I found this via Modeco blog today. FREE DOWNLOAD among other great prints. Just download it, print it and hang it in your kitchen when your brain gets in over-drive. Live simply.
**And thanks for all your great comments about the wall art below! Speaking of FREE downloads...I will be posting the animal templates to my blog in the next bit so you can make your own art galleries. Be watching!
We paint and make things a lot around these parts. I love watching my little artists have at it. But after a while, I started to wonder what in the world I was supposed to do with all their art pieces. Too many to save, but not any room to put them. There are plenty of ideas I have found about storing your children's art, but I really wanted to showcase it. Here is what we came up with.
We continued the art project by turning the art time into craft time. I drew basic animal shapes on a piece of paper, and cut them out to be a template. Then I placed them on the poster board (making sure to find the most interesting parts of the art) and cut then cut out around the paper template. (The bird print is actually a collage of the art paper, cut into random shapes, glued down on a paper, and then cut into a shape...very Eric Carle-ish.) The kids helped me glue the cut out animal shapes to white paper, place them in an IKEA frame, and VIOLA! Instant art. Pleasing for me and for the kids. I can't wait to make more!
**EDIT: And yes, I am VERY aware that the bird template is a swallow, not a sparrow. This only goes to show the state of mind a mother can be in when she has her 2 toddlers crawling on her while doing art projects! I could go in and change this posted picture, but instead, let it stand as proof that I am mother and often make silly mistakes at the expense of justgetting projects finished in time to please excited little ones!
I don't have a lot of pictures of flowers on my blog. I am realizing the lack of spring colors right now, and frankly, I am needing some spring color, so indulge me here. Spring flowers. Spring air. Spring greens. Oh...Spring...come quickly! In the mean time, Amy Butler is my fix right now. I am aching to bring freshness and color into my home right now...so enjoy the eye candy...and maybe, just maybe, Spring will come quicker than we think!
xoxo
Happy Friday Everyone!
I am a super-hero...and today I shall save the world with my cuteness.
PS: if you haven't heard the latest word: Sheye Rosemeyer is finally selling her Photography actions here. Oh happy day!!
There are so many different ways to promote your business in this day and age. Too many ways it seems. But making a clever video and accessing the audience on YOU TUBE is a super smart way to go. Check out this music video from Nichole of Little Brown Pen. Has me re-thinking the way I use social media.
Nichole Robertson's arsty shop video
Ok. Aren't you seriously inspired? I met Nichole on TWITTER and fell in love with her ETSY shop and her BLOG. Nichole is an American living in Paris, and sells PDF's which is brilliant...I am thinking of all the paper I cut and print each day and am thinking she has it good!
In the mean time, check out her shop: darling, darling.
And for a trip to Paris in February, visit her AMAZING blog: you will feel like you are there.
Have any of you used video to promote your shop? Thanks Nichole for getting me to think outside the box!
I came across a new ETSY shop this week: Jack and Izzy. I am a sucker for good clean stationery and this shop has just that! She has only been open a week, and I am already eying her Birth announcements. Aren't they darling? And she has totally inspired me to improve my own product photography...so important! I just love her shop!
I am on a stationery kick right now...expect to see more inspiration and even some new stationery in the shop very soon!
And THANK YOU for all your well wishes on my first book! You are so wonderful and supportive...I can't thank you enough!
I have kept a little secret for a bit here. I have been doing a lot of illustrating...but instead of for the shop, it has been for my first book! I just got word yesterday that it has been sent to the printers, so it is official!
Here it is!
Full of Life: Mom-to-Mom tips I wish someone had told me when I was pregnant
Written by Nancy O'Dell
illustrated by Sarah Jane Wright
Published by Simon & Schuster
On shelves April 09, 2009
I have goosebumps all over. I haven't been able to say anything for so long, and it feels so great to finally get this out in the open! Nancy Singer contacted me a while back about working on a pregnancy book, and by December it was official. Nancy O'Dell, the ever popular celebrity icon of Access Hollywood had her first baby over a year ago, and decided to write a book about pregnancy including all the bits no one seems to be writing about. Mom-to-Mom tips she calls it. She has done a great job!
I was committed to illustrating this book long before I knew the author. And then to find out that the author was a huge celebrity...and that I needed to make the illustrations look like her...I knew I was in for a fun adventure. The editors needed black and white chapter headings with a few icons along the way and I had a great time working together with them on the project. I will say, that illustrating a REAL person forced me out of my own personal style a bit (no generic vintage faces here!) But I am glad. I learned a lot a long the way!
I am sold on the author/illustration business. I love designing new products, but book illustration is so amazing...especially when working with a fantastic group of people...all passionate about what they do. I can't tell you how invigorating it was to get emails first thing in the morning from NYC with tips and corrections that would steer the ultimate vision for the layout. Soon I hope to get more into illustrating children's books, but until then, I feel really grateful to put my name on a fantastic publication. Thank you Simon and Schuster for giving me my first chance in the industry!
I feel a huge sense of relief that this is all over with. It was a fantastic experience to be illustrating this pregnant woman while I myself was feeling my own baby kick in side me. I had a huge connection to the material which was so magical! (although, depressing at times to think that there are people in the world that DO look that beautiful when 9 months pregnant!)
It sure wasn't easy, but it was a wonderful challenge! Note to self: DO NOT...and I repeat...DO NOT illustrate a book while throwing up and pregnant, packing up and moving your home, catching walking-pneumonia, taking care of sick children, moving into a new home or over the Christmas holiday. Oh boy. I think I will try and avoid that next time! In this case, miracles happened and now a life long dream of mine has come true....
I am a published illustrator!
(You can see the book online here.)
Small Magazine came out today! Horray!
Another season of Fab finds, art, and photography for the small ones.