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!

IF - canned

Remember making a "phone" out of some tin cans and string? This is the 1st thing I thought of when I saw the word to illustrate for this week was "canned" over at Illustration Friday. The 2nd thing I thought of was getting "canned" from a job and this idea was way more fun, so here it is! Do kids today even do things like this?...I think they just want the real thing! My daughter started asking for her own cell phone when she was like 10! No tin cans for this generation!

(click on image for a bigger view)

A Muse - New Holiday Images

A Muse has just released their newest holiday images and I always like to share my favorites of the ones I design for each release. My favs for the Holiday release are the Winterboy and Wintergirl. I just think they are soooo darn cute! I hope all the A Muse addicts out there think so too and they sell really well! For those of you who don't know A Muse, they make rubber stamps and other supplies for paper crafting (making handmade cards, scrapbooking etc.) These little cuties are rubber stamps.

The new release will be available on the A Muse website when they launch their NEW e-commerce site in a couple of weeks. Until then, you can order them via fax, phone or email.

aw, shucks...an award!

The incredibly talented illustrator and all-around super nice person, Andi Butler, has given me this "you are too sweet" award! I'm so honored! It's not everyday you get an award, ya know! She just wanted to say thanks to all her blogger friends, who have helped pick her up in her down moments and shared her successes in her up moments. What a cool thing to do! I know that connecting with other artists and illustrators through blogging and the IF challenges has really made a difference in my life, so here's a HUGE thank you to all of my cyber friends, too! You are all "too sweet"!

IF - enough

For Illustration Friday this week: This Mom has had ENOUGH! Oh, yeah...I remember those days! Thankfully, my kids are older now and I don't have issues like this anymore, but of course, they have been replaced with other issues. Like last night, my 14 year old daugther asked us if we were going to buy her a car for her 16th birthday! Yikers!

IF - foggy

"Even though Josh's snorkeling goggles were foggy, he still found this really cool starfish!"

I'm finding it's hard to spend a lot of time on IF challenges in the summertime...it's just too nice outside to spend a lot of time on the computer! I managed to do this one...not my best work, but kinda, sorta fun. Ya think?

new coffee designs

I thought I'd share with all my blogger friends the latest designs I've created for my coffee themed greeting card line, n7 designs. There are (obviously!) 2 new anniversary images and 2 new birthday images. I'm quite pleased with how these turned out. I combined my love of collage with my love of working digital in Photoshop and they all have a scrapbooky/handmade card kind of feel to them, which I don't do, but I greatly admire those who do it well! You know who you are...all you crafty friends of mine from A Muse! And for all my Starbucks coffee loving friends...these are for you!