Blog | Ciera Design Studio

DIY Hand Lettered Pillow With Giant Pom Poms

June 29, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

Let’s stay home, okay? Just because the pillow said so. I am so in love with our new hand lettered pillow (and the sentiment) and my kiddos are crazy in love with the giant pom poms on each of the corners. I’ve been slowly filling up our new couches with fun throw pillows, and have been admiring some of the hand lettered beauties on Etsy. I decided that I could make my own and add some giant pom poms for a pop of color and fun. If you’re not a hand letterer, that’s a-okay too, I’ve got a free printable template of this phrase for you! You could also take any phrase printed from the web or a font you like to use as a template.

Make this fun hand lettered giant pom pom pillow!

It took me a just a couple hours in one afternoon to create this pillow and I know it will be loved in our home for a long time. I’d originally planned on lettering a bold, adventurous phrase on the pillow, but honestly- the older my hubby and I get (and since having kids) we’re such homebodies! We love to be at home. So instead I chose the cozy, ‘Let’s Stay Home’ phrase that makes me want to curl up on the couch and catch up on trash TV even more than I did before. Here’s what you’ll need to make your own:

Make your own hand lettered giant pom pom pillow!

Pillow Cover (or grab a pre-made pillow to customize!)
• Drop cloth (unwaxed)
• Sewing machine with white or cream thread
• Sewing scissors
• Pillow form

To Customize your Pillow
• Fabric paint
• Small paint brush
• Template of your choosing (get ours below!)
• Pencil
• Yarn in colors of your choice
• Embroidery needle
• Round lid the size you would like your pom poms

Before you start, you’ll want to decide if you’d like to make your own throw pillow, or customize an assembled pillow. I chose to make an envelope style pillow out of a piece of drop cloth. I bought the drop cloth to make a pillow before Christmas and have now made 3 pillows, a tree skirt and a couple wall hangings. I love working with them- and they’re so affordable! For instructions on how I make my pillows, you can hop over to this post.

Making A Customized Throw Pillow

Once you have a pillow cover ready to customize, you’ll need to pick your lettering. You can download and print a free copy of the lettering I created here.

DIY-Hand-Lettered-Giant-Pom-Pom-Pillow-1

Turn your printed template over and use a pencil to color over the design (on the back). I like to use as heavy as a pencil as available (I used 7B for this) since it transfers without much effort. Lay the design on your pillow and trace over the template, pressing firmly to transfer a light imprint of the design to your pillow cover.

DIY-Hand-Lettered-Giant-Pom-Pom-Pillow-2

Now you’re ready to get painting! My favourite fabric paint is Tulip Soft Matte Black Paint because it kind of looks like graphite paint if you don’t iron it and it doesn’t have that awful shiny look of most fabric paints. Paint over your template transfer, slowly filling in the thicker lines.

Hand Painting A Throw Pillow

Let your pillow dry and get started on the pom poms! I used two whole balls of yarn (although they weren’t large skeins) for this. I chose to have two shades of green in my pom poms, but you could have one or even three. Choose a circular lid that’s the size you would like your pom poms and start wrapping your yarn around the centre. Keep on wrapping until you have more yarn on than you think is necessary. Slide your yarn off your circular lid and tie a tight piece of yarn around the centre, snipping the loops on each end to create your pom poms.

Making Giant Pom Poms

When your pom poms have been created and your pillow case is dry, you can attach your pom poms using matching yarn and an embroidery needle (the needle with the biggest eye you can find). Tie a knot in a length of yarn and start from the inside of the pillow cover, looping in and out of the pom pom, then tying it off.

Giant Pom Poms for Throw Pillows

That’s all there is to it! I’m so happy I took the time to create my own hand lettered pillow instead of dishing out for some of the ones that I’d found online. If you were to create a hand lettered pillow, what would yours say? And are you a fan of pom poms as much as I am?

Hand Lettered Giant Pom Pom Pillow

About the author: Colleen is the DIY and lifestyle blogger behind Lemon Thistle where she shares printable art and hands on tutorials for DIY home decor, parties and gifts.

Summer Travel Fun

June 26, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

It’s time to start planning those summer vacations! I’m sharing some thoughts on using a credit card strategically to help you out.

strategic-use-of-credit-cards-for-travel-1

Y’all are already aware of my love for summer and summer travel. Two years ago I took a trip with my BFFs to Palm Springs and last summer I went to Alt Summit and then on a seven week adventure through Madrid, Barcelona, Marsielle, Nice, Paris, London and Reykjavík (I still owe y’all some travel guides).

strategic-use-of-credit-cards-for-travel-2

Travel, whether it be to a conference or on a vacation, is crucial to my sanity and for keeping my creative juices flowing. You may be wondering how the heck is all this travel possible for a self-employed graphic designer without tons of money or savings.

strategic-use-of-credit-cards-for-travel-4

I’m spilling the beans… I’m just paying off those trips a year later. But I wasn’t prancing around, being extravagant and getting myself into debt that I wouldn’t be able to pay back, this was an intentional plan. I picked a credit card that was right for my needs and figured out how much I needed to pay each month to have it payed off in one year.

strategic-use-of-credit-cards-for-travel-5

This year’s travel plans couldn’t be more different but one thing that stays the same: I still don’t have ton of money saved up. I’m getting married in October so my bachelorette party is this summer in Miami and then our honeymoon will be in October (we are thinking Tulum, Mexico). My favorite travel locations include boats, beaches or pools (as you can tell by the photos here from past trips). If you have any suggestions for Miami or Tulum I’d love for you to share them in the comments!

strategic-use-of-credit-cards-for-travel-3

When it comes to traveling, I like a credit card that allows me to earn miles and doesn’t have an annual fee. Also, when traveling abroad, a card without foreign transaction fees is key! This is exactly what makes the Discover It Miles credit card such a perfect fit for me. You also don’t have to worry about blackout dates, the miles never expire, and there is $0 fraud liability guarantee where you are never responsible for unauthorized purchases on your card. Also, as an introductory offer, cardmembers will now receive double the amount of miles they’ve earned at the end of their first year – with no spending cap. This is huge! To explore all of the rewards and discover more about the card for yourself, just click here.

strategic-use-of-credit-cards-for-travel-6

Thank you for supporting this blog by allowing me to post occasional sponsored content. All sponsored posts feature products or services that I truly feel would be of interest to you. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

May Made In Mind Social Recap

June 24, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

For those of you who are new around here, you probably haven’t heard about my side project. The Made in Mind Social is a local group of creative types that gather every other month to meet other like-minded creatives, learn about other local businesses and collaborate on future projects.

Bellocq was kind enough to host us for May and Tivoli & Lee treated us to an amazing cheese plate. We did a fun raffle for some Pursuit themed gifts and Ashlee from Smallchalk created a gorgeous chalkboard for us. It was a super special event because we got to announce some fun Pursuit news and Death to the Stock Photo joined us as a part of their 2015 road trip! It blows our mind how many cool and creative people we get to meet who are ‘doing their thing’ and show up to talk about it!

Thanks to Kristy and Allison for the photos. Interested in sponsoring an event? Find details here. Not in New Orleans but want to hold awesome events like this one? Start a Made In Mind chapter in your city! OR start your own from scratch with the help of The Meetup Guide.

Steps to Refining and Setting Mid-Year Goals

June 22, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

I don’t know about you, but I can hardly believe that it is June already! The year is certainly flying by, and it is easy to start to feel panic that the year is almost halfway done when thinking about the goals you have set for your business and all that you want to accomplish in 2015.

Rather than panic, use it as a chance to evaluate the goals you set in January and see if they are still relevant. Didn’t set any? Now is the perfect time to gain focus for the second half of your year. Here are some simple ways to set or refine your goals:

Which aspect of your business is most important to you this year?

You may have a monetary goal for the year, or perhaps you want to achieve a work/life balance that suits your lifestyle needs. Whatever your ultimate intention for your year is, keep that front of mind while evaluating and setting your goals!

Which goals have you already met?

Look back at the goals you set at the beginning of the year and see which ones you can cross off. Whether it was a single item, like finding a new office space, or simply something you are ahead of schedule on, such as booking 15 new clients, take a moment to celebrate, then see how you can either update that goal or expand it for the second half of the year.

Which goals are you not on track to meet?

If you have any quantitative goals, such as “photograph 10 weddings” or “book 20 branding clients,” you should be close to reaching half of that value at this point. If you’re not close, it might be time to step up your efforts to meet that goal! Or, you may wish to adjust that goal if it no longer feels right. If you have a certain time of year that is your busy season, be sure to take that into account when calculating anything quantitative.

[Tweet “Free download! Keep your business goals in focus with these 5 simple steps!”]

What has changed since the beginning of the year?

You may have had a change in your personal life that affects how much you can work. Perhaps you examined your business and started offering additional or new services. Major changes like these will alter the goals you have for the remainder of your year, so take the time to see how the changes in your life or business are affecting your goals.

How can you streamline your work?

A goal for anyone should be to operate in a way that doesn’t waste your time – or your client’s time. Take a look at your systems and see what items could be refined or made more efficient, such as finally writing those canned email replies, updating your website’s contact form to ask better questions or actually hiring that VA. Make it a goal to accomplish those smaller items that have big impact.

While different businesses require different types of planning and goal setting, it is always crucial to have an objective and develop a plan to get there.

About the author: Laura is a graphic designer who loves working with small, creative businesses to build thoughtful brands at her studio, Dotted Design.

Indie Script Font by Lián Types

June 9, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

I have a new favorite script font called Indie that you totally need to add to your collection! Maximiliano first discovered his love for typography while studying graphic design at Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. As an innocent font hobby turned to addiction, his type design career matured at an incredibly rapid rate, due much to his fascination with calligraphy. He founded Lián Types in 2008 and it took him only two years thereafter to develop his own approach to the art, mixing his interest in calligraphy with a growing skillfulness in digitizing the most challenging of curves. “The truth is that I’m also doing my best to be a good calligrapher, and I don’t like making fonts which I can’t do myself by hand. My letters are me!”

Inspired by many styles of calligraphy, Lián Types is now among the most successful foundries specializing in script fonts and ornamented display type. “Designing script faces is not a game,” he said. “They’re not ‘the easy ones.’ They’re not for beginners, as some may think. A well-made script is like a marvel you just can’t stop staring at. Like history tells us: the written word can be as precious as any other art work.”

Maximiliano has won prestigious awards and his fonts have been adopted by some of the best designed publications around. His best selling typefaces include Selfie, Brand and Heroe and now he has just launched the latest Indie, which may be my favorite of them all. It’s on sale for 30% off until Wednesday night, so don’t miss this sale!

Graphic Love: Picasso’s Portrait

May 27, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

Picasso's Portrait Inspiration Moodboard

The idea for this photo shoot came to me out of nowhere. Hours after seeing the image on the top right of the moodboard, a shot from the 2015 W Mag Movie Issue, I was researching Picasso’s work and different make-up techniques inspired by his work.

Picasso Inspired Woman with Lemon Portrait Picasso Inspired Woman with Daisy Portrait

Fun fact: One week after we shot, Picasso’s Woman of Algiers painting broke the record of most expensive painting to sell at auction, going for $160 million. I love when things turn out to be unexpectedly relevant!

Picasso Inspired Portrait Red and White

I wanted to take this concept in a much different direction from our last feature, Glitter Mania. The focus would be portrait shots to showcase elaborate make-up. We would create a specific scene by shooting it in a studio, with no distractions.

Picasso Inspired Photographic Portrait Woman with Picasso Inspired Makeup

Each model had a specific theme and color scheme. I wanted to pull colors from Picasso’s work—bright and rich blues, greens, reds, oranges and yellows. I love how direct and purposeful his work is, no matter how elaborate, and I wanted to explore how you could break his harsh and direct lines down on a real human face.

Picasso Inspired Makeup and Portrait

I took some later inspiration from a small Snapchat / Tumblr trend inspired by Steph, #burntpicasso. The whole idea of making yourself a piece of art makes me warm inside. Have a great rest of the week!

Creative Direction: Ashley Monaghan | Photography: Malarie Zaunbrecher | Make-up: Meghan Mcgee | Stylist: Makenzie Godzo | Clothing: Time Warp

6 Simple Ways to Brainstorm Blog Post Ideas + A Free Worksheet

May 18, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

Blogging can be a great tool for small business owners. It provides a way to connect with your audience, share your expertise, and even help convince people to work with you. It can also be a fun creative outlet or provide a needed break in your daily routine.

While the pros are easy to count, that doesn’t mean it is always easy to come up with new blog post ideas! Especially if you’ve been blogging for a while, you may feel like you’ve hit a wall with new post ideas. Luckily, there are several simple ways to generate some quality post ideas.

Why do you blog?

The first step for any blogger is to identify who you are trying to reach. Many bloggers get overwhelmed or feel unfocused when they aren’t sure who to write for. If you are a business owner, you might be writing to attract potential new clients. If you have a personal blog, you might be hoping to connect with fellow fashion lovers or food connoisseurs. When you identify this, it makes your focus that much clearer and the ideas easier to form.

What are some of your favorite blogs?

Think about the blogs you read, and make a list of ones you can’t wait to dive into when you see a new post. What about their posts attracts you? Perhaps they share knowledge, share personal stories, or use a unique voice to tell their story. When you identify what attracts you to your favorite posts, it will help you write your own!

What is a problem you recently had and then solved?

People love reading free tips and learning from their peers. A great way to connect with your readers and contribute to your community is to share something you learned. Not only might you help someone with the same problem, it helps you relate to others by showing you are human and don’t always have all the answers right away either.

What is a question you get asked all the time?

Do you find yourself receiving similar emails, tweets, or queries often wanting to know the same things? Make the answer a blog post! Not only will this help position you as an expert with the answers people are looking for, it will make your responses oh-so fast by simply directing people to your post for an answer.

[Tweet “Stuck on what to blog about? Download this free worksheet by @dotteddesign! #smallbiz #blogadvice”]

What is something you wish people knew about your business, industry or passions?

Is there a misconception about the industry you are in? Share your perspective and experiences! Do you find yourself running into the same problems with clients or customers? Write a post sharing your advice on dealing with the issue. Instead of feeling frustrated, use the energy to share a positive post and help others who might be fighting the same battles.

What resources or tools that you’ve found could help someone out?

Making a list of helpful resources is a great post generator. You could include tools you use to run your business, people in other fields that could be resources for your clients, or even podcasts within your niche that you love. As with many of these points, being generous with your knowledge not only builds trust with your readers, it will bring them back time and again.

To make this even easier, you can use this free brainstorming worksheet to get your creative vibes flowing. There is also space for those moments when you have a post idea and need to jot it down somewhere before you forget! Try setting aside a small amount of time each week to knock out your ideas, and writing will become even easier.

While blogging can seem overwhelming, it is a great tool for connecting with others in your industry, with clients, or with your community. When you look at it as a way to share and have fun, it won’t seem like a daunting chore anymore!

Download the Free Worksheet!

Need even more help getting started? Check out Ciera's e-book, Blogging With Intention.

About the author: Laura is a graphic designer who loves working with small, creative businesses to build thoughtful brands at her studio, Dotted Design.

Stock Photos and Great Design To Help Nepal

May 17, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

Y’all know that I am a big fan of Creative Market, both for purchasing stock imagery and graphics and also for selling some of my own goods. And now there is even more reason to shop with them! Throughout the month of May, participating Creative Market shops will donate up to 100% of their earnings to Nepal disaster relief. And in partnership with the Autodesk Foundation, they’ll also match the first $20,000! These funds will be sent to All Hands, a non-profit organization that addresses the immediate and long-term needs of communities impacted by natural disasters. I’m donating 50% of my sales, so if you are in need of some stock photos go check out my shop and join us in our efforts to help Nepal!

How to Create Color Palettes in Adobe Illustrator

May 13, 2015 by Ciera Holzenthal

When working in Adobe Illustrator, I find that shortcuts help streamline my process and make for a more efficient use of my time. I love discovering useful productivity tips, so I thought I would share one that has helped me stay both consistent in my brand and save production time. Here are three essential tips for working with color palettes in Adobe Illustrator.

Create a Color Palette

There are several resources online to help create unique color palettes, including Design Seeds, Kuler/Adobe Color CC and Pinterest. By far, my favorite tool to use is searching through color inspiration boards on Pinterest! They provide a great starting point for developing your color palette.

To create a color palette in Adobe Illustrator, you will first need to create a color swatch for each specific color. Select the color you want to add to your palette, and then select the “new swatch” tool in the swatches panel. After you have added each of the color swatches, you can select all of them at once (by clicking shift or command + clicking the swatch) and then select the “new color group” button on the swatches panel. Now you have your color palette in its own group!

Save the Color Palette for Future Use

Once you have your color palette established, you might want to save this palette and reference it for future Illustrator projects. This is especially handy if you have a blog or a brand that uses the same specific colors throughout multiple projects. I even have a color group of semi-neutral colors that are great for muted background tints. The possibilities are endless!

To save your new color palette, first edit the swatches in the swatches panel so that it only contains your color palette you want to save. Select “save swatch library” from the swatches panel menu, and you are good to go! You can edit this swatch library anytime you want by choosing File > Open, and locate the swatch file in your library (by default this is located here: Illustrator/Presets/Swatches folder). Edit the swatches, then click save.

To reference your swatches in a new file, you click “swatch libraries menu” from the swatches panel, and then select “user defined.” There, you will find the swatch palette you created in any future Illustrator file.

[Tweet “Improve your #AdobeIllustrator efficiency! @SpruceRd is teaching us how to organize color palettes!”]

Convert Color Swatches to Pantone

When working with logo files, or large print runs, you might need to convert your color swatches in Illustrator to Pantone swatches. To do this, simply select the objects you would like to switch to Pantone. Then select “edit” > “edit colors” > “recolor artwork”. Select the swatches icon to limit the colors to a specific Pantone color group, and select the specific Pantone color book to limit your illustration to spot colors. Click “ok” to close the dialogue box and convert the CMYK colors to Pantone colors.

Speaking of shortcuts, Ciera and I are both sharing our favorite keyboard shortcuts over on Brigette Indelicato’s blog!

About the author: Jamie is the designer and blogger behind Spruce Rd., an independently run boutique design studio specializing in crafting brand identities and websites for creative entrepreneurs. When not collaborating with awesome people, she can be found whipping up a new dish in the kitchen, or exploring local coffee shops. She loves all things chocolate, Wes Anderson and Rifle Paper Co.

« Previous Page
1
…
7
8
9
10
11
…
64
Next Page »