Saturday, February 28, 2009

Recent Purchases & Things That I'm Loving

I am loving these:


and these:
which I got from this lovely shop.

And I'm loving this:

dex-and-pink-hearts

and this:

clever-suki2
clever-suki

I know, I know.
I'm such a bad kitty mom, putting things on my kitties when they obviously don't appreciate it. But this is just payback for all those times that I've been woken up in the middle of the night or way too early in the morning by Dex meowing his head off, which then gets Suki rattled and they proceed to chase each other up and down the stairs...

You see? It's payback :)

Plus, I just thought they would look so much cuter modeled on the cats!

They are really for me, of course. I spoil the cats enough as it is, so from time to time I'll treat myself.

image from modern cat

And speaking of spoiling the cats, a recent customer mentioned this awesome site through which she found me. I'm flattered to be linked to such a great site devoted to "cat owners with a modern style."

Check out this image from a former blog post:


Now Matt is wanting to build something like that for the cats in our place. I told him, maybe we should think about treating ourselves to some new furniture/decorating before we go splurging on the cats.

I wasn't kidding when I said in one of my previous posts that I've been obsessed with decorating ideas lately. While Matt has been devoting much of his spare time this past week to building a new camera rig, I've been brainstorming on how to make the most of our living space.

sheer style

So I was thrilled to come across this book at a new bookstore in our hood yesterday. Lots of gorgeous photos to give me ideas of how to decorate and reconfigure our loft space. Open concept living can be tough when you have (a lot of) stuff that starts to

s p r e a d

all

over

the place!

Must be Spring fever. That, and I tend to like to rearrange furniture every 3-6 months or so. I always have.

I'll be back in a few days with photos of my work space and more.


Friday, February 27, 2009

Hi, weekend!


The week seems to have flown by. I can't believe it's the weekend again already. I swear that it was Tuesday, just yesterday. Time flies when you're having fun, I suppose.

Here are some sneak peeks of the things I worked on this past week and that will be hitting the shop in the next day or so.



I'm still working out the kinks of printing more than one colour for one image. It's something I hope to master at some point, but I haven't bothered to set up a proper registration system yet... which results in prints like this:


I think it looks a bit weird, but Matt says it's "arty", so maybe I can get away with it?

There's more stuff in the works, but no photos yet. The past few days have been so grey and overcast that I've been lucky to snap any decent photos. It's supposed to be sunny and cold the whole weekend, so I'm looking forward to staying in and being a busy bee as well as indulging in at least a few hot chocolates.

Happy Weekend to you!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

A Poppy Tee


The weekend was not as productive as I hoped it would be. I did list a new tee in the shop. The color is poppy.

Not poopy (in reference to my previous post).
lol

And I opened a new shop last week too. Not like I'm not on the internet enough already. That's one of the reasons why I didn't get as much stuff done. I spent way too much time "surfing" and obsessing over how to make our home better. Plus I actually sat down and watched the Oscars the other night, for the first time in a several years. Hugh Jackman was hosting, after all. That man is talented! And handsome.

Okay, off to do some work.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Seeing Past the Poop



Today has been one of those days. You know, the poopy kind. The kind of day that I want to tell the "Keep Calm and Carry On" mantra to shove it. The kind of day that you don't want others to know that you're having (but I'm sure a lot of us experience)... so why the heck am I writing about it?


Well, the point of this post is for me to see past the poop (which at this time of year, I literally have to do when I'm out walking). Focus on the positive. Keep Calm and Carry On!

See, I even made a cute poo illustration.

That's a positive.

It's also the first time I've used my watercolour palette in months!

Wow!


Basically, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Or Dex woke me up at 5 am... and it made me grumpy.


The short version of the story: I believe Dex is the devil incarnate in the wee hours of the morning and was prepared to take him back to the Humane Society, which conveniently is down the street from us.
I could never take Dex back to the Humane Society, but he certainly likes to test me.

The long version of the story is quite a bit longer and after rereading what I wrote, makes me seem a bit petty and heartless, so I'm going to omit it. I've gotta focus on seeing past the poop, after all.

The week had been going well.

Several sweet repeat customers - you know who you are - brightened the end of my week on etsy. These days it seems tough to make a sale, so I truly appreciate your business!

And despite the dismal economy, I've been fortunate enough to work part-time at a design firm down the street from us.

I was also rather productive with my own projects and have a bunch of new designs in the works. Here's a sneak peek of one of them:


I'm doing my best to stay focused for the rest of weekend, so I can finish all that I want to and hopefully get to printing some new tees and listing new items in the the shop next week.

How fitting though, that the toilet literally overflowed today. I'm not kidding :)

At least there was no poop... at least, I don't think there was. Matt had to deal with it.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

New Items in the Shop

striped pirate kitty scarf

Just a little product plug today. The weather outside makes it a purrfect day to be wearing this scarf. And it would transition into Spring very nicely.

Also new in the shop is this tee:


raspberry clever kitty flutter tee

And these stickers:


That's all for today! Ciao!

Monday, February 16, 2009

It's a Holiday (Again Already)!


Today is Family Day in (parts of) Canada. So our little "family" is enjoying a quiet day in after a lovely weekend together. Matt and I had planned on going grocery shopping but didn't realize that the store would be closed today. Oh well, we're making do with the stuff in our fridge and cupboards.

Hope everyone had a Happy Valentine's! Instead of exchanging material gifts this year, Matt and I spent the day on a photo expedition (which began last Fall on Nuit Blanche and Matt called it our "Love Walk") documenting all the apartments we've lived at since we've known each other. I'll have to post those photos on another day, but there's a sneak peek above and below.


We only took photos of the outside, so most of the places look a little sketchy. As the saying goes, "don't judge a book by its cover", but I think our previous digs certainly could label us as "starving artists". We've come a long way, baby!

We also stopped by Fresh Collective to drop off the goods I screen printed for my friends Tara and Kelly.
Tara happened to be in the midst of reorganizing her display and very generously bestowed me with a pair of beautiful cast-iron birds that she no longer had room for.
They are now sitting on a newly reorganized shelf in our kitchen where the microwave used to be. I really love how they look there among the glasses, etc.


The rest of Saturday was spent watching movies, dining on take-out and chocolate cake. A perfect day, really.

Now it's dinner time, so I best help my sweetie with it.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

See What I'm Talking About?


Here's a photo that relates to my previous post. I knew I had taken one of that wall in my work space. You can see where Dex spends most of his day and the stuffed animals that become his unwilling victims when we're away. I really want to paint that shelf white, but that's a project and post for another day.

Suki is doing better already, thanks to the antibiotics she's on. I should have opted to get the meds in pill form though since she was on the liquid form before and it's such a challenge to not wind up all scratched and bloody. Oh well.

Today's all about getting back on track with screen printing and more. I'll post some photos later this week, hopefully. Tah!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

I Could Use a Catnap!

Well so much for a quiet and productive weekend at home. I blogged too soon. We took Suki in to the emergency vet clinic this morning because I was concerned that she had another bladder infection. She'd been going pretty frequently last night, taking 3-4 minutes each time to go and not producing much pee. Then this morning, she went 8 times in the span of an hour and a half. Plus, she'd lick herself in her "you know where", afterwards. So as much as I wanted to avoid another emergency clinic visit, I also wanted to be sure that my little monkey was alright.

The doctor didn't seem to think it was too serious. Still, we opted to have her urine tested and will find out in a few days what's what. All the while we were out, I just knew Dex was probably wreaking havoc because he was home alone. He likes to knock things down from my bookshelf, specifically my stuffed toys, the little bugger.

But we're all pretty sleepy now. Especially after the grilled cheese, ham and turkey sandwich I made as an afternoon snack. Matt's off doing some camera tests, but I think I may just lie down for a bit.


zzzzzzzz

Saturday, February 7, 2009

It's a Quiet Weekend In for Us


Even though we're supposed to get 6 more weeks of winter, I've got a few new items that would be purrfect for Spring in my shop.


Today feels quite Spring-like in fact, with temperatures above zero and some drizzling. But I will probably spend the rest of the weekend mostly indoors screen printing some new offerings for a fellow designer and friend.

Matt and I did our socializing last weekend when we checked out this friend's art studio party. It was the first art party/opening we've gone to in years and both of us noticed how much the crowd has changed. That is, we didn't recognize anyone except for one guy who we seem to always see at these kinds of events. Needless to say, I felt a bit old.

But we enjoyed a yummy dinner of
gluten-free spaghetti, garlic bread and red wine courtesy of my friend, as well as some interesting conversation with her and her friend for several hours before heading to the party. And (no bias here), my friend's art was the "highlight of the show" in Matt's words and in my opinion too.

Here's my favourite piece of hers from the show:

I think this would make a great print. As would this piece, another favourite of mine (not from the show):

Isn't that image just the sweetest? I'm trying to convince her to make prints (so I can have one - hint hint, lol) since the original has already been sold. I think they'd definitely sell well on etsy! She said that her friend (who owns the original) probably wouldn't like the fact that she was making prints of this image. But hello, who owns the copyright? That's right. The artist!

What's your opinion on this?