Tag: prints

Graphic Design

Open for Business

Jessica Smith

Before I dive into this blog entry, I wanted to say sorry for spamming all of my readers who get emails anytime I post something — I’m sure you truly enjoyed reading the one and only word in the post: “Shop.” Riveting, huh? You’d think after four years of using WordPress I’d know how to publish a page versus a post. In reality, it’s amazing it’s taken me this long to spam you! Anyway, my bad. It’s not my goal to send you random emails.

Maybe “Shop” was a great teaser for this post, since my exciting news is that my Etsy shop is open for business! Woohoo!!!

A-Smith-of-All-Trades_Etsy-Shop

Right now, I’ve got my nursery prints for sale, along with my popular Do What You Love print (I’ve already sold my first one of these — ahhhhhhh!). I’ll be adding the Adventures of Remmy the Dog prints up there shortly. And, of course, if you’ve seen a design on my blog over the years that you want to see in my shop, comment or send me an email!

A huge thank you to my sister Allie (a fabulously talented artist in Chicago), my friend Beth (who blogs about her fitness journey on BoltingButterfly.com) and blogger Charlotte (over at Monno Design) who all gave me great advice and feedback when it came to the right way to open up shop. They really gave me the push I needed. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, and I finally made it happen!

OK, end of my Etsy store plug. I promise I won’t flood my blog with shameless self promotion, but I’m super excited to share this news 🙂

Do any of my readers have shops of their own? If you do, comment and share your shop link and what you sell! I’d love to see the fabulous things you all are doing.!! I love perusing Etsy and looking at all of the amazing things people have to offer. There are some insanely creative and talented people out there.

Happy Tuesday!

Graphic Design

The Adventures of Remmy the Dog: Underwater Dive

Jessica Smith

The polls are in and Remmy’s next adventure is an underwater dive! Gosh he is just the cutest, diver pup.

The Adventures of Remmy the Dog_Underwater Dive

Stay tuned for his next adventure: Hot Air Ballooning!

Graphic Design

Project 8: Love Prints

Jessica Smith

Happy February!

February is basically the best month of the year. OK, well that’s clearly a lie… but it definitely has a lot of things going for it. It’s short, so that’s great. The faster spring get’s here, the better. It’s my birthday month (Woo!), so that kinda fun. And, of course, there’s Valentine’s Day. I am probably the one and only person whose favorite holiday is Valentine’s Day, but it is and always has been. I’m sure when I was a kid it was just a fun precursor to my birthday, which follows just four days later. (Sucks to be the husband… Valentine’s Day and birthday within four days!? Yikes!) Pre-birthday celebration aside, Valentine’s Day is just awesome.

When you are a kid you get to exchange sweet Valentine’s Day cards with all of your classmates in decked out, heart-covered paper bags. Who didn’t love that?! And if you are indecisive like me, you too sweated bullets trying to pick the best Valentines for your classmates. Should you choose Hey Arnold or Scooby Doo? Maybe Spiderman? How about Disney princesses… BAHHH! Today it would be easy: Up Valentines fo sho. I mean, honestly, who can say “no” to Dug the dog or Russell? In fact, I bought Up Valentines a year or so ago and gave them to my college roommates, my sisters and my little brother. They even came with tattoos. TATTOOS! They were AWESOME.

Even after elementary school, I think Valentine’s Day remains a great holiday. It’s one day a year when you remember to tell all the amazing people in your life that you love them. Significant other or not, it’s a day to love and be loved, and that’s why I love it. (I should try to squeeze the word “love” into that sentence just one more time, huh?)

Anyway, to the craft project. I have been experimenting with Adobe InDesign and I think it’s the best program ever. I made some love-themed artwork that I plan on printing out on a nice card stock and framing for our master bedroom. To keep the prints consistent, I used the same two fonts in each image: Baskerville and Zapfino.

What do you think? I’m really happy with how they turned out. And, depending on what color scheme we go with when we decorate, I’ll change the accent color. For now, I’m rocking the light bluish-green.

My take on the infamous LOVE statue in NYC.


“Love” and its many definitions.

Another version with definitions. I like this one a bit better.

This one is inspired from Pinterest!

And this one took forever, but it was so worth it.

I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out. Have you ever experimented with InDesign? What do you think about it? I took a graphic design class in college, so I’ve got the hang of the program. It’s a lot of fun to play around with it, so if you get the chance to try it out, I definitely recommend it!