so here it is.

my first untraditional senior photo project client:
Grace Hankins, junior at Model High School, and gorgeous.




stay tuned as these pictures transform from simple pictures from my little Sony Cybershot point and shoot camera and they take shape as untraditional senior photo projects, designed by yours truly. Feel free to leave me some ideas that you have to aid the transformation!

ALSO, Just a little shout out to my college roommate: Kelly Smith, to say thanks for posting about me this week! And congratulations on the new house!

so i am involved with a non-profit group that supports teen mothers.

it's called young moms, and i absolutely love helping these young girls. We believe that bad decisions do have life changing effects, but we do our best to give these young mothers helpful information, and unconditional support to encourage them to start making good decisions, and become great people with great families. Anyways, with that piece of background info, some of the extra things that we get to do with the girls is to just have fun, with cookie decorating parties, games, and making cute crafts. And that is where I come in (besides being the in-house designer for all of our logos, flyers, postcards, nametags, etc.) I have been put in charge of what i consider the most entertaining portion of our time together with the girls. Craft-time!

So I just wanted to share my enthusiasm about all the crafts we have put together, and what is in store for the future.

The first week we designed light switch plates:
The second week we decorated candles:
The third week we made cute letter magnets
and tonight we are designing personal planners!

Just wanted to share what i am usually up to every other monday!

Sound on Photography Logo, Twitter, Chelsea Petaja, and Incorrect Sentence Usage

just a few updates:
(I want to apologize for the recent lengthy posts full of text, and no images, so to go along with each of my updates on this post, i have included a photo, just for your viewing pleasure.)

First:
The Sound On Photography logo evolution won't be needed! My initial thought was that we would see some font changes, color changes, sizing/spatial changes, concept changes, etc., and we would watch it grow from the beginning to the end, BUT that isn't necessary, cause Chris loved the design, and we will only be making some small changes to complete the logo. I won't be posting the logo on my blog once i am finished, but you can check it out on Chris' blog when i am finished and he uploads it.


Second:
Twittering is one of my new favorite things to do! It is so simple, and it is fun to let everyone know what you are up to, BUT i don't know a lot of people on the site, and that kind of makes me sad. I think it is because most people log onto facebook to check out what everyone is doing, but for some reason, i just prefer Twitter over Facebook. So join, and we can all follow each other.


Third:
I just found my friend, Chelsea's blog! I love this girl, and she is such an inspiration for creativity. You should definitely check her out, and buy something from her off etsy. And by the way, Chelsea is by far the most beautiful person i know. Just so you are aware.


Lastly:
I guess this is really some kind of blogging "disclaimer":
if you are becoming a regular reader, or if this is your first read, please be aware, that i absolutely love run-on sentences. I don't try to avoid them, more so, i try to use them as often as possible. I apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause to some of you, but to keep in the fashion of "being myself" on my blog, this is the way that i think, for the most part the way that i speak, so look forward to more run-on sentences to come.

Sound On Photography

Everyone, meet my friend, Chris Bartelski. He is a fairly new friend of mine who does theatre sound design down in Atlanta, and will be going into photography with his wife in the near future. She actually did my wedding photography and she comes highly recommended. Well anyways, this afternoon Chris asked me to create a logo for his new blog, and I have to be honest I was pretty pumped about it. I mean, today started out pretty awful cause i was terribly sick and had to come home from work, but all of a sudden I had a great project to work on in the midst of my sickness.
Anyways, since I am a sharer of all my design, i figured I wouldn't keep this one from you guys. You will get to see the entire evolution of this logo... and please give me your feedback... what you think is obviously very important, since you are undoubtedly a blog reader, and this logo is for his blog. So please leave comments, suggestions, and thoughts.
Share with me, just as I share with you!



So this is the first proof i created:




And this is the second:


I have just recently sent these to Chris for his feedback, i haven't heard from him yet, so the evolution will begin soon! Again, give me your feedback, as a blog reader!

the fifth element.

So, on Saturday, I took my element out for a quick photo shoot up at Mountain Campus at Berry College, but it was kind of gray and gloomy outside. So, I figured if I couldn't get a really good picture why not just use what I had, and play with some fun stuff on Picnik that I haven't used before like saturation, adding objects, and the posterizing effect. And I pretty much love my latest work of art, but probably because i pretty much love everything about my element.

Burning Color

okay, so Dashboard was obviously a good idea from Apple, for convenience sake. But i have to share my favorite widget ever invented. I have had this on my dashboard for quite sometime, but i just shouldn't keep it all to myself. It is the ColorBurn widget by firewheel design. It is just a great inspiration of colors to use for absolutely anything. And not only is it very useful in choosing or deciding on colors for various designs, but some of the names for their daily color palettes, are actually humorous. Anything that is practical/useful, and can make me smile, gets an A+ in my book.
My one and only complaint after I downloaded it and used it for a week was that there wasn't an archive of their color palettes on the widget itself, BUT after some "digging" I found someone who loved the widget as much as I do, and created an archive. So, now I am pretty much happy all around with my daily dose of color, and if i need to find one that i saw a while back, i can check the archive. pretty sweet.

Download it for your dashboard here

Look at their archive of colors here

The Music Genome Project

okay, so in my "digging" through the internet, i happened upon a genius musical idea: Pandora.
Now, i have to admit, I have never been a big music fan, I didn't really follow new artists, I just had my own set of people that i liked and i listened to the same people and the same songs over and over.
Pandora has changed my whole music world upside down. In like three days, i have found songs i have never ever heard of by the same artists that i have loved forever, AND it chooses songs that i might like based on one artist that i know i like. It is absolutely crazy. I am so overwhelmed with so many artists that i want to check out. I mean i just don't even know what to do right now with following so many new groups, bands, and artists.
One of my new favorites: The Carolina Chocolate Drops
Just Watch, But Definitely Watch In the Full Screen Mode. Also if you have time, click through several songs, they play absolutely everything from kazoos, to spoons, to glass jugs. Oh my gosh, they are so talented. Okay, so just go ahead and see for yourself.

a few thoughts...

So, i am really kind of new at really digging through the internet and finding all these different sites buried out there that have existed for quite some time. And i have to say that i am really fascinated by all the great design stuff that i am seeing. I have pretty much been stuck in my own little design world, with my liberal arts education from Berry College, which didn't really go into "teaching" design. But I am so encouraged by all the stuff i see out there on the internet. I love taking ideas and being inspired by someone's photography, or someone's art, or someone's typography. Typography is something that i love and would like to get into more. Anyways, just wanted to share my enthusiasm for all the millions of different forms of graphic design/art.

I am thinking of starting a design diary, and I will be posting images on picasa. I will go ahead and tell you that the days will not be consecutive, cause I know myself, and i know i wouldn't create and upload an image everyday. So maybe weekly would work... we'll see. :)

Some More Exciting News: Adobe Creative Suite 3 will be arriving hopefully sometime this month, and I can quit cheating on picnik! (not that i consider it cheating, cause i honestly enjoy that website!)

Also, another update: i found out how to link my blog to facebook, so check me out on Facebook's Blog Network, and become a reader!
my blog on facebook (you have to be signed in to facebook for this link to work)

new form of design = the glog

found another really great design website today: www.glogster.com
except that i am not exactly sure what the practical use for this "glogs" are. i know you can link it to your blogger account, and post your new glogs on your blog. which i did. but it still seems a little strange and foreign to me now. my first glog was created in a matter of about 7 minutes, which didn't really allow me enough time to investigate all the tools and options yet, but i plan on digging a little deeper when i have some more spare time... so keep your eye out for some more glogs on my blog. who comes up with these terms?

"Jackie" Palmer

one of my favorite people in the world is my nanny.
i swear i absolutely love this lady.
and if you have ever met her, you know exactly why i adore her.
and if you have never met her, you should, cause you are missing out on one of the most important people in the world.
she is strong, independent, loving, and absolutely hilarious.
and she loves me the most.
so i designed a little something for her.

The Rock Ranch has a great flyer at your nearest Atlanta Area Chick-Fil-A!

so, i've noticed some cool designs recently, and one of which comes from a partner of Chick-fil-A called The Rock Ranch, which is a really neat farm funded by Truett Cathy. The farm is actually really close to where i grew up in Pike County, i've never been there though. Anyways they host events called Fall Family Fun Days, and they have just sent out some coupon/flyers advertising these events at Chick-Fil-A locations, and the flyer is just really cool. I meant to bring one home with me to scan in and share, but i forgot. Maybe next time. Their website on the other hand is a terrible reflection on the well-designed coupon/flyer. Anyways, still check out what the Rock Ranch is and all the really cool things going on for the Fall Family Fun Days - like this HUGE pumpkin cannon. check out this video.
Rock Ranch Pumpkin Cannon

losing sleep over my obsession

okay, so after posting about how i love picnik, i stayed up late and made some more. Here they are! Enjoy!
probably one of my favorite bible verses, probably should have put where it's found in scripture on this pic, but i forgot... It's Isaiah 40:8.

and this was the back window of our car after our wedding, that Russ still hasn't completely gotten off his windows (even after a year and three months...)

meet my new friend, picnik.com

so, i just really wanted to share my new favorite website with everyone! it is www.picnik.com, i heard about it through my friend, brittany. it is so simple to use, and is my new favorite thing to do when i have an extra 10 minutes in between my busy schedule.
Basically it is a mini version of photoshop online, and the best part about it is it's free! well the basic version is free, and there is also a premium version that you can pay for (at a very reasonable price)
anyways, i have only played on this for about two days now, and have edited/made probably 15 pictures! Right now I haven't been able to get Adobe CS3, so this is nice to use to have fun while i wait patiently for my new software!

i think that i am going to try and make something at least once a week, and post what i make on my blog to share it with everyone.
So far my favorite thing to do is make backgrounds for my computer with pictures and song lyrics, but i also did some neat stuff with some wedding & flower photographs.

Let me know if you would like me to make one specifically for you.

Here are two that i made this week:

the first one is from a Sandra McCracken song called Traincar.

and the last one is from a Derek Webb song called Somewhere North.

Feel free to download them from this site and use them for yourself. Just be sure to tell someone, if they ask, that you know this really cool designer that made it. then give them five dollars for the compliment.

the world wide web really is wide

so as i am uploading and preparing all these sites and pictures, I am trying to connect all of the things that i keep up with online, and it's pretty strange how all this stuff just works... I am impressed.