Elim Christian Center in Poland

For the spouses' club Trips & Tours in March, we visited Boleslawiec, Poland. The purpose of our trip was two-fold. One was to enjoy time together and shop for Polish pottery. But our second purpose, in light of the current situation with Ukraine, was to bring some much needed donations for Ukrainian refugees that are currently being housed in Poland. 

Our community donated a ton of items like bedding, clothing, toiletries and more. We packed as much as we could in our bus and headed off to the Elim Christian Center. 

Emily, our host at Elim, greeted us and gave us a tour of the property. The center is in an old Polish castle that has been restored for the Center's purposes. Emily is an American whose mother escaped Poland during the Communist era, so Emily has a passion for the Polish people. Through tears, she expressed how grateful she was for our visit and for all the donations we were able to collect for the 70+ refugees they are currently providing shelter for. 

When we arrived, this room was completely empty. We quickly got to work sorting all our bagged and boxed donations into this room. Emily told us the donations would only last a couple of days before they were all claimed by their residents. 

After we finished putting things away, we were treated to lunch at the Center and were able to see their Nativity Sets that the Center crafts and sells to raise money for their mission. They are sewn and are the most adorable sets that include the typical Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus but also camels, sheep, donkeys, wise men and more. I brought home a Mary, Joseph and Jesus set to remember my time at Elim. They sell them through area reps, so if you're interested in checking them out visit their website and send them an email! 

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: 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. 

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.