I had the best day yesterday!

Yesterday was a really, really good day. The kind that just seems like it can't get any better... and then it does.

It started out mundanely enough... I woke up at 8am for some odd reason. As I lay there trying to convince myself to go back to sleep, my phone rang. Which like... never happens...

It was the local print shop that I'd sent some digital files to the day before, just to test out their service. They didn't have the paper in stock that I had requested and could I please come down there and pick something new?

This should've been annoying, I'm sure, especially to a non-morning person like myself, but it actually felt very "graphic designer-y" of me. Getting called out of bed to do a press check... I'm almost feeling like a professional! ;P

I drove down there (it's only like 10 blocks away), and the lady there was really nice. She let me feel a couple different papers so I could pick the best one. I never felt rushed or made to feel like she was trying to up-sell me. I'm definitely using them again in the future!

Anyway, what I was printing was a few of my greeting cards that are for sale in my shop; they turned out so good!

When I got home I had two Etsy orders waiting to be fulfilled! Woohoo!! Both were for social media icons (those are just flying off the shelves!). For one of the orders, the lady wondered if I could make a distressed, grungy look for it. I only vaguely remembered how to do that, but I said, "Sure!! I'll get right on that!" Lol.

Awesomely enough, my muscle memory took over as I went into Photoshop and the process actually went very quickly. I used an image of a stucco wall to create the texture!

While I was in the middle of that, the mail-lady honked and had a package to deliver... my new Wacom tablet had arrived!! Woot woot!!! :D I've been needing to get one for awhile now and just finally had enough money to do so. Totally excited to get really good at using this!

In between cutting and folding my newly printed cards, playing with my tablet, and sending out Etsy orders (by this time a third order had come through!), my blog passed 100 followers!! Can I just say how honored I am to have so many wonderful readers?! Wow... I remember back when I had like, 10... 12... followers. It sometimes felt like I was talking to myself. Look at me now! ;D

I finished out the day by playing around more with the tablet. I found a really good tutorial on tracing and filling in a portrait so I thought I'd give it a try. It was definitely a good way to get used to how the pressure sensitivity works on the tablet! I guess you could say I gave myself a crash course on it. Lol. I'm only about halfway through, but here's what I have so far!

I started by just tracing over the photograph. Now I'm working on filling in the colors freehand. I've got most of the one side of his face done already and will probably finish up the rest today.

So anyway... it was just one of those amazing days that makes me feel so right about the direction my life is headed. I love days like that! ;)