Irish I could blog more.

Sorry I have been MIA lately…  Sometimes this blog has to take a bit of a backseat!  Posting will be very light over the next few weeks.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d post this Irish eye candy — some personal stationery we did for a client with Irish heritage.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe St. Patrick’s Day.  Sláinte!

–Tara

nothing like the last minute

The holiday cards are in the mail!  Would you believe that I have never really done the holiday card thing?  Even though I make cards?  As my job?  Yes, I realize that is not quite right.  I have just never gotten it together in time, or had a fun enough idea.  I didn’t even start these until December 1st, so the process was definitely rushed, and there were a couple of things I would have done differently if I had thought about it longer.  However, there is something satisfying about a finished, original project, and they all went in the mail this morning!

I actually asked my husband, Dave, (who does not consider himself to be an artist) to do all the drawings.  The block handwriting is also his.  The calligraphy touches are from me, plus I manipulated and arranged all the images Dave made, and did all the printing.  I printed 4 colors on the flat cards, and just 1 on the envelopes.  The whole thing came out just as I’d hoped: quirky and casual, which represents us pretty perfectly.  I actually think I’ll hire him to make some other fun drawings for me to use in new invitation designs.

A few detail shots:

Oh yeah… there’s a haiku. Dave is sort of known for his haikus:

’tis the season, yo
ev’rybody gather round
have an awesome yule

The best part of this project was that I finally got a chance to really test out my Copperplate calligraphy skillz from my class this fall.  I addressed about 80 chartreuse envelopes, in 3 evenings last week, and was surprised that it didn’t take longer.  I had been a little worried I would get frustrated and give up.  Next time I will probably go slower in the hopes that they will come out better.

One of the smartest things I did was to design the envelopes so they were ruled with light dotted lines — that way I didn’t have to worry about how I was going to write in straight lines.  (This time, anyway.)  I thought the Love: All Heart stamps matched the colors well, but I also used the Nutcracker ones.

Since I probably shouldn’t be posting my friends’ addresses online (!), here are just a few cropped snippets.  As you can see, I started out a little heavy handed with the first names on my list:

But then got into the flow of things, and lightened up a bit:

Not sure which is better.  What do you think?

Happy holidays!
Tara

Serendipity

I am lucky. I know this.

I have the best mom in the world who cooks us dinner almost every night when she visits us. She’s from Co. Mayo, Ireland — this means shepherd’s pie, people! I also have a funny, talented brother who remembers everything I remember, great friends who know far more than is good for them, and I can wear pajama pants while I work.

Where I really lucked out, though? My husband, Dave — he always makes me feel better. Sometimes things are just not funny until he laughs. And it’s a great laugh. And life is good. But I will have to write about him another day, because this post is about how he has a sister named Jenn. And now I have a sister named Jenn.

Jenn is great. Jenn is the kind of person who will answer the phone at midnight even though she has a job interview at 8 am that you totally forgot about. She will tell you she just baked 60 cookies from scratch for some PTA thing, and in the same breath say that kindness is generally too much to hope for. She is a paradox. She is full of it. I adore her.

She has a new job, and a new schedule, and I don’t get to talk to her as much as I used to (as much as I want to). It is so hard to make friends once you’re out of college, and out of state, and away from everyone. Working all by your lonesome doesn’t help. So when you accidentally become best friends with your sister-in-law, you run with it. (And you make her note cards — these ones feature her favorite of our ornaments, a really great vintage goldfish illustration.)

Jenn, I am so glad you are in my life. Hope you are enjoying the cards. (Call me!)

Anyone else luck out with great in-laws / future in-laws?

–Tara