Lots of art on the horizon

Ok so Sunflower Express (the kids TV show I have been working on for almost a year now) has debuted episode 2. We are currently on Tour so to speak, hitting the local craft fair circuit. It is ridiculously exhausting yet fun at the same time... to take a look at the new Sunflower Express product line please visit www.sunflowerexpress.etsy.com... to view episode 2 visit www.sunflowerexpress.com . I'm currently getting ready for the Montpelier Herb and Tea fest on Saturday and its a slow crawl until June where we end in Ocean City. Sunflower Express also has a facebook fan page (search for sunflower express). Coming soon is the Sunflower Express Handmade blog where I will be blogging about crafting, building a brand and our craft fair experiences and tips!

A Double Sided Business Card Mini Brochure

A Mini Brochure



So I was needing to update my promotional materials and I thought this would be a good time to use a really cool technique to Create a mini brochure Business Card size.
Let's go thru the process.
Personally I'm an instant gratification type of girl and I like to be able to print my stuff myself and not wait until I've sent my docs off to the printer to see how it works, so I test drove some of the new features in Illustrator CS4 to Set up the card and print it.
In the newest version of Illustrator it is very easy to set up double sided printing because they give you the use of multiple artboards on your screen.
For this card you need to set up the document to have multiple Artboards and you do this from the New Document screen.



Where it says number of Artboards change that to 2. In the width and height change that to 4 inches wide and 3.75 inches high. This will create two art boards that are double business card size. You can size these up a bit to fit your purposes.
Inside of Illustrator you will find two art boards side by side that are constrained to your specified size. The next step is to start on your design. Turn your rulers on and set up your guides for bleed and for the fold at 2 inches on both boards and begin laying out your design.
The front of your document should be on the left artboard with the front cover actually on the right and the back cover actually on the right. On the second Artboard the text for the left inside should be on the left and the right inside text will be of course on the right.
Complete your design and then go ahead and print it out using the illustrator print options.
You need to have some knowledge of how your printer handles double sided prints. For me it was easiest to print the cards one at a time and flip the paper each time to get the print on the back.
When you are ready to get really fancy you can create a new document and layout multiple cards using copy and paste but your placement needs to be precise. Use your rulers and remember to place each front and back in exactly the same place on each artboard, re sizing each artboard when finished to remove any dead or negative space. Your finished product will look something like the finished product below. If you are sending to a printer to print the rest it is best to convert all of your text to outlines to avoid text issues and save as an EPS and then distill it to a single PDF document. I hope this helps anyone who designs on how to get a proof printed at home with double sided printing

The Anatomy of a Logo

Ok so I have gotten a few comments on the Logo and I figured this would make a really good blog post. Some people find text based logos overdone and boring but I would like to just say pish posh. You know all those really cool decorative fonts that are just lingering on your computer that you've horded looking for the right place to use them? This would be the time to dust those bad boys off and have a go at creating a refreshingly simple logo.

For the Shes So Crafty Logo I started with a sketch of intersecting Ss and a looping scripted C that ties them together. I think the sketch is the most important part, granted you could just sit down and fiddle with your letters till you get em right but, starting with a basic sketch lets you know where to start and streamlines your process. Once I had the sketch done I spent some time in my font viewer software hunting. I wanted a very ornate font for the intersecting Ss and a pretty simple scripted C to tie them both together.

I contemplated several choices for the Ss and finally decided on VTKS Revolt, For its nifty flourishes but simple easily readable letter styles.

Next step was the layout in Illustrator. I decided that the second S should be reversed, which gave it a kind of quirky feel. Now I needed a Scripted C that was less ornate but still fit with the flourishy touches of the S.

I settled for an oldy but goody AT Mahogony Script with its simple curves and the loop on the scripted C which gave the logo balance. I centered the C in the middle of the two S Coverted it to outlines so that I could further manipulate the C to intersect in the right spaces. I kept the C in just outlines to balance the heavy color of the flourishes in the Ss. And Voila. A fresh take on the standard Text based Logo. Most of the time when you think text based logo you are thinking of something more utilitarian, but as you can see this result is fresh and elegant yet simple in its conception. Dust off those fonts and give this new take on a graphic design classic a whirl!

So We Joined Facebook Last night

That is a really freaking scary thing. I keep a low profile most of the time cause I don't need anything else that keeps me on the internet for a ridiculous amount of time. I do enough of that on my own. But its funny to see people you know and how they've grown up. You forget all the time that We're all like really adults now, following my theory that you aren't fully an adult regardless of what the law says until you are thirty.
Lee doesn't remember anybody which is funny. I was like so when I'm 34 my memory will start to dim good thing I did this now...lol...
Ok so Sunflower Express's 1st full length episode is nearing completion we go into editing phase as soon as I finish my GD animation. There has been so much stuff going on that it is really hard for me to dig in but my goal is today.
Me and Cynt. will be heading to Mayorga Cafe on FEB. 7 for an art fair so I will be frantically making products for that in the very very near future. Gobie Keychains anyone????
Life has been a bit hechtic lately but I am very glad that I have a husband like I do. He really doesn't care about all the bullshit stuff and is mostly happy when I'm happy. So I give him mad props cause I'm hard to handle sometimes. The mom thing is exhausting and working the show is like a full time job in and of its self, on top of all the other things like the shop and the business. But you know I like to be busy, keeps me out of trouble and my mind engaged.
I hate the winter so its easy for me to drift until the temperature hits something remotely normal.
Ok enough procrastinating... time to get back to work.

Ok so I'm double posting

I have been hella busy in the last few months, so much so that i didn't get a chance to revel in my near brush with celebrity. So I had heard tell that a certain celebrity widow whom I have always adored for being wicked cool and not really caring what anybody (and I mean anybody) thought was loose on etsy and purchasing lots of pretty pretty handmade things.
Well after months of neglect I recieve an email that I actually sold something on my etsy site. Well low and behold who should it be but my favorite Rocker Girl Courtney Love. I was awestruck and freaked out. Here is here-to-fore known CL card. It's not much but it totally made my 2008!

Inspiration Strikes

These are new Felt Charms I whipped up this afternoon that are currently for sale at my etsy shop. I've been experimenting with Felt stuff cause its fun and there are so many cutey things you can make with it. These can be used as pendants or keychains, even zipper pulls they are tres cute for the big VDAY

These are by Little Felt Tribute to the best friend necklaces I used to wear as a kid. These are super cute and fun! Check out my etsy shop for other cute felty goodness now on sale with more to come!

Stumble Upon lead me to Stumble upon the Rights Never Ending Racial Bias

So I hit the stumble upon, haven't done it in a while and low and behold what do I find but loads and loads of Republican loony toons bitching about how everything is Obamas fault. The stock market is his fault, they lost their job and its his fault, He had a big party to celebrate and they didn't like it, How stupid black people are and why didnt he just have a barbecue and eat some chicken.
See we forget that a very large portion of the country has not evolved to follow the lofty ideals of the Left. We can't just start to think that things changed overnight. The work really has just begun. Though everyone is entittled to their own opinion, I don't know why some people think that its ok to say things like negro and blackie in regard to our president. Dude he's just as white as most of you and many of you down the line will find that you have a few darker skinned folks in your background. The color of your skin doesn't mean you will be a bad president and really we've already done this old white guy thing like 43 times already... Real Change means doing something different.