Mija | Mind Speaks – creative blog

Graduation time!

Graduation time!

Its been a whole year of Mind-speaks.com and we do have some ideas for the new year. We plan on starting to do some craft festivals and events so if all goes well people might be able to buy prints and knitted items from us.

OK – lets start with the official post. Graduation is around the corner and mom wanted me make Kat’s commencement announcement invites. She ordered and paid for mine/Kim’s when we finished High School and the total cost us a few hundred bucks. Mom asked me to do these on a budget. No problem!!

  • I picked out a linen bright white paper (80lb)
  • Frosted Vellum Paper
  • Bright white A7 Envelopes
  • Midnight Blue 80 lb text paper for envelope lining

I took the bright white paper – printed a vector image of Kat’s mascot (pirate) and printed a vivid cover with her name and graduating year (2011). Scored and folded them. Printed the invite info (time, date etc…) inside on vellum (vector type as well). I took my favorite new tool – tape runner (invisible!) and taped the vellum with text on top of the pirate, since the tape is invisible it doesn’t show under the vellum which rocks!!


NEXT – I started to use my handy template for envelope liners – traced A7 liners on the midnight paper. Took my tape runner and taped them inside of my bright white envelopes. Ta-da! I also made her name cards to go with her senior pics I took. All in all – paper costs and supplies were 62 bucks! Whoooosh!

This post was written by:

mijaMIJA VERA - (view all posts by Mija)
Mija has been a designer for the last 15 years. She is a paper obsessed fiend and loves working on new projects while listening to her kids and Maine Coon cat chatter around the house. You can email her at mija@mind-speaks.com

Valentine bottles

Valentine bottles

Seriously had trouble coming up with a nice Valentine’s gift for my boyfriend, Jody. First of all, I am not a romantic person nor the type to put much thought into gifts but Jody is someone amazing so I figured I should think of something cute and mushy!! Or as my sister Kim puts it….embracing the cheese!!

So I pondered: wouldn’t it be cool to design my very own wine or lemonade bottle to fit our relationship? Make a gourmet picnic and surprise him for a nice lunch?

Things I needed for the bottles:

Now, I designed and printed out labels of a vector drawing I did of us. I am 5 feet tall and Jody (boyfriend) is a mere 6 foot 3 soooooo I drew the image of him towering over me. Printed on full page labels, cut to size and placed over the bottles.

I took Mod Podge, and brushed over the label and bottle over night. Thanks to Kim for this tip! Dried like a charm – cleaned bottles and added my juice with my trusty funnel!! And ta-da! Fancy customized bottles! My valentine for my dude!


He seemed to really dig the bottles and I had a great time making them!! Again, thanks to Kim for all the help <3!!

This post was written by:

mijaMIJA VERA - (view all posts by Mija)
Mija has been a designer for the last 15 years. She is a paper obsessed fiend and loves working on new projects while listening to her kids and Maine Coon cat chatter around the house. You can email her at mija@mind-speaks.com

Green Card work

Green Card work
  • 3 Different poster designs for Green Card
  • 110 lb. cover – semi gloss paper (to add a shine but not a glare)
  • cutting board
  • Printed our smaller flyers on 90 lb. cover – high gloss

Sorry for a late post!!! Okay I have been working with this local DJ here in Houston for about 2 years now… he just started a super group of collective sounds, including a drummer, saxophone player and guitarist. Part light show, part interactive band – really interesting and cool. They are called Green Card because well they are all non-American. Mishka is from Russia (DJ), Eli is from Israel (guitarist) etc etc…

Note: I also designed Green Card, DJ MikeC, Mishka, 3rDimenson and Illuminati’s logos!

Anyway here is a small collection of work I have done for them since their debut. I don’t have pics of the decals I made for Mishka’s laptops…coming soon!

First reveal was to mimic a fake green card and have the image of the front men hidden since they go by different DJ names.

Second flyer was for a Thanksgiving show, they became such a huge hit after their debut we had some nice action shot of the guys. This time we put the whole band.

The newest flyer is for a New Year’s Day show. I figured lets work with their pics, do something shiny and classic looking. Bright lights with tints of purple and green for the theme of Green Card. Back to basics only using the front men.

We are thinking of using a similar style for their cd cover. Also side note – I have been using invoice bubble for my invoicing…LOVE IT! AND you can now add the official Mind-Speaks twitter over here.

This post was written by:

mijaMIJA VERA - (view all posts by Mija)
Mija has been a designer for the last 15 years. She is a paper obsessed fiend and loves working on new projects while listening to her kids and Maine Coon cat chatter around the house. You can email her at mija@mind-speaks.com