Christmas Card 2013...

This years Christmas card is based on Cannon's weekly photos and to say we had a little fun with the project would be an understatement!

These are a few of our favorite things... Wishing you a Merry Christmas from our home to yours.

Birth Announcement...

I finally got my Christmas cards sent to the printer (once again making the vow that I will complete them earlier next year) and I realized I had yet to design birth announcements for Cannon. I know it's not a must for most, but when you're a graphic designer it kind of falls in the "must" category. Part of me wanted to blend our Christmas card and birth announcement, but part of me wanted him to have a special announcement like every one of our kids have had (Steve reminds me Cannon won't ever care - but maybe he'll grow up to be sensitive and wonder why his loving mother never created a fun card for him). You can guess which thought process won out!

I sat down at the computer tonight to work on it and I realized I had designed a birth announcement for a friend a while ago and never posted it. They live in the frozen tundra of Minnesota and actually have a need for that many knit hats. We don't own one for Cannon. But guaranteed Cannon will have more swimsuits than Finn!

Hallie's Baptism Invitation...

I enjoy designing pieces for clients, but I absolutely love designing pieces for myself and my family. Sometimes I want to throw a party just so I can design correlating pieces. Then my kind, loving and logical husband steps in and reminds me that is a crazy thought process and cancels every imaginary party I start to plan!

Luckily for this invite, I didn't have to come up with an imaginary party - Hallie turned 8 and she was getting baptized and we invited friends and family to be with us on her special day.

2014 Young Women's Theme; Free printables...

This year's theme for the Young Women/Men for our church is "Come unto Christ and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness." As per tradition, I've designed up a binder cover as well as logos in a couple different colors. Feel free to use them as you please. Find previous years here and here. Download All Come Unto Christ Materials as a ZIP file
Download Come Unto Christ Binder
Download Come Unto Christ 5x7
Download Come Unto Christ Logo on Background
Download Come Unto Christ Aqua Logo
Download Come Unto Christ Magenta Logo
Download Come Unto Christ Yellow Logo
Download Come Unto Christ Gray Logo

Free Printable - Missionary Countdown...

My nephew has been serving a mission but a short couple weeks and has many more weeks ahead of him. I asked my sister-in-law if she was going to fill out a countdown chart while he was gone (a chart with a circle to fill in for every day he's gone) and she didn't seem overly excited about the idea: It's depressing to see just how many circles you have to fill in for two years. She asked, "Why can't they just make a chart that you fill in every Fast Sunday (once a month) that way you only have 24 circles - it seems much more bearable that way." She's right - so I decided to make one up for her - she can fill in a spoke the first Sunday of every month and before long all the tires will be filled in!

I decided a blank version would be great for anyone not named Elder Pothier serving in Brazil! Click on picture to download, save to your computer.

The story of my life...

This is definitely going in my office.

Baptism Invite...

My brother's daughter was baptized recently and they asked me to design an announcement (and shoot some photos) for the special occasion. It was a fast turn around so they were happy using a similar design I had created for another niece the previous year (here).

Hallie's should be the next baptism announcement I design!

Graduation Announcements...

I showed the bloopers from my nephews photo shoot (here) - and despite all of his goofiness, we walked away with some great photos to choose from for his announcement.

I love how they turned out; bold, masculine and simple. (printed on thick bamboo paper)

Kids valentines...

I pinned all these fun ideas for the kids valentine's this year. But then I looked at the calendar and realized it was the 13th and I needed something ASAP. I ran to Wal-mart today and wouldn't you know it, they were out of everything but Barbie (which I was totally against). They had a box of angry birds as well which would've been great but they only had one box and 10 additional valentines. I was kicking myself for not picking them up sooner, I'm still not sure how I completely missed the boat on this one. They did have some valentine pencils which was as good as I was going to get.

For Hunter, I used the valentine's I made for Hallie last year. New class, new friends - easy as can be. He had to sign his name on every valentine and he loved the process.

We used the pencils for Hallie's class and I designed a little tag, "You're the "Write" Valentine for me." She carefully wrote "to" and "from" on every tag and made sure she wrote every class members name in all caps and her name on the "from" line was in lowercase, "It just looks so much better that way." A designer in the making. My panic session at Wal-mart ended up being completely unwarranted as this ended up being just as easy. Hallie's box is already at school and Hunter made one at preschool. We're ready to enjoy the day of love and overdose on sugar.

Birthday Party Invite...

My friend Jamie contacted me to design an invite - a joint birthday party for her five-year-old boy and her one-year-old girl. They had two themes - super heroes and pink cupcakes! Mission accomplished. I love fun design projects!

To the moon and back...

I used to think the only redeeming quality of February was that it was a short month. I don't live in a cold climate anymore and I've grown rather fond of the month of love. In fact it's one of the best weather months of the year in Arizona. Always a reason to celebrate!

Our family is going to share the love on Monday. We've had several people in the neighborhood lose their spouse over the past year and I've decided our family night will be dedicated to them. I drew a sign for the kids to color on Sunday - which will be dropped off on their doorstep Monday with...a moonpie. No, I've never tried one and yes they look absolutely disgusting, but the name is so fitting, I couldn't help myself! Hallie watched me draw it out and waited patiently looking over my shoulder, waiting for me to finish. She wanted to color one right then and I was not working fast enough for her. She decided to go outside and play; she drew her own version in chalk on the patio.

DOWNLOAD COLORING SHEET HERE

2013 Young Women's Theme - Free Printables...

For the new 2014 theme free printables, "Come Unto Christ" click here.

This year's theme for the Young Women/Men for our church is "Stand ye in holy places and be not moved."

I've had this on my list to design since early September and never got around to it. I put if off long enough and finally decided now that we're two weeks into the new year I better just get it done. (A few friendly reminders from a few readers also helped!) I've created both a binder cover and logo in several colors to share.

Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Binder - Zip file of all images
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Binder - Green
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Binder - Brown
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Binder - Aqua
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Binder - Gray
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Binder - Orange
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Logo - Navy
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Logo - Gray
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Logo - Coral
Download Stand Ye in Holy Places Logo - Aqua

Christmas Card 2012...

One of my favorite things about December is getting the mail. Everyday there's a new batch of Christmas cards waiting to be opened. Updates from friends and family- many of which we haven't seen in years and we look forward to the updated family picture and letter. We hang them proudly in our kitchen and find guests admiring them as well.

As much as I love receiving Christmas cards, I also love sending them. Each year they'be been a little different. Most have been a nice family photo with a generic saying - Merry Christmas - Sending Joy - Happy Holidays - you know what I'm talking about and this has worked for us for years. Last year, we stepped out of our comfort zone just a bit. (here) We played off the idea of our weekly photo shoot of Mr. B and made a card out of it. It worked well and was quite personal. After last years card I realized how fun it was to step outside of the tiny box I had made for myself. Christmas cards for our family didn't have to be totally formal. So my mind started working - what could I do different for this card?? Over the summer, we solidified our plans to be the Incredibles for Halloween and immediately I saw our Christmas card. Funny enough, my husband didn't even disagree with me, he loved the idea. So just before heading how to go trick-or-treating we shot our photos for the Christmas card - still with an agreeable husband.

Throughout Halloween night we got so many comments - of course we did, we were totally decked out as a family. I could see Steve start to get slightly self-conscious as other men claimed you couldn't pay them to wear the costume. I could see the Christmas card idea start to diminish! It wasn't too long after when the card discussion surfaced that Steve no longer thought it was a good idea to wear a costume on the Christmas card. I designed it out anyway and once he saw it complete he couldn't argue that it wasn't great. Still there was resistance. We agreed the card would go to everyone - but co-workers would get a nice formal card, maintaining professionalism and dignity with the people he sees for hours every day!

But everyone else received this: (It was a multi-fold card and folded out quite long!) Just in case you need a close up: It's definitely a once in a lifetime card, there is no way my husband will ever put on that costume again!! But it was totally worth it...Steve might disagree! I might have ruined my chances at a fun card next year-

Oh well, Merry Christmas from the Pothiers!

Be You...

I'm realizing more and more as I work with the youth in our church, building strong confident men and women is not an easy task and I worry as to how I can build that confidence in my own children. They are pushed and pulled in every direction and being happy with who you are is no small task. I taught a lesson on Sunday titled, "The ability to succeed" in which the lesson focused on seeing the good in ourselves, and with a strong conviction of who we are, it will enable us to be more successful.

We started out by talking about the things within us we don't like. For example, my feet are large, I'm overly sarcastic, my hair is naturally a lion mane and I lack patience. Some things on my list will never change, some can be changed with money, and some I can really work at and over time possibly change. Through our discussion we came to understand we're often most discouraged when we compare ourselves to other people which is an on-going battle for many. We are always trying to keep up - but with who? There will always be someone smarter and richer and prettier and funnier...by comparing ourselves to them we will always be left discouraged and disappointed in ourselves and our abilities.

Each girl took a turn standing in front of the chalkboard as we wrote many of the attributes we love about them around the board. And even as we did this exercise, several girls started to disagree with things written and were even uncomfortable. It is so hard to hear good things about ourselves. It is our nature (some might claim it as humility) to degrade ourselves, our talents and achievements. But we each have so many good things to offer and are so much better than we give ourselves credit for. Too often we view ourselves as the ugly duckling instead of our true potential as a swan. It is clear, I will have my work cut out for me as a mother as I help my children to see their reflection as a swan. (Who am I kidding, I have to work on this just as much for myself!) In order to believe in yourself, you have to be you.

Pirate Party...

Like most 4-year-olds - Hunter really likes pirates.

It started last year when he chose this costume for Halloween: (don't you love the plunging deep v?)

We decided his first "friends" party would follow suit - a pirate theme it was. You can see the invites here.

We used two brown tablecloths hung on a string for the backdrop with a pirate flagand pirate balloonsfrom Amazon. We used a red and white stripe tablecloth that we already had with black fabric over it, with some fish netover the top.

I made a simple burlap banner to drape from the backdrop.

We dressed them in pirate bandanasand eye patchesand made pirate swords out of balloons. They colored wooden pirate masks (from Michaels) and we taught them how to "walk the plank". The favorite activity of the party: The cannon ball launch. Steve would fling cheese balls (you know the nasty puffed cheese treats that try to imitate a Cheeto Puff?) using a plastic spoon and the kids tried catching them in buckets...or their mouths. We sent them home with "loot"; complete with a treasure map (Hobby Lobby), chocolate gold coins, "cannonballs", and pirate balloons. (We sent the white paper sacks through the printer)

It was a good day to be a pirate.