2011 Calendar by Pinhole Press (Discount Code!)

My sister Kate was in town last week for Thanksgiving from upstate New York. We celebrated turkey day at our friends house and had a blast! The weather was just perfect at about 80 degrees which was a nice treat for Kate since it's starting to get chilly up north.

Anyway, while Kate was here she told me about this great company that she works for called Pinhole Press and all of their "beautifully simple photo products". I ordered a 2011 photo calendar and it comes on a high-end uncoated heavy paper stock. The cover is brown with the title of the calendar "2011 THE DELANOS" in white ink. I've always thought that glossy paper looked cheap and love the idea of having it with a matte finish instead.

Their other products would make perfect Christmas gifts. Everything from Brag Books to Photo Journals to Feed/Health Logs for new babies. Head over to the Pinhole Press website to look around. They have offered a discount of 10% off for any of your orders, just use the code PINHOLEPRESSVIP.

Pinhole Press - www.PinholePress.com

10% Off Code - PINHOLEPRESSVIP

The First Noel

The Christmas season is here and I am definitely feeling the spirit! Hopefully it won't fade out before Dec. 25! For my November assignment with the PSA Essentials Design Team, I had to design Christmas ornaments. As I was working on the ornaments I got the idea for a small banner that could fit across a my kitchen window. I dug up some old valentines day doily's that my mom had given which were red and in the shape of hearts. This is what I ended up with:

You Say Crostada...

I saw an episode of "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef" with Anne Burrell on the Food Network a few months ago where she made a Swiss Chard & Ricotta Crostada. I had never made my own dough before and she made the whole process look very simple. So one Saturday morning, before we hit the beach with some friends, I prepped everything so that we could have the Crostada for lunch. I came up to the house earlier than the rest of the group to finish up the cooking. It was an amazing lunch! Even the cold leftovers were dee-lish.

I decided to give it a try one more time for dinner tonight. I prepped the dough last night and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight:

When I got home from work today, I sauteed the swiss chard, leeks and other ingredients:

Then I combined the ingredients with the ricotta, parmesan cheese, eggs and a pinch of cayenne and put it onto the rolled out dough:

Bake for 45 minutes and enjoy! Comes out golden brown with a perfect crust:

All credit goes to Anne Burrell. For the recipe, click here.

Office Christmas Card

Expectations are set a little higher for creativity when you work at an advertising agency. The annual Christmas card is always a fun one to get to work on. Over the years we've done all sorts of great cards. One of my favorites was when we had each graphic artist design a card and then we sent our clients a gift box with all of the cards for them to use themselves.


Another year we sent a card with a link to our website where they could create a custom elf (Elf Yourself) and last year we designed 10 different desktops to load onto your computer. This year we've decided to compile all of the creative designs that we have done for our clients over the years and make a collage. Check out the first draft I saw this morning (really rough draft printed on the laser printer):



Design credit goes to our Art Director, Stephen Crawford.

Visit from Mom

In addition to my crafting projects, I've recently been working on some video editing. And when my mom made her bi-annual trip to visit Luke and I on Hilton Head Island last Saturday, I had one project I had to finish up before she got here.

When I was home last June, we were visiting my Grandma King to celebrate her 89th birthday (she also mentioned that she was celebrating her 70th year living in her house - crazy, I know). As we talked about all of her years in the house she mentioned that she had 8mm video's that my Grandpa had taken when the kids were young. I decided to take the film reels home and convert them to video for her. Coincidentally, my boss's father had recently found his 8mm projector and let me borrow it. That, a white sheet, and a Flip Video was all I needed.

Going through the videos was like going back in time. My mom, her brothers, and her sisters were very active kids. There were videos of them skiing, swimming, canoeing, ice skating, hunting, fishing, playing tennis, and golfing! There were lots of holiday gatherings like Thanksgiving 1959, Christmas 1962, and the Girl Scout Round-Up. And the one I enjoyed most, which I have attached here, is of my parents wedding. Even though it's a little shaky and moves fast, I still love watching it!

Leaf Placecards

In obligation of my PSA Essential Design Team duties, I had to work on a few projects for Thanksgiving. Autumn was the main inspiration for the leaf placecards. How gorgeous would these look on a fully decorated Thanksgiving dinner table?

Pumpkin Carving

So yeah, Halloween was 3 days ago, but I still want to post these pics because I'm pretty proud of myself. This design was level "expert" in the halloween kit! It's not quite perfect but still looks scary.