invitations

Creative Plans for 2020 – It’s My 6 Year Blog Anniversary!

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Creative Plans for 2020 - It's My 6 Year Blog Anniversary!
I am definitely someone who has to keep their creative ideas reined in. I learned during the second year of My Creative Resolution, that trying new things is fun, but learning and progress with new mediums takes time and dedication. If you scatter your time and energy across many different things, you don’t significantly progress in any one area. Growth takes focus.

At the time I tried block printing and thought, “This is cool. This is harder than I thought.” and “It would take time to get better at this.” After a year of trying things in 2015, I decided to focus on watercolor.

As I think about next year. The first thing that happens is I get excited about the idea of “shiny new things.” Then I pause and remember the lesson I learned and really think, “What do I want to focus on in 2020?”

There are two sides to my creative life – me as a creative pursuing what interests me and me growing a creative business. It’s important for me to make the distinction otherwise my list for 2020 will be all business ideas.

Creative business ideas:

Creative ideas:

  • Daily morning work is an important part of my art practice. Keeps me calm and creative. I enjoy it! I paint whatever strikes me that morning. It’s a no pressure time.
  • Seascapes – I am still drawn to the ocean. I never tire of visiting, photographing, and painting the ocean.

My creative ideas seem almost boring because I’m just continuing with more of the same, but as much as a new idea would be “shiny and new” I can’t think of one that would top my interest in the above.

When I write the words that describe me and what I’m interested in it’s, “inspire creativity, teach, paint in watercolor, and the beach.” This just confirms I have the right goals in mind for 2020. I’m sticking to the path I’ve been on.

What are your creative plans for 2020? Hoping for a creative year but don’t know where to start? Try my book Creative Exploration: A Six Week Process for Introducing Regular Creativity into your Life – Develop a regular practice of creating, explore mediums and subjects in search of your thing, and experience the joy that creativity brings. Creativity is for EVERYONE! Talent is just a starting point.

Creative Exploration book -

10 “How to” Posts on Painting, Graphic Design, Creativity and more!

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

10 "How to" Posts on Painting, Graphic Design, Creativity and more! | acrylic painting watercolor tutorial diy round up post
It’s still amazing to me that I made a commitment to be creative, created this blog to hold myself accountable, have continued with it for over five years, and have published over 600 posts! This from someone who previously couldn’t finish a creative project. Here’s a round up of my best “How to” posts.

How to Design Invitations. I’ve been a Graphic Designer for over 20 years. I wrote this post to share the process of designing invitations. Designing invites has always been one of my favorite projects. Visit my Etsy shop for invitation borders, backgrounds, and clipart that make the invitation design process easier!

How to Design Invitations | DIY Invites | Invitation Tutorial | Easy Invites

How to Paint the Ocean. For the last few years I have dedicated myself to capturing the ocean in watercolor. This post shares my step by step process and my secret ingredient.
How to paint the ocean in watercolor and gouache | tutorial | step by step instructions | painting tips 

Transitioning from Watercolor to Acrylics was such a challenge and I’m still learning every time I pull out a canvas. In this post I share the top differences between the two, to help others make a more smooth transition.
Going from watercolor to acrylics, painting acrylic seascapes

Easy Forest Watercolor Project – is a great one for watercolor beginners. Create an interesting forest and learn and practice five watercolor techniques along the way. It’s actually one of my most popular posts and I’ve heard such nice things from the people who have tried it. There was even a group at a library that tried it.
Easy Forest Watercolor Painting for Beginners | Learn watercolor techniques! #winter #forest #watercolor #beginners

Creating Repeating Patterns. Early on in my blogging days I began noticing the art of Surface Design. This post explains how to turn your art into a repeating pattern.
How to create a repeating pattern in Photoshop. For fabric prints, gift wrap, wallpaper and more.

Creativity is for everyone. For me being creative is less about the final product and more about the joy I get from being creative. I wish I realized sooner that talent doesn’t mean much. It’s just a starting point. If you have the desire to be creative and work at it regularly, your skills will improve.
Want to be creative? Start here! creative inspiration | how to be creative

Winter Birch Tree Painting. I wanted to add wintery art to my living room so I created these birch tree paintings in acrylic and shared my process in this post.
Easy Acrylic Birch Tree Painting #beginner #painting

Developing your own Illustration Style. When my kids were small I desperately wanted to illustrate a children’s book. But, not only were my skills not there, but I didn’t have a style. I scoured the internet looking for ways to develop my own style. In this post I share what I learned.
6 Tips on Developing your own Illustration Style 

Ways to Find Inspiration. It’s very rare that I don’t have ideas. For me time is more of a struggle, as well as following through on ideas. This post shares ways to find inspiration.
10 Ways to come up with ideas for your creative projects

Logo Design Process. I shared a peek into my life as a graphic designer in this post about designing logo.
Logo Design Process

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How to Design an Invitation

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

How to Design Invitations | DIY Invites | Invitation Tutorial | Easy Invites
Designing an invite – especially for your own event – is so fun! Here are some easy steps to guide you through it.

1. Determine the style and aesthetic of your event. Your invite should be a reflection of the actual event. You don’t want a formal, elegant invite for a backyard BBQ. Is your event:

  • Formal and elegant
  • Whimsical and fun
  • Geared to kids
  • Sporty
  • Feminine
  • Other

2. Select the form of your invite:

  • Single card
  • Folded
  • Layered paper
  • Unique shape
  • Other  

Invitation forms | How to Design an Invitation by Eileen McKenna

3. Select a type of invite:

  1. Border art with text in the middle
  2. Small icon with text below
  3. Large art or image with text below or to one side
  4. ”All Art” with text in open areas
  5. Image in background behind the text
  6. Text as the art

Types of Invitations | How to Design an Invite by Eileen McKenna

4. Select a size. Keep in mind standard envelope sizes and postage rates. I believe square envelopes are more expensive to mail. Standard sizes:

  • A7 – 5” x 7”
  • A6 – 4.5” x 6.25”
  • A2 – 4.25” x 5.5” (1/4 of letter size paper)
  • Other

5. Select artwork that suits your theme. Digital download invitation borders and clipart are available in my Etsy shop – Click here to visit. Or use a photo of the guest of honor. Or both.

6. Collect all the key information of the event – The who, what, where, when, why, RSVP, and anything else you need to convey. Write it on scrap paper or print it out for the next step.

7. Layout. On your scrap paper divide the information into different levels of info and label it. The most important info is what the event is – Level 1. Level 2 is the date and place and Level 3 are the time and address. Use the same style to format anything within the same level. The style of the text is made up of font, text size, and color. Select colors from your chosen artwork. Use no more than two fonts that complement each other. While professional layout programs are great, Word and some free or inexpensive programs can do the job too. 
Levels of information in an invitation | How to design invitations

8. Paper. Select a thicker card stock than basic computer paper. Select specialty paper(s) or colored paper if it suits your event’s style and works with your chosen invite form and type.

9. Optional – Add embellishments. Keep in mind some embellishments will increase the cost of postage.

  • Ribbon
  • Sequins or rhinestones
  • Other

Whether you print at home or send you file to be printed at a copy shop, following these steps will help you achieve the perfect invites for your event! Click here to visit my Etsy Shop for downloadable invitation borders and clipart for your invitation designs.
How to Design Invitations using downloadable art Eileen McKenna

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How to Design an Invitation | Create your own DIY Invites by Eileen McKenna