New Holiday Cards

After 7 years of pushing the same holiday cards, I finally got around to designing some new ones. They are now in the shop.


Dex even made it onto one of them. I think I need more practice drawing his mug though.

A few more holiday things to come before I really dig into working on "the book". Meow for now.

Hello Weekend!

Matt emailed me this image that he came across yesterday morning. I thought it was too cute not to share and it sets a light-hearted tone for the last weekend of the summer.

This week was semi-productive, but I never seem to get as much done as I would like. Things usually end up taking way longer than I estimate them to take.

My belly is definitely expanding quite easily these days. Sitting on my ass coupled with not leaving the house for a few days certainly helps its growth. All I can say is, thank goodness for drawstring pants.


Here's a peek at what I was working on for most of the latter part of this week.


I'd been toying with an owl and pussycat idea for some time now and it finally occurred to me to make a pattern out of the animal pair. Each critter will also be made into individual screens too and I'm excited to print them onto scarves, totes and other textiles.

I'm loving the new clever kitty, as I like to think of "her".

The owl took a bit more trial and error until I was finally satisfied with "him". Getting him to look as cute as the kitty was tricky, but I think they look good together now.
Another nice online surprise I got yesterday morning was discovering that one of my items is currently in an etsy gift guide. I think that's the first time I've been featured in one, that I've known of anyways.

Hope everyone else had a great week and has a happy weekend! Bye for now.

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.