illustration: home life

everyday beauty.

Twin Eaters : Illustration

Love these little munchers.

Precious Treasure

"We're His heart treasure. God's treasure. I mean, we never think that, do we? We don't imagine that we might be the most precious thing He has. Not the mountains, not the Grand Canyon; it's us. You're the precious treasure." 
-Sally Lloyd-Jones

Sorrows

[You keep track of all of my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8 NLT]

Did you know you are known and cared for to this extent? When this life can overwhelm, each tear is seen...caught. He loves us so.

Easter Love

The day Love built a bridge between rebels and goodness.

We think we can strive our way into being just barely good enough, but we don't have a chance of jumping the vast chasm on our own. Grandest Canyon...small jump.

But Love delighted in building a bridge. Rebels cross freely into fellowship with the only Holy Beautiful One.

This is why today is Good. Have you leaned fully onto the only one who can span the gap? He longs to carry you to life.

February 14th.

Everyone's story is different, but I know today is hard for a lot of people. Those waiting, those wounded, those stuck, grieving or longing, I am thinking of you. You are seen by the perfect lover, a Father who never tires of your open heart.

"In all seasons--times of searing grief, times of great redemption, times of the mundane--every single moment is pregnant with His whisper: Come, let us run together. Come find Me. Here."

Quote from Sara Hagerty, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet

An illustrated proposal for Luke

I had the joy of being in on the plans for this romantic surprise as he whisked her away to Paris to propose, as I was tasked with capturing this forever special moment. What an honor! Way to go pulling it off, Luke, in your Darcy coat and everything. Just thrilled for you two! 

Artwork for Online for Life

What a great honor to have some of my artwork on a series for Online for Life's newsletter back in the spring of this year.
I just love and admire their work to save babies and love women!

Cutest proposal idea :: The Bebez Book

Friend and creative genius Bryan proposed to his darling lady Robbi with the most precious and clever idea of writing her a children's story. The two of them as kids... with Robbi's beloved lab, Marti as a pup. Each page is centered around a letter of the alphabet, describing what she means to him and it's just one adorable adventure with lots of personal flair. Of course, when we get to the W page, she was in for a huge surprise as he asked her to be his wife in the exact location as illustrated. (Marti was tied to the bench and he even had a plaid shirt on!)

Bryan came up with every single detail in each scene, so I had a blast just helping his funny vignettes come to life. It was my huge honor to get to be part of this project! Way to set the bar high for all the single men left in the universe :)

Sketched in pencil, digitally colored up, printed through Blurb. 7 x 7 square.
(Click to view on Flickr.)

New tool in my tool kit

Oh boy, this is fun.

Graphic Design: Baby girl name announcement

My friend Ashleigh {of Thankfully Thrifty} and her husband wanted to announce to friends and family their daughter's name in a special way. They also wanted to share the meaning of the beautiful name they had labored over and give specific ways to pray for baby girl's life. I love it.

Here's where we landed. Noble, feminine, and crisp for a sweet family.



[Thanks, Ash!]

New lens + Hill country

I am completely in hog heaven with my new lens. Yes. Here was my first snap.



Got it just in time to capture some of our adventures to the Hill country with dear friends.



We were a happy bunch. [Kerbey Lane on our way through Austin]




We enjoyed lots of porch time at the B&B, strolled, shopped and soaked up time away. And ate like kings.  And saw Texas Hill country critters near and far.




Thankful.
sk

Graphic Design: a uniquely FUN couples shower invitation

For a creative friend and shower hostess extraordinaire, Allison. [Thanks, friend!]

They had this great entertainment theme in mind, so we ran with it! Bold, names in lights, little bit of Broadway, little bit of Vegas... Lots of fun to design.

Smoochin' Contest

Just for kicks (and maybe, well, the lure of possible prize$...) hubby and I created some kiss photos (complete with bad Photoshopping) for the marriage conference we were part of last weekend. (Amazing! You can and should catch some of the audio.)
So 3000 people were encouraged to send in creative kissing photos. Sounds like a great idea!

These were tons of fun, so I thought I'd share them and add them to my portfolio to pull down my serious post average.

These are all Uncommon kisses you may not have heard of but we thought you should try:

The Upside-down Spider Man


The Navy Seaman


The Conference


The Oscar-worthy


The Meatball Special


The Mona Lisa


The 007


and my favorite,
The I'll Never Let Go


May your marriage be enriched by these gems ;)

Candids: Sky

Looking through some of my phone pics and picking up on a theme here...

I'm a sky nut. Any hint of color, texture, moodiness going on in the sky and I feel the urge to take a pic.  Thought I'd share some everyday beauty I've snapped. (A couple are from our New England trip...you might be able to tell. Hint: not my view out the window at work)











And this next one wins the award for coolest accidentally awesome photo I've ever taken.

The task of all tasks

I had the joy (and the task of all tasks) of attempting to capture a glimpse of Heaven on canvas.

Let me explain.

The groom (with tears in his eyes) recounted to me the reoccurring dream his bride has shared with him.  He would give the painting to his new wife as a surprise wedding gift. The image he described was of her sitting next to Jesus under a tree overlooking a vividly colored valley. You see, both bride and groom's lives (and mine, so I get it) have been drastically changed by coming into relationship with Christ, and truly understanding Who He is; the King of all, reckless Lover of our souls, and the Fulfillment of our every desire.

Wow. So the scene is true and real and oh so impossible to actually capture.

As I began, I did some word studies of the description he provided and found out just how Biblical this scene was. Here's a little of what I found, which he asked me to write out along the edges of the canvas.

Tree: 
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon  Psalm 92:12

The trees of the Lord are well watered, 
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. Psalm 104:16

She (wisdom) is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; 
those who hold her fast will be blessed. Proverbs 3:18

Valley:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters, 

he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake. 

Even though I walk

through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.  Psalm 23: 1-4

Majestic color/Rainbow: 

I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. ²⁸ Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.  
Ezekiel 1:27-28

You are radiant with light,
more majestic than mountains rich with game. Psalm 76:4

I imagine in Jesus' presence there will be trees, certainly the ones who trusted Him to be their righteousness, and He Himself the fullness of wisdom; there will no longer be dark valleys, no more fear and no more evil, and no more longing to be near Him but actual nearness. There will be no sun because Christ Himself will shine, and the rainbow as a picture of God's faithfulness for all of the ages will be made visible in His radiant Presence. 

Are you kidding me? This is incredible. And it's true for those of us who know Him. (Do you know Him? How He loves you and invites you to the table of grace.)

So after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I humbly trembled before my canvas and got to work. 

Thank you, Jeremy, for letting me be part of this sweet gift. 

acrylic on canvas

16" x 20"

My husband the carpenter

He's quite the craftsman these days.

Here's the process of making our new snazzy computer desk.






And... ta dah!



Did you notice?.. It's on caster wheels so we can unplug and roll our computer to the printer. Handy dandy!

We wish you a...

M e r r y  C h r i s t m a s!

Sincerely, 
Two crazy love birds

Maddie & McKinley

These two little sweeties just turned two. They are best of friends, yet so uniquely different in their personalities. They are like nieces to us, so I wanted to make something special that would remind them just how precious they are when mommy and daddy read it to them.  It was fun to try to capture even an ounce of their cuteness!

These descriptions are straight from God's Word. He loves us so much and tenderly delights in His children. I need to be reminded of this.




Putting them in vintage frames was the cherry on top!



Love these girls and love their families~

Calendar: October

We're a week in, but here I am! We have a new toy at our house that we have been setting up (Ok, *hubs has been doing all the setup...) And now I'm chiming in from our new iMac :) Grateful to the power of 100 that we are able to have this new creative tool!

Wishing you a happy month of October, filled with pumpkin spice and yellow, orange, and red leaves, even if they land in your yard.

This month's SK calendar is a little on the dramatic side but you're okay with that, right?

As always, click on the calendar to enlarge, then save to your desktop from there. 

Blessings, friends and family!

s k