The End of Year One...

So Skyler's birthday is fast approaching. It's staggering to think that he has only been in this world for less than a year. I really can't remember my life before he existed.

So naturally we have to celebrate this amazing feat of parenting. I mean that's really what a one year birthday party is for, right? It certainly isn't for the kid. Sky will like the attention but then again he would also like to eat mud. In reality, the first birthday is a parental milestone. It marks a whole year that you managed to keep the kid from killing himself.

In that spirit, Trevor and I eagerly began our favorite activity of any party apart from decorations... creating the invite...

To start we decided on a theme. We both love carnival and circus themes. Deliciously twisted and full of mystery, it's almost as appealing to me as Alice in Wonderland (my absolute favorite in theme and decor). Trev and I especially love the old freak show posters (an apt metaphor for early parenting)...and this became the crux of our design. The colors were inspired by our new favorite toy designers..." B." toys (http://www.facebook.com/B.toys If you haven't checked them out... you have to. Target sells them and the colors are in a word, edible. Rich and luscious not the usual washed out pastels and Crayola primaries. And no... this is not a paid endorsement.)

So we agreed that I would do the primary illustration (done in a bout of brutal insomnia) and Trev would work out the backgrounds and text. The portrait of Skyler was scanned and colored in Photoshop and then fleshed out with layer styles and text. Then my husband pillaged my old watercolors for the giraffe on the back. Brilliant. My husband and I excel at this kind of collaboration...one of the things that drew us to each other. Separately we have very different artistic styles, but together we seem to be able to blend them into a completely new entity. It's almost like our collaboration is an artist in it's own right. And once again... it turned out better than I think either of us could do alone. So good, in fact, that the print shop told us that their designers were uber-impressed (always nice to gain praise from fellow artists). All in all, a worthy declaration of the past year's success. It's time to party and then begin year two of the Skyler Suicide Watch.