Design: Garden Party

Our spouses' club has finished out our social year. Our last social was a lovely Garden Party. The original plan was to enjoy dinner outdoors and finish off with s'mores at the fire pit. The weather had other ideas and we were moved indoors. Our social chair managed to still prepare s'mores for us, so we didn't miss out on any deliciousness.

Design: Tacos & Trivia

For this month's spouses' club social we are doing a Trivia Night. And what could go better with trivia than tacos? Is it weird that I'm almost most looking forward to the cheesecakes we're having for dessert? They aren't mentioned on the flier, but since I have the inside scoop with the socials planner I got advanced notice.

Design: Pizza, Pajamas and Wine

The base spouses' club has a wine and gourmet group that meets monthly. Each month they focus on a different theme. This month's theme was pizza, pajamas and wine! I was so bummed that I couldn't make it because it sounded amazing.

Design: Masquerade Bingo

Our spouses' club has an annual Bingo social which is for members only. This year, to mix it up a bit, we are doing a masquerade theme. It falls near St. Patrick's Day, so I think the default theme is usually that. I am always happy to try out themes that aren't overly used. I have never been to a masquerade party so I had to find a mask. Luckily Amazon had a plethora to choose from.

Design: Spring Bazaar

The base spouses' club has a fun event coming up in the beginning of March--a Spring Bazaar! It was so much fun making this flier because I love spring! I found a fun example during a Google images search and recreated it with my own little touches.

We're gradually adding more and more vendors, but it should be a nice assortment of businesses! We had a vendor event in the fall and it was so great to see the home-based and locally-owned businesses that came out to support us. It was hard not to buy something from everyone!

Design: Yoga class

I'm still alive! I have been filling my time lately with yoga classes, puzzles and considering some new opportunities to add into my routine. I might sound busier than I actually am.

Since I mentioned yoga I will tell you a little more about that. I have always been a firm believer in NOT paying to work out. Having base access means I can work out pretty much anytime for free. And with YouTube videos, why would anyone need to pay to work out??? Well, I realized that maybe I needed to pay for it so that I would actually do it. It's easy to be "too busy" to work out. There is a yoga studio in town that offers a variety of yoga classes. Charles encouraged me to buy a class pass and then we could try some yoga classes together. I figured I'd give it a shot. It has been about a month of regular yoga (at least once or twice a week) and I'm really glad I invested in myself.

Last night we were doing a Beginner Unity Flow class and, as I held crow pose for longer than I have been able to in the previous weeks, I started to get a little emotional...happy emotional! It is fun to see some results in such a short period of time.

My favorite yoga has definitely been yin yoga. It's so chill and no sweating involved. If you've never tried it, look it up on YouTube and try one for free. Yoga with Kassandra offers some good classes.

Anyway, the spouses' club is having a yoga social this month. We had one last year and it is where I was introduced to the local yoga studio and some yin yoga. I am so excited to do yoga with the ladies again!

Design: Bowling

Happy 2018! Last year went by so quickly and so far 2018 is following the same trend. The spouses' club here is still rockin' and rollin'. This month we will be going bowling for our monthly social. I enjoy bowling because, especially around other ladies, I tend to do pretty well. But it's fun regardless of how well I bowl.

I am having some difficulty with finding graphics that I like enough to use. I started off using Shutterstock and found a TON of great images. But then I had an issue with their website and renewing my account. Then I tried another stock images site and I did not like it as much. I did find the below image, but it was more of a struggle to find something I liked there. Right now I do not subscribe to any other stock photo sites. I will try my luck finding free images through Google for a while until I can't stand it anymore. 

Soft Gingerbread Cookies (Vegan-style)

I love reading, but mainly Kindle books which makes me unusual among other readers (at least the impression I get from my book club is that they prefer real books). For this past month's book, we read Washington's Spies. I thought it sounded interesting since I enjoy history, but for some reason this book fell flat with me. But, as usual, I gave it a try and finished it in time for our book club meeting.

This month I hosted book club at my house. When I host, I like to cook and bake. It's just part of hosting, in my opinion. One of our regulars follows a vegan diet which proves to be slightly challenging when I menu plan. But luckily I was able to come up with a couple options that were pretty tasty.

For a sweet treat, I baked soft gingerbread cookies. I have made them before, but not a vegan version, so I was a little nervous about how they would turn out. They came out great! Maybe a little too good because I can't stop eating them!

To make them vegan, I substitute coconut oil for the butter and a flax seed mixture for the egg. Easy as pie...well, cookies. Here's the original recipe if you want it: One Little Project.

Design: Christmas Party

We have now been at this base for a whole year. Man, has it gone by fast! I got plugged in with the Spouses' Club right away by attending the Christmas party. It was so much fun and I'm looking forward to this year's event.

Design: Cookie Drive

Do you remember last year when I shared about an event called Cookie Crunch? Well, it's that time of year again! Our current base calls it "Shower (Base) with Cookies!" We are in the process of gathering volunteers to help with the loading, unloading and packaging of the thousands of cookies that the town collects. It's such a fun cause! Last year we had just arrived when they were doing this event so I did not volunteer, but I am hoping to help out this year.

Design: Oktoberfest Bunco extras

Oktoberfest Bunco was a big hit! We enjoyed our German dishes of potato salad, schnitzel, apple strudel and more. Beer flights were consumed. Photos taken and, of course, Bunco played. Sadly I did not walk away with any of the amazing prizes, but it was fun nonetheless.

Because I love when pieces from an event match, I offered to create score cards and such to have that night. I wanted to share them with you!

Score cards. We played two games, but this could be expanded for more game play.

These are the rules we followed. I've seen different variations from club to club.

We could have just used note pads, but I thought this would be a nice added touch.

I cannot take credit for this design. The social chair found one similar and asked if I could recreate it. I changed it up just slightly so there would be a little contrast with fonts. The original had all the wording in the Oktoberfest-style font.

Logo work: British Cupcakes & Sweet Tea

One aspect that I love about being a military spouse and family is the support from fellow military spouses! There are so many ways to connect to one another, ask questions and offer tips or advice. Recently I was on the Facebook group for the spouses of our base and one lady was asking for help or advice for her new cupcake business. I offered to create her logo in exchange for cupcakes and she was happy to have my assistance.

This logo required a little more creativity on my end because the only request she had was that the logo be in a circle. I did a few Google image searches to see what has been done and to gather ideas. I gave her a couple before we decided on the final product.


And now all I want to eat is cupcakes. So excited!

Design: Scholarship Auction

Our spouses' club on base has a scholarship program for military spouses and dependents seeking higher education. Last year we awarded $7,500 across seven individuals. This year our goal is to raise $10,000! One way we raise money is through our annual Scholarship Auction. The auction chairs are hard at work planning an awesome event and so far they are doing an amazing job! They picked the theme "Winter Wonderland," so we should have a beautiful and classy event.

For the Save the Date and flier, they shared with me an example of one they found which had a lot of snowflakes on a dark blue background. To recreate their look, I individually sized and placed snowflakes. That was a little tedious, but I am really happy with the way it turned out.

Fonts used:
Edwardian Script IT
Bell MT

Design: Book Club

One of the special activity groups for our base spouses' club is Book Club. Since I am already a part of a book club, I am not taking part in this one. It can be hard juggling two books with deadlines each month. But it was fun picking out the graphics for this one. There were a lot to choose from on Shutterstock.

Fonts used:
Little Days
Franklin Gothic Book

Design: Gourmet & Wine

What would a group of ladies (mostly) be without a wine group? Our base's spouses' club is no exception. I am not a big wine drinker, so I don't know how many of these I will attend throughout the year, but I'm sure it's a great chance to learn more about what is out there and hang out with some awesome folks.

Fonts used:
Scriptina
Franklin Gothic Book

Design: Active Crew

One of the other Special Activity groups within our base's spouses' club is called the Active Crew. Throughout the year they will be doing various activities such as yoga, hiking, and more. They are starting off the year with yoga.

I really like the background image I found on Shutterstock for this group. It showcases many things that are great about a group of active people--tennis, weight lifting, soccer, baseball, and healthy eating! Plus the colors are great!

Fonts used:
Meganhand
Franklin Gothic Book

Design: Football Bunco

As if I did not volunteer for enough things already, I signed up to the be the POC for the Bunco group for our base's spouses' club. Bunco is such a fun and easy game to play. Our last base had a Bunco group, too, and we would always pick a different theme for each month's game night. When I was planning the Bunco night for this month I kept going back and forth between various theme ideas. There are just so many darn good ones! In the end, I decided on Football Bunco. If you remember from around this time last year, I have already created a football Bunco flier. Yes, I could have been super lazy and used the same one. But of course I did not want to do that!

As prep for this year's Special Activity Groups (Bunco, Book Club, Gourmet & Wine, etc), I had created generic fliers/color schemes for each group. I found a fun and bright color combination for the bunco group. Since I love it so much I decided to keep the colors even though they don't really go with a football theme. How fun are the little football graphics? I found a collection on Shutterstock.

Fonts used:
Broadway
Franklin Gothic Book

Design: Welcome to the South, Y'all!

It is almost time for the first social of the year for our bases' spouses' club! For a while we weren't quite sure what the theme would be. At first, I thought it was going to have a Tex-Mex/Mexican theme, so I was researching ideas for the flier based on that. I found some cute graphics on Shutterstock. But then the social chair decided to go with a "Welcome to the South, Y'all" theme that I was even more excited about. My first thought was Lily Pulitzer and mason jars. What's more Southern than those two things, right?

Fonts used:
Buttercup Sample
Bodoni MT (I think this was the default font and I didn't even think to change it this time...I'm slackin')

Design: Membership Drive

The first event of the social year for the Spouses' Club will be our Membership Drive. Initially, because there isn't a theme, I was trying to decide what route to go with the design of the flier. I played around with a version of the Uncle Sam "I want you for the..." poster as inspiration. However, with our new logo we decided it would be best to highlight it.

I had already designed a newsletter with a color scheme that coordinated with the new logo, so I decided to use that design for the Membership Drive fliers, too. I pitched the idea of making a little campaign to include a couple graphics that highlighted who is able to join the club. The final image below is part of this campaign. We are not allowed to use the Army and Air Force logos, so I had to be creative and find something that represented each.

Fonts used:
Milasian Circa Personal
Franklin Gothic Book
Franklin Gothic Heavy

 

Logo Design

When the idea of our base's Officers' Spouses' Club merging with the Enlisted Spouses' Club, one of my first thoughts was that we could use a new logo. Being that my position is PR, coming up with a new logo fell on my shoulders. I have never really created a logo before, so this gave me a great chance to try my hand at it.

My initial thought was to do something a little similar to their current logo. Since our base is located in South Carolina, the current logo uses the South Carolina state and the palmetto moon. Both are really popular images here. But I wanted to branch out just a bit and make it more personalized to our town. My idea was to use an iris. Our town has a park that is known for their irises.

After some feedback from the president, I ended up creating several different options for the board to choose between. This led me to fifteen options.

My very first idea is shown in Option #1 below. I replaced the top of the palmetto tree with the iris flower. This is commonly done for car decals and such in South Carolina. You can find ones with the Clemson paw, South Carolina Gamecocks, etc.

I also wanted to try one without the palm tree base and an iris stem base, like in Option #2. To make sure we had all our bases covered, the President wanted me to include the palmetto moon, as well. And finally for Options #4 and #5, I was inspired by a few car decals I saw while driving down I-95 one weekend. 

We shared the 15 options with the board and narrowed it down to four. We decided on blue for some continuity with the current logo. I happen to think it is a great shade of Carolina blue!

In the end, the majority chose #3. This was actually my favorite one! I was secretly hoping for it to win. How often does that work out? It does make me feel validated in my amateur graphic design abilities.