dresses, flowers, honeymoons and baseball

so much has been going on lately that i don't even know where to start with an update. i'll try to keep this short, but i have a feel that it might get a little lengthy, so hang in there.

let's keep this entry to wedding stuff... since i last blogged about the wedding, we were in the midst of shopping for bridesmaids dresses and shoes, deciding on a florist, and trying to fill in other gaps like hotel room blocks and wedding decor. i'm happy to say that the bridesmaids dresses and shoes are all squared away. i was even able to order shoes for myself. this was another big relief for me. the more items we can check off the list, the better! it was really great getting the girls together, with the exception of my maid of honor who happens to live in minnesota. this was the first time they got to meet each other and they all hit it off immediately. this makes me really excited about future events that involve all of us getting together. it's going to make the whole wedding process that much more enjoyable and fun.

after the early morning shopping, jeff and i finally signed with a florist after working out a pretty sweet deal! we honestly had no idea what we were going into when we first started looking for a florist. everything was so open ended and we didn't have much of a vision for the flowers. thank god for angel rose florist in warrington, pa! we brought in some reference shots of what we liked and she was able to help us envision our flowers and what everything would look like together. plus she really pulled together our wedding theme into the flowers. i can't wait to see the finished product!

i wish i could share more details about the wedding planning, but i've decided to keep a lot of things secret. i don't want to give everything away and leave guests with an exact image of what to expect on our wedding day. it's my goal to keep everyone guessing and let them be wowed when they show up to the church and reception venue and see all of the hard work that went into the planning. i've been working my butt off and hearing/watching peoples' reaction is going to be the best payoff.

the other good news in our little world of wedding planning is that we've selected a honeymoon destination. i'm not going to give it away just yet because nothing is set in stone, but it is definitely a location in the caribbean and it is absolutely amazing! we made an appointment with a travel agent almost two weeks ago to get an idea of places we should go. she mentioned this location and i've been looking at photos of the area and reading up on it the last day or so and it just keeps getting better and better. i think we might be stopping by to visit her again this weekend and hopefully book the trip. i'll reveal our destination once it's definite.

other than those couple things we've been working on some reception decor and accessories for the reception portion of the wedding. i'm so lucky that jeff is as involved with the whole wedding process as he is. he's been a big help planning and figuring out the logistics. we've been getting awesome results from bouncing ideas off of each other. it's true what they say, two heads really are better than one! plus it helps that he's been keeping me somewhat sane as we get closer to the big day. only ten months to go!

here's a pic of us from this past weekend. we took sometime out from our busy schedules to attend a williamsport crosscutters game.

and here's some more shots from the game. we had amazing front row seats and got to see all of the action. and to top it off, i got to see my man mickey morandini (phils circa '93) coaching the team. i met mickey back in the day and got a photo with him and my baseball signed. it was very exciting! i'll have to post the photo here so you can all see how excited i was.

the crosscutters kicked butt and won it 5-1.

stay tuned

i've been having a rough time getting motivated to blog. as you can probably tell since my last post was almost 2 weeks ago. a lot of things have been going on and i'm working on gathering my thoughts for an update.

show some love

well... here it is! an officially licensed one trick zebra tee. this was my first pass at screen printing the design and it got a little messed up in the process, but still looks pretty sweet. i made this one for my nephew so he can do a little bit of advertising for me. the funny thing is i've had a couple requests from adults who want their own version of this shirt. i guess i never even thought that i should make some adult size versions to help advertise one trick zebra. i'm going to have to make a few for myself and friends to help spread the word!

... i can't think of a good title ...

i'm not quite ready to unveil any sneak peaks of my website redesign just yet. i've been working on it pretty diligently the last couple of days and i'm pretty excited with the direction it's going. there's still a lot of design work left before i get to the coding side of the redesign. i saved the hardest part for last, the portfolio. i've been collecting up portfolio worthy works, but it's hard narrowing it down to a selected few. i should be ready to start coding by mid august. that's assuming all goes according to plan.

my one trick zebra projects have slowed down some. i have two orders that i'll be finishing up tonight. i've created an official one trick zebra t-shirt design that i'll be printing tonight as well and hopefully unveiling it early next week. in the meantime, let me introduce you to one trick zebra's new mascot:

slacker's gonna slack

i've been a slacker about updating all last week. i just haven't been in the mood to do a real update. and that includes today. i really just wanted to check in and remind you that i am still here and i promise to do a real update soon. my website redesign has yet again peaked my interest and i've been working on that lately, keeping me busy. i'll hopefully be posting some sneak peaks this week. in addition you can look forward to seeing some new one trick zebra stuff!

update before the weekend

even though it hasn't helped yet, i've gone ahead and added more items to my etsy store, bringing my grand total to... wait for it.... .... eight items! i feel like such a slacker with my number of products not even making it to the double digits. the products are limited to onesies/tees right now as i haven't had time to finish the receiving blankets i've been working on. everything's been put on hold as i wrap up some orders. i have a weekend of wedding stuff planned so i doubt i'll be working on any one trick zebra stuff.

tomorrow morning begins with another trip to david's bridal. this time it's all about the bridesmaid dresses. my girls are all meeting up to try on the dress and make sure the dress suits each of their shapes. i really love the dress we've selected. it wasn't quite the style i was looking for from the start, but it has turned out to be perfect! once that's squared away, it's off to do some shoe shopping. hopefully this will also be a painless process.

after the dress and shoe shopping it's on to a follow up appointment with a local florist. i'm pretty sure we're going to sign with her this weekend since she has turned out to be the only really reliable florist we've talked/met with. other florists have been jerking us around, some constantly rescheduling appointments, others not getting back to us for almost three weeks when we were promised within two weeks. we can't afford to sit around and wait for these clowns. and if this is any indication of how they really work, then i don't want anything to do with them. i'll let out a sigh of relief once the florist is checked off of our list.

visits to a few of our local hotels are also planned for this weekend. we'll hopefully be reserving room blocks for the night of the rehearsal dinner and wedding for out-of-towners and others who don't want to make a long trek back home either of those nights. this will be another major check off on our list.

let's see... what else? maybe a couple other random wedding things will take place. some shopping or some crafting... we'll see. i can say that i will definitely be spending saturday night watching harry potter and the deathly hallows part two!

getting the word out

have i mentioned how much i love one trick zebra? it's almost become somewhat of an obsession for me. i love logging on to my facebook fanpage, checking for updates, posting on the wall, adding new pictures, communicating with my "followers." it's exciting watching it grow. word is getting out there, people are seeing the unique things i'm creating and they're getting hungry for more! i never imagined it would become as popular as it appears to be becoming. the last couple weeks have been ridiculously busy for me with what seems like an endless number of orders flowing in. when i first realized that i had created something that could be very marketable, my original intent was to create an etsy store and sell some products there. so, i posted a couple of onesies, but have yet to generate any orders. none of my orders have come from etsy at all. my store front and individual products have received a lot of attention from etsy users. my shop and individual product have been added to a number of people's "favorites," but all of my orders have come almost solely from my facebook page. facebook's influence on today's society is really amazing. this has been my only source of "advertising" other than my etsy page. the last day or so i've been working on a really cheap form of advertising, tear-off flyers. might seem a bit cheesy for a graphic designer such as myself, but this type of advertising can prove to be very effective and since it's free, i'm gonna give it a try. i plan on posting them in some local businesses this weekend, so hopefully by next week one trick zebra will generate even more buzz!

getting easier

here's a quick shot of the latest one trick zebra creation. this was a custom order that i was able to bang out in just one night. special orders have really taken over one trick zebra. and i love it! i love getting the chance to be challenged creatively and watch customers' delight as their ideas come to life. it involves a lot more work on my end, but it's worth it. especially since i've been able to cut down the start to finish time of each job. 

production time now takes only about a quarter of the time since i first began screen printing. and this is the case even though i'm doing much more complex designs with multiple colors that require multiple screens. i've fine tuned my techniques so much that the most time consuming part has become waiting for screens and/or shirts to dry. most of the time i avoid those longer waiting times by using a combination of my new screen printing machine with a built in dryer and my good 'ole trusty hairdryer!

d-i-n-o-s-a U R a dinosaur

as promised, here's a couple shots of my finished dinosaur applique onesie from one trick zebra. pretty stinkin' cute, right? i'm in love with how this turned out. sadly, i had to send it out to a friend who ordered it, but fear not! i ordered a bunch of new baby/toddler gear to begin applying this new technique to and i can't wait to share my creations. i have a bunch of ideas bouncing around in my head that i'm dying to test out and eager to see to completion.

right now i'm in the midst of another baby quilt. a while back i began my first completely hand sewn baby quilt. it took me a good amount of time to work through being that it was my first one and i had to troubleshoot along the way. i sort of already chalked it up to a loss from the beginning considering the fact that it was my first attempt. i figured that by the time i got to the second quilt i would have everything worked out and be able to create a real piece of "art." turns out i was way too hard on myself from the start. although it took me much longer than i anticipated to finish it, the important part is that i did finish it and it turned out amazing. i'm extremely proud of it and instead of giving it to my nephew as originally intended, i decided to keep it for myself and eventually give it to a child of my own. i still plan on making my nephew his own baby quilt, but my first quilt holds a special place in my heart so i felt i should keep it. the quilt i'm working on now is the same quilt, but for a friend this time, meaning my nephew is gonna have to wait just a little bit longer!

oh baby

here's a shot of my latest one trick zebra creation. i took this shot before i began to sew, so it's not 100% representative of the final product. i'm actually very, very happy with how this design turned out. it was sewn by hand using an applique technique in a way that allows the edges of the dinosaur silhouette to fray lightly, giving it a much different feel than mass produced products. i'll post up finished pictures when i get them.

i've been quite the busy bee lately with one trick zebra gear. it seems like everyone is either having a baby or knows someone who is having one!

the pieces are coming together

turns out saturday dress shopping went a lot better than i was anticipating. in the back of my mind i knew i was getting all hyped up over nothing. the wedding consultant that worked with me was awesome. she was very attentive and friendly and went out of her way to help me and my crew. i probably tried on a total of 10-12 dresses and found the one! i was shocked that it turned out that easy. the dress is perfect. i love everything about it and can't wait to hear what people say when they see it on the big day. the dress and veil are both ordered and should arrive in about three months. the good news is that it doesn't need much in alterations either. and as long as i find the right shoes, it shouldn't need to be hemmed at all.

it's such a relief to be able to check this off of my list. the fact that it went so smoothly and successfully is really adding to my overall fun level with the whole planning process. i honestly am enjoying planning things out even down to the finest details. i want to keep checking things off of my checklist because it's fun for me to do so, not because i have to do it. in all reality, i still have plenty of time to get things done that i want to get done and buy things that need to be bought, but i am taking my time so i can take it all in at a non-stressed out level. this way i am able to enjoy things and have the patience and time to create my "perfect" wedding.

over the weekend we also met with a couple florists to discuss what we want for the wedding. to be honest, i really had no idea what i wanted to do as far as colors for the bouquets. i might have had a ton on photos of bouquets that i showed, but i never took the time to envision what i wanted to see on my wedding day. i didn't even have any photos of the boutonnieres, nor did i take any time to consider what i wanted them to look like either. i guess i was concentrating so much on the reception table pieces that it simply slipped my mind. that's the good thing about an experienced florist who's good at their job. we were able to talk out some ideas and the pieces came together. i began to envision what the bouquets would look like and how they would vary between the bride, maid of honor and bridesmaids. and the boutonniere ideas, while seemingly simple and straightforward, took their shape and will prove to be just as breathtaking as the bouquets.

with the events from the weekend, i officially have a vision of what the wedding will look like. the attire, the flowers, the colors, the overall style. the whole wedding feels so much more real now. and i'm really excited to watch our ideas develop.

moving along

i scheduled my first appointment for dress shopping this weekend. yay! or, more appropriately for me, ugh... i'm kind of dreading dress shopping. and there's a couple reasons for this. first, i remember how long it too me to find the perfect dress for school dances. i would pass dress after dress at a store then end up trying a few on and never find "the one." so it was off to the next store and the next series of dresses. i remember my mom and i agonizing about going dress shopping because there never seemed to be any dresses that were nice. everything was so tacky and showy or just plain old ugly. i like simple, elegant dresses. the kind of dress that will make the man you're with catch hi breath when he first sees you. this is what i'm looking for in my wedding dress. not too much to ask for, right?

the second reason... i don't especially like being the center of attention. i'll admit it, i'm kind of a shy person. i get very nervous when all the attention is on me. it makes me feel like i have to constantly be on guard that i'm not making myself look like an idiot or doing anything dumb. with that said, however, i shouldn't really be concerned about this at all. i'll be shopping with my mom, sister-in-law who is going to be one of my bridesmaids and another bridesmaid who is a close friend of mine. and i have to say, all three of these people have all seen me at my worst. so maybe i should move onto the last reason why i'm dreading this process.

two words. wedding consultant. i know that by going on a weekend i will have to share my wedding consultant with another bride. this won't be a problem as long as they work equally with both of us. i'm assuming the worst in this situation. i can picture it turning into a battle to cater to the bride who's going to spend the most money. this is definitely not me. i'm not one of these brides that goes out and gets any dress she wants and simply hands mommy and daddy's money over. i have set a budget for my dress and there's not much wiggle room. i want something beautiful and elegant and amazing, but that means i might just have to shop around some more to find something like that in my price range. i'm worried the other bride will end up getting all of the attention because all the consultant is going to see is dollar signs. i'm also worried that the consultant won't listen to me or be on the same page as me when it comes to the style and design of the dress i'm looking for. i have some sample images to show that hopefully will help eliminate this issue, but it's still something that could happen.

maybe it's just an issue of me being eager to finally go out and dress shop. i'm probably thinking way too much into this and making myself anxious over the whole process. i'm nervous, but very excited at the same time. all i want is for the appointment to go smoothly without any problems and be successful. come this weekend i'll have all of these thoughts behind me and be ready to shop with an open mind!

my new favorite font

just randomly, i happened upon what is currently my new favorite font. i've passed over this font several times without giving it a chance at all until now. and only by accident. i was searching for a font to use on a custom poster for a retail store, something elegant and classy without having all the swirls and flourishes as something like scriptina. i accidentally clicked on museo. it was almost as if a light bulb clicked on in my head. this is the perfect type of font i've been searching for for my website. for those of you not familiar with museo, here you go:

i can't quite put my finger on why i am so in love with this font right now. i think maybe it's a combination of simplicity created by the letterform shapes and the feeling of elegance that is projected when they come together to form words. it's very modern, but is very reminiscent of the art nouveau era. it seems to be a very versatile font with perfect legibility.

i prefer the plain museo version as opposed to the museo slab version. and what really makes this version of the font is its semi-slab serifs. is this a sans-serif font? or serif? it's hard to place it in one category over the other since most of the letters have a combination of sans-serif and what i would classify as partial serifs. whatever it is i don't care. i love this font!

well on our way

we've now officially added a dj to our booked items for the wedding! and i have to say it feels really good to have this done and out of the way. i feel a definite sense of accomplishment and i'm proud that all of the hard work is really paying off. and the best part is that we've saved a ton of money by giving ourselves the time to shop around for what we really want and at prices we can afford. i feel like we've found the best that money can buy without having to sell any organs on the black market. i just hope everything from here on out goes equally as smooth.

i know what you're thinking, you still have over a year to go. we're just that good at planning ahead. i'm the kind of person that needs to follow some kind of goal path or whatever you want to call it. i can't help it. i'm always planning for the future. i don't like not knowing what's going on or how things will work out. i can't simply fly by the seat of my pants all the time. i am well aware of the curve balls that life throws your way and more often than not you have no other choice than to just wing it. but that's the good thing about wedding planning for me. for the most part we have complete control of our goal path and timeline of events leading up to our big day.

i've heard a lot of couples complain about the planning process. i've been told good luck followed by that wow, she has no idea what she's in for look so many times i think i would actual be a millionaire with each nickle i got. planning for your wedding should be special and memorable. it should be something you both enjoy. there's going to be a few problems or unexpected adjustments you're going to have to make along the way, but that's just life. just recently we missed an outing to go see a potential dj perform thanks to my lack on concentration when reading an email detailing the location and date/time. simply put i thought it was saturday night when it was in fact friday night. luckily for us we called before we left for the event and realized the mistake immediately saving us the two hour trip. i was more upset with myself over the fact that this was our only time to see the dj perform until july. this pushed us to look at another dj and we actually ended up going with them over our original. i'm a firm believer that this all happened for a reason. we missed the djs performance because there was something even better just around the corner.

sometimes you just have to roll with the punches. life never goes exactly as planned and much is the same for wedding planning. a lot of things can be made more enjoyable in life if you just make the time to actually enjoy it.

in need of an update

i've had to stay away from my web redesign for the last couple of weeks. one trick zebra custom requests have been flooding in recently keeping me fairly busy. throw some wedding planning into the mix and you've got a real recipe for disaster as far as design progress goes. it's all good though. i haven't forgotten my site completely. i figure this will give me some extra time to come up with a really solid design.

for those of you who aren't familiar with one trick zebra, let me explain. right now i'm making screen printed onesies and baby/toddler tees along with receiving blankets. i've been working on designs for appliqued onesies and plan to develop my first prototype this week. you can check out the products i have and the different designs i've been developing on my facebook fanpage. be sure to click "like" to add it to your favorite pages and help me promote my very small, but growing company! a couple of other products i have in mind are quilts/blankets, burp cloths, bibs and various baby toys. it's hard finding the time to sit and sew with my busy schedule, but i do find the time, it can be very relaxing. that is, when my sewing machine is working! i also have an etsy store here that you can check out.

on to wedding stuff... my fiancé and i have made some major progress with wedding plans. as of right now we're a whole year and nine days away from the big day and already have the church, reception, videographer and photographer booked. the dj is in the process of being booked and we plan to have that finalized in the next day or so. these were the top things that we definitely wanted booked well before the one year mark. we have a meeting in the next two weeks scheduled with one florist and are hoping to add another florist meeting into the mix. in the meantime, i've been able to get a couple other things accomplished such as ordering centerpieces, ordering the unity candles for the ceremony, making our cake toppers (jeff and i each made our own bride and groom "character"), and ordering invitation samples along with ordering paper samples and designing our own custom invitations. all in all i'd say we're pretty well off with our plans. the elephant in the room seems to always be my wedding dress. everyone keeps asking if i have a dress yet. no! haha. i've been looking online some, but haven't gone to stores yet to try anything on. i know exactly the look i want and have some styles i want to try on, but i just haven't had the chance yet. plus, i just recently got my bridal party all figured out so that was holding me back from shopping. now that i've got all the responses back from the girls, i'm going to work on scheduling a day that we can all go dress shopping together.we're getting there. slowly, but surely.

never enough time

i haven't had anytime to work on my website in the last week. there's just never enough time in the day to get everything done that i want to. seems like there is something i'm always planning for or getting ready for. i've got a number of things on my plate right now. i think it's time for a do-to list, so here goes (in no particular order):

• one trick zebra - custom onesies (3 total) + toddler shirt
• one trick zebra - baby toys
• one trick zebra - receiving blankets
• elewisdesign & one trick zebra - finish layout for website
• elewisdesign - update portfolio for web
• one trick zebra - update products on etsy and for web

this weekend is sure to be full of everything else but the stuff listed above. i've got a lot of other things i need to get done including a long list of things for my car... change oil, replace wipers, replace brakes, install a jdm goodie, have someone look into a possible wheel bearing problem... plus, if this rain ever stops i would like to wash my cars and get all of the winter junk off of them. and then there's my dad's birthday that we'll be celebrating saturday evening (still gotta wrap gifts for this!). oh, and both church services sunday along with a meeting with a potential dj for our wedding. it would be nice to mix in some relax time too but, again, so much stuff to do and not enough time.

building the foundation

i'm finally starting off my website redesign the right way. instead of diving right into the design, blindly adding colors, graphics, copy and whatever else i seem to think of along the way, i decided to take a different approach. i started from the very beginning, with an outline of the goals / purposes of my website. since i am going to be merging my one trick zebra baby gear company with my design portfolio, i broke the site down into two different directions keeping in mind that the overall flow of each site has to be cohesive and make sense.

let me stop right here and declare my love for list making. lists have been a huge lifesaver for me. especially when it comes to time management and organization. anytime i'm overwhelmed with multiple projects and can't seem to concentrate on just one, i break out my notepad and a pen and make a list. usually it goes by order of importance or urgency. sometimes i organize it according to the difficulty or amount of time each task will take. or when i'm at a standstill with a project and can't focus on a direction to take it, i write up a quick list of goals that need to be achieved in the final product.

so, i made up my list. i included things that absolutely need to appear on my website. i penciled in any additional thoughts that weren't critical to my site, but might eventually make it in. and i began a rough layout of the site based on the information from my list. i started in grayscale, forcing myself to stay focused on the layout and useability of the site. the one trick zebra portion of my site was much easier to fill in so i started here. the basic layout of this part is basically done. my portfolio part of the site is already proving to be a little trickier. i'm trying to keep it as simple as possible, but at the same time i don't want the site to feel empty. right now i'm struggling over whether to merge my landing page with my about page. i'm not sure what i want to include on my landing page so the simple solution would be to eliminate it all together and have the about page become my landing page. there's just so many options and i can't settle on just one.

here's a tiny peek of the progress so far:

off to a slow start

i have a severe problem with indecision. settling on a final design in my personal work proves to be a constant problem for me. and, really, i'm not sure why. i start designing something and when i hit even the slightest roadblock, it's off to a completely new direction for me. this doesn't happen to me with my professional work. i think maybe the reason it happens with my personal projects is because i know i can take my time with them. i don't typically give myself a strict deadline or any kind of real deadline to get something done when it's for me. maybe this is my problem. at work i follow a strict schedule that i make up for myself each week or each month, depending on the workload. i follow this schedule as best i can and make alterations along the way. bottom line is i have goals of when i want projects to be completed which is usually way ahead of the actual deadline. this way i give myself a little bit of wiggle room to perfect my work. it allows me time to go back and change things i might decide aren't working when the project is "done." it's this mentality of giving time to perfect my project that ends up screwing me in the long run when i'm home. i give my personal projects all the freedom in the world to take as long as they want with the idea that all of the time i've devoted will guarantee that the project is the absolute best that i can make it. in reality, this is bull-shit. i give myself all of this time and i am coming up with nothing. too much freedom has become a curse. i need to devise guidelines for my personal designs. i need to set goals. by the end of this week i should have this designed. or by the end of the month i should be this far along. it's hard, with so many other things going on, to stick to a schedule like this, but i am going to try. my redesigned portfolio website is going to be my cute, little guinea pig. i'm not sure how cute and cuddly i will think of it by the end of this process, but i will definitely be keeping it alive.

finally posting

the 28th of this month will mark the one year anniversary of when i launched this blog. i've had almost one full year and nothing to show for it. i've had many big plans for this blog long the way, but let it all slip to the back of my mind where i all but forgot about it. it's amazing how life gets in the way. a lot of things have changed in the last year. i've found myself transitioning into new career paths, planning for and welcoming my first nephew into the world, and i found myself on the path to a new shared life with my now fiancé. all of these changes have put my blog on the back burner, temporarily, until today. plans for a new website reminded me of this enormous vacant space i have. so, i thought it might be interesting to document the journey my redesigned website makes. with so much wedding planning that will be occurring simultaneously, i think this blog will become a sort of melting pot for the two and, while i'm at it, for anything else i might find interesting along the way. i'm new to the whole blogging game as far as actual live posts go, so you'll have to bear with me. i am going to make every effort to try to update everyday, but let's be honest, it probably won't happen. like i mentioned before, life has a way of getting in the way!