Hello and welcome to March! We’ve officially entered that time of year where we’re all pretending it’s spring, even if the weather hasn’t fully committed yet. Although honestly…here in Denver, winter barely showed up this year and I didn't even have to bust out my snow boots. Though there's still time though knowing the wacky weather patterns here and the advice to never plant your garden before Mother's (or is it Father's?) Day. February was a good month at Six Leaf with the launch of a brand new visual identity for Embodied Art Boudoir that I'm so so proud of. The brand is feminine, cosmic, grounded, and luxurious all at once. I also started making slow progress on building out my new website portfolio with the entry for Blue Spruce Dental. It's such a strong example of how thoughtful branding + website can completely shift the feel of a business, and their patients (plus potential patients who just happen to be walk past their signs) have noticed!

Just when I thought we were getting out of the hellacious year that 2021 was, my family was hit with Covid and over three weeks of isolation without childcare. Funny how when you run your own business and you’re the one doing nearly everything, it’s really hard to recover from that. Extending deadlines can feel like knocking down dominoes, and it took months to finally feeling like I was able to poke my head out again. But it made me think about how grateful I am to my past self for setting up templates + processes for almost everything in my business so I can partially go on auto pilot.

Hello and welcome to the shortest, but somehow still longest, month of the year! My January was supposed to be an easy month scheduled with lots of time off to recharge, but that blew up in my face when I was rear-ended by a truck while stopped at a red light :( I spent the majority of my time trying to stay sane while dealing with two insurance companies and fitting in more visits to the chiropractor than I ever have before in my life (which was zero, but still). Unfortunately, I did not get to the blog I intended to write about advice I’d give my 10-years-younger-self, BUT I did manage to finally launch my new website and I’m sooooooo proud of it! I gave Six Leaf Design a complete brand refresh with new colors + fonts and added tons of cutie illustrations. Poke around to see what I’ve been up to and let me know your favorite little detail!

Face to face in the real world, it’s fairly easy for people to get a feel for what it’d be like to work with you. But online, it’s harder to get the full picture of who you really are and what you’re like. And if you don’t have any presence online at all, it can be a red flag for someone who might not think you’re not a legitimate business because they Googled you, and the only thing that came up was your Xanga page from 7th grade (yiiiiiiikes!). So start here if you’re looking for a way to look more professional online, level up your online presence or maybe even just get started with the basics.

Happy happy new year!!! 🎉 Are we thriving or just surviving? I’ll give you one guess as to which I’m doing after a week and a half of no school/childcare with a very energetic 6 year old who just happened to get the stomach bug on Christmas day….It’s been something, and that’s all I’ll say about that! I also just celebrated my 29th 40th birthday a few days ago and it’s been a bit of a doozy for me. I can’t quite seem to wrap my head around it, but I’m hoping to do another 10 things I’d tell my 10-years younger self blog post (see the first one here) over the next few weeks to share some of my thoughts.

Last month I wrote a post about the 3 Tools I Use Every Day To Run My Business and I got so many responses letting me know how you were able to start streamlining your processes with these online services. I loved hearing your great feedback so much that today I'm sharing 3 more online tools that I use on a regular basis to help run my business smoothly. And you're in for a treat because these ones are all FREE! Let's dive in.

Hello friends and happy December!! Winter seems like it came swooping in for real just this last week in Denver. And with that, plus finally busting out the holiday decorations, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. As usual, it’s always a busy season for Six Leaf Design as I’m trying to wrap up as much as possible before taking my winter break. Last month I launched a full brand foundations + website for The Wilder Practice, a brand refresh website for Powerhouse Coaching, and a new website for Juice Buzz. And I’m hoping to launch 2 more brands + 1 more website that are in the pipeline before I close out the year phew

Believe it or not, colors are tied with a psychological and emotional response for us humans. When you put on a bold red lip for the day, you’re telling the world to watch out for your confidence. When you choose the bank with the blue logo, it makes you feel like your money will be well taken care of. When you look at the bright yellow flowers sprouting in your neighbors yard, you feel a sense of warmth and happiness because spring has arrived. Those are all examples of how color can say something without actually saying anything. So you can see how important it is to know exactly what the colors your choose for your business are saying about your brand.

Holy cannoli, it’s November already guys! I literally say this every month, but I don’t know how the time flies. Here I am enjoying the tail end of summer, then I blink and we’re weeks away from Christmas! October was a lot less hectic with website launches, but I still had plenty to do behind the scenes for client work. I’m on track to launch 3 brand refreshes, 4 new brands, and 6 websites before the year ends (keep in mind most of these have been in the pipeline for months). And one of those is my own that I’ve been slowly piecing together since this summer. Can she do it?? Only time will tell, but I’m hopeful!

Running an online business is real hard, you guys. And when you're trying to go it alone and there are one billion + one tasks on your to-do list, it makes running your business even more of a challenge. Luckily there are tons of tools you can use to help you be more efficient, stay organized and hopefully keep a single shred of your sanity. This week I'm sharing 3 online tools that I love and use everyday to help run my business smoothly.

Hellooooooo! And happy welcome to it actually feeling like fall season! In Denver it doesn’t seem like autumn truly hits until October and then suddenly it’s all cozy sweaters and crisp evenings. September was a big month for me launching a whopping 4 websites (see them here: OfficeFeeder, Equip Your Space, Liberated Financial, and Nancy Girres). Some of those had branding packages, others didn’t, but I love how my clients are so diverse it makes them all look wildly different. I feel like it keep me creative and on my toes.

You don’t have to tell me twice, writing the content for your website is freaking hard. Where do you even start? What the heck do you put on the homepage? What even is a homepage? Helping clients with their website content and how they present it is something that I do every day, and when I see people struggling with their homepage all I want to do is pat them on the head and make it easier for them. So I’m sharing my basic method for crafting an intentional homepage. This is what I start with this as a template for each client that I work with and you can do the same.

Happy Labor Day, friends! I’m here a bit late with the wallpaper, but better late than never! August was a crazy month with school starting for my now first grader + diving back into client work after my summer break. I’ve got 3 websites under development at the moment and 2 more in the pipeline to start this month. Plus, the visual branding for most of them, so it’s been a full slate for me to say the least and I cannot wait to share them all with you. On top of that, alllll the back to school emails, meetings, paperwork, and now spelling words! I’m hoping things will even out this month…and then the pre-holiday rush will likely start. So, if you’ve been thinking about getting a project in before the end of the year, now is the time to get the ball rolling!

A logo design is the single most important design element that you can have because you will use it the most and it's the first thing people see of your business. Which is why it is SO IMPORTANT that you have a designer create your logo to make sure you’re giving the right first impression to anyone who sees it. But once you have your professionally designed logo and have all the files you need to start using it, what the heck do you do with it?

Well, you’re in luck! Here are 35 ideas for what you can do with your newly designed logo:

I feel like I just posted the July wallpaper, and now it's already time for the August one! Seriously, where did the month go? I've been spending the last 2 weeks on my summer break doing just about anything except for client work. It's been pretty fantastic to be honest with you. While I love the clients I get to work with, being able to take a solid couple of weeks off each summer to recharge has been one of the best things I can do for myself and my business. I intended to work on my own stuff and do a full brand refresh + website redesign, but my brain and body told me they actually needed the rest. So, while I've been working on it a bit behind the scenes, I'm trying to not be too hard on myself that it won't launch until a later date. The problem will be making time for it between the awesome client projects I'm working on! 

“Marian told me that she thought you were a robot.”

These are the words that my business buddy confessed to me after her friend hired me to design a landing page for her copywriting business. After emailing back and forth a few times with Marian, we hopped on the phone to dig into the details of her project. She said that I seemed like a completed different person when she heard my actual voice than I did over email. That’s when she told my friend that she had thought that I might be a robot. And not the cool kind. The kind that might be an automated bot and you don’t want to give your credit card number or any personal info to. It wasn’t until we got on the phone that I became a real person to her with a funny and quirky personality -- which is why we ended up getting along so well and her project was a huge success!

This is how I came to the realization that I’ve been stuck in a professional rut...I’m literally being TOO professional. I’ve somehow trained myself to come off as so professional that I have all the personality of a block of cheese. And for someone who preaches about letting your personality shine through in your business -- I’m not practicing it myself.

Happy July! We're sweaty, we're sticky, we're hot, and we're ready for fire-based fun! We're in the full swing of summer with feral kids running out of control and the AC on full blast. Last month at Six Leaf Design was another busy one chock full of client projects. I launched not one, not two, but THREE client websites, with more in the works 😅 I made the choice to close my books for a hot second while I work on my internal processes and systems to hopefully streamline my services even more. I'm planning to open them back up at the end of the summer with a new super affordable offering that I'm currently beta testing (keep your eyes peeled for that announcement!) and a brand spanking new website. All that to say...I've got a lot of work to do!

Blogging is a great way to engage with your target audience, position yourself as an expert in your field and (bonus!) improve your SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization. One of the best ways to improve your SEO is to continue to add new and relevant information to your site, and the easiest way to do that is by blogging. But once you’ve written your blog post, there are a few simple things you can to do within Squarespace to improve your SEO even more.

Hiiiiiii! It’s June and we are still here! How are we doing, fam? To be honest with you, I’ve been having a real hard time making the effort to work ON my business the last few months (years?) and stuck in the weeds just working IN my business. I’m proud of the client work I’ve been doing, but it’s been hard motivating myself to share it or show up to market myself. I realized awhile ago that my brand + website no long reflect the quality of work I’m capable of, which means it’s time for a refresh and hopefully that will light a fire under my butt. So, I’m getting the ball rolling and planning to launch a new website by August. EEP!! I’m putting it out into the universe to manifest and hold myself accountable. I’ll try to document and share the process if you’re interested!

“Your prices gave me a bit of sticker shock, to be honest.“

“I can’t justify spending thousands and not walking away with physical items.“

“Well I can find someone else to do the exact same thing cheaper.“

These are all things I’ve heard from people during consult calls for my branding services. I think tact sometimes goes out the window when it comes to talking about money, but I get it. My services are expensive. Not as expensive as some, but more expense than others. And I’m not planning to lower them anytime soon because I know exactly what goes into those services. Creating a strategic, intentional brand from scratch is one of the hardest parts of building your marketing toolkit. It’s so much harder than throwing together 264 different looking graphics just because the templates are available on Canva. So let me break down some of the maybe unseen value that you’re getting when you book a brand package with an experienced designer (like me!).