Archive for the ‘design’ Category

Dear Mom Free Printable

May 3rd, 2013
5 Comments

This idea came to me yesterday. It’s simple, but I sure enjoyed playing around with the flourishes. You can see the design process a bit on instagram.

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Next Sunday is Mother’s Day. Do you have something planned for the mama/woman in your life? You should start scheming now.

We don’t really celebrate holidays a ton, but Chris knows I require breakfast in bed and a long love letter for Mother’s Day. Flowers would be nice too, especially since I recently figured out it was a deer (or five?) that ate all of our tulips. Poor Penelope got an ear full from me about not cutting down flowers before I figured that one out. Mom of the year award definitely not going my way.

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I’m thrilled to bits that my mom will be visiting over Mother’s day. I miss having my parents close by (they’ve lived in Charlotte for the last 4 years). My mom knows so much about being a good mom, maintaining a house and planting an amazing garden.

My favorite memories of childhood include seeing those first fruits of the season. Particularly going out and picking the giant raspberries (the size of my thumb!) and eating them right off the bush. For lunch we would eat tomatoes, cottage cheese with pepper on top. Mmm. Mmm.

My mom is the reason for my inner foodie. She knows how to cook! She taught me everything I know. And I know I can call her up while I’m in the middle of the grocery store with howling kids in tow and she’ll advise me on the right cut of meat to buy. Or she’ll find the recipe I forgot to look up before planning my shopping trip.

She’s the best.

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I lucked out with my mother-in-law, too. She can master anything she wants. She’s a fabulous organist, pianist, classical guitarist and classical basist. She can knit the most amazing socks (I’m a picky sock person) and most recently she’s made the most darling quilts for Penelope and Felix. She lives in Phoenix unfortunately, so I don’t get to see her as often as I would like. She is an amazing mom. How lucky am I to have two amazing mothers in my life?

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There are so many incredibly women and mothers out there. So print a card for your mom and tell her how awesome she is. Click the button above to download. Check out last year’s card here.

Want to show your appreciation for these downloads? Be sure to follow the blog on Feedly, Bloglovin, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

This printable is subject to melissaesplin.com’s terms of use. This printable is free for personal use only.

 

Sponsored: Business Cards & Laser Cutting

February 20th, 2013
11 Comments

ponoko

Ponoko is your personal factory, an online laser cutting and 3D printing service. Upload your design file to make your own jewelry, home accessories, and more. Check out Ponoko on facebook.

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Last year I put in about 30+ man hours into my business card. Between all the laser cutting and assembling, it was a TON of work. This year, I wanted to go simpler, but still fun and impactful. Out of pure chance and some diligent searching for DIY laser cutting I found Ponoko. And I’ve been so excited to work with them. My head was (and still is) spinning with ideas.

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Since it came down to trying to keep things simple, I landed on this key chain idea. I used cell phone straps instead of split rings (I knew the split rings would make me want to cry, trying to assemble those). I also didn’t remove the protective backing (not pictured) because doing 200 of those would have also made me cry. These cards took about 11 man hours to assemble. So much better.

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I had some issues with the actual card, the first stamp I ordered was not very legible. It sort of sent me into a panic, but the stamp guys I send my stuff to were more than accommodating. Phew!! Most of the cards were on the white stock, since the ink on black stock wasn’t as readable. I really wish there was a white/silver stamp ink that was more brilliant. If you know of any brands, let me know. The American Crafts stamp pad is the best of the ones I’ve tried, but I’ve had that pad for a couple years now, and it’s not as brilliant as it once was. I can’t seem to find it anywhere, either.

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I used Strathmore art board for my stock, it’s super thick. The black is really lovely and much easier to cut than the white. I actually just took the art boards to Alphagraphics and they cut the paper for me. It saved me a ton of time and the potential flesh wound. I sort of regret not going with the I Still Love You motto, but I really love these little diamond pieces. They’re reminiscent of the new background design and gender neutral.

melissaesplin-ponoko-business-cards-4 I had a few extra pieces from assembly, I made earrings out of them. I dig. Wouldn’t these be fun in wood or metal?

What would you make out of these little acrylic shapes? Leave a comment below. I’ll pick a winner next monday and ship them out to you! 

Equal Parts Inspiration and Fun

February 1st, 2013
8 Comments

I feel like all I’ve talked about for the last 3 months is Alt Summit. It really is the best blogging conference for design-minded social media-ites, and so worth every minute of preparation and stress. I don’t feel like I can move forward with what I learned from the conference without touching on it here. I’ve collected a few of my thoughts that I feel work generally in life as well as in blogging. After-all this isn’t a blog about blogging, it’s a blog about creativity.

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The keynotes this year were wonderful. Stefan Sagmeister said something that of course struck a note. How sound-bite worthy is the above quote? Something that I can live by. He’s author of The Happy Film. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m looking forward to taking some time to watch it.

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Erin Loechner spoke about managing her online time, and I thought this quote she shared with us was so perfect. She talked about planning out time, your golden hours, and saving that time for the big stuff. This really hit home as I have no idea what fills those dedicated work hours sometimes. I’m going to work on being a) more focused during the work hours and b) more present in the family hours.

Striking a healthy work and home balance has been really hard for me these last few years. I feel like I’ve made great improvements, but I still have a long way to go.

Alt Design Summit 2013 photographed by Justin Hackworth

My co-panelists. See link list below. Photo by Justin Hackworth.

I spoke on effective DIYs and Pinterest with Chris, Chelsea, Jenny and Jill. I feel like each of us could have touched on meaty information had we taken the whole day to do it. We had 40 slides of juicy information (available here) to pack into 50 minutes. We sorta did it, I kind of ran over.

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One of the key points that I touched on was the above: “We are creatives, we can think outside the box.” Nothing is original anymore, but we can think outside our own personal scopes and come up with unique ideas. And we should.

This, of course, was not coming from a place of perfection. They’re my thoughts about my own personal work. All too often I get in creative ruts.

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Lastly, One of the many themes of the conference was transparency. Showing readers your best and ugliest self, being upfront about expectations from brands and how to approach contributors or collaborators. Communicating clearly to one another, readers and sponsors is incredibly important!

On a personal note, I don’t think I really learned how to communicate until I got married. Chris taught me a lot about bucking up and saying the things I might not feel comfortable saying. I try to be as transparent (I’m really the same person online and off) as possible, but I could benefit from thinking on this more often.

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I feel like I went to this conference with a better vision of what I wanted and who I am. I feel like I planned my presence well (making sure I had handmade, vintage and thrifted items on my person, creating pretty business cards and showing up prepared with a printed media kit in case an opportunity cropped up), but I may not have scheduled my time as flawlessly as I had imagined.

I did miss out on half the classes that I had planned on taking, and mostly that was because of lack of focus. I really should have geared up for the conference with more sleep than I had. That week I was working on something like 15-20 hours of sleep in 7 days. NOT SMART.

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Stacy, me, Tiffany

I did take advantage of all of the photo booths. I didn’t take a single photobooth pic last year, I had to fix that. It’s really a fun way to break the ice with others. I’ve got some awesome goof-ball shots from it, too.

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Miranda, me

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Chelsea, Dayna, Miranda, me

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Photo by Michael Rowley

I also took time out to do a creative project: chalkboard lettering for one of the mini parties. It was a great little creative escape in the middle of the conference and fun to get to know a few of the awesome people behind Hayneedle.com. They were a real pleasure to work with.

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Diana, me, Miranda, Alycia

This year was the second in a row that I stayed at a hotel and not at home. I knew I would get distracted by my adorable kiddos and sweet husband, that I decided to just act as if the conference were out of state. It was basically like an extended sleepover, minus the high school drama and double the fun. It was nothing short of a miracle that we were able to find accommodations so close to the conference since everything was completely booked solid. I thank my lucky stars for that. Next year I’ll book my hotel before I buy my ticket.

I had an absolutely wonderful time (not sure how this conference gets better every year, but it does!) and I’m looking forward to going through my giant stacks of pretty business cards this next week.

The New Look of MelissaEsplin.com

January 30th, 2013
20 Comments

Have you noticed something new? Last week, just before I left for Alt Summit, Chris implemented my redesign. It’s been about nine months in the works, percolating in my brain for at least a year. Last year I wanted to implement a new design, but I knew I’d be back to square one if I rushed the rebrand at all. And I was right. I wanted to make sure I took enough time and thought about each step thoroughly.

Hurdles of a Rebrand: The URL

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I refer to my blog as I Still Love You – my place to do the things I still love even when the chaos of motherhood is in full swing (like right now – we all have the stomach flu). It would be perfect to have istillloveyou.com for that very purpose. But the insert explicative noun who own and are still trying to sell istillloveyou.com were looking for $15,000 for the domain. I gave them the middle finger. Frustrated, I decided that I needed to go another direction.

Ultimately we decided that it was more cost effective to stick with the current domain but restructure a bit. I am embracing my URL as melissaesplin.com, but “I still love you” is (and always will be) my personal motto, and a motto that I hope many of you will adopt as well. The reason why I have a blog isn’t for $$$ (although being able to bring in extra income is nothing short of a blessing), but it’s to share my creative process with others and to keep in tact the creative person I was before diapers and drool came to the scene.

Hurdles of a Rebrand: My Style

Trying to nail down my style was like trying to hit a moving target with a bow and arrow, having never shot a bow and arrow before. This is not a niche blog about any one theme, unless you consider that one theme the entire umbrella of creativity.

I love trends old and new, but I didn’t want my blog to feel outdated the second it went live. So I opted for a plainer canvas than I’ve done in the past. I don’t mind the orange and pink from days of yore, but it was getting old, and it was too girly. Each year we will be changing up the theme’s main color for the Pantone color of the year. After I broke down the elements of my own personal style, it made a theme so much easier to work on:

  • feminine, not girly
  • handmade surprises
  • dimension and depth
  • simple, but eclectic

Features and Implementation

I wanted the site to be the kind that was welcoming to all people and easy to use. I’m hoping it comes across as such. The biggest priority we had was to find new ways to dredge up old content. I’ve been blogging for 5 1/2 years now, that’s a lot of old content! Here are a few things that are new to the site:

  1. Easily share posts to facebook and twitter on the right of the content, click the share and a drop down drawer will show up.
  2. Visual links to Pinterest boards for both tutorials and printables
  3. Shuffle button (in the middle of older and newer posts) to dredge up old pages of posts
  4. Reply inline  to comments in the comments section
  5. Sticky menu and search
  6. Simplified mobile site with a swipe-to-view sidebar
  7. Background parallax (currently only in Firefox and Safari)

The build was a lot of work on Chris’s end. I keep saying that this design (between mine and Chris’s billable rates) would have cost in the $6000 range. It was A LOT of work.

But it feels so good to have it complete. I do hope you take a look around and take advantage of the new features. Be sure to send a shout out if something doesn’t look right. I really appreciate the feedback.

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