Merry Blazermas

Next up is another gift that I gave to Nate.

Boy loves the Blazers. and I guess I could have just put the tickets in an envelope or even just sent it to him via email... but i wanted it to be a bit nicer.

so i made this little envelope for them to go in.
he thought they came that way :)

Haddie's Daddy

Another gift I made was a shirt for Nate.
The shirt reads, "Haddie's Daddy," because, well, he is.
I generally always make Nate a shirt for Christmas, putting some random saying on it. And generally he loves it, even if this picture says that he's only mildly enjoying it.
I mean hey it is early in the morning when I'm taking this picture and we really haven't been getting that much sleep :)

i love when he proudly wears the shirt throughout the year.
makes my heart happy.

Creative Christmas

For Christmas this year, I knew that I wanted to give some relational gifts. Ones that took a little bit more thought and effort. So for the next few days, I'm going to show you what I got my loved ones.

First up is a story written by my husband and illustrated by me for our little niece. It's called, "Cousins" and is about two cousins who are away from each other for Christmas but want to still send some Christmas love to one another. It was such a fun project to work on with Nate. Once we were finished, we uploaded to blurb.com and had the book printed and shipped, easy peasy!

Here are some snaps of my illustrations.

let your hearts be light

its Christmas Eve, last year in the wee hours of the morning, i jumped into our bed and uttered some words that I had never had the joy to say before, "i'm pregnant."
i will forever remember that moment, cuddling in our warm bed, smiles from ear to ear and ever thanking our God who gave us this beautiful and long sought after gift.

As you celebrate this year, I pray that your hearts would be light and thankful for the gifts you have, and that the hopeful gift of Jesus would make you smile ear to ear as well.

Merry Christmas.

on being forgetful

i'm going to let you all know something about me. something that i'm sure you will find it hard to believe, but please just bear with me and know that i am telling the truth.

i am not perfect.
at all.
in any way.

and with that imperfection I will go deeper to add that i am a forgetful mess sometimes. in the morning nate will remind me to take the clothes out of the dryer. 4:00 pm will come and no i have not removed said clothes. in fact i didn't even look at the washer and dryer all day.

its fine, he forgives me and its all good. but what i am wondering is, what about the fact that i have a kid now? you know that little person who depends on me for everything? what's going to happen the day she needs to start taking a med every day at 9:39 exactly? or what about her soccer game that she repeatedly told me was at 3:30 to which i show up at 5?
no bueno.

i guess i'll just have to throw all my cares and worries up to God and hope that He fills in the gaps that I will most certainly miss.

because well, i'm not perfect, and He is.
any other forgetful freds out there?

no sleep til brooklyn

sleep. i cherish it. in college i would be the one known to sleep through an entire morning, not waking until 11 or 12.

that's not the case now. i knew that sleep would be a challenge in being a new parent, but i didn't know it would be like THIS! don't get me wrong, i'm more than happy to do it, i know that she's young and needs the help, and i'm her mommy... so you know, there's that. but wow, Haddie, let's get try to get this sleep thing under control, for you and for me.

for the past several nights, little 3.5 month haddlette's sleep goes something like this:
-struggle putting her down and eventually get her down around 8:30 or 9pm
-dreamfeed at 10pm
-crying at 12:00 am
-crying again at 1:30 am
-crying again at 3:30 am
-oh and one more cry at 5:00 am
-wake up at 6:30 am (you know, because we all feel so rested everything, why not get a jump on the day)

what's the deal?
she might be teething, but would that keep her waking up so much?
she has a pacifier once she starts sounding off at 12, does that make her sleep less sound?

any ideas or tips? I'm all ears..

framed

with the holidays around the corner, i've found myself with more time to just design for fun. I made this last night. just a cute little framed picture of Nate and I.

Thinking about printing it out and hanging it up :)
4 more days til Christmas, who's excited?!

distracted

seriously, though. how am i expected to work with a face like this around me all day? i wish my full time job was smooching her, because then i would have all the bills paid tenfold.

sounding off

she is mad about something, i don't want to speak for her or anything, but i bet its because she has a nose filled with snot and doesn't know how to get it out, or it could be the fact that she has the feeling of tiny little daggers trying protrude from her gums in the form of teeth.

either that, or she is mad that you haven't hired me to design something for you yet.

i'm not sure.

Recently Recent

A super top secret project that shall be revealed after Christmas...

something i design for a minted contest...a custom illustration of a childhood home...

and lots others! if you're intersted in me designing something for you, hit me up!

busy

i've been a busy little bee lately. my life? oh it consists of proofing images and wiping spit up out of my hair at the same time... burping my wee one, while corresponding with a client. God made women to be multi-taskers for a reason.

oh and this is a new card that will be coming to the shop very soon. keep your eyes peeled.

current obsession

there is just something about winter. it makes me drink gallons of tea and chow down millions of cookies. i'm not lying, i eat THAT MUCH. breastfeeding just does that to a girl. I swear that I eat more now that I am feeding my little gal then when I was carrying her around inside of me.

so as an homage to my two current besties, i drew this little diddy.
enjoy!

3 months!

cant believe she is 3 months already.
favorite things so far:
-the way she folds her hands when she is sleeping
-the enormous grins she gives me when she is done napping
- when she talks, especially to her giraffe
-dance parties with my little lady
-oh yeah, and more sleep than when she was a newborn :)

lots to love, happy three months, haddie!

little print for a little lady

\
i had the privileged of creating some wall art for Lisa's new wee little gal.
super fun to make something that's going in a baby's room...

like mother, like daughter

When you are pregnant you get the same questions over and over.."What are you going to name it?", "Is the baby a boy or girl?" "what are you craving?"

Well when you HAVE the baby the questions keep coming, and the most common is, who do you think she looks more like, you or your husband?

and my answer is always, "I don't know." Because I don't know. I think maybe there are bits and pieces of me in her, and maybe a few from my husband, but honestly I just think she is just Hadley. A baby, with Hadley's face. Not mine.

But I was curious so I took a shot of both of us, using similar lighting, background, and trying my very best to have a serious face (which, by the way, is VERY hard for me).

this was the outcome, what do you think? Anything similar?

Hadley's Birth Announcement

it took me awhile to get this lil puppy done, with being a new mom and all. but I finally did! and since Christmas is so soon, we figured we'd just send them along with the family Christmas card.

I think they turned out pretty nice, what do you think?

have you made your family holiday photo cards yet?

no? well then, i'm your gal.

Parent's dig this stuff

so i know that you are tempted to buy a bunch of stuff for those you love this Christmas. I get it... you love them, they love you, you want to show that love by buying them something nice. but can i suggest one thing? why not this year, MAKE something for those you love.

I'm a big advocate of advent conspiracy, which promotes loving more and spending less. not that I won't buy anything at all this year, but I'm going to think about it more, and not just buy some random thing if my heart isn't into it.

SO all that to say, I made you all a free download. it's a family tree that you can print and fill out with everyone in your family's name. then frame that bad boy, and say "hey mom, i have this family tree for you with all of us on it."

so just click here, and print. if you have more people in your family and you'd like it edited a bit so that you can put everyone on there, no biggie, just email me, and for 5 bucks I can do that for you.

I promise she will be a fan :)

enjoy!

so i may have gone a little bit crazy, BUT for the next hour (from 2-3pm PST, 11/22/11) I am offering 40% OFF any design services...
This includes designing of blog headers, business card designs, etc.

this excludes: all printed materials.

so go ahead! take advantage, woohoo!
just email me with code: 40BUFFALO

so not like me..

I have the honor of standing in my friend Michelle's wedding in March, and she asked me to make the wedding invitations as well. This is the design that we came up with. Very sleek, gray, and to the point. Not my usual colorful creation, but I like it all the same.

Makes me want to be a little more sleek myself. What do you think?

On Haddie's Head

apparently when i was a wee one, everyone would come up to my parents and say what a beautiful baby boy they had on their hands, which is totally fair, i mean what really distinguishes a cute chubby baby face from a boy or a girl?

but there are these things called headbands now, and so i decided to make Haddie a few, and booooyyy does she look cute. And there's no debating the issue, she is more assuredly an adorable little lady. I may be biased though.

minta minted

it's safe to say that I am addicted to entering minted's design challenges.
in my mind, its well worth it, even if I don't always win. its not whether you win, but whether you, yadda yadda, you get the idea.

so! all that to say I entered another challenge. this one asks designers to dig down to some cultural roots. so i made this little dutch diddie. let's hope it goes all the way :)

oh and you can vote, i know you want to.

there's still room for us

we are two months into this baby thing, and it has surprised me how much time Nate and I still have to just be together as a couple. Now I know that this won't always be the case. There will be a much bigger child with much bigger demands in the future, but when I was preggo I really didn't realize that with a baby there would be so much time just the two of us left at the end of the day.

my heart was happy last night as he and i sat on our bed playing cards and stifling little laughs so that our little gal wouldn't hear. i get the feeling more and more that I need to make sure to store these little treasures I get with both my man and my girl, because times they do change.

they're here!

holiday cards are officially in the shop!

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Haddie on a pumpkin

we did it.
we put haddie on a pumpkin.
i think she's pretty indifferent :)
ps- it's november. how?!

Christmas, it's coming..

if you are even a tiny bit in the card business, you know that you have to be on top of your x-mas designs way before its actually Christmas. Here's hoping that this year I can keep up with shipping my little designs all the while putting a smile on my sweet babe's face.

oh, and you are getting your Christmas cards from me this year, right? not that its even Halloween yet, but I'm counting on you :)

Photo Shoot

just a week after haddie was born, a good friend came over to take some shots of the newly formed fam. how cute, right? seriously, if you are in portland and need some photography help, call this girl now!

I don't normally do this, so take advantage now! This offer lasts from today until tomorrow at 2pm PST. To check out my work visit: http://mylittlebuffalo.com/portfolio/branding

back in the saddle again (sorta)

just throwing this picture in here, because...well, because.

so we're over one month in! the visitors are gone, the meals have stopped showing up at the door, the dishes have to be done by me this time.

As I'm settling back into new-normalcy I am also beginning to get back into the "designing saddle" again. I've done a few things here are there, mostly finishing up things that I left on the wayside in my 41st week of pregnancy, and it feels good to do so. Here are a couple of things I've done recently.

And since I'm on the topic, I'm now open for business again! So if you need something and feel like supporting this new work from home mommy, please email me.

Want more info? Take a looksy here.

in the swing of things

3 weeks old this Friday! i have to say that with each day we catch the drift a bit more on what it takes to care for this newborn. sure, there are still sleepless nights, fussy spells, and the inability to think clearly on even the simplest of thoughts. BUT compared to our first night alone with her....we've come a LONG way.

when did you first start to feel like parenting was actually a doable thing? :)
oh, and what does one do when you want your baby to sleep in the room with you, but she's noisy when she sleeps?

she's here!

sorry if i am MIA lately, just a little preoccupied with cuteness (and dirty diaps)