I have spent the last month or so building a site that I have much-so needed in my portfolio. There are no flowers or swirls or birds or swooshy fonts. Just a genderless site with some awesome photography.

Wise Properties contracted me several months ago to do some updating to their existing site. It was a nice site, but exhibited little to no usability, some crazy organization scheme, and had gone too long without proper maintenance. I did some freshening, and then proposed to have a new site built from the ground up. Something that was more functional, easier to navigate, and easier to maintain.

The product is a simple and efficient site that highlights the wonderful property photography. I designed this site for Business Catalyst and made lots of great little flash slideshows for the properties, and some rotating galleries for the info pages.

All-in-all, I am very pleased with this site. There are still some minor things to be tweaked, and already some new photos to upload, but this is a killer site, and I love it.

Bella Blush is a lingerie boutique based in Washington, D.C. with spectacular taste and a fascinating mission. Sheena came to me several months ago for a branding logo design to be designed for her startup business.

What I loved most about working with Sheena through her logo design, one page website design and blog alteration was that this woman knows exactly what she wants. And I've loved every second of working with her.

A few weeks ago she came to me looking to expand her one-page intro site into a slightly larger informational site, and a whole blog redesign. I hooked her up with Adobe Business Catalyst, some great hand-drawn website graphics, and some very up-to-date and SEO-friendly coding, all wrapped up into her new fancy website.

I met Viva (she goes by Violet (formally Heather), but I seriously just have Viva stuck in my head) over a year ago on Etsy. And boy is she one cool chica. She designs some amazingly fabulous paper products, loves video games and Alice in Wonderland, and is obsessed with the color purple. She's cool and crafty, and I just like her! Not to mention she has the cutest son on the block. Oh gees, he's adorable.

We've worked together on a couple of projects, including a couple of Alice in Wonderland jewelry/paper product combos. We've discussed designing a turn-key website together. And we like to share things. Viva owns a couple of pieces of my jewelry designs, and she sends me paper samples. She even used Lily as her girl sample for her silhouette prints. Yup, that cute girl is my Bug. We have a fun relationship.

Recently Viva sent me a sample pack of some of her new letterpress pieces. So cool! It was like Christmas.

I got notecards with robot designs, organic reeds, flowers, and, of course, Alice. All with matching envelopes. I'm really in love with them, and I knew immediately that I would have to share them with you.


Not only has Viva gotten this cool new letterpress machine, but she also has an awesome new site. When I made the switch to BC, Viva decided that it might also be time for her to get a better platform for her own eCommerce site. So she got to designing and now she has a shiny new site. And boy is it awesome!

Stop by Viva's shop and blog and check out her awesome goodies.

My August Small Business newsletter has just been sent out. This month I looked at the mighty SEO monster, how to tame and train him, and ultimately love him. I discuss the basics of having a search engine friendly site, and how this translates into more traffic for you, the online business owner.

If you'd like a copy of this newsletter, feel free to contact me and I'll forward you a copy.