My Mom's Xmas Gift

Hey there!
I've been working on some Christmas gifts and seeing as I'm near broke I decided to make my mom a cook book! Of all of her recipes that she has and some others that I like or maybe my friends enjoy. If you have any recipes you'd like to share, please post them!

I'm trying to find a way to make it a little more, personal so I'm drawing some illustrations and just make it unique. If you have any good food illustrations or ideas please comment, I'd love to get some new ideas. All I've done so far is the cover. I was going to paste icons in the word "cook" so it'd look like the food was writing (like in this tutorial).

I was thinking about splitting the cook book up into appetizers, entree's and desserts but my mom doesn't prepare many appetizers so maybe just entree's and desserts, maybe throw in drinks? The other thing I'm unsure about is if I should make a page for each "separator" or not. I was going to use the icons on the bottom of the cover for the tabs (can't figure out what to do for a appetizer icon, suggestions?). I was probably going to just print the pages and place them in a 3 ring binder in a protective seal that way we can add to it as much as we want! If she ever choose she can also get it bound into a book.

Now my last question is should I have 1 recipe per page or 2? its going to be 10x8 (so landscape) and I can do two different recipes per page with like a fancy box and some decorations or something, or I can do one per page with bigger letting and maybe more designs. I want to keep it relatively plain and easy to read.

Any input would be great!
I'm off to find an appetizer icon and figure out how to do these recipes!

-Sam

Edit: I worked up a quick option for the recipe page. I can put anywhere from 1-4 on a page (considering all of her recipes are on note cards, they're pretty short). I can two for example and do some sort of illustration on the bottom or I could do 4 with a light illustration in the back (or a smaller one in the corner). Any ideas? Keep in mind this is a quick mock-up and color/different text is possible. There is also room below for two more just may not be visible due to the white background(s).

Christmas Illustrations

 WooHoo! I found something to do for about 5hours the other day in photoshop, i made a christmas card! Granted I followed a tutorial, it was still cool because I legit made everything by hand. The tree took me like an hour to do, I just couldn't get it right (and thats not including the decorations!). Everything else was a breeze and really fun. I love making illustrations, I wish I knew more techniques for them! Here is the tutorial link.

I printed it and it turned out great, I couldn't be more happy! I'm going to send it out as my christmas card this year, now I'm just debating on making another illustration for the inside or just pasting some construction paper (maybe scrap booking paper) on the inside and writing/drawing/adding stickers on it to make it a little more personal for each person. *Shrug* I did find a couple more illustrations I want to make, I'm debating making like a 5x7 flat card (like you would get done in the studio of your family) then I don't have to buy anything (the only paper I have is photo paper, no card stock). That was so much fun though, all done in photoshop.

If anyone has any good tutorials they found on different techniques please comment with the link! I'd love to learn more, this is a big passion of mine and I can easily spend hours on one piece alone.
Time to go Christmas shopping!

-Sam

Holy buckets its been 6 months!

Sorry I left you hanging, I clearly shouldn't be a professional blogger. I do have a lot to say, but generally its personal so its not pasted on the interwebs! :) as for photographs, well I have actually taken a few since my last post!

i saw my cousins twins for the first time this summer! They were absolutly adorable! Kendra and Kiley. Kendra is in the blue and Kiley in the white.

I have seen so many fantastic photo manipulations and/or graphic design work that I am falling even more and more in love with it. I wish I could do it and I'm definitely motived to try to find some more tutorials to learn techniques. My problem is putting these techniques to use and being able to create an amazing piece of art using my own ideas. I also have this thing where I don't like to use other people's stock to create work, i like to be able to say those are all of my photographs. However, that probably will rarely be possible depending on the type of work I'm trying to create. For example, I love messing around with eye shots and I've seen some fantastic artwork but I wish I had more of my own photographs to manipulate instead of using someone's stock. Not sure if that makes sense but guess I'm more proud of my work when its truly my own.

I did create this piece, which was fun to do! I think it turned out really pretty. Please keep in mind that all of my photographs and manipulations are copy righted and are not to be used without my permission. Also, all of the stock credits are linked on my Deviant Art account.
Please link me any photoshop tutorials you think i might enjoy!
-Sam