A Fresh Look for the New Year

Welcome to the new look for Little Chief Honeybee in 2012! I know I just redesigned my layout in mid-October, and as much as I loved the look of it, it just wasn't me. It didn't feel like home. I'm not really a yellow and green kind of gal. It's no surprise I gravitated back to the peachy-pink of Honeybean... my favorite color ever. I still wanted something clean and mature so I opted for the soft gray background. I've grown quite fond of gray, pink and white together since Mike is smart enough not to let me paint absolutely everything in our house pink (I really want to!). Instead of the baby blue and pink, he's learning to compromise a bit! The popular site Hello Giggles inspired the navigation, too. I've seen so many blogs with a really top-heavy navigation and I can't help but love it. Let it serve as a small taste of what's to come for the new year!

I've found myself in sort of an identity crisis. Feeling like I'm trying to keep up with the Joneses in blogging, and not really feeling like myself. Getting back to my pink-lovin' roots is going hopefully going to help me stay authentic and real here on this lil' blog! I miss sharing things like quotes that inspire me, songs that make me cry, and my personal quarter-life-crisis moments... so that's what's comin'. If it's not for you, I won't be offended, but I'm excited to share! Below you'll see a screenshot of the old layout and then the new! I'm currently accepting design clients for late-January and early-February so email me if you'd like to reserve your spot! I'm working on some freelance work currently but I'll be opening up a blog design template shop shortly! 

What can I say? I missed the pink + scallops! xo

Honeybee's New Look!

I've been working on a redesign for a little bit, but I scraped it all this morning and started fresh! The fact I manage to start, design, code and install in just a handful of hours is kind of amazing to me (While I tend to work fairly quickly, I always second guess myself and trash it!). LCH has been rocking the pink + blue since last December and she's gotten some updates here and there such as headers, fun navigation and even the frilly little scallops. I've loved that little layout and it was very representative of my personality, but it was time for something fresh... something a little more mature. This layout isn't perfect, and I'll work out the kinks when I can, but here she is! A fresh new face! 

If you're reading this in Google Reader or BlogLovin, feel free to pop over and see for yourself! It's a world of difference!

Here's the old layout, and the new, in case you're just joining us:

Woo-wee! Wedding Wednesday will have to wait until next week. When I get on a roll I simply can't stop! xo

What do you think of the redesign?

PS; If you see any bugs or kinks to be ironed out, let me know! I know there are a handful and I promise to get to them as soon as possible! (FYI - the navigation pages have not been updated yet! Working on those designs now!)

PPS; If you're blogging on the Blogger platform and you'd like a fresh new look for your space, email me at kaelahbee at gmail dot com! I'm booking a few clients for November!

The New SusannahBean

Are you tired of me blogging about layouts and designs yet? I did a lot of them this week and I have many more to tackle coming up! It was about time that I got to work on Susannah's though! I had been promising to redo her layout for quite some time and I finally got the fire under my butt to do it. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. The colors (her choice) were spot on and I just went with what I thought was cute. I like cute design and if that makes me less of a "real" woman or "real" designer then so be it! My skills have since been compared to that of a 5 year old but hey, they have an unfiltered imagination and idea of color so I take that as a compliment! My favorite part is the little button with the thread and needle! 

I had a lof of fun doing her layout and I'm tickled that she's happy with it! Pop on over to her blog and check it out! It's one of my favorite reads! 

Also - Many of you have been asking this week if I do blog redesigns for people. Yes! I do! If you are interested in having your blog redesigned (whether it's a complete overhaul, a custom navigation (with or without rollovers!), or a set of buttons), feel free to email me at kaelahbee@gmail.com with "Design Inquiry" as the subject! I'm only doing them through the first 3 weeks of August for sure so email me to get on the list! xo

A Few Layout Tweaks...

I grew bored of the LCH layout not long after I installed it in December, but each time I go to design something new I find it impossible to leave behind the original colors of my personal branding. Instead, I opted to make a few minor changes. New background, header, a super fun navigation bar (hover over them!), etc. I'll roll out the rest of the tweaks in the next few days but I wanted to get this up while I was on a roll (mainly so I couldn't back out of it!). I think as a designer you tend to be your own worst critic.

If you're reading in BlogLovin' or Google Reader, click over (HERE!) to check out the new subtle look yourself! 

I'm wiped out now! Last night was a long night of work and I'm gearing up for another! xo

Blog Design + Contest

Phew! I've been busy these last few days. I knocked out two full blog redesigns and I installed the first last night. I'm finishing up the coding for Susannah's new look and I am in loveeee with it! I really am. It's so fun and bright and colorful! Polar opposites in style to the one above! The one above was a test in my ability to design a simple, minimal layout. I liked the final outcome. Even better that I finished it in like 24 hours! I'll be sure to share with you SB's when it's up!

If you saw the ETA at the bottom of the previous post, I went ahead and entered that AE contest that my friend Shelby shared. It's a longshot that AE would ever partner up with a tattooed gal but whatever, it's worth a shot! It'd be fun to try I guess! Below are the three looks I submitted and the links to vote! I'd really appreciate any and all support, of course! (It's a simple "one click" process!) I'll probably bug you a lot over the next few weeks. Sorry in advance! 

ONE // TWO // THREE
(they're each in different categories, so please vote for all three!)

You can vote for Shelby, too! HERE! Our votes don't go against each other so don't worry about that :)

I'm working on getting the shoppe ready this weekend. Today I'll be launching the felt bows (as seen in yesterday's post!) and then this weekend will hopefully bring fabric bows and other fascinators! I'd love it if you snagged something up! I've kept H+H on the backburner for a few weeks and I need to get back into the swing of it! Oh, and Mike will be shooting some lofty pictures this weekend, too!

I wish you could see my to-do list. It's six miles long! I'm happy to be so busy though! I need to get dressed and ready to go. We're meeting Christina and Brian at Taco Mamacitas for a lunch date! Yummm! 

What are your plans for today/this weekend?!

Anyone gonna snag up a bow or two from the shoppe?!

The Past Few Days...

It's no secret that I've been taking a little bit of time away from my blog this week. Of course, it's not because I really want to, but other duties have been calling and my priorities had to shift around for a bit. From working on several blog designs to entertaining house guests for the weekend and all the while still managing to move 3 loads of stuff down to storage an hour away... I'm being productive! Just not on this front I guess!



Friday evening brought my best friend, Casey, all the way from Kansas for the weekend! Friday was his 27th birthday and he had come with his friends Kyle and Nicole to hang out with us and see the Casey Jones show on Saturday. Friday night they all came to my bar while I worked and had a great time. We had so much fun! I was exhausted on Saturday but we woke up, got dressed and all met for breakfast at Cracker Barrel before heading to Nashville for a fun filled day of thrifting and going to record shops. Mike and I snagged a few things: a working typewriter (ours was on it's last leg!), some cropped jackets (pictures soon!), lots of fabric, 2 cute little bags, some albums at Grimey's, etc. I'd consider that a success! (Though most of that was for me! Actually... all of it. Whoops!) Afterwards Casey went to the show with Kyle and Nicole and we went back home. I finished up a blog layout on Saturday for the sweet girl, Michaela of Letters Postmarked To You! She was such a delight to work with and I'm so glad she loves her little space! I love when "clients" are super chill and easy going! She understood that I had a lot on my plate this weekend but I was still able to nail it down and I'm tickled to death!



Saturday night at work couldn't have been more opposite from the night before. We didn't have a waitress so it was just me and Angie manning all of the customers. Not only were we packed, but our entire bar was full of the weirdest crowd ever. People we have never seen. And worst of all, people who showed absolutely no compassion for the fact that we were just swamped. Rude, demanding, cheap people. There was even an altercation where I yelled across the bar to someone who was just  so incredibly rude to me. Mind you I'd never do that to a regular or anything, but this person showed absolutely no respect for me, my bar, or anyone else in there. The nice thing about my job is that I can choose who I want to serve and who I don't. Anyway, by the end of the night I was so frazzled. My legs and feet were killing. I could barely stand up. Everyone was infuriating everyone else (at the bar), so finally... half past 2am, we left. Mike and I settled in for bed and I just lost it. I bawled like a baby for quite a while... Sounds overdramatic but I cannot even express how insanely difficult work was Saturday. Can't be too bad, right? I mean... 5 hours. It was hands down one of the worst nights there that I've had in 5 years. Luckily Mike was very consoling and he even gave me the most awesome foot rub ever. I woke up feeling a lot better so we'll just leave Saturday in the past!

Sunday morning we all decided to have a farewell lunch at Olive Garden. The three of them were getting ready to depart as the drive to Kansas is a solid 10 hours and they had to drive through snow. It was a yummy lunch and I think we all left with a carb overload and a food baby. Definitely not the best food to eat right before powering through a 10 hour drive as it just made me want to nap. Mike and I ran some errands before heading home and then my parents paid us a visit. Afterwards we made a run to Home Depot, came home, packed up the Xterra and set sail for my hometown. We moved in a nightstand, dresser, and some clothes. And there's still so very much to do here!


♥ urban outfitters dress, h&m coat, forever 21 belt, bag & scarf, target cardigan & flats, hue tights ♥

Today Mike and I would like to take it a little easier. It's raining and it'll continue to do so until Thursday, so moving our larger furniture will be impossible. (We picked up his dad's truck and my step dad's trailer to move everything else). I want so badly to get out of this place so I can just clean, clean, clean! I know some of you have asked how long we've lived here as it seems we only moved in yesterday! We only signed a 6 month lease because I knew I didn't want to live here after I graduated. (Crazy to think I've already been graduated a month and a half! Yikes! Still hasn't hit me...) Paying this much to live somewhere that does nothing for me just seemed silly so we're saving a ton of money so we can hopefully make our move in late summer! Anyway -- I have several designs to work on today so I hope I don't get burnt out! I'm trying to pace myself so I don't overdo it!





Casey and I have been friends for 7 years and we literally have 2 pictures together! If that! So we had to remedy this by grabbing a couple outside of Olive Garden yesterday haha! So silly. These should hold us over for a decade or two more! :P Oh, and I promise outfit posts soon! It only took me a week to break that resolution! Yow!

PS: I know a ton of you know Casey... it's funny how many emails and comments I get that are all "OMG YOU KNOW CASEY?!" He said he gets the exact same thing being "You know Kaelah?!" I don't know how all that came to be but here it is! Visual evidence of our friendship haha Love that boy to death.

A Few Designs...

I'm not sure what has snapped into me, but I think the chill of our little "blizzard" and the late night really got me pumping to design some blogs. A gal emailed me a while back about updating her blogger design but so much has been in my way. From finals, to graduation, to art show, school, lots of sickness, and now my Illustrator going defunct, it was easy to see why I was so discouraged by design. Normally I work about 75% of my redesigns from Adobe Illustrator (I just really love that program!) but this gal was so sweet and I really wanted to help her out because I had a vision for it. With that being said, I put on my big girl britches and got to work using 100% Photoshop. Now, it's not like that's weird or anything.. but it's not my method. I like having my methods. Anyhow, I quickly fell in love with the design and even though I hadn't run anything by her yet, I started coding. I started doing all the little nooks and crannies and just designing my heart out... I figured if she didn't love it then I'd finish the design and hold on to it until someone did! (Or even myself!). Luckily she was enthralled at the look! It's not 100%  completed yet and it's not implemented on her site... it's on my layout tester blog, but still, I wanted to share! I'll share a link and everything once it's up and ready! For now you just get a screenshot.... I love the map detail! Makes me want to travel!

click to view larger

By the time I was wrapping this one up it was almost midnight. Mike needed a redesign on his blog, too, so  I decided to burn that midnight oil and power through his as well! It definitely wasn't the plan, but the snow started to pile up and he was content watching tv so I did it! It's just serving as a temporary branding and probably won't be his final look (especially the logo... I just haven't thrown myself into that yet!) but we wanted to play up the burlap look because we're loving all things burlap lately! After a trip to Anthropologie not long ago, we were bursting at the seams with ideas for our little shop and all these burlap displays! We loved it so much we went to Hobby Lobby and bought several yards of it for crafts! I love the rustic feel of it. I chose to use the header photo from our trip out to take outfit photos last week. We both love the soft whimsical look of it, and I think it serves his blog well. I also redid his Tumblr, too! It's much more quaint and simple, but still, it fits his branding thus far.

click to view larger

click to view larger

With that being said, I'm officially re-open for blog commissions! I'm able to throw myself into them and have them done in a matter of hours/days. I really love when I get excited about it! I haven't taken a blog commission in several months! If you've emailed me about them and I've just sort of left you hanging, I'm so sorry! This past semester was not a good one for projects aside from finals! If you want buttons, a header, a background, or a complete coded redesign, feel free to email me at kaelahbee@gmail.com! Hooray!

Music Monday : LOQUAT

If you've ever discussed music with me, you've probably heard me rave on and on about the musical stylings of LOQUAT, an indie band based out of San Francisco. And if you've ever ridden in the car with me or had the pleasure of being in my graces around my iPod (kidding, about the graces thing) then you've probably heard some of their stuff. If not, why haven't we hung out lately?!

Anyway, I'm a huge fan, to say the least. A lot of you have followed my blog (back in the LJ days) and probably remember when Adam (the ex) and I ventured to San Fran for our 2 year anniversary for their cd release show. I did an album art redesign of It's Yours To Keep for my InDesign class in 2008 and I was able to hand it to Kylee herself at the show (*squee!*). Okay okay, I promise I'm not the squealing fan girl type... I'm really not. Everyone in the band was really cool and laid back. It was a fantastic show to say the absolute least. Well, Portfolio class rolled around this semester and without a doubt, I wanted to rehash the designs and work out some kinks. I think all of the changes made were definitely for the best and they show a much more mature design aesthetic.

All of the images, typography and illustrations are hand-drawn by me. I went on to design the entire typeface, including numbers, for my Typography II class and I titled it "Moleskine '09" (since that's where the design originated haha). The opening spread (the lyrics and illustration) are based off of a line in "Swingset Chain" which was the first song I ever heard by Loquat. The entire design is based on the whimsy of that line.

Enough about the design.. this is about music. If you CLICK HERE, you can go to their website and listen to some tracks off of their sophomore album, Secrets of The Sea. There's so much that could be said about their music. Kylee's voice has a certain sound to it... something that was jaw-dropping when I saw them live. I thought for sure it was studio-induced but I was so incredibly wrong. There's a catchy side to their music, too, but not too-poppy. I don't even know how to explain it... I guess the best remedy for this is for you to go listen to it yourself and draw your own conclusions. And then gear up for their third album which they're currently recording because I promise, you're going to be hooked!

Here's where you can find them online:

Website // MySpace // Twitter // Flickr

And here are the designs!

♥ (see full size photos HERE) ♥

I guess I was hoping I could kill two birds with one stone (for the lack of a better phrase) and share my favorite band and some of my designs, since I constantly get asked in my FormSpring to post them. :) Don't be too harsh!

Let me know what you think of Loquat! They're really really fantastic, I promise!

Time for me to rush off to bed. Mike is a sleepy bee!

xoxo

An Upfront Apology...

Here's to let you all know that this week may be kind of slow here at KaelahBee.com. It's finals week, as I've said probably countless times before (woe is me!) and while I have no actual classes left, I do have to present my Sweet Cheeks Bakery stuff tomorrow at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, print, photograph, trim, and pack my portfolio to drop off by 1pm on Thursday, and then cram for my final Art History exam EVER on Friday morning. Not to mention throwing in a few hours of getting my leg tattooed tomorrow night... Neither convenient on the time, nor money, front... but it has to be done so it shall! I'll be making flash cards to study for art history while I get tattooed. I'm a nerd... It's cool.

I don't mean to leave y'all hanging but I'm sure you understand! I bet more than a fair share of you are experiencing the same stressed out feeling of finals just like myself. And to think, just ONE more semester! I shall be a college graduate! Oh joy!

A lot of you have said you wish I would show my design work more so here you go. A logo and menu for my vegan bakery, Sweet Cheeks.

This is the logo for Sweet Cheeks. It still needs some tweaks but I'm much to physically & mentally exhausted to even think about dealing with it now. So it shall stay. Hmph.

The menu is a folding menu with a curved photo on the inside/end. A magnet falls down from the third panel. The top row is the inside of the menu, while the bottom row is the outside of the menu. All laid flat (obviously haha). (Click the image to view it larger)

Anywhoo, It's 11:30pm, I just dragged myself from school. I'm going to put on my jammies and settle into bed. Waking up bright and early so Mike can go to work and I can prepare for both my presentation and my tattoo appointment. Maybe I can churn out these flash cards tonight. Wish me luck!

xoxo

new look around here!

hey y'all! exciting fun times to be had! i'm still a wee bit under the weather, and i skipped out on Print 2 today to be alerted of my awesome "~Sinus Infection"... ladeedahh! but luckily i'm already feeling a bit better so hopefully i'll continue to be on the upswing of things!

i didnt take a lot of time to blog today because between the almost-fever, the feeling like i'm going to die, and the headaches, i've just wanted to rest. but i managed to work on my Print 2 book for 6 hours and take a hot hot bath [Georgia jumped in, too].

i took a little time to work on new blog buttons [3 new designs on the right side!] and a new blog header! please take a minute to change out the blog button if you'd like. i realize they're a little more visually interesting than the horrible hack job i did in flash for the GIF one. i promise to have a new and improve GIF animated banner up shortly!

so yes! please choose one of your liking and let me know how you feel about the new blog banner! i'm going to be doing a whole new CSS layout over the next few weeks and finally phase out what i've got now. i need 2 side panels so it's time to get a crackin!

hope your'e having a great week! we went & stocked up on food as per my mother's request since we're supposed to get "snow and ice" this weekend. bleh, hope i can still make it to work!

xoxoxox

tshirt contest!

i entered Brickfish's Charlotte Russe's Next Design Star online.. its nothing major.. just design a shirt and if you win you get a trip to NYC and a $750 shopping spree at CR. we all know i could spend $750 at CR fairly quickly. i entered 14 designs i think. none of them are anything special. i just played around in Illustrator for a couple of hours. The reason I didnt submit anything amazing is because if you read the fine print of the Terms of Use, you'll notice that Charlotte Russe owns anything you upload, therefore you give them a license to duplicate, alter, and produce your design even if you don't win.

now, i dont necessarily find this fair.... but that is life. many contests do this so i've refrained from uploading anything i'd like to keep copyright to and produce myself. however, i invite you all to come join and submit a few entries! just be smart about it! most of the competition is undeniably 14-17 years old, and most uses the graphics provided by CR. but its still fun nonetheless.

i just did a few quick illustrations and slapped them on. if you'd like to view my entries and possibly vote, that'd be awesome. i'm not going to beg for votes, i'm just putting it out there. if you think it's worthy of your vote, i'd highly appreciate it. if not, all is well :P

you can view my entries and vote by clicking HERE!

here are a couple i put in...





anyway, have a great sunday night, y'all!

xo