Posts

Children's Book Illustrations

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This past year I had the opportunity to illustrate my very first children's book!  A local couple reached out to me to help them illustrate a story the husband wrote for his grandchildren.  It's a wonderfully sweet story about the grandpa's wayward golf ball and the adventures little forest creatures have with it when they find it. Here are a couple of my favorite drawings from the book.    

A Few Favorite graphic design projects from 2019-2021

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 In 2019 I was hired on as Communications Manager for a college campus ministry.  It has been a really exciting job as the department I work for has a great need for visual communications in a variety of different formats and target audiences within its ministry.  Here is a sampling of graphic work I did for some of my favorite projects: SMALL GROUP GARAGE: a training program for college student small group leaders that involved a social media campaign that coordinated with an interactive training interface I created on Miro. COVID Bible Study: When college campuses essentially shut down in March 2020, our team had to quickly shift to online content.  Many college students were reeling from the abrupt shift in their college education environment and I helped develop graphics for a bible study focused on suffering, perseverance, joy during hard times and turning to Christ for comfort, support, guidance, wisdom.  These images were from the social media campaign to...

Christmas Cards

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A Collection of Christmas cards I have designed over the years for my family 2017 2018 2019  

Coronavirus Clutter Cure

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If you are like my family during coronavirus, you are feeling a little antsy and have a lot of pent up energy that isn't being expended in its usual ways.  We find our morning routines slowed way down, less rush, we often don't get out of our pajamas until 10 am (on particularly slow days we don't even change out of them). On bad weather days, after we have exhausted all the fun indoor activities, I find my kids pretty willing to do chores around the house as long as they are presented as a 'fun activity' and not a chore (I get it, I was young once too). So I thought I'd use the same logic to trick myself into a 'chore' by trying to organize my kitchen cupboards and make it into a sorting game.  That might not sound like a ton of fun, but if you are a visual person like me, the visual calm you get from opening a well organized cupboard is so pleasing. It's the little things, haha. A good place to start with organizing is to just take ev...

Kitchen Update: Dishwasher + Panel

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My dishwasher broke about a week into the Coronavirus crisis and social distancing (ugh).  The dishwasher came with the house and it had been sub par pretty such ever since it conked out on me the morning of our first Thanksgiving in our house!  I have been able to repair it every time, but when it stopped working this time, I just could sense that it wasn't coming back to life with a good lump of cash invested in it. So we bit the bullet and ordered a new dishwasher and I could be more pleased with it.  I intentionally ordered a panel-ready dishwasher after seeing a number of Instagram accounts I follow install one of their own to match the cabinetry.   With our kitchen being on the smaller side (it if great if only one person is in there, but get 2+ people or kids and it quickly gets out of hand), I thought having a panel that blended in with the rest of the cabinetry was worth the extra time and money.  I ordered a cabinet front from Fast Cabinet D...

Bathroom Peg Rail

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Ever since I saw  The Grit + Polish  install some peg rails at their farmhouse (they have them in many locations), I knew this was likely the solution I was going to use for our powder room on the mail level. I have already decided I wanted some kind of shelf there for storage, but the shaker pegs were a welcome detail.  The Grit + Polish tutorial  seemed easy enough, so I went with it! Couldn't be happier with the result! The shaker pegs were ordered off of Amazon, but everything else was from my local Ace hardware. So happy to be supporting local businesses right now! The yellow wall color is Golden Bounty by Sherwin Williams.  I have it in another guest bedroom, its a wonderful shade of yellow (thought slightly hard to photograph accurately). I plan to store handsoap tablets (I order mine from  Blueland  for an environmentally friendly alternative) in these thrifted wall baskets and also a broom/dustpan for easy access off o...

Kitchen Update

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This was by far the biggest and most intimidating project I had done in this house but  I knew it was something I should do if I really wanted to make this house feel like a home to me.  I am a huge fan of white/bright kitchens and this kitchen was anything but white and anything but bright.   The dark cabinetry, while perhaps very nice quality, were just the absolute opposite of anything I would have chosen for this kitchen.  It felt like a cave every time I walked in, and with the high ceiling, but small footprint, it just felt like being enclosed in darkness. So, with a very limited budget, I decided the best route was to paint the cupboards. I knew I wanted cupboards that were either blue or greenish, but it took me a while to land on the color.  I eventually chose Sea Salt by Benjamin Moore and I couldn't be happier with the color.  Eventually I would love to switch out the countertops for something lighter, maybe a creamy white quartz and install a ...