Where Art Thou Spring?

Late last week and through this weekend we had beautiful weather here in Central New York, and it was such a huge tease. I even bought Julian a bunch of spring/sumer clothes and shoes from Old Navy because I cannot wait to be rid of snow. At this point it feels like snow will never go away and flip flops will never be an option ever again. But spring will come eventually!

So, I wanted to put together a little moodboard which gives you a taste of what I'm craving this spring!

Clockwise from top left: (links are in the numbers)

1. Love this little outfit for Julian.

2. This color looks great on everyone.

3. Katie Daisy's prints uplift my mood 100%!

4. Spring makes me want to start eating lighter and healthier. These tacos sound amazing!

5. I ordered these shoes for Julian and I can't wait for him to wear them!

6. I love these DIY lanterns as a fun permanent decoration for somewhere in our house.

7. Ahh tulips. I want to find a place to plant some this spring.

8. This outfit looks so cute and could be worn ona casual day or at work!

9. Pointy scallop flats in white? Screams spring and summer to me!

10. This would be a cute Easter treat to bring to the office or to use as little placecard holders at Easter dinner.

What things remind you of spring? Are you as sick of the cold as I am?

Baby Shower Invitations Inspired by John Lennon's Animals

I'm very excited to share the printed version of the baby shower invitations I mentioned last week!

Here are some pictures

The mom-to-be is actually my cousin, and she has the John Lennon Real Love nursery collection that came out about 10 years ago, all in perfect condition. She and her husband, my cousin Darren, are big Beatles fans, so this nursery stuff really fits them to a T! I wanted to incorporate something about it into these invitations so they would be extra special to them, so I re-drew the animals that John Lennon drew for his son (named Julian!), which are part of the nursery bedding. You can see what some of the nursery pieces look like here. 

The animals are a pretty loose interpretation because I didn't want to copy them, but I think they came out so cute!

These invitations are stunning in person. The colors are so amazing, I can't even get over it! And they were definitely a labor of love because I cut all of my prints myself, and there were about 75 invitations here... Imagine me hunched over my paper cutter for about an hour with squinty little eyes. So cute.

Congrats to Darren and Cathy! I can't wait to meet the little guy!

Projects, Projects!

After Christmas I didn't have much going on in terms of design work, and with planning a move and all of the other things we had going on, I'm sort of glad that I had a break. Now I'm back at it with all types of work. Some projects have been self-initiated, which are usually my favorite ones, and some are for clients, which really puts the pressure on!

This is a little project that is a gift for my cousin who just had a baby earlier this month. It's one of my favorite birth announcement designs so far, and it happened to match her nursery really well.

These pictures were taken at night so the lighting in my apartment wasn't great!! I'm definitely going to take better pictures for my design portfolio.

This next project was self-initiated because I want to better my web design skills, and my mom is a florist who doesn't have a website. It's so important to have a website as a business owner, and my mom doesn't really understand that or value that, so I'm taking control of it and just doing it for her! I've been using Webydo to create the site, and so far I've had a decent experience. There are some kinks that have slowed me down but it's like any software that you've never worked with before- you just have to get used to it. I'll probably write more about my experience when Im all done!

So this is the new logo and color scheme that I've dreamed up that works with the colors that my mom already has going on in her shop. I plan on expanding the whole brand into new business cards for her that will include her new website address.

So far I only have a few pages that are "done" and the rest of it will be slow moving because I have to take pictures to use as content for each of the pages. Hopefully I can get most of the content I need to get it running within the next month, and then I'll be able to add things as I go and as the seasons pass and my mom puts out more work.

The next thing that I have in the works is a baby shower invitation for my cousin Cathy, who is expecting a baby boy in April. I'm just waiting to hear that the details are definite and also a count of how many to print.

Cathy has baby bedding from Carter's that is based on the animals that John Lennon drew in his book for his son (fun fact: John Lennon's son's name is Julian!). She bought it when she worked there ten years ago and has saved it all this time. Cathy and Darren (who is my second cousin) are huge Beatles fans, so the bedding is really special to them. I wanted to include something that was very them in the design for the invitations, so I recreated the animals in the bedding to put in the banner at the top of the invitation. I can't wait to get these printed! They're one of my favorite invitations that I've done so far!

This next project was proposed by an old friend who I met at my first job. She wants to start a tea beverage business and came to me asking for a little bit of branding work. So I got to work right away drawing up a logo and thinking of the color scheme. I can't wait to show her what I've come up with so far! 

The challenge here is going to be translating my handwritten logo into something digital. I've started to draw it on my computer and it's not perfect yet. It'll take lots of work to get it looking the way it need to look. Here are the colors I'm thinking so far, and a little pattern that could be used somehow.

I can't wait to see how it pans out!

This last thing was something I did in my spare time last week while I was still without wifi. I plan to have it printed (although I haven' decided what size) and framed for Julian's room. I originally planned to make a huge print of it but since I have the painted fox in there now that I want to be the focal point, this guy might be a little smaller, but equally as important of course.

This guy is so graphic and awesome. I want one for my room! I love art like this because it's so interpretive and the types of colors you include really communicate the personality of the character that you create. This fox is really sassy and really has his own set of rules, which is exactly how Julian is. Sassy and headstrong!

When I'm looking back at all of these projects I can't believe how many different things I'm doing right now. Babies, tea branding, foxes, flowers... holy cow! I love how each project is so different than the next. Some are more in depth and complicated, some are completed and some are a work in progress. I love having work to do. It motivates me to be creative and productive, especially at night, when Julian has gone to bed and all I feel like doing is watching Treehouse Masters. Yeah, totally my new favorite show. I'm serious.

I hope to be able to add all of these things to my portfolio soon! Thank you to everyone who supports my talents and my dreams and my crazy obsessions. Every new thing I take on is an opportunity to learn something new.

Recent Projects

I didn’t really take any breaks from design work for the holidays, mostly because all of the projects I work on are things that I really am excited about. I feel lucky to love all of my projects, and I know that as I continue in my design career, that won’t always be the case.

Anyways, I was up late almost every night over the past few weeks, mostly working on a new blog design/branding project (but also staying up all night working on my New Year's Greeting!) for a fellow blogger who also happens to be a co-worker of mine at Boyle & Anderson. We first worked together with some very basic designs and branding ideas back in September, and it was definitely time to take her blog design to the next level.

So I began to work hard at showing her my ideas and putting together a moodboard, and before we both knew it I has completely re-designed her blog! The new look should be in place later tonight, so be sure to stop by her blog tomorrow, once all the kinks have been worked out.

I’m super proud and excited, because this is my first blog design project, besides my own, and although it took very basic coding knowledge, I did it all by myself and all of the designs are, to my knowledge, completely original and based only on my visions!

So, here is the moodboard and the branding board for Felicia's new blog design! You'll be able to see the full design on her blog and on my portfolio site by tomorrow morning!

Another really great project that was recently completed was a birthday party invitation for a sweet little girl who is turning 1 this month. her mom, Nikki, came to me with her vision of a Mad Hatter Tea Party themed party, so I got to work thinking of the funnest way to convey the theme while still keeping in mind that the party is for a baby girl. It came out amazing- definitely a one-of-a-kind design!

In my opinion, invitations to a party are what sets the scene. If you want to throw a great themed party, having well-designed invitations is like putting a key into a door (which sort of reminds me of Alice In Wonderland haha!). Your guests will know to expect high quality at your party! Some people won't appreciate your effort, but a lot of people will, and it's an amazing feeling to recieve those complements!

These two projects were both a really amazing way to end 2013 and start 2014. I can't wait to see the party that Nikki puts together for Elli- I know it'll be amazing- and I can't wait to start working on putting Felicia's blog design into place tonight! Stay tuned for the final peek at that!

Sometimes a tropical drink in Winter does makes sense...

I got the most perfect little blender of Christmas that I've been dying to use to make something delicious. So why not add a dash of alcohol to it on this chilly Friday night?

I love a good seasonal cocktail, but sometimes you just crave a taste of something out of season and you can't wait six months to have it!

So, tonight Dom and I are making our own tropical smoothie "dranks" (we're silly so we call drinks with alcohol in them "dranks"). To make our version of this delicious alcoholic smoothie, you'll need the following ingredients:

Pinnacle Tropical Punch Vodka
Orange Juice
Sparkling Tropical Fruit Juice (we got ours from Wegmans)
Frozen or fresh mixed fruit (ours is the Dole mixed fruit from the frozen section)
Ice

I didn't really measure the ingredients. We've made two drinks and both of them have different levels of each ingredient in them but they both taste amazing!

So just add your ingredients to your blender, blend for about 30 seconds or until you get your desired smoothness. Then pour it into a pretty glass and drink up!

This mixed drink almost makes me want to shave my legs and put on a bathing suit. Almost.

I'll be back on Monday talking about this past year and also my goals for this coming year (because would I really be a blog if I didn't?), but until then, have a happy, fun, and safe weekend!!

Cristmas Brunch

Today began a three day festival of eating for me, so I'm just going to let myself feel fat and bloated and just enjoy all of the food.

This morning I hosted a little Christmas brunch for Dom's mom and her boyfriend because she's going to visit Dom's sister in Texas for the holiday. We ate and did a little exchanging of gifts, and of course I put a lot of work into it. I love any excuse to hone my hostessing skills.

For the menu, I made a Vegetable Strata and sort of followed this recipe. It came out AMAZING, and I highly recommend it because it's fairly easy, fairly quick and makes a huge impact. Everyone was raving about how good it was. I would say it's comparable to the lovechild of a quiche and a breakfast casserole, if that could be a thing. I also made mini pancake stacks with home made whipped cream and strawberries on top. I was inspired by this photo from this post at Design Love Fest. I don't know if these are pancakes, but they made me think of the idea.

They came out so great! They're perfect for little ones on Christmas morning, and pancakes are always easy and quick to make. The rest of the menu included bacon, cheesy grits, and cinnamon buns, and to drink we had mimosas.

It was a really nice, intimate party with just me, Dom, his mom, her boyfriend, and Julian. We all devoured pretty much every bite of food. Good thing, because I hate leftovers.

So, now a few pictures!

Are you hosting a Christmas breakfast or brunch? What are you serving? I always like thinking out of the box for breakfast food!

PS- Thank you to everyone to viewed part 1 of Julian's birth story. I'll be posting part 2 soon!

New Year's Party E-Vite

I mentioned in a recent post that I'm obsessed with the idea of a New Year's party, and there were/are some things to take into consideration since we live in an apartment with people below us and next to us, but we were really excited at the idea, so Dom and I decided to have a little soiree.

To make things simple, I made e-vites to be sent as texts to our friends. I wanted to share them here, and if you like them, I'd be happy to make simple alterations and send you an image for your own party! You can email me at emmabauso@gmail.com.

What are your New Year's plans?

Elmo Second Birthday Invitations

I'm excited to share a little project that I've been working on recently for a friend. When she told me she was planning an Elmo themed birthday party, I was a little nervous because that's sort of not my "style". But, a really great idea came to my head that would make them extra special. I also didn't want to use the predictable Sesame Street/kid fonts, so I paired our friend Elmo with Origin and Honey Script.

Free Vintage Truck Vector

I love experimenting with Illustartor and building little things that I can keep in my image library to pull out for an invitation or something. I get my inspiration for a lot of things from fabric. Carousel Designs is a great website for children's fabric inspiration.

I got the idea of building a vinatge truck from this fabric at Carousel Designs. So cute! It's perfect to use with a vintage truck birthday theme, or even for shower invitations or artwork in your son's bedroom!

So, because I love being able to share things with you guys for free, here is the link for a free Illustrator download of this sweet little vintage truck!

You'll have to do some playing around to change the colors if you need to, but with a little knowledge of the programn, it shouldnt be too hard. When I originally made this I didn't usually use layers to separate parts, and I've definitely learned my lesson, so anything I put out there from now on should be easier to edit.

Simply download the file, open it up, and edit it/add it to your design! A credit to me isn't completely necessary, but if you make something with it and post it online, I'd love to see what you used it for!

Also, if you don't have Illustrator or just want the JPEG file, you can comment on this post or email me at emmabaus@gmail.com and I'll gladly send it to you!

I hope someone can find some use for it!

Free Gatsby Soiree Printable!

Good morning! I spent some time last night fiddling around on the computer and pinning some new inspiration for new projects, and I came across a recent pin from Oh Happy Day's printable cocktail party invitations. Everyone loves a free printable! So, I made this Great Gatsby themed birthday soiree printable for you to use to invite to your next party! You could base the whole party on this art-deco theme, and even have your guests come in their most dapper dressings!

Simply print the invitations, fill in the information and give them out to your guests- they should fit in an envelope for 4x6 invitations, which can be found at your local craft store, or even Staples.

Materials:
White, cardstock paper (8 1/2x11)
This downloaded PDF file (A new page will open- click the "Download" button in the upper right hand corner- I promise it's safe!)

Steps:

1. Download the file.
2. Open it up on your computer.
3. Print it out on the cardstock paper.
4. Cut the invitations out.
5. Fill in the party information.
6. Send them out.
7. Host a fabulous party!

It's so easy! You could throw something together in no time with these printables, and they're perfect for a small get-together. if you wanted to make the invitations a little glitzier, you could easily add some glitter glue and trace along a few of the gold scallops to make them really pop.