As promised a couple of weeks ago, the charity logo I designed is above. Feel free to download it if you like or let me know if you’d like a larger copy. I have it in jpeg and vector formats with no background.

This is the image I sent to my friend, Tonia, that heads a charity in the Caribbean. I visited her recently and spent an entire morning taking candid shots of the children she works with and of the area where the hospital wing she’s building will be. I took so many photos it completely filled my card. She was a little concerned because she still had a lot more she wanted me to take before I left for another shoot. Thank goodness I’d been using my new SD card. I bought it just for shoots like this where I run out of memory on my card and still have photos to take. It’s so cool. Before I had this card, I had to carry my laptop with me to download them manually. This time though, I was easily able to transfer all my images home and keep on shooting and even go on to another shoot.

I hope you like my image logo and I’ll post some photos of the kids soon.

~ Diana

So many of us get so hung up on ourselves we become lost. The other night on “The Big Give”, Brandi reminded me of how we can each find ourselves: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” She quoted Mahatma Gandhi.

My friend, Tonia, is the Executive Director in the Dominican Republic of the Elliott Foundation. She, my friends, exemplifies this quote by Gandhi not only in how she is leading the way to build a children’s wing onto a hospital in the DR but in how she leads her life and includes her family in all the good she is doing for this country in the Caribbean.

Volunteerism isn’t giving your time for free. It’s getting paid in forms other than money that are much more rewarding.  Try it and tell me I’m wrong.

Do you know someone that exemplifies this lifestyle? I’d sure like to know their story. 

Many hugs, D

I was chatting, with my hubby today. He was on Skype talking to me and I used my computer to type my responses since I don’t have a mic yet. It was very weird. Funny thing was, my friend, Sheri, was on my US phone line talking to me too. She’s very cool. Anyway, I was telling my husband that I was very excited about one of my newest illustration submissions to my portfolio with Shutterstock. About six months ago I submitted, what I thought, was a killer illustration. It was two hand-prints in blue holding a hollow red heart. Would this not be an awesome logo for a charity or kid-friendly organization? Well, this was when I had just Photoshop and no Illustrator. (click on the hand-prints above and you’ll see the illustration.)

Well, today while my Internet was down I pulled up my Illustrator (thank you friend in China) and redrew my original illustration that was rejected 6 months earlier. How dare they!!!! Actually, when I pulled it up - they were right - rough edges. Well, everything happens for a reason. Today, I designed the hands and heart in my new Adobe Illustrator program and I have to tell you…I did a BANG-UP job! I am so excited! I even did them in 3d! So cool.

Ugh! I tried to upload it here but…I haven’t quite figured that out yet. Sorry. I’ll post the link as soon as its accepted and you can see it for yourself. It really is very cool!!! If you want a copy just shoot me an e-mail at from_diana@yahoo.com and I’ll send it to you ;-).

Hugs, D