Pattern Designs

Design

It’s been really slow at work lately, and that makes the days seem REALLY LONG! When it starts to get slow like this, I usually come up with a project for myself to pass the time. This time, I decided to make patterns. I have been seeing some flower patterns online that I really like. So after searching through a few pages of Google images for inspiration, I headed to Illustrator to see what I could do. My first pattern was the blue and gray one. I think it’s pretty similar to one of the designs that I really liked (I didn’t save anything, just viewed it in Google and then closed the browser to design). The second one is the pink and gray one. And my final design is the one with the gray lines. It’s interesting how these evolved from pattern to pattern. I’m not sure which one is my favorite, which made it really hard to decide which one to use for my featured image!

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St. Croix Hospice

Design

At work, we got to do a fun design project for St. Croix Hospice! Our customer wanted a brochure created, but she didn’t want it to be a standard trifold. Her brochures get placed in hospitals in a rack next to a bunch of other brochures, so she wanted something that would stand out more. It’s rare that we get to design a more interesting fold or a die cut. I did four different designs, a gate fold, a tiered z-fold, a trifold with a that was basically a bifold with an extra flap, and a die cut that mimicked their logo. I figured the die cut of their logo wasn’t very practical because it left a lot of pieces that could tear when placed in a brochure holder, but it was fun to do something different. These brochures are all mock ups, which is why some of the photos look bad and have watermarks stamped across them. The customer ended up going with my co-worker’s design, which was really nice, so I don’t have a final piece to show you. But I really enjoyed working on this project!

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An Unusual Week

Photography

This has been a hectic week! From a weekend trip to Duluth, a LASIK consultation, an early morning wedding, and a girl’s night, I am worn out. Luckily, the rest of this weekend is plan free! I have already started relaxing, and I’m going to continue it!

Since I didn’t get much done creative-wise last week, I am going to show you photos that I took the week before. I had a little mini photo session with my husband and cats. I learned that I need to do some more playing around with lights and flash. I was not pleased with a lot of my lighting set ups, and the flash seemed a little on the out-of-control side. Of course, I’m only going to show you the photos that turned out best.

I think the saddest part about this session was finding out that my cats are not ever going to be models for me. There goes my plan of cat internet fame. I guess I’ll have to keep my day job…

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Oh Deer!

Photography

One of the big perks in our new house is the wooded backyard. Since we’ve moved in, we’ve seen squirrels, bunnies, turkeys, deer, frogs, and many different types of birds. So far my favorite is the deer. This little lady has been sighted in our yard multiple times. This is the second time I’ve seen her laying down and enjoying the buffet. The first time, I tried to take a picture, but she saw me, got scared, and ran. My picture ended up being a blur, and I felt like I was showing people an ultrasound. “See that there? That’s the head…” And they would politely nod and smile, even though all they could see was a brown blur amongst the greenery.

This time, she sat still. She even stayed there long after I left! So I think we’re gonna be friends. By the end of the summer, I’m sure she’ll let me pet her…right?

My second favorite sighting was Peeper Frog (as I named him). I found him climbing up our windows a few times. At first, I was really excited because he was so cute. After noticing that he was peeing on every window he visited, I was a little less excited. But his cuteness won out, and the pee was on the outside of the windows, so I decided I could forgive him. (It was a long trek in frog leaps from the ground to where he was, after all.)

Peeper Frog got his name because he would sit at the bottom of our kitchen window for hours, and he looked like he was looking in at us. Although, if he were a real peeper, he wouldn’t have sat still while I took all the photos of him! But maybe he knew that they wouldn’t be very identifiable because I was taking them through the screen. (Hence, no frog pictures. Sorry!)

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The Official Unveiling!

Miscellaneous

Here it is! The official unveiling of my new website. Isn’t it gorgeous?

I wish I could say it’s all my design, but I do not know enough about web yet to make something this great. But parts of it are close to what I had sketched out for my original design.

So why the new website? Well, there are two reasons, really. The first had to do with the CMS. I was using Squarespace previously. It’s a great program, and I’m sad to no longer be using it, but it’s a lot more than what my little site needs. I barely used it even near its full potential. And, for what I was using it for, the price was high. I would definitely recommend it though. Especially if you don’t have a lot of web knowledge. It’s really easy to use and setup with not really knowing HTML. And they have support, so there is someone to fall back on and ask questions if you get stuck.

This new site is on WordPress using the theme Source. I chose WordPress because it has so much flexibility. Right now I’m using a purchased theme, but in the future, I can learn to create my own themes. And it seems to be in that middle ground. There is support, but I’m on my own for a lot of it. It’s like jumping in the deep end, but with a life jacket. Since I would like to learn more about web design, this seemed to be a good choice. Oh, and the price is good as well!

The second reason for the switch was that my site was looking a little dated. Lately, I’ve been seeing all these amazing websites that use a full image in the background or parallax scrolling and have great typography. I was super excited to try one of these for my own site, while modernizing it a bit.

So I should warn you. Now that I’ve “jumped in the deep end,” there may be some technical difficulties from time to time. (If you have been trying to get to my site lately, you’ve already noticed this.) Please be patient with me! I’m learning, and there will probably be some hiccups from time to time. I hope that this turns out to be a better site than what I had before, and that I learn a lot. Thanks!