.::still blinking::.

Watch this. It is truly inspiring and will change the way you think about your stuff.

As I said before, I was in Las Vegas for the week at a tradeshow. The booth I was in had a green room to showcase the way their product can change the way your house uses energy. Did you know that there are 11 watt lightbulbs that shine way brighter than the normal ones you are using? I didn’t, and I found it truly amazing until someone else told me they contain mercury. Mercury = toxic, right?

As I was at this tradeshow, I thought of enormous amount of resources used. If companies were truly going green, wouldn’t they try harder to put less promotional crap out there. Most of the stuff other people don’t really need and just take home and throw away. And then there are the huge banners that cover entire sides of hotels, and parking garages. These are one time use things.

I found the technology amazing, it is always inspiring to go to this show. However, I had a slight pit in my stomach when I thought of the hole we had left in the earth.

my resolutions
:: open an etsy shop / use my gocco machine ::
:: keep exercising ::
:: get over my fear of being pregnant ::
:: do a homemade Christmas and start now so that I am not frantic at the end ::
:: figure out a way to keep the the little guy happy, the check book balanced and toilets clean ::

I recently joined a local womens entrepreneurial group (WE). Cute huh.

Because of this, I have been setting actual goals for myself and the business. You know, the graphic design business. The one I work at everyday.

Today I ordered business cards. You would think that I would have some already. I have been telling people I do design, and then they just have to decide between me and the guy next to me who is holding a plucked chicken to do their marketing materials. And that could really be a tough choice. He has an actual physical product to showcase his work, where as, I just hiccup and walk away.

No longer is that the case. I am terribly excited for the cards to come. I don’t want to show you the design because the actual cards are going to be so much better as actual photographic evidence.

You may, however, view a poster I made for a local church groups New Years Eve dance. I personally find it rather charming.

Wedding announcements for my sister. She let me have complete creative control. I love that. I think they are so beautiful. Chocolate envelopes. Gold to and from addresses. Lined watermark paper. A beautiful package. Congratulations Taz.

:: the baby type ::

:: the graduation type ::

I am going to Las Vegas on Saturday for CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. In my pre-tradeshow beauty rush I have lots of things to wax, pluck, and polish.

Yesterday I put on a Biore strip on my nose to remove my black heads. This morning when I woke up I had a bruise across the bridge of my nose. I guess when I pulled it off I pulled to hard and fast and broke some blood vessels. Isn’t that attractive? I am hoping that my glasses will cover it up so that people will not notice; well that and the entire bottle of base I am going to use to try and cover it up. If anyone asks I will tell them that the tall gangly red head at the front desk hit me when I didn’t bring him a beer and the paper.

Also, during the day occasionally I have to go to the bathroom. You know, like most normal people do. I usually get up early and take care of my business, but today I got busy to fast and did not get around to it until I had an audience of one. He wanted me to go play with his trains and I was busy, obviously. So he started pulling little pieces of toilet paper off the roll wiping my legs and trying to poke them into the toilet. He would then tell me that I was done and lets go play now. After a few minutes of this I talked him into getting me the remote. This remote is from my husbands company and can work about a block and a half away from the house, and it controls everything. So he went and got the control, from the toilet in my master bathroom I turned on “space man” for him, which being translated is “Toy Story 2.” This bought me some time, which I was thankful for. It is always hard to perform for an audience, especially one that heckles.

Mere minutes before Christmas and here I am worrying about everything else I need to get done. jj has not been going to bed before one this entire week, he is taking tomorrow off to go grocery shopping with us and do some more work for clients. He likes shopping with us and I like trading off wiping small noses. We are also going to The Forgotten Carols. He designed a program for it and we got free tickets for which we are very grateful. In this program we put an add for our business Makayla Christine Designs. However, I have no business cards or even a website for this and so when I tell people what I do and try to promote myself, I am sure they think, “what the?” Like I am going to trust some girl with no taste and a snotty nosed child on her hip. I might as well be the chicken farmer down the street, which actually could have some pretty great photo opportunities. Since I don’t take pictures of people all posed and you cannot get chickens to smile, they would be the perfect subjects.

So the event is tomorrow and I am going to get something put up tonight. What you ask? I really have not the foggiest. I mean it would be great to get a real website up, but I don’t think I can pull that off in 7.46 seconds. But I am inspired to get something done and even actually print business cards, but you have no idea how daunting a task that is either because really the possibilities are endless.

Do you want to know the website when I get a place holder put in it?

Here are a few of the baby announcements that I have been working on.

I have been working on a wedding announcement for a cute couple that I know. They really are named Jake and Karie, but I have changed the rest of the info to protect their innocence. Yeah right. They wanted a winter wedding so these are the ideas that I came up with.

This is my favorite one. They thought seriously about it. Where there is gray it would have been printed silver, but I cannot add glitter to your screen so you will have to imagine it.

I love the feel of this one. Don’t these kind of patterns remind you of ovaries. So if I could, I would title this one Frozen Reproduction.

This is the one that they chose. It is simple but beautiful. The snowflake and gray single line of border will be printed in silver and I am excited to see what it will turn out like.

Printing is the part that worries me. It is kind of out of my hands, of course they always do a press check were I go and check what it will look like before they actually get started. But still what if they cut it all wonky? Or what if the color isn’t right or what if the stem disappears during printing. Which has happened to me and threw me into a tizzy. My counselor says tizzies are not normal.

So the disappearing stems forced me to a new printer who I absolutely love. If I cannot get out there when they are doing a press check they will bring it to me. They always have the best prices and I do check around. They will get me the paper that I want. Of course there is the part about them hating to use the press, they like to use their digital printers a lot more. But I can get them to do what I want and I love it. In fact, one time they printed an announcement for me and it looked fine while I was there. When I got home I noticed that the brown had actually printed purple. They did it over for me, at no charge. I was so worried about what they would do, and they just took care of me.

Anyway, I really like my job. We are going to be posting a new site soon that will have the announcements that I have done and also just let people know I am available to do custom wedding announcements. Get ready.