Every once in awhile a good friend contacts me to do a little graphic design for him on behalf of a customer.  I enjoy creating and lately I may not have been badgered all that roughly by my muse to do much of anything creative but I feel that if I play around in Photoshop or play around on Pinterest I might find something to inspire me.

So I agreed to do this logo for him for a local company in his home state. (When everything is said and done everything will go up on Exquisite, by the way.) He sends me their current artwork via email and it's this cute little line drawing with text stating the company's name.  I about died At first I was completely flabbergasted as to what to do with this little line drawing, especially since the size is not all that big enough to really do much with it.  

I started by cleaning up some of the lines and then copied the layer and changed the blend ode to overlay in order to make it darker. Doing just that helped quite a bit, it looked much cleaner.  Still, anytime I zoomed in to work on it the amount of degradation was crazy.  It's a small logo and it's going to be on their website so I suppose it doesn't have to be all that large, right? I'm working with circular text, which I'm loving how it's turning out.  I'm also going to work on a banner logo in case they'd prefer a header instead.

I plan to have Little Lady redraw the logo in a larger version since she saw it and wanted to color it.  Since she isn't able to draw digitally at this time (she said it, not me) she can draw a larger version, color it, then we'll scan it and see how it turns out. I think whatever she does with it will turn out amazing.  

I think the one Professor for my Web Design truly challenged me when he told me he didn't think I could pull of creating an ad with a black background. When the final version was turned in he was truly impressed.  To this day I do whatever it takes to challenge myself when creating graphics.  From the most simplest of images to the most complex designs, I try to put all the emotion and thought I can into each project.  I learn a lot from tutorials over at Planet Photoshop and many other places on the internet.  It makes me glad that there are people out there who willingly share their knowledge with so many others.  Being in a creative field could be considered competitive, but not in the same way as say sports. Each and every person sees each and every thing in the world differently.  This makes it much more interesting to see what comes of their design, no matter what the medium it's created with.  What did you create today?

I knew we were expecting several inches of snow, however I did not expect the plows to not touch anything other than the main highways.  Which is kind of stupid since they haven't done a decent job yet since we've started getting snow that sticks to the ground.  I wish I had taken a picture of our road.  If there hadn't been anyone out before me on Saturday morning (I have neighbors that work odd shifts) then it would have looked as if we didn't have a road, the snow was that much and the road was that well covered.  In fact, as I was leaving a truck passed up our road.  The truck didn't have its blade down or the salt spraying from the back.  It seemed like a huge waste of fuel to come wandering down to our little cul-de-sac just to not do anything.

Luckily, I made it safely to Casal's de Spa.  When I walked in I liked the fact that they have the salon and spa completely separate, but in the same building.  I was a little weirded out that you don't pay ahead of time, but after you leave.  I mean they are a service industry, how can you take back a massage and facial?  Anyway.  From what I've read the prices at Casal's are reasonable and the service is absolutely amazing.  When I arrived I was seated and served my choice of refreshment.  After that I changed into a robe and came back to a nice hot bubble-filled foot bath.  Right there I felt as if I found a new home.  I filled out a form and had another drink, then shortly after that I was introduced to my massage therapist.  Since I had requested the Chakra Balance Massage it's a bit different.  She had tried to explain what chakras are to me, but luckily I already know since things got a little loud with laughter and discussion on other massage services in the waiting room.  She brought out these cards with words like insight, wisdom, nourishment and so forth on them.  I chose wisdom, insight and harmony.  From those choices three scents were chosen to be used during my massage.  I didn't ask which ones, unfortunately.

 

The massage was an hour of bliss, minus the couple of moments of intense pain from the deep tissue part.  I lived and breathed through it.  I felt really bad about how twitchy my back is.  From muscle issues to nerve issues my back is not the best thing to touch.  The lovely lady who performed my massage was very patient with me.  I would really like to go back to her again in the spring.  If I start couponing maybe I can start getting a massage every 4 months (that would be FanTasTic).

The facial was just as fabulous. It was 25 minutes of more massage on my face, neck, shoulders and upper arms.  She explained the different things she'd be doing on my face due to dryness (winter...) and went to work.  It was fabulous.  My face never felt better than that day.  The skin was so soft that I couldn't stop touching it and the scent of jasmine followed me for the rest of the day.  If I can't go back for an hour long massage, I think a facial would definitely be a good alternative.

So, if you find yourself in Northeast Ohio or Western PA, feel free to hit Casal's De Spa up for a massage, facial or any of their services.  Although, you'll want to make an appointment at least two weeks in advance.  Or you can always pamper yourself wherever you happen to live.  Enjoy!

And I added in this extremely cute photo of Peanut, for which Little Lady yelled at me about since I didn't ask her to sign a release as Peanut's official 'momma' and all.  I told her that I did have one signed and that Peanut took care of it, that the chicken scratch signature looked valid enough to me.  Who was I to know she forged it? 

Starting a new year, starting a new way of doing things. Instead of resolutions, I've decided to change up the word and call them "Motivations".  Instead of resolving to do something I will motivate myself to do them.  This layout didn't take as long as I thought it would.  I think it actually took longer to find the photo than it did to create it.  After I thought it was finished, and possibly going to be a 2 column layout instead of 3, I decided I wanted it to be a 3 column.  I then went looking for something to put in the footer like I always do and found the Japanese Zen Symbol.  After editing that, I saved it again.  I saw how the orchids were reflected in the water and decided to see what it would look like to put a reflection action on Disillusioned.  I changed the opacity to be a little lower than what the action set it at and then saved it again.  Bam, it was done and we shall see what others think of it as well.  Until next time, enjoy!

Little Lady's best friend tells us all the time that she doesn't believe the Mayans could have predicted anything like the end of the world since they believed people were made of corn.  That's right, you heard it.  You are what you eat, right? Right.  

However, there is the possibility that if we don't find a way for all of us to get along there will be a global change, we'll all be glowing in the dark or melting into puddles of goo thanks to nuclear radiation.  There are so many reasons that people need to learn how to accept each other for who they are and what they believe in.  I strive to do this every day.  If someone is jumping down my throat about their beliefs it's really hard to not yell at them to shut up and leave me alone.  While I am not a very religious person in a secular way, I do have ideas about what might be next for us.  After this life ends for me, I sure as hell hope I get to choose the next one because that sure would be fun.  If there isn't anything else after this life.. well it was fun while I was here.  Somewhat anyway. 

There are so many things I refuse to discuss.  Politics, for one, because I don't feel well-informed enough to do so.  Religion, because I have too many things against organized religion to follow it.  I feel therefore I am.  I don't feel that I accomplished much more than reading a ton of books and then not taking the time to review them here.  That just means I get to read them again, much faster, and then write down all the wonderful things they make me feel.  I also have a friend and coworker who is interested in doing book reviews, so I may restart up the book reviewing blog with a whole new name and look at some point.  She reads completely different sagas than I do, so you'll get to experience a whole new type of reading without having to buy the book first.

My word for 2012 is Motivation.  Now, if I could just find out where I put it, I'll start doing all kinds of things I want to do this year.  The top one on that list is to take more photos.  To carry my camera with me at all times and just to snap whenever I happen to see something.  The camera on my phone isn't bad but it isn't all that great either.  The second on my list is to actually write those book reviews in a way that they are enlightening without being spoilers.  Third is to seriously start exercising more.  Not to lose weight, just to be more healthier and to gain more muscle.  It's also to help me be more energetic because I'm also getting that 2:30 feeling at 8:30 in the morning.  (Either that or I really do need to rid myself of a psychic vampire.) Fourth is to start blogging at least once a week.  Even if it's just to recap that nothing really happened or what I made for dinner, it's got to be done.  I was doing the 750 words a day at 750words.com for awhile.  While I didn't have a problem doing it every day, it was finding the time to do it.  I would always get distracted and end up forgetting.  There's another thing for my list, be less distracted, make a list or some kind of alarm so that I do the things I want to actually accomplish.  I feel better when I've put on a load of dishes or laundry and written a paragraph or two.

One of the major things I need to do, there's no getting out of it either, is to be more communicative.  I am one of those people who, in general, just hates people.  This doesn't include my family and friends, and there are people who are non-blood-related that I consider very close family.  The problem is that even with these people I hold dearly in my black ice cold rock of a heart I don't communicate with them very often.  I tend to wait for people to contact me first.  Which doesn't always happen because they are busy with their lives, work, family, drama, other friends who are constantly in contact.  I just don't feel I have all that much going on and talking about the same thing going on each and every day is less exciting than beating a dead horse.  The people who are physically in my life... they don't read the same books. they don't have the same interests, they are more into reality television and the Kardashians than reading the latest installment of the Hollows Saga or watching The Vampire Diaries.  I've always has a fantastical outlook on life and I have a fairly vivid imagination (if only I could get it out of my mind and onto digital paper... ).

So here it goes 2012. Motivation Required. Read and Review. Write a weekly post.  Take more photos.  Be better about Exercise. Communicate with the people I care about even though we don't have all that much in common other than loving each other like family.  I have a whole year to accomplish these items, give or take a couple of days.  Let's see how well I can do it.