Hike it Baby 30 Challenge - 2019

I had the pleasure of creating stickers to commemorate the two Hike it Baby 30 Challenges for 2019. In previous years, they used to have four challenges every year, but decided to cut it down to just two in April and September. You can see the stickers I created for 2018 here.

For 2019, we stuck with a similar watercolor and ink style and I made the April sticker quintessential to spring with blooming crocus, green grass, patches of melting snow, and the sky streaked for a sunrise.

In an effort to get more folks out on trail with their kids, they created a secondary challenge called Take it Outside. Participants received a sticker that loosely coordinated with the HiB30 sticker along with two sheets of little stickers to use on a calendar page that they printed out. Each day on the calendar page gave ideas for a daily activity designed to motivate people to get outside every day. I love how these turned out and it was awesome to see folks using the calendar page and stickers throughout the challenge.

Here’s the calendar page that I created for participants to download and print:

They received this sticker sheet in the mail shortly after signing up:

You can see a mini version of the Take it Outside sticker too!

When the September challenge rolled around, I created a new sticker and we added a few more hikers to the artwork, wanting to give more of a community feel. The Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina were the inspiration for this sticker.

To go with the September sticker, they did another Take it Outside challenge for new members too, this was the coordinating sticker.

Family Forest Fest

I had the privilege of creating artwork for the Family Forest Fest; a camping experience designed for families with young children. In 2017 they had events in two locations; one on Whidbey Island outside of Seattle, the other at Leaping Lamb Farm in Alsea, Oregon. In 2018, they had one event in Alsea, Oregon. They hosted a teddy bear hunt, outdoor play for kids, live music, bubble professionals, a movie night, a costume carnival, night hikes, family yoga, and so much more. There were also outdoor gear vendors there with gear for campers (and kids) try out. It looked amazing and I was sad to see them stop the events when it was becoming too difficult to make it sustainable.

I designed t-shirts for the events along with magazine ads, social media graphics, event maps, signs, and banners. Here's the adult t-shirt from 2017. It was printed in kelly green for staff members and navy blue for adult attendees.

The kids tees were printed on lime green.

I also created signs to identify different parts of the camp and a map of each location so campers knew where everything was. Some spaces were even sponsored.

Event map for the Oregon event:

For the 2018 event, they were able to use many of the same signs, but we did revamp the t-shirt designs:

Kid’s shirts were bright blue:

For the adult tees, they went with this lovely shade of dark green along with some lighter green and gray options:

Image by Heartbeat Photography

Image by Heartbeat Photography

Image by Heartbeat Photography

Image by Heartbeat Photography

It was such a pleasure to work on all of these items for Family Forest Fest. Thank you so much Shanti and Erin!

Custom Jam Labels

At the end of every summer, I buy a big box of Utah peaches and turn them into jam. It’s one of my favorite jams ever and I look forward to making it every year. Nothing is more satisfying that hearing that POP as the jars seal after sweating over a pot of molten fruit and sugar.

Every year I create a custom label and this year my kids wanted input on the design. They loved the label I made a couple of years ago with the dancing peach and “That’s my peach jam” wording. This year they said the peach needed to be a disc jockey with headphones. After I was done laughing, I got to work figuring out how to turn a vector drawing of a peach into a DJ. Both of my boys approved how it turned out. Mom win! They are looking forward to giving a jar to their teachers.

One friend of ours got her own custom label this year. Hee hee hee She’s very possessive over her annual peach jam.

Both of these new labels have been added to my Etsy shop and can be customized with your name and whatever fruit jam or jelly you’re making.

That’s My Jam Label

My F@#&ing Jam Label

Hike it Baby Artist Series Stickers

I started doing design work for Hike it Baby a little more than a year ago, and it’s been SO much fun to create whatever I can for them.

Every year they host hiking challenges that encourage families to get outside with their kids. Up until 2018, they had quarterly challenges in January, April, September, and November, and the goal is to hike 30 miles in 30 days or spend 30 minutes outside three times each week. Participants can log their miles or time on the Hike it Baby website, they’re entered into drawings to win awesome prizes from sponsors, and they get to join in a Facebook group solely for participants of each challenge where we share photos from our hikes and encourage each other to keep getting outside. We get to see some pretty epic photos from hikes in the Rockies, the Appalachians, the Oregon coast, the mountains in Alaska, and even some great hikes in Japan. It’s an inspiring group to be a part of for those 30 days.

Everyone who registers for a Hike it Baby 30 challenge also gets a sticker to commemorate. In the past stickers have always been a solid color with a fun little graphic. The color and design is different each challenge and participants love to collect them. I had the privilege of designing two of them from 2017; the brown sticker with the foxes and the navy blue sticker with the buck and fawn.

For 2018, the folks at Hike it Baby decided to up the ante on the Hike it Baby 30 stickers and they asked me to do a landscape watercolor painting for the four challenges; each representing the season and a different landscape in the Hike it Baby world.

I was so pleased with how these turned out in sticker form.

January Challenge - still one of my favorites!

April Challenge

September Challenge

November Challenge

Three of these designs made for great t-shirt designs too.

More than a few people have joked that we can’t possibly go back to the older style anymore, so we’re brainstorming ideas for 2019. We shall see how it turns out!

Custom Mason Jar Labels

I love canning. My mom taught me how to make jam when I was a teenager and she learned how from her mom and her grandma. Growing up, we had a plum and an apricot tree in our backyard, so when June and July came around and the fruit was ripe, we'd hurry to pick the ripe fruit before it fell or the birds got to it. Then we'd spend an afternoon cleaning, pitting, crushing and stirring pots of molten sugar and fruit. The reward at the end of the day was the satisfying POP when the jars sealed and snacking on the leftovers. 

If you've never made jam before, it's fairly simple and lots of fancy tools aren't required. I didn't own a water bath canner until this year. I just processed jars in my big soup pot. I don't own a pressure canner either. I love this post and send it to anyone who's interesting in canning for the first time. It's a great place to get the basics. 

Half pint mason jars are my favorites to use, (both in standard and wide mouth, but in late summer, they sell out pretty quickly in my local stores, so I will order from Amazon, and save from having to drive from store to store hoping some are still in stock.

Every year my husband and I typically give whatever we canned as gifts to friends, coworkers and family, so the jars naturally NEED some sort of fun label. I created a couple of new ones this year and I added them to my Etsy shop for purchase.

Thanks to a local friend sharing the wealth of New Haven Peaches on her tree, I made a few batches of peach jam and peach vanilla butter. 

Then I created a few different versions of the label for whatever else someone may be canning. I have watercolor graphics of many, many different fruits and I'll adjust the background color to make sure there's a good contrast between it and the color of the fruit.

This next design I created was a blast to work on and definitely moves toward the non-traditional when it comes to canning labels.

So far I have created similar labels for strawberry and plum jams. I'll create a breakdancing fruit cartoon for whatever kind of jam you've made. 

This "That's My Jam" theme really only works with jam. Jellies, sauces, pickled items won't really work with this design. But I can always create something different with the same font and overall look, like I did for our "Twerkin' Vanilla Peach Buttah." If you'd like to do a custom label like this, just shoot me a message.

Lastly, this is the label design that I created last year. It's printing on what looks like faintly stripped kraft paper with a custom little fruit or vegetable cartoon.

These can be customized for pretty much anything that goes into jars. I can add a greeting to the bottom or not, totally up to you.

I can set these up to be printed on Avery labels, 22807 for standard sized jars or 22830 for wide mouth jars. If you'd prefer to not go with Avery labels, I can squeeze as many on a page as I can and you can print them onto full-sheet sticker paper and the use a circle punch. It's pretty easy.

Links for each label:
That's my Jam
Script & Watercolor
Kraft Paper Cartoons

As always, if you're interested in creating a custom label with fonts, color, verbiage, or anything that's different than these, don't hesitate to send me a message or email. Thanks!

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