equestrette!

After much designing and figuring out codes, CSS, plugins, security, and actually getting the website hacked at the very beginning, we are live! I had never worked with self hosted site before, and even though it was very time consuming to learn all of the techno, it has been very enjoyable to be able to design exactly what we wanted and to actually make the changes and tweaks to get the results that we had planned. So thank you Wordpress  hackers, forums, help community and Wordpress camp -which was an eye opener that made me believe that I could do this.
This is a very exciting project, one that has been in the works for quite some time. And we are very pleased with the results, still fighting the urge to keep tweaking little bits here and there. It was time to get it going, so now to the "fun" part.
I wish the design & implementing process could have been documented with pics along the way, but it wasn't. So here are the before and after:

 The twentyeleven theme was used as the base for creating our child theme

Our finished site equestrette, I think you should check it. 

equestrette logo

The idea for this logo was to keep it fresh, simple, graceful and graphic. I wanted to create a roundness on the top part of the letters to mimic a riding helmet, and the overall basic shape that forms both the letters and the horse's head mimic an elongated stirrup. Transparencies were used to limit the amount of detail and to use only two basic shapes to create the horse's head and all of its features.
This is the process I took for the creation of the equestrette logo. Sketches on paper first, then on to the computer to further develop the ideas and finalize the designs.

more promo items

Promotional items displayed and distributed over the weekend at Duke show in Raleigh, NC.

pooch measurements

promo cards

Promotional cards for my artwork and my hand knitted accessories. So happy with the pictures, thanks to Sophy for shooting nice photos and my beanies for being great models -Boogie the poodle- was the best pooch model, striking pose after pose :)

my labels and hand warmers

Busy weekend trying to catch up and finish some projects. I'm happy with my fabric labels for knitted and fabric accessories in the works. Cooler weather makes me want to curl up and knit away, I'm obsessed with knitting right now and have been staying up waaaay late because I just can't put it down. I keep saying one more row, ok, one more, ok last one and so on. I guess it will soon pass and I'll be moving on to my next old lady obsession.
I have attached the labels to my hand warmers which will go on sale very soon. I'm also working on matching items for our very best friends :)

packaging and collateral

I've been playing around with the design for my business cards, labels, thank you cards, packaging, etc. and so far I'm happy with the look... I could keep working on it forever, but have to stop and move on to other things.