Where I profess my love for graphic designers. The good ones, anyway.

As my creative juices continue to flow - or, gurgle, sputter, and spit until the augger of my inner me dislodges whatever the hell was blocking said juices - I continue to utilize a resource I've never even met in person. Or spoken to verbally. Isn't that crazy?

No. No it's not.

I was searching for your not-so-traditional Valentine's Day cards for my kids one year to share at school and found this etsy shop. From there I not only bought the Valentine's, but I checked out her blog, participated in a contest she had going, and won the Grand Prize! It was a banner for your blog. Needless to say, I stumbled upon a resource that has so far been valuable to me in this world I try to participate in when, say, my juices flow freely.

Her name is Brenda and this is her blog. She tells the tales of her daughter, adventures in their yard, dogs, family, parties, all while Brenda is all creative and stuff. Stuff she makes appear so effortless. She's also a graphic designer and I love graphic designers. I love how the good ones design websites that are so simple and clean and easy to navigate.
Like my friend Marian.

Not only do I love good and talented graphic designers, they impress me. Their efforts appear effortless. My sincerest hopes for said people is that their work is as easy as they make it look and they aren't suffering through anxiety attacks and sleepless nights.

I've started hiring Brenda as my own graphic designer for little projects I need help with. I pay her, you guys. She's affordable, talented, and I'm a firm believer in paying someone to complete a task I could try to accomplish on my own, but I WOULDN'T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN.

Like hiring the guy to hang my mailbox that sat on the floor of my front porch for almost 5 years. Or the pocket doors in my over-100-year-old house that stayed stuck in their pockets for almost 5 years. Or painting my porch. I appreciate these people big time.

The banner you see above? That's not even the free one anymore. I was ready for a revamp and went to the one girl I knew I could a) trust, b) appreciate, and c) be the one to help me get it done. A few emails exchanged and there it is.

And now she's helping me come up with a watermark for my photography business, which I'm super excited about. Which, as you can see, is also clean, simple, and easy to navigate. I can't stand going to a website that is filled with endless text and images that I forget what I was even looking for.