My interest in crystals has been ramping up lately. The more I learn about the different gems, the more fascinated I become. I’ve got to create when inspiration hits, which it did after a recent Woman of Size Podcast episode.
In this post, I share the graphic, provide a brief summary of each stone, and give credit where credit is due – to the sources.
The Graphic
The Crystals
Selenite
Selenite is a great crystal for skin conditions. It amplifies healing and pulls away negative energies and blockages that cause that particular skin condition.
Turquoise
Touted as the master healer, turquoise has detoxifying and anti-inflammatory properties, helping to reduce acne breakouts.
Azurite with Malachite
Azurite with Malachite, a combination stone, is a powerful conductor of energy and a powerful healing force for the body. It is an excellent stone for treating all skin conditions.
Black Onyx
Black Onyx is a soothing, cooling stone. Use this stone to help fight infection and calm inflammation. This crystal helps to rebuild confidence and self-esteem.
The Wrap Up
Do you have any crystal recommendations for reducing acne? I’d love to hear them!
In the meantime, I’m working on a few more crystal-related graphics, so be sure to sign up for my newsletter to stay in the loop!
I really enjoy business card projects. Every design is different and comes with a unique set of challenges and considerations. I love the process of figuring out what the client wants, what they need, and how I can use my design skills to make it happen.
In this post, I detail the design process for Rustic Treehouse’s business card, including what went well and what could be better. I learned a lot on this one and am excited to see how they look when they come back from the printer.
Client: Rustic Treehouse
My talented sister, Emily, and her wife, Missy have figured out how to successfully turn their passion and talent for repurposing used wood into beautiful, handpainted signs, like these cuties:
Their business is growing organically and they need a basic business card that works in a variety of situations. The primary purpose is to include with completed orders. New business is a secondary objective – how awesome is that?!?
Logo
They have a logo that they love, and I have to say, I love it too. Until now, Missy had been hand painting it on the back of the signs, and in some cases, burning it in.
When I saw the wood burned version of the logo, I was excited to turn the image from a photo into a digital logo that they can use on future promotional material.
I asked Missy to text me the photo. Once I received it, I uploaded it Adobe Capture, a fun app I’ve been playing around with for a few months.
Say you were walking down the street and saw something that inspired you so much that you had to take a picture. Capture can be used to, well, capture, whatever it is about the image that inspires you – perhaps a color or pattern for example. In this case, I wanted to extract the shape, and it took less than a minute to do it!
Capture is compatible with other programs in the CC Suite, so I plopped it right into Photoshop, where I knew I could quickly transform the background from white to transparent.
Image
Early on, I floated the idea of using an image of wood instead of a solid colored background. They loved the idea, so I provided them with a few samples to keep the project moving. This was the crowd favorite after our initial design conversation:
Source: Adobe Stock
Imagine my delight when Missy shared this image of a Rustic Treehouse workspace:
It just feels more authentic, which makes sense, because it is. I was thrilled to replace the stock photo with an image that truly represents the business.
Fonts
Fonts were the most challenging aspect of this design.
The client uses a beautiful cursive script in most designs, and I wanted to honor that by incorporating a similar font into the business card. Early on in the process, we decided to use Playlist Script as the attention-getting font, but font pairing options were tabled until the last minute.
As if font pairings aren’t complex enough, I was too excited about using Capture to transform a photo into a digital logo to notice the R and T, which are a far cry away from a script font.
While the idea of pairing seemingly random fonts moderately inflamed my OCD, I wanted to get all the information on the card before playing around with the fonts. Before I could get back to fonts, the client fell in love with the back of the business card. If they’re happy, I’m happy!
Back of Rustic Treehouse Business Card
The front of the card, however, was a different story. It took some time to find a font that we could all live with, and I hope I can revisit the font sitch at some point. For now, this is the front of the card:
This Side Hustle has the Potential to be Much, Much More
The rate of organic growth for new sign requests is insane. What started out as a fun hobby for my favorite sign making pair has turned into an almost overwhelming obligation. I have a whole business plan designed in my head, and they know I’m here when they’re ready to move to the next level.
Tutorial Opportunity
They put a lot of time and love into each sign, and I’m inspired to document their process. This would allow me to build my video/tutorial skills, while delivering a solid marketing asset if they should ever want or need it.
If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my blog (on the right hand side of the screen) to learn with me. Check out Rustic Treehouse on Facebook to see more of their inspired designs.
After spending too much time researching how to build my graphic design skill set, I decided to do what every piece of research recommended: just start doing it.
Many of the articles I read suggested re-creating designs and images that already exist. I’ve never been short of ideas, and I was hesitant to go this route at first, but ultimately, I decided it was better than what I was working on, which was not a gosh darn thing.
Luckily, when I looked over at my ever growing “interesting things” pile, Eeboo’s Good Citizenship Flash Cards were sitting right on top. I picked three of my favorites and pinned them up on the bulletin board above my desk.
I think this is the debut of my Nessie bulletin board pins! I picked these up during a recent trip to the National Building Museum. They have a sweet gift shop that I highly recommend!
I picked the elevator card to be one of my first because it’s good advice that I’ve never really followed – I’m more of a “close, close, clOSE, CLOSE” button pusher.
This reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of Radiolab. They provide some very interesting information about the Close Button around 4 minutes in.
Concept
I’m going to try to do these using extraterrestrials instead of animals. The elevator card was easy enough to turn into an abduction scene, so naturally, that’s the route I went.
With the exception of the starry background on the front of the card, these images are from Adobe Stock. I believe the starry background is from Pixabay, but I downloaded it a long time ago and I’m not 100%.
I used photoshop to remove the backgrounds from the three individuals (2 aliens (which are different species/races if you ask me) + 1 white dude). I’m getting pretty comfortable with the magic eraser and background eraser tool.
As much as I’d like to switch it up and learn new programs, I’m still learning how to use Canva and it provides me with all the functionality I need at this point.
Once I uploaded each of the images, it was just a matter of adjusting them on the page.
Lessons Learned
When removing the background of an image, choose one with a solid background
It’s a lot easier to remove an all-white background from an image. Let’s just say I wish I would have watched this 3 minute Adobe Photoshop tutorial about 16 hours before I did.
Save Image As PNG to retain transparent background
Once the background is removed, save image as PNG (TIFF / GIF work too) to retain transparent background. Saving as a JPEG will just save the same image you were working with – colored background and all.
I need to keep building my Photoshop skills
This was a really good start, but I want to be able to do more. For example, I’d really like the running white dude to be dirty, like he’d been there for awhile. It would be great to make it look like he had a bloody nose, which is creepy, I know.
Pay attention to the details
As I put together the images for this post, I noticed that the back of the original card has a border on it. I need to be done with this project, so I let it go for now. Next time I want to be sure I incorporate details like that into my design.
The same goes with the shape of the card. They have rounded corners and I totally missed that detail.
I need to keep building my Canva skills
I don’t know how to create these with rounded corners, so I need to see if Canva has the functionality to create images with rounded corners.
Crystal Ball Time
Stay tuned for my next interpretation, which will either be the Recycling Card or what I call the “squealer” card. I can’t even wait – I have mixed feelings about the quality of this advice:
Want to know when the next one is done? Be sure to subscribe to my blog (on the right hand side of the page) to stay in the loop!
I’ve been obsessed with the X-Files for far longer than any other secret government/alien conspiracy shows, and it inspires a lot of projects that I have in the works right now.
That poster that Agent Mulder has in his office though!
I’ve always loved the print, but it’s never felt like the right time to have it up on my wall.
By making it the back of my business card, I can look at the image every day without it taking up too much space.
I wanted to approach the feng shui of this card a bit differently than my last one, just to see if I am able to notice any long-term results down the road.
Here’s the general matrix that I use for pretty much everything, with what I’m hoping for with this design circled in red:
I primarily use Vistaprint for my printing needs, but I’m always open to trying new things. They almost always have a sale and I’ve always been happy with the quality of the product.
I really love my shark cards, but they lacked any white space, which is one of the things I like best!
But for the rest of the series, I want to include white space so that potential clients and contacts are able to write anything down on the card that they see fit (hopefully something like “get in touch asap” or similar).
At first, I tried to match the font color to the blue sky on the poster image, but I didn’t love it.
Luckily, my girl Heidi had the brilliant idea of matching the pop of green in the image – brilliant. To do this, I used Colordot:
When the cards arrived, the image on the back has a slight white border on the bottom edge, but otherwise they look great!
Here’s my newest business cards that I’m thinking I should use to target new DC clients:
Lessons Learned:
Don’t Rush Image Alignment
The little white border that was printed on my cards wasn’t exactly a surprise – I played around with it on Vistaprint for a few minutes before deciding I just needed it to be done. I convinced myself that it probably wouldn’t print – it was well below the “safety” line.
I’m happy to send hard copies of this series if you’re a tactile person (like me – we’re so weird!). Just get in touch with your mailing address and I’ll pop ’em in the mail for you!
I really think it’s great that the acronym for save the date is STD. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do because I’m going to use every chance I get.
I’m getting married next May and the clock is ticking for getting the STD’s in the mail. I’m pretty particular about the look, feel and the cohesiveness of the invites to the theme (which I’ll get into later), so I’ve got full creative control here.
I knew I would get obsessive if I designed them myself, so I ordered a beautiful STD template from etsy so it could go to the printer and just be done.
In the meantime, I decided to spend a little time working on an STD to build my skills. After a round of edits, this is what I came up with:
This was first for me, so my hope is that I continue to build my skills and improve over time!
Action Item: To keep the momentum going, I’m going to put spend some time on an invitation and RSVP and will try to finalize a complete wedding kit
Capture is compatible with other programs in the CC Suite, so I plopped it right into Photoshop, where I knew I could quickly transform the background from white to transparent.
That poster that Agent Mulder has in his office though!
