Opera Alley Brochure

I recently had the pleasure of creating a brochure for Tacoma's Opera Alley. My good friend Nikki has a beautiful studio there where she offers one-on-one fitness training (called LeanBody Lifestyles). And she is amazing, by the way.

I was so excited for this project! And it was quite a fun one — lots of colors, lots of cool pictures. Below is the cover, I will post the final brochure when all the revisions are done. Thanks for the opportunity, Nikki!

A very rewarding logo design

"I am crying. Happy tears. I love it. I really love it. It's simple and it's me. I love it. Thank you."  - Daedre Perez


WOW!!! Does it get any better than that? I don't think so!


Logos are my favorite thing to design. They are a simple, visual representation of a person or company and what they do. And as you can tell from the quote above, it's very rewarding!


Daedre is a wonderful, energetic, lovin-life kind of gal that I met during my go at a triathlon last summer. She is a great photographer and is beginning a photography business. I just knew I had to create her logo for her! She said yes, so I went to town. We had this thing finalized within about three days (that's a pretty amazing feat). I love that she loves it. (below is one of her photos)

If you'd like to contact Daedre, here you go!

email daedre.perez@comcast.net   

phone (206) 409-0008

Going another direction

I began this blog earlier this year for reasons that weren't good enough. I jumped into the blogging world without really knowing why I was doing it. I thought it would be fun. Other friends were doing it. The marketing company I was using at the time told me to do it. But none of those reasons were good reasons because I'm not passionate about recipes, cooking or even food for that matter.

What I AM passionate about is graphic design. I love it. I'm pretty good at it. And it's interesting. Why not blog about that? So I felt all these ideas stirring inside my heart and my head and thought it was time to give this blog another go... in a new direction.

My new intention is to write about my latest projects and also give a shout out to who I'm working for. Should be fun. If I stick with it for more than a month, we'll know it was the right move.

Cowboy Caviar - WOW!

This was such an unexpected treat!
I was visiting my triathlon gals group... (first-ever race coming this August... YIKES!)... and sitting on the table was "Cowboy Caviar." I had never hear of it. Here's how my friend Nikki describes it,

"kind of a chip dip, kind of a salsa, kind of a veggie/bean salad. it has corn, black eyed peas, black bean, celery, red and green pepper, hot chilles, etc. it's fabulous! i make it for parties all the time and everyone always wants the recipe!"


Thanks Nikki for such a tasty, healthy treat! And I gotta say, Nikki is the reason I'm doing my first triathlon. She is THE most inspiring person I've ever met! She just opened her own personal training studio in Tacoma, Washington. Here's her website. Take a look!

Teriyaki Pineapple Chicken (with homemade teriyaki sauce)

click recipe card to see a larger image

New Product: Downloadable checklists!

Hi all. I'm soooo excited to announce a new product on my website. I'm a huge fan of to-do lists and a huge fan of good design. So, naturally, I had to put the two together! For only $.99 you can purchase a list and have it for life! Print one out every time you need one.

Here are four examples... a daily to-do list, a "Just for me" list, a two-week menu planner and a coupon shopping list.  There's a bunch more on my site here. 

Let me know of any improvements you would make or maybe a whole new list you would like to see. I would so love to hear from you! If I create it, I'll send it to you for free :)

New recipe cards up along with a re-designed website!

After many late nights and lots of musical soundtracks listened to, there is now a new site design up and running. Check it out here. Also, I'm constantly working on new designs and there's brand new designer cards up as of tonight. Check them out here.

DON"T REFREEZE THAWED CHICKEN!!

I learned this the hard way this week. I was participating in a meal swap with some gals at my church. I had to prepare 9 meals total. After about $60 spent, three trips to the store, and 4 hours or so into preparing, my husband walks up to me and says, "You are not prepared for what I have to tell you." I was like, "huh?" "All of the chicken has to be thrown away. You can't re-freeze thawed chicken," he says... so I immediately followed with, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME???"

I ran to the computer to see what the internet had to say on this matter, and he was right. Each site I found agreed with him. I was pretty angry for the next couple hours. But I relaxed and realized the world wasn't coming down around me. But seriously, WHATEVER! No meal swap for me this time. I'm just too frustrated, don't have the time and don't want to spend the money to start over. Sorry gals! If only I had a recipe card for this one that started with "Don't use frozen chicken breast."

So hopefully you can learn from my mistake... 

Whew! It's been awhile!

Well, indeed it has been too long. But there's been a lot of action here at personalrecipecards.com! We've updated our site, added some new products and photos... we're kinda proud! Take a look... personalrecipecards.com

Left overs, left overs

We have been left over eaters all week! I'm excited about this one week of slow cooker recipes, but I had not taken into account how much food we would have left over each night. And since we are not made of money, we figured we'd eat it all before continuing on. New recipe coming soon! Goodnight all...

Dinner #1: BBQ Chicken

This is the book I am cooking from: 3 Ingredient Slow Cooker Recipes by Suzanne Bonet...

This is the simplest way to make BBQ chicken. But did I know that before tonight? Nope.
I figured I'd have my husband and 6 year old help me rate each recipe. If it's awful, I'll let you know.

Start with 3 lbs. frozen chicken

Add 2 cups BBQ sauce

Add chopped onion

Family Rating: Eric and I thought it was great. Ethan (our 6 yr old) informed us he does not like BBQ sauce.

Let's kick this off Julie/Julia-style!

Part of my inspiration for this blog (and I assume many others on the net) was the movie Julie/Julia. If you haven't seen it yet... you must! Basically, a gal named Julie decided to blog about her year-long journey cooking each recipe from Julia Child's famous French cook book.
Well, I'm not interested in French cooking whatsoever. But I am interested in cooking and having fun with this new blog. So I thought I would do the same idea for one week. With my slow cooker.

I know, simple right? But remember, I'm new at cooking. I'm leaving the nights of eating out behind me. It's good to start out simple. Right? Tomorrow will kick off the first meal. More details then. Yay! What fun!

Excellent Tip for Shredded Chicken

My friend Samantha gave me a GREAT tip the other day. Since I'm new to the slow cooker, I would never have known this...

If you want shredded chicken for a meal you're making, use the slow cooker!
Place your frozen chicken in the slow cooker (on high) ALL BY ITSELF!

Five hours later you have the easiest-to-shred chicken I have ever seen!

We decided to throw some tortilla chips and cheese with it to make nachos. Easiest dinner ever, I'm pretty sure! Thanks again, Sam!

Adorable Aprons

I was at a trade show awhile ago and purchased one of these ADORABLE aprons. They are beyond cute! Since I don't always enjoy my time in the kitchen, to me, it actually makes me feel more like being there when I wear one. Visit their site here.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast

This morning I found the easiest Pot Roast slow cooker recipe on the planet. I’m excited to taste it! As simple as it is, I took some photos. 

Place frozen roast in slow cooker

Mix seasoning with water

Pour mixture over roast. Wow, it's so easy, a caveman could do it!

Yay! I finally started a blog!

Besides that big news, I also changed the look of my website personalrecipecards.com, with much more to come. A friend of mine will soon be taking photos of products to add to the site and they will be wonderful! I’m so excited!

I wanted to take a moment to explain how this will be a blog about my business as well as my life. Kelly. Graphic designer. Wife to Eric. Mom Ethan & Eli. Lover of paper products. (but only the really cute, well-designed ones!

I'm starting off 2010 with new goals. I'm getting my life more organized (new desk, files, planner, etc.) and I'm also learning to cook. I need my recipe cards! Badly! So I figured I'd post new recipes I come across and the process of making it. But I also love coming across wonderful things online... so don’t be surprised to see random posts that have nothing to do with recipes or food.