February is here!

Cheers to 50 years!

Close friends of my parents recently asked me to design their 50^th wedding anniversary invitation. What a wonderful request! I’ve known Tineke & Aad all my life and they are like an aunt & uncle to me, which made this a lovely personal commission.

Below are the first sketches I made for them. I wanted to either make a design with words that were meaningful to them, or a design with illustrations of meaningful things and situations.

After a family brainstorm (including a delicious homemade dinner) they decided on the illustrated version. I loved painting all the little details...

And here's the end result...

There are so many things they enjoy, as you can see! Never a dull moment for them. ;-) On the inside I painted a branch that's part of a beloved painting they own..

And this tiny cheese cube car is on the back... 

What's up with all the cheese, you might wonder? Well, the golden wedding couple used to be cheesemongers. They owned a very nice store, and yes: they also drove in this super fun cheese cube car! They have a great sense of humour. :-D

Happy 50th wedding anniversary dear Tineke & Aad! May many joy filled years follow!

Love and marriage... and illustrations!

The past few months I've been excited and busy designing my own wedding invitations, menu and other paper goodies. And I must say: it was quite difficult for me having to postpone this blogpost with the endresults until after our wedding day. ;-) But now I can finally share this... Yay!

My wedding theme was autumn, since John and I married on October 15, 2015 (15 years after we met in the fall of 2000). Here's what the envelopes with my very own stamps looked like...

I had been wanting to make our own address stamp for aaages, so now was the time!

Here's the complete wedding invitation suite (including the leaf-placement-cards, cake-toppers and thank-you flags to put on our wedding favours, which were little plants).

I wanted the card to tell a personal story. At the front I made an image of our two hands holding each other while sitting at a table. My hands are different, because of my juvenile rheumatoid arthritis; smaller and more fragile. But they can still love and create. This is how we often sit together at a restaurant... Simply enjoying each other company, sharing an apple pie, listening to music and each enjoying our own interests (me: a notebook and pen to write and make drawings / john: his iphone that symbolises his love for gadgets; being a software engineer and nerd in general).

And then at the inside it was all about our autumny wedding and our venue: De Hortus Botanicus in Leiden...

And to conclude: our matching menu...

All in all it was quite some work, but a joy to make!

Mr. Ice Cream loves Sundaes...

Animation love...

Lately they're everywhere... And I must admit: I'm truely fascinated by animated illustrations. For instance the ones I recently discovered from illustrator Maori Sakai, those from Thoka Maer or the ones from Oamul. I mean: WOW. 

And so I really want to learn how to make my own animated illustrations. How fun would it be to make my drawings move?!

Here's a first, modest attempt: Just a girl enjoying her music. I have loads to learn still, but I'm happy I managed so far. ;-) Hope to post more (and better) animated gifs in the future!

August is here...

In summer time we all fancy an ice cream every now and then... I especially love pistachio, chocolate and hazelnut. :-P What are your favourite flavours?

For the August wallpaper calendars I drew all sorts of ice creams. There are other ones included on the iPad and iPhone calendars, so go check them out ;-)

Have a lovely month. Hopefully with lots of sunny, ice cream filled days!

DOWNLOAD HERE & Enjoy!
Desktop     /     iPad     /     iPhone

Summer time!

Somehow my month June flew by super quick. Maybe it had something to do with the theme of my previous wallpaper? Anyhow... July is here now! And so to get into the holiday mood, I made a new wallpaper out of my recent island pattern. Hope you like it :-) PS. watch out for the red crab. It likes to pinch toes :-O

Have a wonderful summer time everyone!

DOWNLOAD HERE & Enjoy!
Desktop     /     iPad     /     iPhone