Tag: illustration

Christmas, Gift Idea, Graphic Design, Holiday

Muppets Animal Print

Jessica Smith

We grew up listening to John Denver & the Muppets Christmas CD, so it is by far my favorite holiday music. If you are a follower of my blog, you know that I love to do graphic design. This Christmas I made my sister a print with Animal and a quote from one of our favorite songs, Little Saint Nick.

If you listen to the song you hear Animal screaming during the refrain, “RUN, RUN, REINDEER!”

With that in mind, here is the print I designed and framed for Em for Christmas.

Runrunreindeer

I designed the Santa Animal in Illustrator, then brought it into InDesign and added the striped background and text.

Emily loved it and I totally want to print one for myself for next year! Super freakin’ cute.

Uncategorized

Birthday Jeopardy (and the best gift ever)

Jessica Smith

I love birthdays. I can thank my mother for that. She always made our birthdays wonderful. They are one day a year you get to feel special, or make someone you love feel special. Yesterday was Brian’s birthday, so I came up with a fun way to give him the gifts I’d gotten him.

BIRTHDAY JEOPARDY!

Birthday Jeopardy

I made a full Jeopardy board (Brian loves that show & trivia games) and came up with 31 questions to go with it! I  did one round, plus final jeopardy. Each category had a gift associated with it. My favorite category was: Tina, you “fat” lard. All of the answers had the word “fat” in them. And yes, the next category was Come get some dinner.

Here’s an example:

Tina, you “fat” lard

Watching, thinking of, hearing about or listening to Game of Thrones makes Jess this 8-letter word for tired.

What is ‘fat’igued?

Ding ding ding! For that question, B got the newest Game of Thrones book.

The best category and corresponding gift was in final Jeopardy.

Golden Retrievers

Jess’ three golden retrievers were all named after movie characters. Name the three films.

What are The Land Before Time, Indiana Jones and Ratatouille. 

Buzzzz. B got this wrong (he didn’t know my first dog Sarah was named after Sarah the Triceratops in the Land Before Time. Rookie…. Also, Remmy isn’t really named after the rat in Ratatouille. But it worked so well for the clue!).

Since it was his birthday, he still got his gift.

Birthday Portrait

A custom portrait of Remmy!

So this is basically the best, most amazing, adorable gift ever. As a blogger a super small small smallllll business owner (really, I can’t even claim that.. but whatevs), I always love to share other fantastic small businesses. I bought this print from Kathryn Selbert Illustrations, who has a shop on Etsy. I sent her three pictures of our pup with a few details, and she made this graphic drawing, basically combining all three into one adorable cartoonified Rem. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. I ordered this for B on Nov. 4, originally planning to give this to him for Christmas. But she sent me the file on Sunday (you can opt to print your own or she’ll send you a print) and I had it printed just in time for his birthday! Talk about amazing timing.

Here are the photos I sent her:

PupPortraitPic1 PupPortraitPic2 PupPortraitPic3

Here’s the illustration she made:

JessicaS_lowres_web_1

Is she talented or what?!? I love that she pulled in Rem’s bandana (which I think has since been destroyed) and that his big ol’ tongue is hanging out. I also love that it looks like a watercolor painting.

Let’s be honest, this was a gift for me just as much as it was a gift for Brian. We both love it. It’s definitely one of my favorite gifts I’ve ever given.

Kathryn has all sorts of other adorable illustrations available in her shop, so you should definitely check them out. She does two-week turnarounds, so there’s still plenty of time left to order your pet portraits before the holidays!

OK, I’m done raving now. Happy day-after-your-birthday to my main squeeze. Glad you liked your birthday game & gifts.

If you want to check out Brian’s other fun birthday “game,” check out my post on his beer scavenger hunt!

 

Graphic Design

Significant Dates

Jessica Smith

Mushy post alert!!

Ew, mush. I know. Just suck it up haha. This one’s quick!

I’ve seen this cute graphic design art floating around Pinterest for some time now that lists a couples’ most significant dates in their lives together. I made one a while ago but completely forgot about it. Then I opened it up and realized I didn’t like it. The white background was boring and the fonts were sorta lame-o.

This is a great inDesign project for any beginners because it is simply manipulating text boxes and choosing fonts. Nothing too crazy. I picked out our dates (I made one up because I’m not really sure when it was haha) and placed each date in its own text box. I pulled the text box edges to match the edges of the paper, then centered everything.

Then, in a smaller font, I labeled what each date was. I dragged the edges again to the outside of the frame and centered the text.

In a second layer, I added some scrolly embellishments in the corners and along the sides, fading the transparency to 20 percent.

And finally, on a third later, I added a color to the background (same as the accent text and scrolls) and faded it to 10 percent transparency.

See, doesn’t that sound easy?

Significant Dates

I definitely want to frame this one for our house. It’s simple and elegant, and it’s a eye-catching way to remind ourselves of our most special dates in our lives together. Speaking of which, 2014 will be a whole decade for us! Holy smokes.

If I find a fancy frame, I might just print it on a white background, minus the swooshiness. Here’s how that looks.

Lovey dates white

Fonts used: Baskerville (date), Albemarle Swash (explanation), Soft Ornaments Eights (swooshes)

TGIF.