You may recall last year I offered a set of Valentine’s, as well as some “I Hate You” cards. This year I thought about what really was the opposite of love. The answer is indifference. So what do you send to the person you really don’t think about? The person you kind of remember? Of course, in reality you send them nothing. But that’s no fun. So here are some options. And bonus: This year the cards have messages inside, too! These are big files, but totally worth it. I mean, when it comes to letting someone know you sort of remember them…um…you know, it’s like important to…try?

“You still live in that place?” PDF

“Hi, you.” PDF

I know. I know. Some of you are out there, full of hate! rage! scorn! and a need to express it. Here are a couple of cards for those of you who need to send some venom.

“When you least expect it.” PDF

“I hope you get MRSA.” PDF

Use with caution! Good luck.

One of my coworker friends, Rebecca, asked me if I’d be willing to help her design a graphic for a shirt. Rebecca and her husband Justen formed a support group and named it in honor of their daughter, calling it Cassie’s Foundation. They were having the shirts printed for the group to wear during the March of Dimes walk.

I was happy to be able to donate my services to help them. Rebecca drew me her idea on a piece of yellow legal paper and I ran from there. In addition to the name, she wanted a balloon and the phrase “our babies.” Rebecca explained to me that often balloons are released by families as a way to memorialize their babies, symbolically sending their love to the heavens.

I started my design by searching for a typeface that I thought would work. It needed to be childlike, but not too silly or girlish. I found Vanilla, designed by Cutie Explosion. I liked that it was bubbly, like balloons, while still being legible. Rebecca choose purple to help her group’s logo be aligned to the visuals for March of Dimes. I think it turned out nicely and Rebecca and Justen were very gracious clients. I was honored to be a part of their healing, even in a very small way.

You watched the Oscars last night, tuning in early to see the red carpet and all the celebrity fashions. You had a little taste of the glamour and glitz of Hollywood. But on Monday you returned to work, turned on your computer and realized, your computer desktop was wearing last year’s fashions! Joan would tear you apart.

Save yourself from further embarrassment and download one or all of these desktop ready-to-wears.

Limoncello Ingredients Wallpaper

960 x 640 (iPhone)
1024 x 1024 (iPad)
1440 x 900
1680 x 1050

Yellow Sad Monster Wallpaper

960 x 640 (iPhone)
1024 x 1024 (iPad)
1440 x 900
1680 x 1050

Pink Sad Monster Wallpaper

960 x 640 (iPhone)
1024 x 1024 (iPad)
1440 x 900
1680 x 1050

Love Birdies Wallpaper

960 x 640 (iPhone)
1024 x 1024 (iPad)
1440 x 900
1680 x 1050

After devoting a rather long entry to Valentine’s Day and love, I felt compelled to offer the counter-argument, to balance things out. Hate, the passionate fiery emotion that can eat us up from the inside, is not exactly the opposite of love, but compelling all the same.

If you feel like you’ve been neglecting that special someone who you just hate, not giving them their due attention, hand them one of these cards. And they’ll know you’ve been thinking of them…choking on their morning coffee or finding a severed rat’s head in their cereal.

Honestly, I can’t think of any good that could come from giving these to someone, but what do I know?

Button ”I wish you were dead” PDF

Button ”Eat dirt” PDF

BONUS: Three heartbreaking songs that I particularly like.

Someone Like You by Adele. Beyoncé talks about replacing an ex, as well, but Adele’s take is heart wrenching and raw.

I heard that you settled down
That you found a girl and you’re married now
I heard that your dreams came true
Guess she gave you things I couldn’t give to you

I Know It’s Over by The Smiths. The Jeff Buckley version is also very good. There are a lot of Smith songs that make me sigh and say, “Oh Morrissey,  you poor thing.” This is one of them.

Oh mother
I can feel the soil falling over my head
As I climb into an empty bed
Oh well, enough said

Cover My Eyes by La Roux. Jump, Little Children have a song called Mexico, about when you break up the other person should go far, far away, all the way to Mexico. That rarely happens. Instead you often have to come face to face with that person.

When I see you walk in with her
I have to cover my eyes
Every time you leave with her
Something inside of me dies

I have created two very different valentines to share—a stricken little monster and a slightly grotesque heart. If you’re like me, and struggle with the sappy messages in many greeting cards, maybe one of my offbeat valentines will be the right fit for your special someone.

Button ”My heart is yours” PDF

Button ”Could you love a monster” PDF

So what’s the story with the monster? Long ago I sculpted a little clay gargoyle, about five inches tall. I painted him solid white. It was February. I gave him a little heart sign that said, “Could you love a monster?” and sold him at the annual Tiny Art Show at Emerge Gallery for $10. Since then, the phrase “Could you love a monster?” has stuck with me. We’ve all been at that vulnerable place in a relationship where we question whether we are ready to dive deeper into a relationship or not. It can feel like asking someone to love a monster. Gosh, isn’t love lovely, even when it’s devastating?

We all know what Valentine’s Day has become, a competition of who can send and receive the most embarrassing amount of flowers and gifts to their significant other at work. I don’t think any holiday is required to express how you feel to a person, but if having a day marked on a calendar inspires people to step outside their comfort zone and take that risk, I’m all for that. I’m a romantic, really.

Get your Xacto, cutting mat and ruler ready.

It’s not difficult at all to make these simple 4×6″ cards. And if you don’t want it to fold, you can always cut along the center fold line instead of scoring it.

[1] and [2] Scoring the fold: Here’s a little trick of the trade, if you score the paper it will make it easier to get a perfect fold. If you don’t have a paper bone tool, go to your kitchen and find a table knife. Line up your ruler with the fold marks, flip your table knife over so the dull side is touching the paper and run it along the ruler, pressing down with some force. You might want to practice this first on scrap to make sure your knife isn’t tearing the paper.

[3] Check it out, it’s subtle, but there’s a line pressed into the paper.

[4] Get your sharp Xacto knife now and line up the ruler with the crop marks. Be sure not to cut all the way to the edges of the paper.

[5] When you’re done cutting you should have a little ‘picture frame’ of excess paper.

[6] Finally, fold your card in half. It should fold nice and easily with your score line.

Just write your message inside and give it to your special someone.

BONUS: If music be the food of love, play on. Three love songs I particularly like:

Yearling by Jump, Little Children. In the eyes of love, realities change. Favorite lines:

I can hear you sleeping
Like a softly penned letter
That you plan on keeping
Sound asleep next to me
Under the ink of a drying sky

Lovesong by The Cure. A good song to carry a torch for someone to. Adele’s version is good, too.

However far away, I will always love you
However long I stay, I will always love you

Gotta Have You by The Weepies. Nothing warms and intoxicates like love, right? Favorite lines:

No amount of coffee, no amount of cryin’
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No, no, no, no, no
Nothing else will do
I’ve gotta have you

Before I started my career in graphic design, I spent almost two decades cultivating a love for hands-on crafts. Yes, I’m counting all those macaroni and construction paper projects of my childhood. And doing craft projects makes me feel like a kid again.

I picked up a bare wood birdhouse from a craft store. I thought the shape of it was really cute, and any fan of Portlandia knows that things are better with a bird on it. Following this logic, I figured birdhouses must not be far behind. (Full disclosure: This is the only thing I know about Portlandia.)

Flowers, hearts and stars, oh my! Originally I had planned on covering the entire thing in line drawings and patterns, but I liked how this looked. It sat in this state for a while before I decided it was, in fact, done. Sometimes more is more, but I think this is a case of less is more.

About five years ago I painted a series of oil still lifes on 6x6x1″ blocks of wood. After some coats of crystal clear (not an archival method, btw) and fabric backing, they’ve been looking awesome in my powder room for the past several years.

Below you can see the close-ups of each painting. If you’re wondering what you’re looking at, just hover your mouse over each image to see the photos of the real life inspiration.

redleaf

In college I could see a maple tree out my dorm window and I’d watch it change colors through the seasons. This is a leaf from that tree.

wood

I copied the grain from an unused square. Imagine my joy when I realized I still had the real piece of wood five years later.

iron

Detail from a candle holder

jar

A little collection of beads and shiny things

bag

Study of a striped fabric purse

shell

Beads, shell and shiny things

cellphone

Some things change, but just a little.

vase

Study of red glass

P.S. Thank you to Jenna Gengler for teaching me how to make sprite hovers.

Remember how we all used to watch the Behind the Music documentaries? There’s something fascinating about learning what happened behind the polished result. Well consider this a blog version, where we go behind the scenes of a liqueur.

My good friend Kelly, decided she wanted to make limoncello and give it away as gifts for Christmas. Fortunately for her, she decided this about three months before Christmas because that’s how long it took to infuse lemon zest into alcohol. After a lot of work and even more time, Kelly filtered and bottled half of the batch and was ready for the holidays.

With so many steps and so much planning going into these homemade gifts, I couldn’t resist making a chart of the process.

Each bottle had 312 hours in it. That’s almost an hour per ounce. And in case your BS radar is going off, yes only half the batch was filtered and bottled, so assuming it takes another eight hours to filter the rest, and another hour to bottle, that would bring down the average per bottle to 157 hours. That’s still a lot of time!

In addition to helping Kelly make her limoncello by scrubbing the lemons and filtering the rum through my Brita, I gave it a name and designed the labels. The name Four Goldens Limoncello came from the fact that Kelly has four golden retrievers—Gatsby, whose favorite toy is a green bone; Mike, the laid back chow mix; Maddie, the happiest girl in the world; and then there’s Lawrence, he sort of defies explanation.

I made four little lemon-head dog cartoons, each one representing one of the goldens. Gatsby has his trademark green bone.

Below are three label ideas at an early stage. I showed these to Kelly and she picked the one she liked the most. She saw right away that her dogs were on the label. It made her happy, which made me happy.

I developed the design into a full label, making it look as professional as I could, even including details such as how many milliliters and ounces the bottle held. Kelly wanted to have a little joke on the label, so I wrote some unnecessary instructions, “It’s liquor. Drink it.”

Now for a little behind-the-scenes of the behind-the-scenes. As you see, I have a very fancy photo studio, and a highly-trained assistant…I know it looks like a piece of poster board and kitty cat.

He’s so helpful.

When you spend 40 hours a week at a computer, you long for some hands on activities, and sometimes a good old fashioned craft project is just what the doctor ordered.

Last year I found two unpainted wooden toys at the store and decided to turn them into Christmas ornaments for my two nephews. I knew at 2 and 4 years old they wouldn’t appreciate them yet, but one day they would. I felt like one of Santa’s elves as I sanded out all the rough spots on a wooden train and a wooden propeller plane, and then lovingly painted each one and put their initials on them.

About a month ago my niece was born. What do you get for a month old baby who already has everything? It was perfect timing to make another ornament and continue the tradition. There are three of them now, that makes it a tradition, right?

I found a cute little wooden bird cutout with a wing detail at the craft store. It came pre-printed with some details on it, coloring book style, but after I primed it with gesso, they were all covered up. I winged it, no pun intended. (Okay, it was intended.) Each side is slightly different, with a lot of dots. I busted out some toothpicks for those. Doesn’t get much more arts and craftsy than that.

Just a simple and sweet little project.

What do you do when a project you worked made you smile while working on it? I think you should find a reason to work with those things again. I couldn’t help smiling while drawing some cute dinosaurs for a project. But by the time the project was all done, not all of these party-goers were needed. I didn’t want them to feel sad since they didn’t get invited to that party, so I gave them a reason for existing–wallpapers!

Party all day long with my dinosaurs, just download them from the newly created Downloads page and put them on your computer desktop, your iPhone, even your iPad.

Enjoy!