New Designs at DHD

February 25th, 2010 Melissa Posted in design 17 Comments »

Here’s another shameless plug for all of the design work I’ve been doing.

The last few weeks I’ve been focusing a lot on hand-lettering. I named the collection Thesaurus, because each kit has eight different ways to say one thing. Here are a few of my favorites.

{oh, hello! kit: $1.99}

{so pretty! kit: $1.99}

{play with me! kit: $1.99}

{oh, baby! kit: $1.99}

{gee, thanks! kit: $1.99}

{oh, sweet! kit: $1.99}

Can you tell that I’m obsessed with cursive & calligraphy? Today is “release day” for this kit, so you can buy the entire collection here at 30% off ($6.99) for the next 24 hours.

I don’t design with an eye so much toward scrapbooking as toward general print applications.  This word art and the rest of my Digital Design House work is meant to be versatile enough to use on web pages, personal cards, silkscreens, iron-ons or anything decorative. I get a lot of inspiration from seeing my artwork in action, so let me know what you do with these kits! I’m a sucker for uploads to the flickr group and/or comments.

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Free & Cheap at DHD

February 5th, 2010 Melissa Posted in design, music 8 Comments »

There are a few more kits up at DHD, folks! I’m really exited about these, and I think you might, too. I signed up to make the free kit for the month, and it’s finally up! I say finally, because a couple of days ago I was trying to finish up the designs, etc when my computer decided not to recognize any of the fonts I’ve installed in the last 4 months. I couldn’t be more frustrated. I consider Chris and myself to be very computer savvy folks. We’re power users. We still haven’t fixed the problem. L-A-M-E! We have however figured out that Chris’s account doesn’t have the problem, so I have to use his account. EW. His account has cooties all over it. ;)

Side rambling: We tried using the same account when we first got married. We bickered a lot. His settings and my settings don’t play well together. We have separate accounts now & we’ve been happily married for almost 4 years.
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Ramblings aside, I hope you’ll share my excitement for the newest designs in the shop. The above mini kit is yours for FREE. You just have to head on over to grab a copy. Here’s the link. I put a few fun papers in there that I hope you like. I just love repeat patterns.

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I’ve been mildly obsessed with trying to find hand-lettered cursive fonts these last few months. I’ve been successful at finding a few – my favorite being Nelly script. So I thought I’d try my hand at making my own cursive alpha. I have yet to make it into a font (but I plan to). Snag this kit for $1 for the entire month of February. Here’s the link.

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I made this kit last week (as well as the two below) and haven’t had the chance to blog about them. I hope you like them. They’re really sugary sweet. Here’s the link to the ‘lovely papers’ kit.

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Here’s a set of 8 heart photoshop brushes. Scrolling is a current obsession of mine, can you tell? You can purchase the hearts brush kit here.

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I have to admit something. I have a terrible time coming up with words and/or phrases to make into word art. Copy is NOT a strength. I wanted so badly to come up with some unique phrases for Valentine’s, but the only phrases that came to mind were cliché at best. So I turned to my favorite source of inspiration, music. There are quite a few love songs that are near and dear to my heart, so I turned some of my favorite phrases from those songs into word art. Here’s the list of artists that inspired the artwork. Be sure to give those songs a listen. They’re awesome. This kit includes 9 photoshop brushes and png files. You can purchase the kit here.

we make a pair of parentheses – the blow

you set the fire in me – tom vek

truly, madly, deeply – savage garden*

here is my beating heart – the bird & the bee

you give me rainbows & butterflies – MSTRKRFT

cootie wootie – pinback**

one more kiss tonight – calexico & iron and wine

Love Songs

* I don’t profess to like Savage Garden, or even tolerate it. I just think the truly, madly, deeply phrase is funny.

** Fortress isn’t really a love song, but it’s the song Chris and I were listening to when we kissed for the first time. How romantic, right? Also, I think the nickname cootie wootie is cute.

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Busy, busy

January 21st, 2010 Melissa Posted in design 4 Comments »

This week I’ve been overwhelmed with preparations for ALT (today, yay!). I’ve not had really any time to work on any new digital kits. No worries, I’ll be back in action next week with some fabulous new stuff. In the mean time, I just thought I’d point out to you my new favorites from other designers at DHD. These ladies are truly talented.

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This kit makes me wish I had a cricut. How sweet is this? I love the bright red + pink combination. Check out the print + cut kit here. Check out all of Deena Rutter’s other fabulous items in her DHD shop here.

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Yellow + grey have been on the hot list for color combos the last year, and I think the combo will forever be a favorite of mine. I really like Audrey’s patterns here! Aren’t they awesome?! Buy her textured + patterned paper kit here. Be sure to check out the other fabulous items in Audrey Neal’s DHD shop.

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Prepping for ALT

January 20th, 2010 Melissa Posted in design 22 Comments »

Some of you may have noticed the ALT button on my sidebar the last few months. It’s a cool-looking button, eh? Well, I’m proudly going to be attending the Altitude Design Summit this weekend, and I couldn’t be more excited. The speakers are going to be out-of-this-world awesome and the activities are going to be glam-fabulous. I’m super excited.

businesscard1

In preparation for the conference, I needed to print more business cards. Of course it wasn’t going to be a simple re-print of the cards I gave out at BlogHer. Oh no. I need to redesign my site, cards & everything. It kind of snowballed into this huge thing. As you can see the site hasn’t changed, yet. Lame. I’ve been a little busy getting the business cards perfected.

businesscard2

Didn’t they turn out beautifully? I bought some small envelopes a while back, and decided I’d use that to package the business card. I also designed a die-cut vinyl sticker that says “i still love you” in my own handwriting to stuff in the envelope. They’re gold. You really need to see them in person to really appreciate it, but they’re beautiful. It’s so funny how a printer can make or break your day.

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The printer who did the stickers for me gave me a good deal, so long as I weeded and cut them myself. Weeding is when you peel out the negative space of the die-cut sticker, which is time-consuming and unusually fun. The weeding was a piece of cake, and so was the cutting. . . well, until about 11pm last night when my rotary cutter slipped and took a turn for the worse.

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You want to know how sharp brand-new rotary cutter blades are? Effing sharp. It went clean through my nail and through part of the pad of my finger. It even took out part of my middle finger. It was a good thing Chris was around to help. Penelope wouldn’t be much help in a situation like this. Gross, hu?

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I was thinking about giving myself a manicure for ALT, but this was clearly not the one I had in mind. Chris so kindly scoured the entire Salt Lake valley for steri strips and got me some old fashioned liquorice to bite down on for the pain. Man that hurt. He’s thoughtful, isn’t he? Besides the minor set-back of having my index finger out of commission, things are moving right along in preparation for ALT. I can’t wait for tomorrow!!

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Tomorrow night is a 1920s social and I have the perfect dress for the occasion. It’s orange (awesome, right?) it’s real hand-dyed silk, it’s from the ’50s and it was my grandmother’s. I love it. Are you going to ALT? Are you excited, too?!?

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This week at DHD

January 14th, 2010 Melissa Posted in design 12 Comments »

Your feedback was awesome last week. I really, really appreciate it! Please, keep it coming!

I listened, and this week I’ve released my newest collection: Crown Moulding. I’m really proud of it. I’ve been looking forward to today for a while, I’ve been that excited about it. Crown Moulding’s color pallette was inspired by 100 Layer Cake’s holiday glam colorboard. Isn’t that a gorgeous colorboard? Yummy.

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dhd-melissaesplin-crownmoulding-coolpreview

dhd_melissaesplin_crownmoulding_warmpreview

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy making repeat patterns? It’s been a little obsession of mine for a while now. I surely couldn’t go without making a couple of pattern sets with this collection available in warm & cool colors.

dhd-melissaesplin-crownmoulding-borderspreview

Here’s a border set. Doesn’t it look regal? Again, making repeat patterns and borders is so much fun. It’s like I get endorphins out of it or something.

dhd-melissaesplin-crownmoulding-blogkitpreview

Your feedback was really positive about the blog graphics, so here you go! A blog kit just for you. Go buy it (only $6.99 today!), use the graphics on your blog and make all of your friends jealous.

dhd_melissaesplin_crownmoulding_petalinvitepreview

Are you going to have any parties soon? Check out this invitation printable! I just wish that I had a baby or bridal shower to plan.

dhd_melissaesplin_crownmoulding_invitepreview

Getting married? Get glam invitations on a budget! Kit includes 2 5×7 designs (fits in A7 envelopes) in 2 editable formats, .eps & .psd.

Whether or not you’re into Digital Scrapbooking, I hope there’s something there for you to try! Head over to DHD today and get 30% off all my new releases! Enjoy.

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This Week at DHD

January 7th, 2010 Melissa Posted in design 5 Comments »

Are you sick of my talk of digital scrapbooking, yet? Seriously I want to know.

If you haven’t heard of DHD or what’s going on with all that, you should probably check it out. TODAY. All new releases are 30% off every Thursday. There are over 70 new releases today. That’s a lot if you ask me! I didn’t release a ton of stuff this week, I’m still just settling down from Christmas and the New Year, but my goal is to release a new collection or parts of a collection every week. I’m not sure how realistic my goals are as I’m SUPER new to the digital scrapbooking thing and there’s quite a learning curve.

dhd-melissaesplin_psychcirq_preview

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So among the few releases this week, I managed to make a blog kit. This is no cutest blog on the block kit. My first blog kit is like a blog on acid. Not that I would know. I’m hoping that one or two of you out there might like it. Maybe. Snatch it up for the discounted price of $5.59*. Holy crap, that’s cheap. Dirt cheap!

This surely won’t be my last blog kit. I redesign my own blog often enough, you’ll be seeing a lot of these in the future.

dhd_melissaesplin_winterlandia_elementspreview

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I really wanted to do a winter theme collection, so I did. It’s a mini collection. I really like scrolling. So I made snowflakes out of my handmade scrolling. Snatch these graphics for $4.19*. Hope you like them.

So I really want to open up this blog post to some serious conversation. I’d really, really like to hear what you think about digital scrapbooking, what you think of what I’ve done so far (do I dare? EEK!) and what you’d like to see more of in the scrapbooking industry. Will you help a girl out and let me pick your brain? Heck, I might even send a freebie your way if you leave a thoughtful comment!

*These discounted prices are valid today (January 7, 2009) only.
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