Christmas Card & Digital Art

Merry Christmas from the Glausers 2017!!!  When I started making these timelines it was hard to fill a whole 8.5x11 page, now I wish I had gone with a larger size paper!  (you can see our old cards here)

I really do enjoy creating things.  I love digital art because the possibilities are endless.  One of the reasons my blog has been neglected these past few months is because of these digital art projects....

A few months ago I set up an appointment with the principal at Scarlett's school.  I noticed that the school had no central digital calendar for everyone to see what's going on.  So I explained how we could set one up that would allow parents and staff to embed it on their smartphone or computer calendars. I left his office with the task of putting it together for everyone (which I did and now people are using it!)  But while I was there proposing my calendar I was waiting in the main office.  I was chatting with the secretaries and we started talking about the bulletin board in the waiting area.  It's been covered with burlap but otherwise empty since school started.  I was helping them brainstorm ideas and somehow left that day with ANOTHER job: decorating the bulletin board.  I decided to do a comic/superhero theme (the principal loves superheros).  I wanted to make a header but also have space to cover it in little comics and memes for kids to read while they are waiting.

The real problem is that I get these crazy ideas then have to build everything from scratch.  Ugh!  I watched several youtube tutorials on comic book style lettering and design.  I took a photo of the building and turned it into a comic looking building.  I had some graphic art for superhero kids from Etsy, I used them to make several SPS superhero kids to represent the school monthly moral focuses.  I took the art and make posters for the top of the board.  I found fabric for the back and ribbon for the edges.  The school secretary laminated them for me.  It took a long day of cutting and stapling but I got it all put together!  I even got to eat lunch with Scarlett that day!

Here are the posters up close.

I also did some graphic design work for Jami's ward and her work.  I had so much fun coming up with these.  (In return she did a lot of internet clothes shopping for my girls.  Win win!)

My cousin Liz got married this past fall.  I made her bridal shower invite and wedding invitation.  I made the first version, but it was a bit too florally for the groom.  The blue lines are the cut with bleed for the printer.  I built the floral border piece by piece using watercolor art from Etsy.  And I designed all the little credit cards for the shower invite.

So this is the final draft.  Still feminine but more toned down to make everyone happy ;-)

For my parent's Christmas gift I made a genealogy circle for the Seaver-Hanna family.  I also did some research to fill in a few blanks we had.  Now we need to get to the temple to do some work for these ancestors who have been waiting!

My SIL asked me to photoshop my niece so it looked like she went to comic con to meet Tom Holland (for a joke she wanted to play on her daughter).

I have designed the Moss family Christmas card for the past few years.  And even though Gina moved away from our ward, we wanted to keep the tradition going!  They always have such creative ideas for me to play around with.  This year Bro. Moss wanted to do a semi-serious theme using a few lines from A Christmas Carol.  It took me a little bit of time to decide how I was going to pull it all together while feeling fun at the same time.  I found some cool cartoon drawings on deviantart and I think it came together at the end.

Here are the past Moss family Christmas cards just for fun...  They come up with a quirky idea for the photo and words but they have given me free reign to do whatever I want with the design.

My cousin Jenn asked me to swap heads and clean up their family photo (also another annual tradition of ours).

I made a header for Lili's mission blog, she's in Washington DC (spanish speaking).  My mom and I have been keeping it updated for her, you can follow her here: https://hermanalilianatapia.blogspot.com/

My friend asked me for help creating a logo for her photography business.  Then I helped her design her website here: http://meridithbaughphotography.blogspot.com/ (and we counted it as my visiting teaching her for the month! haha!)

My friend Laura L. had all of her kids home for Christmas this year.  We have 2 photographers in our ward but both of them were unavailable during the time that the Lowder family would be together... so they asked me to take their photos.  I don't love photography, but I couldn't say no during such a special time for their family.  They said they would pay me, I jokingly said I would rather have them clean the church for my family's assigned day.  And they did!!!  haha!!  A funny trade but worth it!  What a good looking family!  They found a cool location and the lighting was perfect (but it was so cold!  While I was editing the photos I had to take red out of everyone's noses and ears from the low temperatures!)

I have several friends who moved away from our ward.  Well two of them asked for my help this fall.  One to make a RS handout for an activity.  

The other, she needed her bro-in-law photoshopped into their group photo.  The problem was the photos they gave me of him are in COMPLETELY different lighting.  I spend a bunch of time changing the highlights on his face, etc.  But there's only so much you can do.  But he's in the photo now.  The photo looks much better in black and white.  The whole process helped me know what I needed from Kassidy in order to edit her into the Glauser family photo (it's all about lighting!!!)

I told Ashley that they needed a vintage furnace/Furness sign to go in their house.  So I made this cheesy little sign for her for Christmas.  It's silly but hopefully fun.  I looked at a lot of vintage signs to see how they are designed... lots of words and flowery language.  I tried to play off the furnace theme too.  I told Jake that I wished Glauser was a noun so we could do fun things with it.  But then we named our kids all colors so now I can do fun things with that ;-)

And finally.... Nate puts together a family video for Christmas every year.  He does song segments for Memes and look alikes.  He asked us to create some to go in the video.  These were what I came up with (at like 11pm one night, everything was funny to me cause I was sooo tired!  haha!  So some of them might not be as funny as I originally thought).