Crystal Madrilejos

Design & Creative

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Premiere Issues

“At heart, Premiere Issues is still a carefully curated and presented personal collection. We are still fascinated by the opening statements written by editors and publishers in the launch issue — amazed at the spirit of their voices and the wholehearted outpouring of their ideas and energy to create their vision.”

I stumbled upon this site the other day and really enjoyed looking through the archive. It’s interesting to see how the covers have evolved throughout the years.

Some personal favorites:

Dwell (notice how small the logo is, nowadays it’s ginormous)

Flaunt

GOOD (I love their logo)

Jane (Remember when women’s magazine covers looked like this?)

Radar (Hilarious cover image)

Raygun

Check out the site here.

–c.

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Boys’ Life

I’ve mentioned before all the cool things you can find in the thrift stores of Ohio. I’ve been on a lookout lately for old magazines. Here are some that I found, old issues of Boys’ Life from the 60’s.

–c.

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Babies

Andrew and I helped plan and design a baby shower this month. Congrats to Maria and PJ! They will be welcoming their first baby, Layla, in March.

Pads of paper of the games and raffle.

Games and raffle instructions.

Seating card and party favor.

Little hidden bird.

Close up of party favor. The eggs are M&M Premiums.



Seating card and party favor (with lid on for guests to take home).

Sewn wax paper bags for cookies.

Cookies for the guests to take home. Centerpieces were constructed by myself, Maria, PJ and Mariela. We used pre-made wooden birdhouses and, with heavy pieces of wire, attached them to small pieces of driftwood. The flowers were added by my mom and Maria.

–c.

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City



These Ork posters aren’t anything new, but I wanted to post about them because I’ve been considering getting one for awhile now. Jenny Beorkrem, a designer based in Chicago, created these city neigborhood posters “whilst searching for a Chicago neighborhood poster that wouldn’t cramp my style.” Love it.

Even though I no longer live in the NYC area I still want the Brooklyn one. If only there were a Cleveland one…HA!

Check them out on the Ork Poster site.

Truly,
Crystal

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The Final Countdown

We’re moving in 20 days!!! I still can hardly believe it and yet it’s all happening before my eyes. What hasn’t been happening is me sitting down in front of the computer to post about the million things that I’ve been wanting to post about.

First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and New Year.

Second, we’ve made so many things in the past couple months that I couldn’t possibly post all about them at once. Especially, since I’m sitting in my pajamas about to go to bed. I thought I should at least check in so no one thinks we’ve fallen off the face of the earth. Almost, but not yet.


A little while back, Andrew and I bought a new computer. The monitor is an enormous 24-inches! The screen is so big that it’s almost too bright to look at without squinting. It’s unbearable to have an all white desktop image. I’m a big fan of Nintendo, Super Mario especially so I found this tiny image of the opening screen of the first Super Mario:


I wanted this image to be our desktop image, but it’s super super tiny. I decided to employ my ever expanding Photoshop skills and create this:

It probably took a lot more time than it was worth, but I think it’s slightly hilarious and awesome nonetheless.

Next post: Handmade Presents – Birthdays and Holidays

Fondly,
Crystal


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This Is For That



If anyone is looking for Christmas presents in the form of beautiful, affordable art you should check out This Is For That over at etsy. A good friend of mine runs this shop and hand cuts all the decorative initials herself. It’s truly beautiful and a great personalized gift. I’ve been fortunate enough to see some of the stuff she plans on making and it’s super cool, so you should keep track of this lady!

Fondly,
Crystal

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List Post



I was planning on posting all day, but I got wrapped up in this: crystalmadrilejos.com which I’d been trying to get together FOREVER. This is my website for my design work if I ever want to try to get a new job, it’ll make things infinitely easier. There is still a crap load of stuff that I need to compile and photograph. It’s still in the works and many things are not as they should be, but hopefully I’ve gotten the ball rolling enough that I won’t be too overwhelmed.
So, what I had plans on posting about today were:

1. Christmas presents. I am going to make a concerted effort to make all my presents this year. It’s only been a few years that I’ve actually been able to afford to buy presents, but it seems to get more and more difficult to think of new things to buy for my friends and loved ones. I’ve made some gifts in the past that I was going to post about, which hopefully I’ll get to tomorrow.

2. Apartment photos. I’ve been meaning to do this one forever. The evolution of our apartment has been something that I take much pride in. One of these days… As for now, I’m totally beat and heading off to bed.

Fondly,
Crystal

oh! and P.S. The Golden Compass!! Love it! Everyone should go to the movie site and find out what their dæmon is too!

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Elephant Shoe

The past couple months I’ve been working in collaboration with Major Matt Mason and Dave End over at Olive Juice Music to put together a zine. I find it hard to believe that I hadn’t mentioned it up until this point, mainly because it was such a fun experience! To be honest, I’ve never actually made a zine but luckily I didn’t have to come up with the content. A bunch of artists and musicians centered around the OJ community contributed all the content and I was the one fortunate enough to put it all together. Andrew even proofread it! That might be against some sort of zine rule, but who cares? I design magazines for a living, and it was such a breath of fresh air to be able to work on something closer to my heart, but it’s still hard for me to put out something if it has spelling errors!
All the artists and writers who contributed are amazing, and I’m crossing my fingers that next time around even more people will want to grace it’s pages. As far as I know, the zines have only been circulated by hand at this point. But, I think, eventually the intention is to have them up for grabs through Olive Juice Music. But you should check out their site to be sure. Here are some more photos of the zine.

Fondly,
Crystal

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Cheese on Bread Tee!

YESSSSS!!!

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Mix Tape

Everyone at one point or another receives a mix tape or makes a mix tape for a friend or significant other. A few years ago, I decided to make a mix cd for my friend Brian F. for his birthday. I know this is a few years late, but it’s probably one of my favorite things that I’ve ever made. I was browsing through my iphoto and came across these pictures of said mix cd, that I’m sure I was planning on posting at some point. So finally here they are.

The brown thing with the initials is a case that I sewed to hold both slim-line cd cases. It’s made of felt with a vintage rick-rack stripe across the top. I embroidered his initals with yellow floss. I can’t remember what stitch I used, but I imagine it was something pretty basic since, as you can see, my embroidery skills are not top notch.

The covers for the cds are collages I made from old school workbooks that I found in my parents attic. Super seventies. I wish I had an image of the playlist because I can’t remember it off hand. If I remember correctly, it was all local NYC musician friends. Here are closer up detail shots.

Fondly,
Crystal