Finished another site for a customer the other day. It was a fun, clean and simple design to create that I was quickly inspired to do based on the URL.Another wordpress dashboard for easy use. I do love me some wordpress lately.

New Website Done!

I am 99% finished with a animal hospital website. They plan on launching their new site in correlation to the with the completion of the building they are having remodeled. Its a very large scale project and they have a lot to be excited about in the upcoming months!

I used a wordpress platform so that they can go in and update anything they like. The customers were using a google program for their site before so wordpress will be a breeze for them to learn.

New Comics Sign

This is a sign I came up with based on the covers of Wednesday Comics to be used over the new comics section of the store. It got vetoed but I loved making it.

Beef and Beer

One of my stores customer was in a bad accident leaving her son in a coma. We are helping the friends and family to arrange a beef and beer to help offset the cost of everything. Its a lot harder to get people to help than I thought it would be. The people that do help though are very generous.
This is just a quick image I out together for the facebook event page.

Quick Pic 8/10/10

This is a tutorial I had forgotten about and need to finish out. I kind of like how it's shaping up though and wanted to share my progress with the web.

Quick Pic 7/11/10

Ran through another tutorial while killing time.

The Dream Pantry

Wordpress design for a personal blog. Design and coded by Silhouette Graphics for The Dream Pantry.

I just completed a project for The Dream Pantry on wordpress. The customer wanted a design that was fun and looked like a pantry (bet you picked up on that by their name though). My concern with the project was that I didn't want it to look like there was too much going on (like my pantry). The client has a lot of content she is going to be placing on the site so my main goal was to make sure the navigation and text were more predominant then the images.


I am really looking forward to what this site is going to look like once the content gets on the site and new fun posts are going up regulary. I think its going to be a lot of fun to follow. :)

Quick Pic 7/7/10

I spent yesterday organizing fonts. That's right. In one of my brighter moments I borrowed a disk from a friend with a zillion fonts and installed them all onto my laptop.
Know what you don't need? A zillion useless fonts. I got to the letter I and called a quits yesterday. I'm pretty sure I got my font folder down to a million fonts to sift through...
Really should have thought that one out.

Playing around with fonts

When will the world be rid of IE?

I just ran through a very easy tutorial online to play with some fonts. It was basic and I knew that, but it was a good refresher of some very basic tools I overlook sometimes.

I haz a new post!

The other day I saw a picture with a kitty whose head was in a bag. The caption was "OMG! NARNIA!" Something about this had me truly laughing out loud. Normally silly animal pics may get a half smile or something but that one really struck me as funny. I hope you see it someday and smile too - if not giggle hysterically out loud.

Guilt Myself

Dear Miss Kita
Why don't you update me more often? You never show us all the creative adventures you get into. You update Pass the Sushi often, like twice a week often.... and yet I sit here dormant... longing for some attentions....

Yes, that's right, I wrote a letter from my web space to myself because I am feeling guilty about neglecting it.

Someday I'll feel guilty enough to do something about it. lol

In the mean time, I was inspired to doodle today by the work of this artist on deviantart. The big hips and crazy hair are awesome. Hopefully, I'll take a stab at colouring them too.

Time for it all

I can't imagine what my life would be like if I was a 9-5 desk person. I'm pretty sure I'd be miserable and probably not nearly as creative. I certainly wouldn't have the time or energy to keep up with all of my hobby's and projects.
I am secretly working on a new project that I hope comes through. Just another thing to ad to the pile. :P I wouldn't have it any other way.
This image is just a quick splash for the portfolio. The stock image of the woman is from this artist.

You know, the internet makes ANYTHING normal. Where I can no longer spend hours googling things just to see what comes up you can always leave the internet feeling better about yourself. I don't have the same love for it as I may have once had. I am jaded by the over abundance of things that I don't need to know or want to find. But seriously, if your a 400 lb peanut butter lover with a thing for open toed shoes on people of a short stature who only wear the color black on every third Tuesday in the month - you can find a board, blog, twitter and facebook fan page for that.
Just a quick image I threw together myself. Credit for the stock photo goes to this artist.

Sing for me a song thats blue.

Hopefully soon I am going to be helping a friend get some things together for his own business. Launch his site, a commerce page, and get some product rolling. It's the type of thing he enjoys and can be really good at. I spent Monday helping him set some things up and will be ready as soon as he is to launch. As soon as I can I will share those images with you guys!

It's that time of year.

The weather has finally gotten nice so progress is being made on things away from the computer screen. At the moment I've traded my CSS for gloves and shovels. This image was just a tutorial I did while killing some time the other day. The stock photo of the woman belongs to this artist.

The Nikon D3000, Yeah, thats the spot.

This post has nothing to do with graphic design, web design or anything even involving a computer. This post is a solute to my new camera, the Nikon D3000.
Dear Nikon,
You rock and I love you. Really, not just like, LOVE. You were worth every penny my cheap ass scrounged up and painstakingly debated spending on you. I can't image what life would have been like if I had continued on without you.
Forever and always yours,
Me.
But seriously, the image quality is great. Its easy for amateurs (like myself) yet, it can be the camera for the veteran picture taker. I may never enjoy the smell of chemicals processing in the dark room again, but I believe this camera will help me survive that devastation somehow...
(The pics shown were taken in the kitchen on the stove right after cooking. Nothing special, just point and click. For more information on the juicy delicious Cajun Turkey Burgers go to http://passthesushi.com )

Quick Pic 2

I'm waiting for a few projects to pick up, enjoying the sunshine and warm weather, and debating starting a new site for another project/hobby I am into (where I'll get the time to complete said personal project - who knows).
Enjoys today quick pic. I saw a screen printing kit with something similar and wanted to make my own version if it today.

Letting the Paint Dry

Let me just tell you, I am not good at painting my nails. Oh well.
I just saw Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I am not sure I liked it or not, which is kind of a weird way to feel about a movie. It wasn't annoying in the way I found Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was entertaining and not gory. It told the story as I expected it to. The costumes were neat, the scenery awesome, the special effects just ok. What does amaze me though is how Tim Burton must see the world. I think the colors he thinks in are different. I think most creative people do see the world differently. Turning random ordinary things into inspiration. Ask me about a box and the word brand some other time.

This weeks image is brought to you by hopefulness. I kind of randomly posted on a singers blog who I adore - I know crazy. They have people for these things but here's my vision - minus the cowboy hat. I hate the hat. I would love to have an image of a not named country singer here and some more embellishments to make it a little more feminine. I wanted to get the over all idea up here though.

Quick Pic

Not much going on.

This week I've been working on posters for Free Comic Book Day, brainstorming for Silhouette Graphic - it needs a freshening up, and doing some quick mailers and business card design for Kellys Lawn Care.
I'm not sure I'm digging the new header image, but I do know that I like the idea. I just have to figure it out.

4 day stress package

I think if anyone were to think I sat on my booty and did nothing I would punch them in the face. There was a billing complication with one of the sites I designed so, as it was already down, we decided to switch servers, and if I'm switching servers, I should redesign it the way I want it... None of this is hard - if its planned. Without warning doing it all at once was a little stressful (especially because there was a lot of contacting other people for log ins and passwords that had been long forgotten)... >.<
I also got the commission for PasstheSushi.com's about me page and I was so excited I switched the theme for that site immediately.
As soon as I am done this post, I am shutting my computer off and playing fetch with my cat.

Quick Pic for the Week

This week has rocked. I did a ton of work on Scott Neely's site, finished the new code for Pass the Sushi, got a few commissions rolling, may have another job on the way, worked OT at my day to day and ordered my brand new spiffy camera (well, I hope its spiffy when it gets here). Super exciting!
Today's image started out as me going through a tutorial and then I threw it away half way through and decided to do what I wanted to it. Yellow really isn't my color of choice but I think it works well here. Either way, the red fiend in me was loving creating the background.
In the upcoming days I think I will be re-doing the main site, Silhouette Graphic, and adding a few things. I need to let people know I do headers for as low as $35 and ad a bit of spunk to the package - unless I get swamped with paying gigs. >.~

My head feels heavy.

If my mind is not in creative overdrive - I may truly be going insane. I'm at a point where I am so content with my life creativity is oozing from me (that makes it sound kind of gross). Between maintaining the sites I have for business, redesigning my own, wanting more sites, drawing, sewing, designing, cooking, and baking - I still want more! There are more ideas brewing in my brain and more energy and drive to do it! There are, however, not enough hours in the day and I do enjoy my sleep.

------------> The new layout (minus the important text like parts) for Passthesushi!

This week I am redesigning the Pass the Sushi blog - which has sparked more of a drive to redesign Silhouette Graphic. I am also trying to get into commenting more on peoples blogs. I'm more of the silent reader person. I must read a billion blogs but I do rarely comment. Which I am told has to change.
I'm also trying to make CBH a bigger better place (as are the rest of my brilliant co-workers). But I feel like I am biting off more then it is possible to chew at the moment. I want all of the members to be happy and I know some things are out of the question, but, I would love to step it up for them. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Snow days!

We're trapped under a mountain of snow. People are calling it snowmaggedon. Stores were wiped out of eggs, milk and bread as early as Tuesday. Really? It's snow people. Yes, we need to shovel and not drive like morons, but we will survive. The human race will prevail. And whose making that much french toast?
I breezed through a tutorial this morning so you would have something to look at. I'm still stuck in coding world on the inside of the Captain Blue Hen site where I just added a forum for the members. I also did a few minor changes to a restaurant site this week giving them a sidebar ad for Valentines Day.
There's more for this post, but I'm cutting it short as firefox is apparently under the weather. No pun intended. I'm off to enjoy my snow day.

Blogs would be so much cooler if you cared about the hidden semicolons

Without any images to show for it really, I have actually been very busy this week. Our Free Comic Book Day postcard is all set and ready to be sent to the printer and the main Captain Blue Hen site is being redone behind the scenes at our testing facility. I have also started playing with sliding page layouts at another test site and will hopefully have some wicked cool content for it soon if all goes well. In a few weeks I'll have some great materials for the site.
The next minor debate is whether or not to purchase a scanner. They have really come down in price so it wouldn't be a huge investment. Just something I'm contemplating.

Its January 28th. The blogs are being updated. The recipes are being tested. The graphics are being photoshoped. All is good so far. Hopefully, Ill sit down and kick out a tutorial tomorrow.

Photoshop Tutorial Fun

I love working through photoshop tutorials. I find them fun, mind numbing, and I love what I learn. Even if they are basic tutorials - like the images I have up today were from, just redoing the steps and practicing simple things I may have forgotten keeps you on your toes and gives you ideas of things you want to do in the future. These I made time to do this week, as I hope to keep making time to do in the future. Practice practice practice. Especially in the ever changing world of computers.



I know, brief post again, but I do have some projects coming up in a couple of weeks and have been working to maintain my other blogs as well so I hope to have more in depth stuff for you soon.

Blah - maybe its the weather.

Ive really not got much to say today. Im kinda stressing and annoyed, but I didn't want to fail on my new years resolution the first week of the year. Here are some doodles I did this week.