Lani Elias Fine Art Photography was looking for an illustrative update to her existing logo. After some chatting and sketching, I illustrated a leafy vine motif and had the wonderful Julie work on the calligraphy.

I worked with Mike, Lani’s husband, to refine the graphics of her website to match her new logo. Lani’s work speaks for itself, so we wanted to keep everything minimal and organic with a feminine touch to reflect that. Below are a few of my favourite images by Lani. Stunning, right? Her Maui and New Zealand photos make me want to hop on a plane tomorrow…

Beach / Sailboat / Notebook / Tote / Stone / Napkin / Sunglasses

Like most designers, I’m a huge fan of letterpress. Especially when it comes to wedding invitations, you just can’t beat the luxurious look and feel. Tyler and Jessie from One Plus One Design + Illustration hired me on last summer to help out with a few freelance projects, and Rochelle and John’s wedding invitations was one of the first jobs on the list. Their colour palette was gold, peach and brown and they were getting married on the beach in Australia. Sigh. We decided to take an illustrative approach which kept the feel of the invite breezy and bohemian. Read more about the couple’s story and solution here.

Be sure to check out One Plus One’s updated portfolio work – they are extremely talented at what they do. I helped style their wedding portfolio and was lucky enough to see a lot of their work in person. Trust me people, they live and breath quality design work.

One of my new goals is to start cooking and baking more often. I used to love baking when I was younger, but with a sister who is an incredible baker it can be hard to try out a new recipe when I can just steal some cake scraps when I get a sugar craving. I’ve been collecting recipes for a while now on Pinterest and this one caught my eye. I was sold. Who wouldn’t love a banana bread that claims to be more moist and dense than the traditional version?

My notes? The next time I make this recipe (because there definitely will be a next time!) I won’t be as nervous when I’m browning the butter. I could have let the butter simmer for another minute or two but I was too worried about creating burnt butter icing which just doesn’t have the same ring to it. The icing was almost too sweet (and I LOVE sweet), so I think I’d like to try a browned butter glaze next. This one looks good.

Banana Bread Bars
1 ½ cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
½ cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 ¾ cups (3 or 4) ripe bananas, mashed
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Browned Butter Frosting
½ cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
about 3 tablespoons milk or half and half

Steps
1/ Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour 10×15 jelly roll pan. Beat first four ingredients until creamy. Blend in bananas and vanilla for one minute. Add dry ingredients and blend for one minute. Stir in nuts and spread in pan. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Cool slighty until warm but not hot and frost with Browned Butter Frosting (recipe below).
2/ For the Browned Butter Frosting: Heat butter in saucepan over medium heat past the melting point until it is boiling and a delicate brown. Remove from the heat and immediately add the remaining ingredients. This should be thicker than a glaze and thinner than frosting. Using a spatula smooth over the top of the Monkey Squares immediately. The frosting will be easier to spread once it’s on the warm bread.

Happy Easter!

The March Issue of It’s Love is all about my favourite thing: paper. The cover article, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”, features our favourite invitation suites from top stationers in the industry. Below are a few of my favourites, but go and get your hands on a copy to see the full feature!

1. Exciting mail day! A sneak peek from an invitation suite project for It’s Love.
2. Tried out Thom Bargen on my lunch break with my friend Brittany. Beautiful space!

Thank you so much to Poster and The Projector for featuring me as their first “Girl Crush” – so honoured! Check out their sites for the full feature. xo

Flower-loving brides, this issue if for you. We created our February cover shoot based on the idea of incorporating flowers into every aspect of your wedding decor from your stationery to your cake. Read the entire article here.

Beyond Flowers provided the lush centrepiece and bouquet, Jenna Rae Cakes created a sugar floral masterpiece, Botanical Paper Works printed our custom invitation on their coloured seed paper and provided the confetti favours, and local calligrapher Julie Doan is responsible for all of the beautiful script you see on the stationery pieces.