oops, i did it again.

...a little blog redesign, that is.

This one took me a few hours to plan, but less than an hour to implement (last time around it took the better part of a weekend). And it's squeaky clean, which I love.

Happy last few hours of your long weekend!

xoxo.

portfolio: kailyn + philip's save the dates

Today I'm super excited to share the save the dates that Renee and I designed for Kailyn and Philip. I've known Kailyn and Philip for a long, long time, as we all grew up going to church together. When Kailyn approached me about designing their invitation suite, I was thrilled to get to be a part of their big day! For as long as I've known Kailyn, she's always had great style, and her wedding ideas are no different! The save the dates have a vintage travel look (all credit goes to Kailyn for the adorable idea)...

 Renee wrote Kailyn and Philip's names with her amazing handwriting, I did-up the design with vintage details, and Kailyn printed them on kraft paper and added the embellishments--it was really a team effort and I think they turned out pretty cute! I may be biased, though...

Kailyn and Philip, I wish you guys all the best and I'm already looking forward to working on the other paper goods for your wedding! 

xoxo.

P.S. Aren't they the cutest?

our christmas card.

I really like Christmas cards. My mom usually keeps them in a basket during the holidays, and I love reading through them each year to see what friends and family are up to. I wanted to keep things simple this year for ours, but also signify the big change in our lives that happened in 2011: our move to Texas. I came up with this design, which allowed me to print them at home and send as a postcard...

 We sent these to our family and friends that are sprinkled across the West Coast. I had another set of cards that say "Merry and Bright," that we sent to friends here in Abilene.

Do you send out Christmas cards? Do you like getting them in the mail? I love both the sending and receiving.

xoxo.

P.S. See last year's card here.

portfolio: table talk.

 I created a few designs for a CookingThyme event that my mom hosted a couple weeks ago, including placecards, recipe cards and a thank you card (below). What do you think?

xoxo.

P.S. More CookingThyme posts here.

portfolio: flyers for CookingThyme.

Oh hey, Tuesday! And hey, friends! I've been knee-deep in designy-ness, a lot of which I haven't shared on here yet. As many of you know, I help with my mom's business, CookingThyme, which offers cooking classes for kids + adults in the Portland area (if you're in Portland, stop reading this post right now and head over to the CookingThyme website to check out the sweet classes on there! And then sign up for one! Or twelve!). This is a flyer I created for our upcoming Cook Through the Alphabet Mommy & Me series (cute idea, right? I didn't come up with it, but yes, I am biased...)

 I have developed such a huge passion for this business, because it's not just about food, and it's not just about cooking. My mom is all about the idea of the family meal, and how powerful and important it is for families to sit down to a meal together on a regular basis and share life together. In the end, we might not remember the exact meal we ate (with the exception of my mom, who rarely forgets a meal, and has been known to keep herself up at night planning them...), but we will remember who we ate with, what was said, and what it meant to us. And what I love about this idea is that it has endless implications for the way we live our lives. Here's just a few:

Regular, family meals are now considered a major factor in preventing childhood obesity. 

Food breaks down barriers, and allows us to share in conversations we might not have had otherwise (a simple spaghetti meal was integral in Landon and I joining the church we now call our home). 

Cooking is a form of self-expression that is beautiful, forgiving, purposeful and so rewarding (I'm remembering the pat-on-the-back feelings I had after I roasted my very first chicken only a year ago!).

And food is something we can all relate to. We may not all find the fine arts to be accessible, we may not find sports to be enjoyable, but we all need food, so we might as well make it GOOD (who's with me?).

Food has power, there's just no denying it. And until someone convinces me otherwise, I'll be knee deep in this CookingThyme thing, and loving every minute.

xoxo.

ANNOUNCING: TylerBright

Happy Tuesday, friends! I know it's back to work for most of us, and I hope your 4-day work week is off to a great start. Today I've got something special to announce! My dear friend Renee and I have been in the process (for almost a year...yikes!) of setting up a little shop on Etsy, and it's finally ready to show its face. We've named it TylerBright, which is a not-super-creative combination of our last names (and has also had some of you thinking that I'm preggers with a boy that we're naming Tyler...for the record, I'm not :). 

This all came about when I asked Renee to help create our wedding invitations last summer. You can see them in the center photo below. Renee has KILLER cute handwriting, and I love to make little ditties on the computer, so we're combining forces and offering invitations and prints in our shop. Here's some of the designs we've got listed:

This wedding scroll (above) is one of my absolute favorites. Renee made one for our wedding last summer, and we had our families and wedding party sign as witnesses of our big day. And Renee can make one for your wedding too!

Keep in mind that we are rookie Etsy sellers, and feel free to share any advice with us if you're an Etsy pro! We also don't have the best camera equipment, but I promise that all of the designs are prettier in person than they are in some of these photos, and we've got more designs coming in the next few weeks. We're also open to doing custom work, so if you've got something in mind, either convo us on Etsy or send an email to: tylerbrightdesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

If you're interested, you can

visit our shop here.

xoxo.

portfolio: vintage-inspired invitations

 Well, friends, we made it to Friday! Today I've got some design love to share with you. A few weeks ago, my sweet cousin Lindsay commissioned me to create some lingerie shower invites that she and Olivia (you know Olivia, right?) are hosting for a friend. My instructions were to make it vintage-y and not too girly, and here's the final product. What do you think? The address and phone number in the image above are fake, of course. We wouldn't want anyone crashing their sicky-sweet party!

xoxo.

PS. Big announcement coming Tuesday. Stay tuned.

PPS. One year ago (roughly).

portfolio: nametags + recipes, 50s style.

 Hi friends! I'm hoping to bring a little cheer to your Monday morning with a few things I've designed recently. About a month ago, I showed you this invitation I designed for Atkinson Insurance Group's Summer Cookout. I also designed some nametags and recipe cards (which were given as favors) for the cookout. The party had a 50s inspiration, so I tried to keep that running through the designs. I love how the nametags were displayed on the fence--cute, right?

Here's a closeup of the nametag design:

The recipe card favors included all of the recipes served that night. Here's the design for those:

xoxo.

portfolio: love story + wedding signage

Monday already? And August? This summer is flying! We spent the weekend in Austin celebrating our anniversary, which was AWESOME. I'll be sharing photos on here later this week! Today I'd like to show you a couple of things I designed for Brandon and Elisa's Portland wedding. They had a cookie bar at their reception (genius, right?), and in the photo above you can see the "Love is sweet, please enjoy a treat" sign that I designed. Here's a closeup:

Remember the "love story" I designed for our wedding (you can see it in this post)? Elisa asked me to do a similar print for her big day, and I love how they displayed it in the photo below:

They have a great story, which made designing this a breeze! Here's a closeup of the design:

And finally a "Bride" and "Groom" sign for each of their chairs. 

Elisa was wonderful to work with and, from the looks of it, she planned a stunning wedding. Congrats Elisa and Brandon!

xoxo.

[photos by Gabriel Boone]

porfolio: summer cookout invitation.

Today I bring you an invitation I designed for Atkinson Insurance Group's annual summer cookout [with the address blurred, of course]. Hope you all had a great holiday weekend!

xoxo

portfolio: family reunion logo.

My dear friend Maryn is planning a reunion for her family over 4th of July weekend, so she asked me to come up with a logo for their itinerary and other printed materials. I thought I'd post it here...feel free to share your thoughts!

xoxo.

portfolio: camp sprout brochure.

Hi friends! I recently posted the camp sprout ad and postcard, which I designed for my sister, who is the director of Camp Sprout. Now I bring you the registration brochure. This is the culmination (for now) of my Camp Sprout projects, and I loved working on them all! 

I'd love your feedback!

xoxo.

portfolio: camp sprout postcard.

front

back

this is another something-something i've been working on for camp sprout. i showed you the camp sprout ad a couple of weeks ago, and i just finished designing a postcard mailer that will go out this month. i'm just starting to dabble in this for-realsies design stuff, but i'm loving it!

xoxo

portfolio: my first real ads.

 Having recently acquired CS5, I've created my first two real ads (nevermind the fact that both clients were family members)! First, a CookingThyme ad for Frugal Living NW. And second, a Camp Sprout ad for NW Kids. Camp Sprout is the new day camp program of Sunshine School where my sister is the director.

xoxo.