Happy Galentine’s Day

In honor of Galentine’s Day ( “Leslie Knope and her lady friends leave their husbands and their boyfriends at home and just kick it breakfast style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It’s like Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus, frittatas!” ) I’m sharing a little download for your mobile devices! This XOXO pattern is available as a pretty large file, so you can scale to whatever size screen you might be using!

To Download:
+ Open this link
+ Save image to your mobile device
+ Set as your wallpaper

*This pattern is only available as a personal download. Please do not copy, resell or reuse in any other way. 

Pregnancy Essentials

The last nine months have flown by! Come thursday we’ll be 3 weeks away from our due date. I know I’ve been so quiet during this time, but I’m hoping you understand why. These last nine months have brought excitement, nausea, exhaustion, planning, happiness, etc. At the beginning between nausea and exhaustion, I felt I lost a lot of my creativity. Or maybe just my desire to create. Then as the second trimester came, I gained my energy back but my focus still remained solely on my clients and less on the blog and personal work. I can’t really explain why! I’m thinking it’s just a new chapter in my life. I’m hoping once baby girl is here that maybe the blog will take a  look back on more frequent posts, but we will see! Thank you all for being so encouraging!

I wanted to share with you a few essentials that I’ve been SO thankful for during this time. It’s funny how so many of these items relate to food, but during the first trimester, my way of fighting nausea included keeping my blood sugar up. Here’s a peek a few things I haven’t been able to live without over the past nine months:

Bump Nest Pillow: This pillow my #1 must have item. I’ve always been a belly and back sleeper and when you’re pregnant, you physically can’t sleep on your belly for obvious reasons and you’re really not suppose to sleep on your back either. So this little miracle pillow helps keep me in the correct position (side sleeping) and comfortable in those positions. It took a little getting used to when I first received it, but I haven’t gone a night without using it since. And because of it, I’ve never had any issues sleeping (which is a common issue with pregnancy).

San Pellegrino: This has been a favorite throughout pregnancy. Whether your nauseous or out to dinner (it’s a fancy way to feel you’re drinking a cocktail or soda, without actually drinking one). My favorite way of drinking is either with some fresh fruit or using a little of the flavored San Pellegrino’s mixed with the plain, that way you don’t overload on the sugar.

Snacks/Food: As mentioned above, my way of combating my nausea was by keeping my blood sugar up. This meant eating crackers before getting out of bed (so I wouldn’t get sick), carrying around Trader Joe’s suckers in my purse (these where SO helpful), and making sure we had Kind Bars for a quick pick me up. My other favorite during my entire pregnancy has been eating smoothies. It’s a great way to get vitamins and tons of fresh fruits/veggies.

Apps: There have been quite a few apps I keep turning to, to watch our baby grow. It’s been so fun to learn how she’s progressing as each week goes by. My favorite for this would have to be the Sprout App — this one is  well designed and they have these really amazing illustrations for each week. Another more recent favorite app has been Map My Walk. I’ve been trying to get more and more walking in to try and stay in shape and this has been a great way to track my distance and time.

Now onto Baby Essentials next! If you have little ones, what have been your go-to items?

Recent Work: Alexandra Behr

As we get closer and closer to baby girls arrival, I’m trying to wrap up all active projects and one of these projects included a Logo + Branding project for Alexandra Behr Photography. Alexandra is a portrait photographer based in Peru. She specializes in newborn, family, children, and maternity. Alexandra views each of her projects as works of art, so she wanted her logo to reflect a piece of art as well. We chose to do hand lettering, something that is unique and detailed to her. We also created some watercolor patterns to use throughout her branding + print materials.