the Bb blog.

Hi, Spring is in the air and people are thinking about marketing their biz, standing out from the crowd, getting the word out! In spite of all the valuable online marketing tools, Billboards are still a great way to advertise your biz and grab someone’s attention. I had the privilege of working with several people in the Memphis, MO area on their billboards. If you are from this area, you may have seen them as you are on your way to and from work, school, grocery shopping, etc. Billboards are fun & challenging as you don’t want them to be too busy. You only get a small window of time to grab their attention as they are zooming by. See what we came up with below… and keep your eyes out on the road.

You may also recognize some of the Oakwood pics from our photoshoot with vagabond photography {http://www.vagabondstyle.com}, not only is Amanda an amazing photographer but she also styles & stages her shoots! And Mona from Mona’s photography took the shots of the adorable babies on the SC Hospital billboard.

Spring is in the air and with that comes the need to reorganize, clean things up a bit and work on a little marketing for Bb. I have all these ideas in the back of my head for Bb & Red Rooster… it’s finding the time to work on them that’s the trick! Clients projects of course come first and with Spring on its way, the flower & veggie gardens are calling my name. Anywhooo… I am working on reorganizing the Bb blog. Don’t you love it when things are organized & all in their place! I reorganized the blog into the following categories…

Bb {Portfolio} : featuring Bb projects to give you ideas on what we can do for you
Design, Marketing, Social Tips : Everything from Marketing, Design, Brand, Social {e.g. facebook etc} and maybe even a garden & cooking tip or two thrown in.
Inspiration & Gift Ideas : What inspires me, what inspires you? and Gift Ideas
Quotables : inspiring, provoking, funny, clever quotes
Fabulous Freebies : Fonts, Textures, Software, Bb Notecards — who doesn’t love a good FREEBIE!
Behind the Biz : Featuring some of the businesses that I have the opportunity to work with and the who & inspiration behind them. My clients ROCK and I want to share a little more about them and how they got to where they are today.
DIY {Your Way} : Do it Yourself Projects
I {heart} cooking/baking : Recipes…
Red Rooster Trading Company : posts and pics about what Red Rooster is up to.
RiBbet : Most of you might know that I love to make cards, still do, just haven’t had a lot of time to spend here. RiBbet will be the place to find the Bb cards. Someday, I plan to have an online shop exclusively for them.

I went through all the previous posts and organized them according to category, so, you can start browsing. Hope you have some fun and get some ideas & tips along the way. Thanks for stopping by and hope to have you again! Look for Mondays post next!

~Britta

Hey, it’s fabulous freebies for friday… and fashionably late .

First check out this site for FREE fonts {www.fontsquirrel.com}… on top of that Free for commercial use too!! This is one I downloaded yesterday, cause I think it’s beautiful… not sure where I will use it, but it will be fun for sure! The one below is called ‘Harabara Hand’ Seriously, how can you choose?

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Next, I came across this photog’s site/blog… Elizabeth Halford has some really good advice for photogs and small biz owners alike… bonus, she is an amazing photog so it’s just fun to browse her pics. Visit her site for some good, down to earth, real advice and be inspired by her amazing work! Click — http://www.elizabethhalford.com/

I just wanted to share this recipe. I {heart} Thai Peanut Sauce, YUM!! I am partly putting this recipe here so that my beautiful sister n law doesn’t have to worry about losing it again. Love you Cynth.

I can’t remember where I found the recipe… but I usually go check out a few and then make & taste, from there I tweak. I like to use sauteed chicken & a mix of sauteed veggies {brocc, carrots, onions, peppers, garlic, cabbage etc.} After I sautee my chicken I will put a bit of teriyaki sauce in with it to give it some flava, I also add a little to my veggies. After I sautee my veggies and put in the teriyaki and about a 1/4 cup of water I add some rice noodles, put a lid on it and steam them til tender {they soak up that teriyaki too, yum}. I like to use brown rice.

Once I have the sauce, meat & veggie mix done this is how I like to build the ultimate Thai Peanut Sauce Dish… Rice, Chicken, veggies & noodles, a handful fresh spinach, Thai Peanut Sauce & a few squeezes of sweet chili sauce {don’t let the name deceive you, it is sweet, but it’s hot too, YUM!}, last but not least you can crunch a few peanuts for the top.

For the pic above I didn’t have noodles or spinach… spinach is so good with this dish!! The recipe for the peanut sauce is below… it makes quite a bit, leftovers are even better! Homemade eggrolls are divine with this meal… I will have to post the recipe for that sometime too.

Enjoy!! Thanks for stopping by & I would love to hear if you tried it and what you did to tweak it for your taste!!

Thai Peanut Sauce
1 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic diced
Fresh ginger diced {fresh ginger makes it taste so delicious, but if you don’t have fresh you can use ground}

Sautee garlic & ginger in oil lightly.
Add…
1 can coconut milk
1 c. peanut butter (put in microwave for 1 min before adding to pan)
2 T. sweet chili sauce (or just chili sauce)
1 T. rice vinegar
2 T. soy sauce
pinch of brown sugar
pinch red pepper flakes
1 t salt.

Recently I had the opportunity to work with Alisa, director of PR & Marketing for the Scotland County Hospital. What fun projects and what great ideas/concepts Alisa came up with. Her ideas and working with such cuteness made my job a ton of fun!

The project is ‘Baby Place’… The maternity ward at Scotland County Hospital. {which if you are expecting you better just go check it out and take the tour. Sounds like the place to be} We needed a print ad and also billboards… billboard design is so much different as you only get a few seconds as a driver is zooming by… I think we did a good job at grabbing attention with those cute little local faces and have just enough info to get the point across. When the ads are out people will recognize it from the billboard and get a little more info.

You might have noticed the billboard as you are driving West on 136 from Memphis, MO. If not, look up and to the right as you are headed outta town. You may have also seen the commercial that was all Alisa’s doing on KTVO. She also had the fun job of managing all that cuteness and making it work on TV.

Thanks Alisa… it is a blast working with you! Check out the billboard & print ad below… and see if you recognize any of these adorable faces!

I stepped out my front door to this amazing site today… frost covering everything and the sky was the most beautiful soft pink. I would love to hear and see what inspires you!

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you have an inspiring day!
~Britta

It’s been a while since my last post… I got to do these baby announcements back in 2010.

Baby announcements, shower invites, shower favors… everything baby… some of my favorite things. This family found Bb baby through google, searching for baby annoucements they fell in love with the Bb Wanted Baby Announcements. It was such fun to design these announcements for little Foster. Isn’t he one of the cutest babies you ever did see… it was a breeze designing around his adorable face and check out those bright eyes!! I {heart} my job!!

Along with the announcements mom wanted a poster to go with… LOVE LOVE how it turned out. Excited to see it framed! Thanks Cyndi & Mark for choosing Bb baby to announce Foster’s arrival.

Since we started Red Rooster Trading Company we have been brainstorming other hand.built products and we are so excited to introduce our newest. They are so beautiful and I am so proud of Justin! He has been working hard to keep up with the Camano Coffee Mills & Mabana Pepper Mills but managed to find some time to build the Red Rooster Crush Grinders… See the pics below, we will be adding them to the site {www.redroostertradingcompany.com} soon.

{DETAILS}
Salt Crush Grinder: light edges & a dark middle
Pepper Crush Grinder: dark edges & a light middle
Seed Crush Grinder: medium edges and a dark middle {We use our seed mill for flax seeds, it works great! It can be used for other seeds or spices as well.}

These beautiful crush grinds are made of hand.picked hardwoods, hand-hewn & finished with a food grade stain to bring out the natural beauty and lines of the hardwood. The top twists to grind and it also comes off so that you can fill it, our 1 oz peppercorn scoop is the perfect tool to use for this. Then hold your mill directly over whatever you want to season and the grinds sprinkle right out the bottom, you can adjust the grind from coarse to fine. It took us a while to find the right mechanism, since we wanted to be able to grind salt we had to find one with a ceramic crush grind! Not only will they work great to season your meals, but they will be a topic of conversation and look amazing on any table, shelf display or countertop. Beautiful & Functional.

I {heart} my job… I got to go shopping for Oakwood, I am so excited about this! They say it’s all in a name, but not so in Oakwood Industries case. There are some new things going on around there… Not only are they introducing new styles & finishes but to make it even better they have added some creative and unique Home Decor. So beautiful and every piece definitely stands out from the crowd…

I took a few pics for a sneak peek… couldn’t stop snapping cause I just love it all! Be sure to stop by their showroom to check out the rest. These would all be amazing Christmas presents, you don’t see these pieces just anywhere. Just in case you were wondering I would put everything here on my Christmas list. Candles Coming Soon!

If you stop by Oakwood’s Showroom be sure to tell them Britta burrus design. sent you their way!!

As promised I am posting the Bb Christmas card giveaway. The designs for these cards were inspired by a font… I don’t usually put a message inside but these are the exception. These Bb Christmas notecards with the inside detail are such fun and a great way to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. See the pics & detail below.

Three people will be chosen to win a package of mixed Bb Christmas notecards {3 Christmas Trees, 3 Snowmen & 4 A Savior is born each with matching recycled envelopes}. To enter the Bb notecard giveaway just post your Christmas wishes below by clicking on ‘say something’ at the end of this post. The contest will run from Black Friday {11/26/2010} to Noon on Friday December 3, 2010. That way the winners will get them in time to send out their Christmas wishes.

The Bb notecards are not sold online or in stores, yet… so they will def stand out from the crowd of Christmas cards. Thanks for stopping by & good luck.

Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! And if you are out shopping get some amazing deals. It is so much fun to hear about the crazy ‘Black Friday’ stories & deals.
–Britta