So… very… tired.

I’m celebrating by stuffing my face with my favorite Chinese food, watching Battle Star and writing this post.  These guys are celebrating too! Loved painting this duo! So cute!

Here it is my 100 post! I’ll make good use of it to introduce you to this little bear-bear. Just completed sketches for this little e-book. It’s a super-sweet story that I fell in love with right away. I can’t wait to share it… guess I better get painting! Good timing too because I just finished all the heavy-duty landscaping around my money pit. The only thing left on my list of things to do out there (this year) is drain the ‘mosquito farm’ The Carnies before us put in the back yard. I’m sure it was a lovely koi pond when it was first installed; but now it is an ugly wound in my beautiful yard that I have to put up with for the rest of the spring rainy season. Once the spring rains calm down and the sun comes out in a few weeks it will be ‘adios wet lands’ and most likely ‘hello e-book!’ I’ll post a sneak-a-peek once the paintings are handed in and all is good to go.

Hoot & Howl Collection

Flutter Bugs – Bees

Flutter Bugs – Lady Bugs

Tulle, lace, and Peter Pan Collars! Oh my!

My first house.. a fixer-upper

Over 1400 square feet of canvas. I’ve always wanted to flip an old house and with a lot of patience, a Mass Housing loan, and a hell of a realtor I finally found my first place. It’s funny to see this photo (taken in Mayafter being vacant for 2 years) because I’ve been living in the house since October and have since done so much work. It already looks so different. About 80% of the work I’ve done so far has been in the yard (about a quarter acre). It was so over grown I couldn’t open the garage doors or the back fence completely. Large weeds from a few years ago had turned into trees and thus became an excuse for me to buy my very own chainsaw. What was once probably a very impressive rose garden had become a briar patch of death and it wasn’t until the dense thorns were cut back all the way did I realize that the garage had large, side windows. Needless to say I’m exhausted and scratched.
Finally, just in time for Christmas, I have a well plotted out yard and even a few manicured areas were the flower and fruit trees are. I really wanted to detail everything and take lots of photos as I worked but for several reasons it didn’t work out.. first of all there was just too much work to do in order to make the place habitable and comfortable. Second, my computer has since crossed over into the light. I wanted to be sure there was no way I could zombie it back to life before buying a new one so I have been unable to document all the fun things I’ve been fixing, cleaning and finding in the place. The day I purchased the home it didn’t have a single working toilet or hot water. The roof leaked and there wear squirrels living in the basement. Do you know what a condenser pump is? Neither did I until October when I installed one. I’m learning so much as I go and I’m excited to share more now that things are finally getting safe, clean, and well… home-y. This place has a lot of potential and now that the major issues are fixed I can finally move on to the fun, creative improvements.

The PetEdge Fall Prebook has been in mailboxes for a few days now which means its time to share. These last few items are the last of what’s coming out from them till February.

When February does roll around I’ll have quite a nice set of collections that should be released along with a few other fun bits and bobs. Fun bandannas and cute shaped toys.. yeah!

Got to spend the day yesterday at Surtex in New York! So wonderful!  Hopefully I’ll get to go again next year. If so I’d want to go down a day earlier to avoid the flying twice in one day. Going to the show in two waves may not be a bad idea either.  There is just so much to see.
I was surprised how much detail and flair the illustrators, designers, and studios decorated their booths. Just looking at the hundreds of beautiful, bright booths is enough to make your knees weak;  but then if you stop and look at portfolios you may find 20 minutes getting away from you. Though no time wasted.  Every where you look there is inspiration and upcoming trends invading your eyes no matter what you do.

But not much I can show! I’ve been having so much fun creating new product designs and textile illustrations for PetEdge; but as of right now it won’t be till June/July that I can actually show some of the things I worked on for the past year…

sigh..

As it is, everything I worked on this past month is for release a year from now. You’ll just have to take my work for it that everything is super cute, trendy, and just plain adorable when transformed into production samples.

I took a look at updating my website to show what I can; but there’s still so many blank spaces. By June/July there will be enough so I’m aiming for an upload date in early July. In the meantime I’m going to continue working on The Singing Butler master copy in-between  illos. I may try my hand at creating some more games as well.