Besotted with…Holiday Sales 2018!

So many sales so little time (and money) am I right?  Here are some of our faves for Cyber Monday (some extend all week!).  It was hard to choose, but I thought we could focus on things we love like enhancing your skills + creativity, tools to help you grow your business and maybe a little frivolity thrown in for good measure!

I. We couldn’t do this list without letting you know we are doing our BIGGEST sale EVER for Foto Rx Co. We are so grateful for all your support, if you have been eyeing our best selling Product Photography Editing Photoshop actions, or have been lusting for some Lettering Rx to quickly clean + digitize your lettering and illustrations than we have you covered! Of course, we have our professional grade photo editing actions, if you haven’t figured it out I am a bit partial to all of our B+W sets both the Photoshop actions and presets. You can take $25 USD off any order of $50 USD or more at checkout with the code GRATEFUL2018.

II. We are huge fans of Masterclass. If you are unfamiliar it’s as the name implies, classes taught by masters. They aren’t splitting hairs on this one, we are talking photography with Annie Liebovitz, cooking with Gordon Ramsey, documentary filmmaking with Ken Burns, serious masters in their field! They are currently doing a two for one–buy an all access pass for the year as a gift and get one for yourself free!  That means you will get access to ALL the classes on their roster!

III. There are many companies that I enjoy, but cringe when I have to share the name, Creativebug is one of them. I really enjoy this platform, the teachers are great especially Courtney Cerruti. They have started adding more creative business classes, and really elevating their content. I love the Lilla Rogers class (famed artist rep), it’s worth signing up just for that class. You can get 3 months for only $1USD, it’s totally worth it, you can cancel at anytime but for the $1 I’d totally take advantage of their line-up while you can!

IV. Click & Co. have a great round-up of photography classes. Documenting the Unapologetic Life is still one of my favorite classes I’ve taken for documentary style family photos,it’s  a class that has allowed me to just be in the moment instead of worrying about pretty Insta pics. They are doing a 50% off all of their breakout classes, a total steal! Use the code HOLIDAY50 at checkout.

V. One of my fave art supply stores has some crazy deals right now! I love this inexpensive Canson watercolor paper, it’s heavyweight and great for practice and they are practically giving it away, stock up! This vine charcoal is dirt cheap and perfect for all those mark making exercises to get those creative juices flowing.

 

photo by michelle p. edited with foto rx doc style presets

Besotted with…

 

Our current faves!

I. Hark & Hare, ‘bespoke illustrated memory books’. This is quite simply one of the most beautiful concepts for memory preserving I’ve ever seen. I want a whole volume of them!

II.  I just learned how to make stovetop popcorn, so delish, so easy and no special tools? What the what?

III. If you are in the mood for a good fairytale, I just started reading this.

IV. I started using clear mascara for my ‘lazy days’. My lashes are long but straight so I use the clear mascara and then use the eyelash curler, it’s like ‘hair gel’ for my lashes. Bonus I can use on my lower lashes without looking like a Raccoon.

V. I finished Inktober!  What a challenge!  I’ve said this before and I will say it again if you want to jumpstart your creative journey, or get unstuck a self-imposed challenge is a great way to do it. I feel accomplished, invigorated and best of all I have a bevy of new images that I can put into my portfolio. A win-win!

Introducing Wee Bee Box

There is nothing more exciting for us than to see something we developed being utilized in such incredibly creative ways by our clients. Thus is the case with the launch of Wee Bee Box-Curated Charm for Children by the very talented Maria Baer and Kelly Seizert formerly of Ritzy Bee Events (they were a Martha Stewart weddings fave). Their goal is to curate and carry unique gifts, play sets and products that both embrace childhood and are held onto for safekeeping, to evoke sweet memories and magical moments of childhood years later.

Wee Bee Box incorporates our Rare Bird Font Foundry Specimen IV  lettered by Lisa Mavian throughout their branding and they have done such an outstanding  job of utilizing the font to the fullest of its charm. We are over the moon thrilled with the results! We urge you to visit Wee Bee Box to find the sweetest treasures for the ‘wee bees’ in your life.

 

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Wee Bee Box

Wee Bee Box Instagram

Rare Bird Font Foundry

Specimen IV font

Lisa Mavian | Post Calligraphy

A quirky hand drawn serif font!

Michelle and I are always busy cooking up something at our Creative Studio, yesterday we launched new B + W film inspired presets with Foto Rx Co., which we are quite thrilled about, yesterday was also a milestone, we  celebrated our 1st birthday with our pet project ‘Rare Bird Font Foundry’, oh, my has that little bird flown!  Today we are ecstatic to announce the release of a long awaited new font–Specimen V, a quirky hand drawn serif in collaboration with the talented Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls. The font family comes with 3 variations of the hand-Standard, Perfectly Imperfect, and Smooth. This family also comes with botanical illustrations (in both vector and hi-res pngs.), the illustrations are a first for us and we are really excited to see how they are incorporated in your design work. The font is extremely legible making it work for so many different applications. We think this font would work well on a wedding invite for your favorite eccentric uncle, in your holiday card send out, DIY’s for your blog, etc. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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Rare Bird Font Foundry

Specimen V 

Test Specimen V here

Maybelle Imasa-Stukuls

Documentary Style presets

photo by michelle p.

New Documentary Style Lightroom presets!

 

We are so excited to announce that we have just launched a new set of Lightroom presets in our Foto Rx Co. shop-Documentary Style presets. These new presets are BW film inspired (think Ilford) and have the loveliest fine grain to them that will add a beautifully rich authenticity to your images. We love them for capturing spontaneous family moments, creating artsy still lifes and editing portraits. The best bit is if you have the Adobe Creative cloud you can also use our presets in Adobe Camera Raw, and better still if you have the Lightroom Mobile app downloaded you can use the presets on your phone to edit, what the what?!  We hope you love!