Our Christmas Card 2014

I thought I would share a bit about our Christmas cards this last year. We make cards every year (see 2011, 2012 and 2013 here) but this is the first year since we were married we had some professional pictures taken.  All the photos were taken by Kate at Birch and Pine.  It was fun to have Wesley in these photos and have our new life in Kentucky documented.  The photo above is the one we chose for the front of our card, all I asked to include was something about Kentucky. This fence above is an old horse fence which are literally all over the city... Lexington is the 'Horse Capital of the World'. Below is a clip of what we put on the back of the card and I also included some more of our favorite photos from the shoot below too.

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2013 Year In Review

This has been such a fun year for me. Over the past year I have seriously developed my skills and business into something that has been even surprising and exciting for me. Remember when I just recently posted about my Christmas cards and snuck in an example of my cards from 2013? Well, that card is the one that set off my business. A friend of my sister saw that card and asked me to help design her wedding invitations. Wow! such trust and encouragement she had in me and for that I am so grateful to her! Shortly after that, another friend asked me for a stamp design (which she wanted me to hand carve) but I had a better idea! I would try calligraphing it and have it made onto a stamp and that set off my most popular item this year. Those people near me who believe in me to help create something for them before I even believed that I could are some of the most important and treasured people to me. Now, my mind has bigger dreams and goals and I am a lot less scared then I was this time last year.  Here is some of my most proud work and my round up for 2013! (top photo from the first invitation I designed- it is amazing to see how my work has developed over the year)

The stamps were my most popular item this year and probably one of the most fun things to design.  I have had such an amazing time working with all my clients come up with something that they will love and most likely keep as heirlooms.  All of the stamps are made out of laser carved rubber and attached to a piece of wood that is engraved with the design on the top.  They also have an option for wooden handles which I think is the best part!  That stamp there in the lower right was the very first stamp I designed and am so grateful to that good friend of mine to ask for it.  You can see a feed of the stamp posts here. 

Earlier last year, I had a goal to calligraphy something every week to help practice and produce work.  I got a few quotes done but I will say it was all still a success and plan to calligraphy some more quotes through this year.  I did a quote my dad always says (pictured above); one from another favorite blogger, Meg Fee, who writes some of the most touching posts; and a lyric from a song my dad always used to sing me when I was young.  Here is the feed for a couple quotes I did.

I also got to design a bunch of cards and invitations.  Like I was saying above,  my first invitation suite to set everything going was Camille's (upper row on the right).  It was such a pleasure to work with her.  I learned so much and will forever be grateful for her believing in me.  Some of the other designs I did were: Brittany's Christmas Cards, Hadley's 1st Birthday Invitation, Our Christmas Cards, Randi and Michael's Wedding Invitation Suite (including two inserts), Camille's Wedding Invitation Suite (including three inserts, a program and a thank your card), Erin and Chris' Wedding Invitation Suite (included 5 inserts- one of which was a map!), Breanne's Bridal Shower Invitation, Leah's College Graduation Announcements and Lauren's Baby Shower Invitation.  Not pictured is Elise's Christmas Card.

One of my most proud projects was being approached to design a logo for a photographer (Jennifer Wanicki Photography).  I also designed a logo for my other shop that sells antlers (AME Antlers) and helped my sister redesign her hilarious blog, On Thai Time.

Speaking of good friends who believe in me... My friend Elise asked me to help design a couple signs for her wedding. Some of the big projects I did were a welcome seating sign (pictured above), a photo booth sign and my most proud was the cocktail sign.  I also worked on some smaller projects and more personal signs that were displayed throughout the wedding. 
Towards the end of the year, I started working on painted calligraphy chalkboards.  I was inspired by a gift we got when we were married almost three years ago.  I thought it would be a nice wedding gift to offer our family and friends that was personal and useful for them while also helping me practice my calligraphy in a different medium.  Those three gifts set off a chain reaction and by December I had 5 additional orders! It was so great! The first couple, I blogged about here. The last few I just finished up blogging about here. One of my favorite boards was the initial wreath I painted here.

Another fun project toward the end of the year was collaborating with Ally from Gifts By Allyson. She specializes in carved wood pieces and is able to transfer my calligraphy onto beautiful wood piece.  We made pieces for Christmas, gifts for friends and even pieces to be displayed at a wedding.

I also finally attempted calligraphy envelope design!  I have been so intimidated by it (and truthfully still am a bit) but decided to dive head first in and write out all of our friend's and family's last names on the envelopes that held our Christmas cards.  I plan to still play around with more envelopes because really they are so fun!

On a personal note, Scott and I had a great year also! We had family visit early in the year, took Wesley on his first bike ride,  took a huge road trip over the summer, did some modeling for Flora Pop!, taught Wesley to pray before his meals, made the best batch of chili over Halloween,  froze our butts off this winter, and lots of other fun things you can check out here. 

Overall this year has been so fun and inspiring. I have learned that there is no better time to start then now. Even though it is hard without a lot of emotional support, I learned that you have to believe in yourself and just go for it. Make the call, reach out, put it out there and you will learn what people are drawn to. The quote "You are going to wish a year from now you started today" couldn't ring more true to me and I am so happy that I started this journey. I do see everything developing and changing a lot over the next year, I mean it is so fun to see just where my work has come in one year.  I am so thankful you have joined me here in this space and followed along with me. Thank you! Thank you! 

Stay tuned! Because I have BIG news coming.  Like a couple more stamp designs, a giveaway and a new website and portfolio to reveal within a couple weeks. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I sit here writing this feeling completely stuffed and slightly embarrassed I encouraged/ was the one cooking so much food tonight, but am oh so thankful to be here with family and a full stomach. We have had a great time here so far playing lots of guitar, eating lots of food, meeting up with friends, spending incredible amounts of time with family and enjoying this amazing weather. We sure do miss our little puppy but are so happy to be able to count so many blessings in our life.

 

Happy Happy Thanksgiving! Oh and if you are looking for the most amazing pecan pie recipe, I think you should make this one. I am a huge fan of pecan pie with pecans all the way through and let me tell you this was so delicious. The only thing I changed in the recipe was adding more pecans then it called for. Making this, we almost ate the filling not leaving enough for the pie; then when it finally came time to eat pie, there wasn't enough to go around (I had to start hiding pieces so everyone could have some!). I think I found my staple pie recipe. I also made a pumpkin roll and think I also found my other staple recipe- for my first time making it, I found it easier then I thought and it didn't crack when I rolled it! Success!

Getting Legitimate

I'm taking myself seriously and updating like crazy around here. I finally updated and wrote my About Page here on my blog and used my favorite photo from Baylee Jo Designs. You can click the link to the right over there on the top.

I also updated my shop, AMEdetails,'s about page and information.

I wrote out a process so when people contact me for projects I can send them to give them an idea of how the custom design process goes while they are working with me.

Pretty fun right?! Well if you are interested in working with me or have any questions you can email me at amedetails at gmail dot com.

Fargo flooded again

Just thought I would mention... Fargo flooded again in June. Ya that was the second flood of the spring season. Kind of a bummer, the city had to build another clay dike to save downtown from flooding again and the mosquitos were already bad but it was really beautiful to watch. We were just sad that we couldn't use the dog park since April. 

Monday Night

Monday night was pretty funny. It has been raining here for about 4 days now (which is a nice change!) and coming home we noticed a bunch of soaking branches on our wreath and front steps of our home. When I looked up I saw a bird trying to build a nest right above the light for our door. We encourage nest building but will all the stuff that has already fallen on us during the process we didn't want the change of also getting popped on, so we put up our trusty gold elephant to scare them away- it worked last time. Now we have a clean stoop and don't have to worry about dodging anything coming or going from our home. 

Sunday

I love Sundays, they truly are my favorite day. Today was a wonderful day for me. It was the first day in a long time that I had the feeling that spring was coming and there was warm days ahead. It is crazy what the sun and 25 degree weather will do to ya. Wesley and  I were on our own today and had the kind of Sunday I love (except I love Sundays even more with Scott): dishes, laundry and vacuuming (not all my favorite but had to be done), dog park date (the Shepard mix ran and ran Wesley, he loved it), picked up some groceries and met Scott for lunch at the hospital, and then my favorite part! Wesley and I took a 3 hour nap! It must have been the sun shining in and warming us up because I hadn't had a nap like that in a long time and it was much needed. 

Around here lately has been a good kind of busy. We are gearing up for visitors in a couple weeks for a couple weekends which we are really excited about. It has brought a little bit of spring cleaning out in us which also makes us feel better. I just finished my first big paid project: a custom lettered and designed wedding suite! The invitation has 5 components to it and I am so happy about how it all came together. Another fun project I just got done with was a custom lettered book stamp for a dear friend of mine. I am excited to share pictures but do want them to receive their products first. I also have a little girls first birthday party invitation I am working on and am so excited about it.

Here is hope to warmer and happier days ahead (and maybe some spring shoe shopping, I got my eyes on this, this and this)

Above picture is what most of the sidewalks look like in town: 2 feet of snow barrier on each side. Wesley loves to just swim and barrel through the snow banks on our walks.

2012 In Review

I know it is a bit late but I thought I would try and remember some awesome times in 2012

^^ We ate lots of blizzards of the month to help get through the winter/ We went to Duluth, MN on spring break to go skiing and hang out with friends/ We saw Elton John in concert

 ^^ I celebrated my golden birthday at Toasted Frog, one of our favorite restaurants in Grand Forks/ We also celebrated our one year anniversary. All of this was going on during studying for step one :/

^^We had lots of time at Starbucks, it was always a pleasure to sit outside/ We biked to Dairy Queen/ Our plants made it outside on our porch/ and we were outside as much as possible too

^^We biked everywhere we could/ Chris came to visit and to help us move/ and we moved into a new place in Fargo!

^^Celebrating Scott being done with Step one and our new move, we took off to Vegas to visit family for a few days. Katelyn came into town to say hi and we went and visited the Hoover Dam and the new bridge./ I also helped my dad change the lightbulbs (a regular thing at my house)/ and spied my cat hanging out on the waterfall.

^^One of our trips to Vegas Bobo couldn't be there, but the good news was that we had a layover in Salt Lake so we surprised her at her work and had lunch/ In Fargo, we heard good news and celebrated out with dessert at the Hodo.

^^We went to the street fair and ate lots of delicious fried foods. My favorite were the fried oreos/ We bought a new car/ Went on lots of walks/ and bought a puppy! We still went on lots of bike rides too.

^^With Wesley came lots of naps too.

^^We traveled a lot last summer. We went to Minot to visit friends/ Met family half way in Bismarck/ and made it to Minneapolis a few times (I have to always have the tomato soup whenever we go to Nordstrom)

^^My mom came to visit since we couldn't make it home for Thanksgiving. We went and got her favorite chips at JL Beers and went to Winnipeg for the first time/ Zach and Hannah came to celebrate Thanksgiving with us/ I had my first cup of coffee/ and we got our first Christmas tree!

We celebrated Christmas three times/ spent some time with Scott's family in North Carolina/ after spending time with my family in Las Vegas.

2012 was good and we are so excited to see what the rest of 2013 has to bring!

We Are In Love

What happened to us? We started a bunch of new things around here with one of them being this little man that we are totally and completely consumed by. Yep, we checked out of life elsewhere and turned into those people that now have 500 pictures of our dog on our computer, come home to snuggle him and plan vacations around him. I have never seen so many grown men/ young skater boys stop and say the work "cute" or "adorable" to describe our dog- it has been fun. These pictures were from a little while ago, but it totally describes what he looks like around here: looks at you with those puppy eyes if he wants something (to go out side, play, ask you to sit on the ground with him) or running and playing. We are in love.

I can't find the time anymore to do anything on my to do list. With moving to a new town, buying a car, starting a new job and getting a new pup we are still trying to figure it out. Before I didn't journal because I had nothing much to say, now I take the few minutes I have to spend with my two favorites playing ball, at the dog park and trying to convince ourselves to make a healthy dinner and not eat out. Things are busy and good.

Having a dog before a baby has been good for us to see a small glimpse of what being responsible for something else is like. We have come together as a couple to keep our home clean, help each other with midnight bathroom breaks, putting things aside to be a family and walk the dog, realize we still have a relationship that we have to balance and put first; we learn something new everyday and that has been great. It also has put our (real) baby fever on hold for a little while. 

I am going to put this out there to hold ourselves accountable: We are going to go on a run (for the first time in a long time) on Sunday. Thats the day we are committed to start to work out; being healthier and taking care of ourselves. Time for balance. 

Hope you all have something to be totally in love with. 

PS... want to see more pictures of our cute dog?? Follow us on instagram! @amysayerp

A Small Update

I thought I would post a small update about some happenings around here. I have been planning on doing this for some time now but life took ahold of everything around here and shook it up.

We moved! We now live in the big city of Fargo, North Dakota. We live in a wonderful duplex on the top floor, a half block from the river/ dog park/ farmer's market/ bike paths, two blocks from a giant park with tennis courts and a couple more blocks from downtown. We are so happy here.

I went home for a couple weeks over the summer and had the greatest time hanging out with my family and sipping tea in the morning before work. Life was great with Charlee too.

We built a 'sofa table' for our plants and I love it. It is fun building a home together.

We got a pup and his name is Wesley. We are so in love and he is the more adorable/ cutest/ best puppy around- everyone who meets him says it too. He is a puggle (part pug, part beagle) and one of my favorite things is when he barks when we play. I am no supposed to encourage it but I can't stand how cute it is. Tip: if you have a dog, and he likes to chew (duh), boil the rawhide bones in beef or chicken stock and they will love it.

Some more news, I got a job! Which is why I am no longer spending 10 hours a day on the computer anymore. Hope you all are doing well! 

The most unusual test- check it out. If I was a professor I hope I would be like this and keep my students guessing my next move.