Don't you know i'm loco

I wanted to make a cool looking poster to practice my Illustrator skills.  Here's mine.

lol. Don't you think?  Heather and I came up with that while we were philosophising about stuff.
My computer screen...

thus reveals: I have no idea what I'm doing.

It's no wonder where Ellie get's it from.

P.S. McKay showed me this song, it's very sad but pretty.

Graphic Design fun

So I hurt my back falling down the stairs while holding Ellie.  I didn't catch myself because I was holding her and it resulted in severe pain and a prescription for narcotics and muscle relaxers.  Ellie is fine, I just hurt myself pretty bad.  Luckily I had all those engagement pictures to edit to keep me busy while I have been sitting here.   I also designed these save the date cards for the newly engaged couple.  I have never done anything like this before but it was pretty fun, and it really helped me get better at Illustrator (which happens to be one of my goals).  Samantha told me a couple of things that she wanted to see and the rest was up to me so it was a fun challenge.  Oh and the date is wrong b/c they still haven't picked a date yet, don't worry I'll fill it in later.  Not bad for someone who has no idea what she is doing in Illustrator huh? I ran into so many problems ranging from saving a color as a thumbnail, getting everything to stay where I wanted it, to making a seamless repeating pattern. So yeah it was fun tho, that's my latest project.

Power outage, back to the olden days

 Our power went out for a whole day and we were stuck at home so during Ellie's naptime I decided to finish a relief print that I have been working on. I busted out my wonderful toolbox of awesomeness and got started. 

 I did this taking all the short cuts because nap time isn't that long.   

Shortcut #1: Using those pink rubber blocks (super easy to carve and you can iron on your sketch)

Shortcut #2: I got a sketchbook that had high quality paper in it and was also the perfect size to have nice margins.  So all I did was slice off the frilly edge.   I know it's not handripped but hey, this is naptime and it took like 5 seconds.  Awesome.

Hi. My name is Jessica Willey and I put birds on things.

  I made an edition of ten, and I'm going to put some on etsy. This is pre-frill-sliced, pre-signed and pre-numbered.

So fun, I'm going to make more prints.

Splash Zone

Ellie loves to take baths.  She loves to splash, put her face down in the water and blow bubbles, drink the water (gross). She get's really loco.

 blowing bubbles..

 So soft, fresh, and clean!

Home Videos

Here are some home videos as of late, this includes some of Ellie's new toys and tricks (and the last video daddy taught her that).  Oh man, she is so entertaining.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Engagement

So this is part II of the engagement pictures.  The pillars are so cool, anyway here's some of my faves of what I have been working on.  It was so cold that day esp with the wind coming off of the tidal basin. At the end of the shoot I couldn't move my hands very well and I was praying to not drop her ring when I was trying to get shots of in in the gnarly tree bark, but everything ended up just fine. 

so fun

Engagement Session at Brookside Garden

I know that none of you know who these people are but I want to show you my favorite photos from the recent engagement shoot I was working on.   I know the future groom from work, and I'm pretty sure he might be the nicest person at the hospital.  The hours and hours and hours I spent into these have subsequently led the images in becoming my adopted children.   I was trying to go for a couple looks: vintage-y cute, vivid natural, and b&w.  I really had fun shooting them they are the nicest couple.  So fun. 

Brookside Gardens & TJ Memorial

I just took some engagements photos for a friend at work.  We went to these beautiful places to take pictures. I have been editing like a mad woman to get them finished, but I'm still not there yet, about a bajillion more to go! I have really been trying to step it up with these, more than I even do with my own photos. fun stuff.

Christmas

When we woke up there were presents! Ellie is too young to know what it was all about but she liked how we got her up early to have fun.

Don't you love Ellie's "All you want for Christmas is me" jammies?  They are so adorable.

 One of the highlights was Ellie's dog.  It walks around and barks, Ellie likes it.

 She grabs it by it's fur, licks it, swings it around, and bangs it against stuff.  It's a good thing we don't have a real dog.

After presents were the traditional sticky buns.  yum.

Midnight Mass

Last year and this year we went to Mass on Christmas eve, I think my mom is going to make this a tradition.  I'm not really sure why we go, since we are not Catholic.  It's probably to get us into the Christmas spirit that much more.  They have professional musicians at this church and it sounds really good.  Anyway, here we are on our way in.