Sometimes, you get to work on a dream project that makes everything you do in life make sense. That’s what happened when the Hallmark Baby team asked Hallmark Designer Tuesday S. to create illustrations for their spring collection. Tuesday S. talked to us about the inspiration behind her redonkulously cute baby animals for the Hallmark Baby Nature Babe collection (SPOILER ALERT: Her two little girls were big influences), and TBH nobody stopped smiling the whole time.
We love animals. We’re always bringing home random cats and frogs and bugs and…whatever. Varmints? They’re part of our daily life. Vivi (age 5) and I are equals in finding them. She finds frogs all summer. We were pulling up to a store, and I looked in the back seat and she was putting something in her purse and saying, “You stay in here and be quiet.” It was a frog. I let her take it in—but told her not to let him out.
The Hallmark Baby team asked me to do some unconventional baby animals for the spring collection—taking baby animals that aren’t considered cute and making them cute. Like an anteater, and an armadillo, which was so fun to draw.
I got to do raccoons. I love raccoons. I follow them on Instagram—I’m obsessed. They’re so cute with their little hands and their little bandit faces—and they’re adorable and ornery, like toddlers. Kids and raccoons fool you with their cuteness, but you know they’re up to mischief.
Again, varmints.
The team was really thoughtful about Hallmark Baby Nature Babe. They asked me to make the raccoons siblings, and think about the relationships between them. When our second kid came, I kinda felt like I was cheating on Vivi at first—you know, “Sorry! I’m gonna take away half of your attention!” Vivi still asks who I love more and maybe “Can we give Harlow away for awhile and just get her back later?” It kills me.
They kept sending me pictures of the way they used my baby animals on products. Being a designer, I always have to finish everything. Being an illustrator for this collection, I had so much fun seeing what they turned it into. They’re using really cool materials and embellishments—embroidery, little details that are really fantastic.
The collection is definitely quirky, which is the way I parent and aesthetically what I love. A praying mantis lived with us for three months. We kept trying to set him free—we’d hang out on the patio, but he’d crawl up our arms. He wanted to be our pet. We’re weirdos.
Photography by Kyndall D. and Jane K.