Letters to Sarah: Belated Christmas/New Year's Card

Life has been so busy for me lately and I finally found the time to post this little gem. However, I was about a week late sending my sister a Christmas card. All of December, my husband Trevor and I were making ornaments and doing Japanese book binding for family and friends and I was unable to find time to write Sarah. (future post coming) I also wrote her companion a card and did a drawing for her. (not shown) I felt that she would like a deer drawing and a nice note as well. 

On Christmas day, I was able to talk to Sarah for a little while and I can't tell you how much I have missed hearing her voice. She sounded happy and she is busy as well doing missionary work. Before she hung up, she bore her testimony in Japanese and it was beautiful. (I don't speak the language, but it was convincing to me.)

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year's day!
This year at my job, School Improvement Network, I was asked to create our Christmas Party Poster and email invite. I decided I was going to do what I wanted since this is an internal project. I was basically asked to create this the day before the email invite was to be sent out and I wanted to do all or nothing so it would match the poster I was making.
So that night, I took it home and hand lettered as quickly and perfectly as I could. I drew on a 11x17 piece of paper in graphite. The next morning at work I found a chalk board texture and finished the design in Photoshop. This project was a lot of fun and inspired me to continue to perfect my hand lettering. The best complement I got was, "I thought it was a cute font you found." I thought about using fonts, but I felt that the best way to get what I wanted was to draw it out, rather than spending the whole night to find something that would be okay.

Email invite:

Poster:

Letters to Sarah: Thanksgiving

This week I made Sarah a Thanksgiving card since she will probably get it the day before or after Thanksgiving. In Japan, for obvious reasons, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but I told her to keep the spirit of the holiday with her. I also challenged her as well as all of you to write down 100 things you are thankful for. It may seem like a lot, but once you start going it gets easy. There are so many things to be grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Birthday Card for Madi

I got to practice my hand lettering today!  I made a card for my friend's daughter. I had lots of fun making it, but I still have a long way to go and lots of practice before my hand lettering is amazing. Currently it's all over the place, but it has lots of character. I hope Madi likes it as much as I do.

Letters to Sarah: Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone! This week I decided to do a pen sketch with watercolors to make Sarah a Halloween card. Although, she won't be getting this card until after Halloween...it's the thought that counts, right? 

In Sarah's letter, she wrote that her companion wanted me to write her name. Her last name is Tojo and Shimai means sister in Japanese. Sarah has oddly left out of her letters what Tojo Shimai's first name is. So Tojo Shimai will have to do. 

I hope everyone is having a fun week of celebrating! Sayōnara

Finn for a Friend

Last week was my good friend's birthday and he really loves Adventure Time. I also bought him the book The Fart Tootorial (you must read this book is hilarious!), so I thought it appropriate to draw a picture of Finn farting with the inside saying "Hope your birthday is a gas!"

Letters to Sarah: Totoro

If you haven't been reading her letters, here is a link to the blog. She is currently in Kyoto and the city was hit with a pretty bad tsunami the other day. I have not gotten word on how she is, but I have a feeling she is ok, maybe dealing with some flooding. I have noticed that my letters tend to arrive when she needs it the most so I thought I would do something fun and cheery, considering current events. So, I decided to draw my sister Totoro and his friends. It was our favorite Miyazaki film when we were kids and it is still a favorite.