This Friday, July 3rd, my baby turns 12 weeks old, AND my firstborn turns 3 (her golden birthday!). I cannot get over having a baby who looks so much like my first born.. who is now somehow a whole walking, talking, opinionated person. Time is truly a thief.
And let me tell you, she is FULLY in threenager territory. My sweet, gentle, calm and smiley little girl now comes with a side of sass, some defiance, and emotions that will smack you in the face. But, from time to time, I get those sweet glimmers.. catching her feeding her baby doll, bursting with pride after cleaning up her toys, and calling for me to snuggle with her. It’s whiplash, but she’s still just as fun and social as she’s always been, so I’ll take the trade.
*P.S. Here’s a little peek at her birthday party inspo :)
On the home front, my husband was BUSY this spring with landscaping. We finally got the faux stone siding done (less glamorous reason: we needed better grading around the house due to rain issues), and it looks so good! Shout-out to our handyman, Justin, who is pretty much part of the family with how much he’s been around (he did our gorgeous fireplace tile).
And now, with finishing up the siding, I finally got my hydrangeas, boxwoods, and dwarf lilac tree in the ground. In just 3-4 short years, it’s going to be so beautiful! And hopefully the lilac tree will look less awkward ;)
My mini-hydrangeas are also looking cute this year too!
ICYMI, I built a Naming Tool on Claude Code (this is my second stab at it, and it’s SO fun). The purpose is to help you flush out some name ideas for your business (or Substack).. and paid subscribers get access to play with it HERE!
And have you seen Midjourney’s Star Trek-coded medical update? The platform most known for generative AI images is apparently building an alternative to MRIs. It’s wild, and a little futuristic.. but kinda cool.
I added a new tool for my branding clients’ homework: a “Pin with Purpose” quiz (also built on Claude Code). I noticed more and more my clients telling me “I have no idea how to find inspiration I like.” It was a pain point in the process that I knew I needed to fix..and that tool does that.
The quiz lets clients visually choose between images, almost like “I like this, not that,” because sometimes our instincts respond to visuals faster than words ever could. From there, it generates a style brief they can use to complete their homework AND to search Pinterest with ready-made copy/paste search terms. P.S. if you are part of the Saffron chat and a paid subscriber, you get access (just message me)!
I have to share a recent semi-custom brand for a photography client. He wanted something warm, a little Ralph Lauren, with a touch of countryside, and he wanted to incorporate his family crest. I pulled the wheat and the greyhound straight from the crest, but softened the shapes and the monogram so it felt less formal and more lived-in. Gorgeous, right!?
And one more thing: one of my favorite long-term clients, Amber from Vie, hired me again for ANOTHER one of her businesses, Foundation Health Therapy. We did a semi-custom brand starter package plus a template customization, and I even got to play with some generative AI mockups for her. I’m obsessed.
Have you noticed all the updates rolling out on Substack lately? New fonts, new layout options, color highlighting. Not going to lie, it’s starting to give me MySpace energy (and I love it). I need to go back and update some of my most popular posts now that we have so many more ways to customize!
I also have a small win to share: I hit 50 paid subscribers this week and landed at #24 Rising in Design. 🙌 I genuinely love having this creative outlet, and I appreciate every single one of you who reads, replies, or shares this with someone else.
Following: If you’re not already following Margot Leveque, go fix that ;) She shares some of the best inspiration in her Notes.
Saving: If you’re into AI, you need to be following Tayla Burrell. She shares genuinely great ideas for how to actually use Claude in your business.
Trending: I know it’s the dead of Summer, but I can’t help but see a few signals that “Sky Slope Fashion” aesthetic is trending.
Inspo: I’ve really been loving the analog comeback (we Millennials miss it, what can I say). IKEA just shared their 1996 catalog as a kind of time capsule, and the primary colors, mixed patterns, and shabby chic? So nostalgic. You can browse their full catalog archive here too.
I remember ordering these catalogs in high school and waiting (not so patiently) for one to show up at my door. When it did, I’d grab a snack, curl up somewhere cozy, and devour every page. IKEA has always told a story through its roomsets. One page felt as if you could hear the New York City streets in a modern urban loft, the next felt like countryside wind through the windows of a cottage. By the time I visited my first actual IKEA in college, I was obsessed with all of it.
I feel the same way about my semi-custom brands. Each one should feel like a different place, a different time, a different feeling entirely.
While on maternity leave, I fully believed my husband and I were going to resubscribe to Netflix and finally catch up on everything we’d missed out on over the last few years. But.. baby girl had other plans (gut issues, reflux, naps that lasted approximately 25-30 minutes). However, we almost made it through both seasons of Paradise!
There was a moment in the show where X recalled something his father once told him..
"If you were lucky, you got a few moments where you got to experience life at full volume. Those moments when you’re completely present, and everything slows down, and all the textures and colors and sounds, they all go, like, hi-def.”
A few days after hearing that, I actually experienced it.
It was a Wednesday afternoon. I was rocking on the porch with the weight of Collins asleep in my arms as I watched Charli bounce around the yard, pointing out all of her favorite flowers, the dandelion, in her sweet little voice. I could feel the subtle warmth of the cloud-dappled sun on my face. It was that kind of light you only get before a storm.. somewhat softened and almost luminous, making the grass, trees, and sky look richer and more vibrant. The lilacs were still in bloom, and as the wind picked up ever so slightly, I’d get little doses of that faint floral scent. In the distance, thunder started to rumble as the storm slowly rolled in.
It truly felt hi-def.. in a way I can’t fully explain. Every sense was at full volume, and I won’t ever forget that moment.
This past month I started pinning that nostalgic Americana vibe, partly inspired by the upcoming 250th anniversary..but also for a future semi-custom brand I want to create.
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