IF - memories

I think some of the best childhood memories involve a favorite pet. This little spot illo is from a series I'm doing of kids and their pets. I'm still working on my "ethnic" kids for my portfolio, so I'm combining that work with this entry for IF and I'll post the rest of the series when I get them finished. We always had pets when I was growing up...we had a dauschund named Heidi, a bunch of cats (my favorite was Charlie) and we even had a turtle for awhile, which we named McHale, after the TV show, McHale's Navy. My Mom would let us have any pet we wanted except hampsters or guinea pigs. No rodents, she would say!

new holiday card designs

I finally did finish my new holiday card designs for my coffee themed greeting card line. Whew! I've been waiting to post them until they were up on my website and they are up, so here they are. I spent a lot of time fussing with these, probably more than I should have, but I'm happy with the results and I sure hope my customers are too!

It's hard to beleive that Christmas is only 4 months away! I don't know about you, but I think have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. It all started when I worked in Visual Merchandising (fancy name for Display) for a dept. store. Every year, I would work soooooo hard to get ready for the Holidays in the store, that by the time they came, I could care less. Even though I don't do that kind of work any more, I still do a lot of work with my greeting cards (which I'm not complaining about!) and around the house that it sometimes loses it's meaning and becomes "What else do I have to do before Christmas?," rather than enjoying it. This year, I hope to change that mindset and really enjoy it! So, fa la la. Hope you like the cards.

IF - routine

"Dogs have to have their daily routine, even if it's raining!"

For Illustration Friday this week...I'm working on adding some more diverse ethnic backgrounds of kids for my portfolio. I tend to always draw red-headed girls in pigtails or braids, so I'm branching out and trying new things and it feels good! It feels good to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone. I won't leave little red-haired girl forever, though. She still has my heart.

IF - detach

A quickie for IF this week...I couldn't stay away, even though I should be working on my holiday designs! Let's just say I did this on "my break". Hee hee!

Poor little girl, her dolly's arm detached from it's body! When my daughter was little, it seemed like I was always finding arms and legs from dolls in weird places around the house. She had a Ken doll whose head was always coming off! And of course, it was always "mommmmyyy!" and I had to come put his head back on. Those were the days...pretty soon she's gonna have real live Ken's coming over!

a muse is moving!

A Muse is moving to a new location in October and I just did a window display in the current location to let customers know about the move. Here's a pic of the moving van I created out of foamcore for the window. We were originally going to paint it red and white, then Linda had the idea of the polka dots and colors in teal and green, which are very A Muse-like. It was a brilliant idea on her part because it turned out so darn stinkin' cute! I added a few kraft paper wrapped boxes tied with twine, some extra spools of twine and a pair of scissors and that was all it needed. And of course, we had to have a chick driving the van...who else would be driving?

The new space is going to be fabulous! And it's only like a block and a half from my house. How sweet is that? It's not far physically from the current space, about 10 blocks, but it's a whole different feel as far as the neighborhood is concerned. (and that's a good thing)

IF - sail

I'm "recycling" an older image for this week's IF entry, for 2 reasons. (Don't ya love how you can use the word recycling to make posting an old image sound sorta cool?)

The first reason is that this illo is perfect for the theme. What says sail better than sailboats? Not exactly the most clever way to illustrate the word, I admit, but hey, they can't all be masterpieces!

The second reason is I have to , I mean HAVE TO! start working on my new holiday images for my greeting card line. Many of my customers start looking for their holiday cards in Sept. and here it is mid August and I've barely started on them! Yikes! Where does the time go...it's just that the last thing on my mind when it's 80 degrees out is the Holiday season. Can ya blame me?

IF - poof!

OK. I finally finished this for Illustration Friday, with the theme word - poof! Of course, I had to do the frog thing...I love painting kids and animals with crowns on their heads and who doesn't want to turn a frog into a handsome prince! At this point in my life, I'd rather turn him into a fist full of money, but that's another story. This little girl is aiming for the prince!

I dedicate this to the awesome ms. froggie, one of favorite blogging friends, whose words of encouragement and sound advice were much appreciated. Here's to you, froggie! and I really tried to do this with my wacom tablet, really I did!