And he puzzled and puzzled..

Merry Christmas everyone! 

I noticed yesterday that it's been over a month since I've blogged last (pathetic, I know).

I don't have many updates as I've been so busy this past month getting holiday orders out the door. 

Christmas is in 3 days! I think I'm ready. Just some wrapping left to do.. I hope.

I'll have a few shop updates at the beginning of the New Year. 

And maybe I won't even wait a full month to update my blog!

My favorite things..

One of my favorite features on other blogs are the "Favorite Things" posts. I love finding new ideas and products through them. I saw that 320* Sycamore was having a link party So I decided to join in!

1. Leg warmers for my little baby toddler! 

These ones are from my sister's tutu shop, Tootsie Tutu Shop. 

Leg warmers + a tutu for $28? Don't mind if I do!

2. Biosilk by Farouk. Like liquid gold, only better. 

This stuff takes the frizz out and helps straighten and silken hair. 

I've been using it for years and I love it!

3. Kate Spade 2011 Desktop Calendar. 

Simple yet stylish monthly planner. 

And the illustrations by Jenny Bowers are to die for! 

I love anything Kate Spade.

4. My 20 month old loves to wear my shoes so when I saw this book I knew we had to have it. 

Fun & short story. 

Super adorable illustrations.

5. The Blob Brush Tool in Illustrator. My new BFF. 

If you are an Adobe Illustrator user, especially using a tablet, you have got to get acquainted with this tool. And pronto. You won't be sorry you did.

Join the party over at *320 Sycamore!

Special coupon for blog readers!

I was so happy to hear this week that Etsy is releasing the coupon code feature on the site. Mine has been activated so I thought I'd share a coupon code with my blog readers. 10% off until the end of November! Use blog11 during checkout.

Coupon is now expired. Click here to visit our Facebook page for our latest promotions.

Give Thanks

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is right around the corner. This year has gone by SO fast!
I put together this short list of Etsy finds to help you get prepare for the festivities!

Home Organizer by OldNewAgain, $42

Give Thanks Banner by BekahJennings, $20

foxfun print by schalle, $25

Miss Penelope Headband by sunshineandcarousels, $16

Sew much fun!

For Christmas, I asked for this:

 And Santa delivered early! And he didn't wrap it either.. in fact it was setup just like that right on the table. Yep, that's the story that I'm sticking to. So I got right to work and sewed this!

Ahh! I'm so proud! I only had to unstitch it once. I really considered leaving the ears off. But I'm glad I fixed it. The only part I'm not sure about (besides the crooked sewing and doing the ears wrong even after my messup) is the embroidered eyes/nose. The pattern didn't really explain how to do it so I just winged it. I think it works for this little fox but I'm definitely going to need to practice that one.

If anyone is curious, I got the pattern from Bit of Whimsy Dolls. I got a couple of others too so I'll be fabric shopping this week!

Anyone know about any good sewing tutorials/blogs out there?

Update!

Ahh! I'm such a slacker! I haven't updated my blog in forever! And.. as far as my goal goes.. I fell way short but that's ok! I'm working on quite a few new designs, got quite a few listed in the shop, did several large custom designs & got some things completed around the house that needed it. Here is what we have been up to..

Christmas is coming up really quick so I'll be adding some new designs to the shop in the next week or two. I'm excited about those!

Here is a sneak peek on a new design that I've been working on over the last couple of days..

I finally completed part of the decals for my daughter's room & got them put up yesterday.. we love the way they turned out!

Other shots from her bedroom..

Her room is not quite finished but we love how it has turned out so far!

The biggest goal, ever!

I've set a HUGE goal. I mean ginormous. Like out-of-this-world kind of goal. Ready for it?

Okay, so here it is...

30 new designs in 37 days..

That's a lot of new designs but I can do it! I've been needing to get some new listings in the shop so now is the perfect time. They may be completely new designs, variations of old designs.. wall quotes, childrens wall decals, modern wall decals.. anything!

This goes along with another goal I have which is to lose weight! I've got to get that baby weight off (okay baby-ish weight, she is 19 months old now) but if you are anything like me you can look at a cupcake and gain 5 pounds. Both goals are set to end on the same day. Smart? I'm not sure but we will see!

I've already gotten a head start today and put 2 variations of my favorite tree in the shop. I'm loving the tree with the butterflies and plan to do that one in my little girls room.. Hmm maybe I should set a goal to get that done too!

Woodland Friends Tree Vinyl Wall Decal, $85

 

Tree with birds and fawn Vinyl Wall Decal, $80

P.S. I'm only 3 sales away from 1000 in my Etsy shop. So so excited!

Organization & goals!

Being organized is not something I'm good at. I want to be good at it. I really really do. Sooooo, I set a goal to get better organized when it comes to my design studio and this is the first thing that I came up with..

Ta-dum! It's not quite done. I originally wanted more paper airplanes to go around it.. but now I'm thinking I want to add a quote instead.. we shall see! The words along the top say "low", "order" & "inventory". This will help me keep track of what colors I have on hand and what I need to order. I like it already! This thing is huge, like 45" across. And I put it up all by myself. And no, it is NOT crooked and I would never strategically place a paper airplane to make it looked balanced. Give me some credit!

P.S. I set another goal (go me!) to be a better blogger. So I have to be now that I have set a goal. Isn't that how it works?

New Wall Decals!

$15

$24

$15

Random Projects

I've been working on a couple of projects around the house & I'm pretty happy with the way they've turned out. I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't take pictures throughout the process. Darn it!

I bought this knife block from Sam's Club and wasn't impressed with the color of the wood block. So I spray painted it black, distressed the edges but it still needed something more. I'm redecorating my kitchen in a vintage-y farmhouse look so I came up with the cow cuts logo to stick on the front of it. I think it turned out cute!

The plate is from Wal-mart and I think I paid a couple of dollars for it. It used to be white with a black 6 decal but I spray painted it black too (I have lots of black accents in my kitchen) and removed the 6 so that the white would show through. The jar is from Ikea, the grater was just something I had and the apple was a yard sale find.

I fell in love with this butterfly collage from Ali Edwards. So I thought I'd make my own. I bought a frame from Ikea, a butterfly punch from Amazon.com (Martha Stewart Classic Butterfly Punch) and some scrapbook paper that I liked. I also punched some butterflies with text from an old catalog and bought some glittery scrapbook paper. I'm in love! It turned out just the way I was hoping it would. Luckily, considering I probably spent 5 hours working on this thing. No joke.

Busy Bee!

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's been so busy the last couple of weeks! Does anyone else see something you really like and instead of buying it you just decide that you can make it yourself? That's TOTALLY me. I have so many projects that I need to finish and a million more I want to start. We are also redecorating my little one's room & it's going to be SO cute. I'll share pictures once it's done which seems forever away so don't get your hopes up! :)

In the meantime, here is a blog that I came across recently that I L-O-V-E. Such a wonderful blog with lots of fun tutorials! I "wasted" an entire afternoon browsing this blog one day.
http://brownpaper--packages.blogspot.com/

Happy Reading!

Adobe Illustrator - My favorite tools

Here is a little peek into my design studio. I'm creating this new tree for the shop and thought I'd share a little bit about how I create my trees. All of my designs are created in Adobe Illustrator. CS5 has some awesome new features but my favorite is the Width Tool.

Here is how I create branches:

First I create a line using the Pen Tool.

Then I select the Width Tool and then click on one of the ends and drag it outwards. It widens the line keeping both sides symmetrical.

This shows where both of those tools are on the Illustrator tool bar..

(the arrows are a new little feature of CS5 too :)

I then just continue with all of my branches. And then I start adding the leaves. I will end up adding more branches as I see fit once I have some more leaves in there.

Ta-dum! Not too hard! And there you have it. The easiest way to create branches AND a sneak peek into my newest design. And back to work I go!

The Tweetest Finds

There are so many wonderful shops on Etsy. I'm inspired by so many of them.

Here is a list of some of my favorite Etsy sellers. I've purchased something from each of these shops & thought I'd share. Hope you enjoy! :)

matilou
I love this print. It's the one that I own.

orglamix
Beautiful, sparkly and vibrant mineral makeup.
It is pretty much the only eye shadow that I wear anymore. It really does go on as bright as it is in the pictures, especially if you wear an eye primer.

brokesy
This case keeps my Macbook Pro so happy! The quality of this case is amazing and the seller is a breeze to work with.


humblebea
This one is really close to the own I own. I keep it in my curio cabinet. Love love it!

Picture of the day..

I LOVE rainbows! This picture was taken last Saturday after a rain storm. The picture was taken through a car window, while driving (my husband was driving, I was a passenger :) and it was taken form a cell phone. Still turned out nice, right? Thank goodness for photoshop!

New Designs!

Here are some of my newest designs. Sometimes I feel really creative.. and other times I don't. Right now is a creative time and I've been on a roll. I really need to work on some modern home designs, but mostly everything I feel like doing is more for a child's room. I really love working on kid designs :)

The sketchbook is here!

I received my sketchbook in the mail today. All nice and new, blank pages and all. It's a little bit intimidating to start this project but at the same time I look forward to something new. I'm used to working on the computer so it will be good to get back to the basics. I've always loved to draw & paint. Sometimes I'll sketch out designs before I illustrate them on the computer, but not as much as I should be doing.

Each sketchbook has a theme and mine is "A day in the life". I have some ideas brewing up for my sketchbook and I promise I'll share pages as I go along. Scouts honor!

A whale of a toilet..

So as I mentioned before (at least I think I mentioned) I am redecorating our main bathroom. I've chosen a nautical-ish theme. I'm going for a nice clean design but make it fun still considering I have a 1 year old. I came up with this whale design for some vinyl decals for the toilet (toilets deserve love too, right?)

It's not the best picture in the world but it will have to do.


I haven't decided if I am going to list this in the shop or not.. what do you think? Maybe I'm a nutter and other people would never put decals on their toilets. It really doesn't have to be for a toilet. Wouldn't they be fun on a dresser? Let me know what you think!

Seashell Letter II

A couple of weeks ago I showed you a tutorial to make a seashell letter. I really love the way it turned out but after looking at it for a couple of days, I realized that I didn't love all the different colors in it.

So crossing my fingers, I broke out a can of white spray paint and hoped for the best. Sorry, I didn't take new pictures throughout the process because I really expected a disaster and I had no idea what I was going to do. First I sprayed the enter thing white. 3 coats later, I took a metallic champagne acrylic paint and a metallic white pearl acrylic paint and picked out individual shells to paint. I left some of the shells a flat white for added dimension. And the results..


Much much better! If I had a beach nearby I could have picked out my own shells (saving me lots of trouble.) Overall this project cost me less then $10 dollars, including the letter, shells, spray paint and acrylic paint.

Here was the before picture:

Urban Farmgirl Giveaway

I am so into reading blogs lately. I find a new one just about every day to add to my list. Recently I stumbled across the Urban Farmgirl blog and I just love it! If you head over to this post, you can enter to win a $50 gift certificate to whiteflowerfarmhouse.com.

What blogs inspire you lately?

10 things you may not know about me..

1. I'm a mommy. Being a mom is the best because you can play all day and not feel silly when people are looking :)

2. I never imagined that I'd grow up to be an artist. I mean, every kid dreams of drawing/coloring for the rest of their life but I really lucked out.

3. I don't like writing. It doesn't come naturally to me.

4. I love polka dots, ruffles, bows & pink. Everything girly. I have no shame!

5. I have 2 dogs and one is seriously the worst dog in the world. I don't know what I would do without her, except possess more shoes.

6. I have a sweet tooth. I seriously think I could live on chocolate. No joke.

7. I love to read. There is nothing like relaxing with a nice warm blanket and a good book.

8. I'm a dreamer. I live for the future. I'm inspired by the world.

9. I eat pizza starting with the crust and read magazines starting from the back. I know, I know. I'm a real trendsetter.

10. My crafting goals for this year are to learn to knit, sew and crochet. In that order. I kind of know how to sew and crochet but knitting will be a whole new experience.

There you have it!

This post was inspired by this post by maedchenmitherz, love her blog!