furry friend cards

Yes, it has been a month since my last post. This summer has been amazing and hectic all in one. Highlights have included a week at the cottage, an inspiring design conference, two fabulous concerts (U2 and Keith Urban), far too many ice cream cones with my nearly three-year-old, and great times with friends and family. Needless to say, I'd take this kind of busy any day. I feel very, very blessed.

Still, it's time to post something to my neglected blog, so I'm pulling this little project out of the archives. It's a stationery set I designed for my cousin, who happens to be the sweetest animal lover I know. For as long as I can remember, Erin's had a furry (or winged) creature to love. Bunnies in particular have a special place in her heart. She's taken this passion to a whole new level, and volunteers for Rabbit Rescue (click here for their website), finding loving homes for neglected animals and regularly taking them in herself until a home is found. Erin also manages their online store here, where you can find all sorts of cute products for animal lovers.

I decided to send Erin this little stack of custom cards for her birthday. They were a lot of fun to work on.

Enjoy!

keep calm

Keep calm and carry on. These were the words on a WWII poster created by the British Government in 1939. While the poster was little known and never used at the time, it was rediscovered in 2000 and has since been used and parodied in a number of ways. I've shared a few below:

  

 Above: Calendar from Etsy artist Little Brown Pen.

Still, there's a certain charm about the phrase and the graphic simplicity of the original poster:

So when my friend Ami announced that she was becoming a Premier Designs jeweler (note their scripted logo with the crown on top), I thought that there was opportunity to have a little fun with the business cards I created for her. The only suggestion? She loves purple.


I finished off the cards with a hit of spot varnish to make them shine.

It's hard to see in the below photograph, but I added some spot varnish details to the back side also. See the little diamond shapes framing the purple bar? If you like the look, you can read more about some other projects I've done with spot varnish here.

The payoff? In exchange for designing and printing her cards, I get five nights' worth of free babysitting! (Did I mention that she's one of our son's favorite sitters?) Which also means FIVE date nights where I get to wear all of the cute jewelry I'll be ordering from her!


It was a fun little project to work on, and I wish Ami every success in her new business!