Hike it Baby 30 - April 2021

Hike it Baby 30 is here! What is this, you ask? It’s a challenge to get outside with your family every day for 30 days during the month of April. Hike it Baby is a nationwide nonprofit that aims to support families with young children to get outside and explore; no matter what that outdoor exploration looks like. Every April and September, they host a 30-day challenge and fundraiser that encourages and supports families getting outside every day for 30 days. Families who join and make a donation get to join a Facebook group where everyone shares their adventures and supports one another. They are also entered into drawings to win prizes from sponsors and everyone who joins the challenge gets a sticker that is unique to that challenge. Adventures can be in your neighborhood, backyard, local park, beach, lake, paved trail, or in the woods or mountains.

It’s been my privilege to get to design the stickers for these fundraisers since late 2017. Last September, I created a sticker that embraced the uniqueness of spring 2020 by showing a city park rather than a remote wilderness. For this April’s challenge, I continued that theme with a city fishing pond. The hammock and fishing pond was where my family spent a lot of our outside time in 2020, so it was special for me to create it in watercolor.

In addition to the sticker, Hike it Baby had me create a Spring Workbook for participants to use during the challenge. We grabbed some of the activity sheets that I created in the past and added a few new ones along with a spiffy, spring cover. I really love how it turned out.

30 flowers to color for 30 days.

Lastly, we almost always have a t-shirt campaign to go with each HiB30 and this time is no different. I was asked to make our sticker artwork into a t-shirt design that coordinated with previous t-shirt designs and there is a campaign with Bonfire for t-shirts, tote bags, and mugs. Check it out!

I cannot wait to see what we can create for the next Hike it Baby 30 challenge this coming September.

Hike it Baby 30 - Sept 2020

I had the privilege of creating a watercolor painting for Hike it Baby for their bi-annual fundraiser and challenge. With 2020 being quite a unique year when it comes to pretty much everything, Hike it Baby is aiming to encourage families to simply get outside every day, in any form that works best for them. It was fitting that this sticker depicted a city park.

I also created a coordinating t-shirt graphic that you can purchase from Bonfire:

One of the things that marked a big change for Hike it Baby in 2020 was their elimination of a paid membership model. After becoming an official 501c3 nonprofit company, Hike it Baby looked at different ways they could earn money to stay afloat; especially considering how quickly they were growing. So a few years back, they implemented a $10 annual membership fee to access their website. Wanting to make sure that membership was as inclusive as possible from here on out, they decided that inclusivity meant making Hike it Baby free to everyone.

Of course this means they need to lean on their members more than ever to make sure they have enough funds to stay in business (which is the challenge for most nonprofits). To help boost fundraising efforts for this September’s Hike it Baby 30 Fundraiser, they are offering a poster version of the sticker.

Donate $10 or more starting on September 17th and you will receive a printable 8x10 print via email. My first grader was happy to pose with our print. If you’d like to donate, click here.

Hike it Baby is an organization that’s near and dear to me. Meeting fellow parents through Hike it Baby is what gave me the confidence to explore local trails with my kids and even get back into camping after a decades-long hiatus. They are really building a great community and want to make sure that the outdoors is accessible to absolutely everyone. I feel so lucky to get to create artwork and graphics for them. Please consider making a donation and joining a Hike it Baby Branch in your community.

Family Forest Fest

I had the privilege of creating artwork for the Family Forest Fest; a camping experience designed for families with young children. In 2017 they had events in two locations; one on Whidbey Island outside of Seattle, the other at Leaping Lamb Farm in Alsea, Oregon. In 2018, they had one event in Alsea, Oregon. They hosted a teddy bear hunt, outdoor play for kids, live music, bubble professionals, a movie night, a costume carnival, night hikes, family yoga, and so much more. There were also outdoor gear vendors there with gear for campers (and kids) try out. It looked amazing and I was sad to see them stop the events when it was becoming too difficult to make it sustainable.

I designed t-shirts for the events along with magazine ads, social media graphics, event maps, signs, and banners. Here's the adult t-shirt from 2017. It was printed in kelly green for staff members and navy blue for adult attendees.

The kids tees were printed on lime green.

I also created signs to identify different parts of the camp and a map of each location so campers knew where everything was. Some spaces were even sponsored.

Event map for the Oregon event:

For the 2018 event, they were able to use many of the same signs, but we did revamp the t-shirt designs:

Kid’s shirts were bright blue:

For the adult tees, they went with this lovely shade of dark green along with some lighter green and gray options:

Image by Heartbeat Photography

Image by Heartbeat Photography

Image by Heartbeat Photography

Image by Heartbeat Photography

It was such a pleasure to work on all of these items for Family Forest Fest. Thank you so much Shanti and Erin!

Jaxon's 6th Birthday

Jaxon had an awesome garbage truck themed party for this 6th birthday. His mommy JoAnna and I worked on some fun printed items for his big day. We started with basic green garbage trucks because they are pretty common, but then Jaxon asked his mom to ask me to change them to red, because that’s what the garbage trucks look like in his neighborhood.

Custom invitation:

After the invitations were printed and sent, Jaxon had another request for the red garbage truck: could I add the grabbing-arm that is on the side of the trucks. So I made it holding the number six for the favor labels, welcome sign, and t-shirt graphic.

I LOVE the mini trash can favors!!

T-shirt graphic:

Happy, happy birthday Jaxon!!

Hike it Baby T-shirts

After my youngest son was born in 2014, I finally had the motivation to explore some of the fantastic hiking close to where I live outside of Salt Lake City. With my husband working and my oldest in school during the day, I didn’t want to hike by myself and many of the trails local to us get pretty crowded on weekends. My husband isn’t a huge fan of hiking either, but he comes sometimes when our oldest asks really nicely (or begs).

I also have a love for babywearing, so when I saw a post in my local babywearing Facebook group about an organized hike where babywearing was encouraged, I jumped on the chance to join and see what it was all about. And I discovered Hike It Baby.

June 2015, Albion Basin, Alta, UT. He was so little!!

Hike It Baby was created a couple of years ago by a mama named Shanti in Portland, OR who had the simple desire to get outside after having her son. She didn’t want to hike alone and wasn’t quite ready for jogging or long bike rides and she didn’t want to juggle finding a sitter so she could join a gym. She invited friends to hike with her and word began to spread. Now she inspires and encourages families to get outside and explore with their kids, all over the country.

Through social media, families can hike together, make new friends and encourage and support each other. It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced hiker or a beginner, they all have your back and no hiker is left behind. Local chapters are led by volunteers and, best of all, hiking is usually free!

From my first Hike it Baby hike! Bells Canyon, UT.

About a year ago, Hike it Baby held a design contest for a new t-shirt design. I entered and won! My t-shirt was made and sold to Hike it Baby members. Even my dad bought one. This was the design:

Shortly after, Shanti contacted me about designing a couple more t-shirts for various fundraising campaigns. Here's what we made:

My oldest has the Earth Day shirt and he still proudly wears it.

Provo River Falls, Kamas, UT

Cut to now, I'm thrilled to work for Hike it Baby, providing as much as they need when it comes to graphics, whether it's a t-shirt, a sticker, social media graphics and more. These are some of the more recent t-shirts I've done for Hike it Baby:

This t-shirt with the moon and mountains was sold during the January 2018 Hike it Baby 30 challenge. There will be new t-shirts for the April, September, and November challenges this year too. 

AMYS Martial Arts Tees

Both of my boys are taekwondo students at AMYS Martial Arts in Utah and we LOVE it (someday I just might become a student). I do some design work for them, including designing t-shirts when needed. 2017 is the 7th year in a row they've been Utah State Champions and I've had the privilege of creating t-shirts for the last few years to celebrate. 

For 2017, they decided to have two colors printed... for the folks who baby don't want to wear gold (like me!). 

In addition to the above t-shirts, I also created this fun ninja t-shirt that both kids and adults enjoy wearing. They printed it on both red and royal blue t-shirts.

Years back, someone created a little somewhat-Anime-style character for the studio. I redrew it, made some changes, and gave the little guy some new poses. I also created a girl version, a ninja version (below), Ninja Santa, Ninja Easter Bunny, Ninja Valentine, and more depending on the event or holiday. My oldest son loves to wear his Ninja in Training t-shirt.

If you live in Salt Lake or Utah county, I HIGHLY recommend checking out AMYS Martial Arts for your family. They have studios in Draper and Orem and lots of options for class times and days, including Saturdays. Classes start for kids as young as age 2 all the way up to adults, and ALL skill levels and athletic abilities are welcome. Students work on tumbling, flexibility, and strength training, along with taekwondo discipline. There's a lot of focus on building a strong character both inside and outside the studio. My son has to have his room clean and his teacher has to sign off when he's testing for a new belt. He's had to learn his phone number and address, anti-bullying strategies, and how to count in Korean. They offer week-long summer camps, an after school program, a monthly Parent's Night Out, and seasonal picnics and parties. Seriously worth checking out!

Liam's 3rd Birthday

My friend Liam is still a big fan of trucks. For his 2nd birthday we did garbage trucks, and for this 3rd birthday, it was ALL about construction. His mommy, Joanna opted to send an Evite rather than a printed invitation, but we still had some fun with printed items for his party.

First I made a welcome sign that Joanna had printed pretty big. 

Then I made a simple pennant banner that had upside down construction cones in between the words.

I created a bunch of different cupcake toppers too. Joanna always orders cupcakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes and they're SO tasty!

For favors Joanna filled plastic construction hats with goodies from Oriental Trading and they were finished with a coloring book that I created for the party. I love making these!!

To finish, I created this t-shirt graphic and Joanna had it printed onto a white and navy blue raglan tee like in this picture. Zazzle did a pretty poor job of printing it, so I don't have a photo of Liam wearing it. Which was disappointing since they've done pretty well in the past. Bummer!

Thank you so much for inviting us to your party Liam, we really had a great time! Happy birthday!