It was too hot.

Too hot to blog. Too hot to live.

Sure its an excuse, but life sucks when its hot. Plus a repairman broke my freaking door. See? Valid excuse for not blogging. (heh heh...)

So I finally got a new bookmark in the shop...

Choose...

Its a dual sided bookmark, with white wings on one side, and black on the other.

The bookmark has the word "Choose..." on the bottom of both sides. I didn't want to label black or white, because who knows who the real good guy is on any given day.

I worked on this image first a a pin set, the idea of the wings being the pins. I actually have the sets completed, and they are ready to go, just need to 'shop the pictures. Might have to wait until tomorrow.

Just for fun, here is the sketch it came from (its a Photobooth image)

Looks the same essentially! Haha I was sketching some ideas, but once I scribbled this one down I was like "Thats it!"

So tomorrow the pins sets will be posted. I am thinking of trying to do a few new pin sets in the upcoming weeks. I have retired older sets over the years and my pins section is getting sparse. :-)

Thanks for looking!

New on Thursday

I am super lucky, and was chosen to be interviewed on a blog!

To check out my interview, go on over to To Paraphrase, or click here to go right to my interview...

Its always nice to have someone be interested in your work, especially other artists. (And especially ones who understand when you take forever to do the interview!) I think she made me look good, choosing really nice images of my work. Thanks so much!!

Also new today, added a item to the shop.

Meghan is now a bookmark!

I worked on how to crop this painting for quite some time, trying many different shapes. I think the slender oval with a border suits the image and I am very happy with how it came out. And the glossy lamination really makes the colours look rich. :-)

Its so close to Halloween I am vibrating with spooky happiness. I started making cookies (multiple kinds!) and I might get to visit with foster kitties on Halloween too. *Plus* I might even get to go to Ikea to feed my buying-jars-to-put-baking-ingredients-in fetish. Busy!!

New black things...

New things in my shop this week...

Glittery bat! A hanging clay bat covered in the finest black glitter. He has little orange glitter eyes too. Black glitter is EVERYWHERE!

Glittery Coffin! This little clay coffin has both silver and black glitter. Its really quite tiny in real life.

And this new Bad Black Cat Bookmark. I had another black cat bookmark, but since that has been sent off to blackforestcake, I thought I needed another one. This one is a bit more of an evil little black cat. Not that black cats are ever evil. No. Never....

I have a few more things that I am editing photographs for too!

Spring!

Its so sunny and bright outside and little squirrels and birdies are squeaking to each other outside my window. So cheery!

So of course the item I made is the complete opposite. Bloooood! Ok, its only a teeny, tiny drip of blood. Hardly even visible unless you look.

This bookmark is possibly the MOST annoying item I have ever produced for my shop.

I fought tooth and nail to make these. My laminator ate some, and the rest were plagued with fuzzies and lumps and bumps. I have a HUGE stack of them that are unsellable. Depending on how long my memories of the rage that I felt trying to make these things, they might not ever be made again.

The junk.The success.
After these photos were taken I tried to make more and failed miserably again! The failure pile is a mile high! Plus I look like a dork.

I will definitely use the bookmark image for something else though. I have plans for it.

Its a productive day, with grocery shopping, photographing new items, laser printing (new printer!) and buying Nine Inch Nails tickets for June. I am working on stationary sets this afternoon, so hopefully they will be available some time this week. Should probably keep moving before my Monday-steam runs out....

Anita Blake!

The Anita Blake painting I have been posting progress shots of is finished...

I am not gonna lie, there is some digital cut and paste going on here. Her shrunken body was enlarged. I know a lady isn't supposed to share secrets like that, but it was pretty bad, so I must confess.

I actually like it quite a bit. You have no idea how scary splattering blood on it was though! Its could have ruined it so easily. That monster behind her isn't supposed to be anything in particular. There are a billion supernatural things in the books I could have done, but that would have taken research, and I am lazy. I wussed out at adding arm scars (the character has a lot of them in the books) but only hardcore geeks would know that right?

I made bookmarks with it! It seemed like the logical. They have a blood red back to them. So appropriate. I am probably going to have it as a print in my Etsy shop too. But later.

Most selfish painting ever. haha.

NOW!

I am in NOW this week!

Now is an independent free weekly news and entertainment newspaper that pretty much one trillion Toronto people read on the subway every Thursday. Its basically the perfect audience for people like me. Its an "Authors Fest" issue and my little bookmark got chosen!

Hello little cat!

Here is a link to the web version of the little article. I like it that my name got into the little blurb at the top. Not too shabby.

So that is fun. Its pretty much what I expected when I was contacted by the fashion reporter. Its teeny tiny but its still in print. I tried so hard to pitch the "Book Vampire" one to him! Ugh, doesn't anyone like vampires?! ;-) haha

So HI NOW READERS!! If any of you manage to trickle this far I am going to celebrate by getting myself a present. Or if none of you do, I get a present. I basically just get a present.

The weekend starts...

I love to use older images to make things.

Its not laziness, its the thought that someone may like an image, but may not want the item its on. You may remember that I made some dry erase boards, and one had a vampire girl and cat on it. I chopped it up and made a bookmark!

Book Vampire!!

I personally have a real problem with chewing through books. I like to read them in huge chunks and then they are gone and I am bookless again. Now that isn't that big of a deal really, except, I HATE choosing a new book to read. I often make my dude do it for me, which he is awesome at. He doesn't even mind buying me totally girly books with embarrassing portrait of frontier women on them.

Now I have the perfect bookmark to continue with my current huge, long, guilty pleasure series of books with vampires running around in them. Haha.

Going to a wedding this weekend. And newsflash, my dress isn't even black. I am shocked as you are. But my gift has a black bow on it. 50 goth points for me. I am setting a goal to take 300 pictures over the weekend, as I always get lazy when I visit my family. None of them will be from the wedding. Haha.

Brain Vacation

I didn't go anywhere, but my brain did.

I just haven't been in the mood to make things, and when that happens, you just gotta go with it. Forcing yourself to "be creative" or whatever you call it, makes you hate making things. And thats no fun. It always passes.

Then I finally managed to make these dudes...

Batcat bookmarks! (Yes, more Batcat Bookmarks...)

I wish you could buy your own stuff and somehow make a living that way. I love this little design, and would pay money for it. Too bad I have to ask other people to pay money for it...


His tail is a soft and nubbly acrylic yarn, which was hard to photograph. I love it to bits. maybe I should learn to knit so I can buy yarn more often.

So aside from organizing supplies, making zucchini muffins and cursing my dashboard widget for showing me only cold temperatures, I have been completely useless the past week or so. Is there any way I can write those off as "personal days" or something. Normal people get them, I should too.

Wait, does looking at Flickr count as shop promotion? Scratch this entry, I am a workaholic.

New Toy!

Now...What else can I laminate?A laminating machine is fun, even if you are not in kindergarden.

I have a bunch of ideas of things to laminate, and I guess I will have to get moving on them so I can Hurry up an play with my new machine!

The above photo is a set of five bookmarks that I am going to be adding to the shop shortly. There are five different "Batcats and Books" themed illustrations. The paintings were super tiny! They were all about 3 or 4 inches tall in real life. I did them all on one big piece of illustration board for some reason and it was a pain in the bum.

I am going to make myself a fake ID now.