I know, I know… Long time, no post. Needless to say things have been a bit crazy, but overall in a very good way. Some recent developments include house-hunting, children’s book reading, and general everyday goodness.  I’m honestly thinking about shifting the perspective of this blog a bit to something a bit more “review” oriented… Idunno, just things I’m thinking about. I really do love blogging and have missed it since my creative juices have temporarily dried up.

Anyway,  the other day I decided to let myself indulge in a little bit of jewelry. I don’t usually wear anything but my wedding ring, but I love necklaces and have been looking for one that will suit my daily  needs while also looking kind of fun and vintage. I found Citizen Fox on Etsy and snapped up this gorgeous apple necklace without hesitation.

Get this–it was only $10!!! What a steal. It’s unique, vintage, and ever-so-adorable. I’m not sure why I wanted to wear an apple every day. Somehow it makes me think of fairy tales, spring, and how nice life is.

I’ll be the first to tell you that I am a huge fan of classic marshmallow Peeps as a year-round delicacy, though I tend to enjoy them mostly during holidays like Easter. Unfortunately, it kept slipping my mind to run out and grab a box or three during the week. And not being one who relishes crowds of frantic shoppers, I steered clear from stores this weekend.

Today my husband had to drop by the local megastore to get some dog food and called me on the way home. I asked if he had bought me some Peeps while he was there. “No,” he said.

I spent a few minutes teasing him about how thoughtful he used to be before we got married last May then started to ponder whether or not I was brave enough to venture out and hunt for some Peeps. Then the husband came home and gleefully presented the super-awesome marshmallow goodies he had bought me. It’s basically a gigantic version of a Peep.

It’s like they took a Peep and put it under a crazy ray gun (like in Honey I Blew Up the Kid). Truly amazing.

I must admit that it doesn’t necessarily have that unique Peep taste–the marshmallow has a different consistency and a more pronounced vanilla flavor, plus the sugar crystals are a little bigger than those on Peeps–but overall a very cool substitute.

I was always aware that vendors on Etsy sometimes do fun trades with one another, kind of like a bartering system. I had never done one before until recently when I was contacted by Patty, the wonderful lady behind Pixie Soap.

I’m so darn glad that my very first trade went well. I was a little confused about how the entire process could go, but luckily Patty was very helpful. I traded several of the Grateful Panda Notepads for one big bar of yummy Cocoa Crazy Soap and a cute handmade pine soap dish. In case you’re wondering… those are real globs of cocoa stirred all through this soap. The smell is amazing.

I’ve been using the soap for the last two days and all I can say is, WOW! I’m a chocolate lover as well as a soap-addict so I knew that this soap would be one of my faves but its rich smell and smooth texture really make me look forward to bath time. Patty uses a ton of wonderful oils in her handmade soaps so your skin comes out with a light chocolate scent as well as a very luxurious feeling. Sounds weird, but I can’t wait to finish this lovely bar of soap so I can have a good excuse to buy more and experiment with other flavors.

First of all, apologies for my recent lack of posts. I’m really going to try and keep myself on a kind of semi-regular posting schedule, though the main problem hasn’t really been not having enough time but rather not having anything to post about. Generally I like to post about what I’m doing today in terms of design or in terms of business. Lately, I haven’t really been terribly focused on either of those.

There are two reasons: first, I started working full-time and I’m a wee bit more tired than I used to be; second, I’m at a bit of a crossroads in terms of what I want to produce. I love the journals and prints (and always will) but I’m starting to poke my nose around the possibility of producing stationery or something. I’m not really sure yet.

And, of course, my current feelings of dejectedness must have something to do with it. I’m afraid that things haven’t really gone all that well with selling the prints–at the time I’m writing this, I haven’t sold even one print–and I’m beginning to get a little bit frustrated. I don’t think I’ll ever stop creating digital art, but I really believe that everything is cyclical. Right now, I’m kind of going through a really slow period in terms of sales and also in terms of the amount of actual art I’m producing. That’s just where my head is at right at this moment. I don’t think it would be a good thing to force myself to create (at least not right now).

In news that is much more upbeat, I’ve been featured on my big sister’s blog! Some of you may remember that she also runs a paper goods company (Keepsake Couture) but she also finds time to publish a fabulous blog. I’m the first interviewee in her new series, Take 5. It was great fun answering the questions and a very nice, refreshing way to remind myself that I’m still the owner of a cool paper goods company.  Who said that nepotism was all bad?

Whew. It’s been a busy week. As most of you know, I started a new job on Monday and so I’ve been a bit remiss in my blogging and designing lately. I guess I’m still in transition–going from being on my own very loose schedule to a regular, 9-5 schedule is pretty jarring. I’m really glad to be working again, but it’s definitely going to be an adjustment.

Today I kind of forced myself to play with Illustrator and design something–anything, really. It would have been much easier to sit in front of the TV and let myself slip into a vegetative state, but I reminded myself that I really don’t have the luxury of being lazy anymore when it comes to my art. So somehow it popped into my head to draw a little girl and here are the results so far:

I took a lot of inspiration from the candies I picked up at the Asian food grocery. Not sure whether or not this little girl will have a full body, or will remain a slightly ghostly disembodied head.

Unfortunately, no new art-type news today. I’ve been a little bit busy, you see.
Today and Monday have been spent primarily in New Employee Orientation for the new full-time gig. Nothing too interesting to say, really. Nothing beats attending a two-day orientation about things like insurance and health benefits when all you really want to do is get started with your new job–wait, I mean, career. We talked about the difference between a “job” and a “career” and I guess what I have is a “career.”

Tomorrow is my first official day working in my new position and I’m super-excited. Though a big part of me is thrilled to be working in the social services field (finally!), another part of me is just plain excited to be in a position to wear real, grown-up lady clothes. And the shoes… let’s not forget the shoes.

I don’t exactly have the money to go on any shopping sprees right now, but I did need a few new grown-up-looking outfits for the new job. I bought these fun Candies wedges in black and brown and they seem pretty comfy. I haven’t been able to give them a proper test drive (that will be tomorrow). I think the heel is just high enough to give me a bit of OOMPH, but not too much that I’ll regret wearing them by the time noon comes around.

I also had a bit of a mini-shopping spree at Old Navy online. Online shopping can be very rewarding when done properly. I find that it’s best to shop online when you’re interested in getting things done as quickly as possible. When you want to really savor the shopping experience, then going in person is always best.

I know, I know… I’m a bad Philippina because I’ve never visited my local Asian grocery. I don’t really have an excuse–it’s like ten minutes from my apartment. But the truth is that I never really cook anything (I’m more of a baker) so I figured, “Why bother?” Today my sister and I were running around and she needed to pick up some stuff from the Asian food store.

So, all right, I didn’t have much interest in the spices or raw ingredients, but the candy aisle was so fun! I’ve said before in my interview with Jane at My Wooden Robot that I love the art direction in Asian products like Hello Kitty. I can’t believe that I didn’t think about running to my local Asian food store for inspiration!

Here are some fun items I picked up.

So adorable. I never draw humans, but looking at these cute chocolate pops makes me want to give it a try.

These bottles were so neat. Check out the cool shape and the awesomely cute characters. They’re super kawaii. We couldn’t quite figure out how to open the tops, but then we found the instructions (luckily printed in English) and we were finally able to savor the orange-y goodness. Instead of having a cap, these drinks have a little glass ball that functions as a stopper. You push it into the bottle wit a little plunger that comes with your drink.

It’s fun because simply opening the bottle is kind of an interesting process. Then it makes this theatrical popping noise–kind of a reward for your efforts. Then, as you drink, the little glass ball rolls around and makes a neat little rolling noise. Overall, a bit more fun than drinking your average, run-of-the-mill bottle of soda.

Last night I finished the background for the little deer painting. As you know, I started with a “stencil” that I had expanded and printed out from a digital illustration of mine, then colored it in with pink.

I filled in the brown background last night. I know I must be pretty rusty when it comes to good old-fashioned painting since I sort of did things in reverse. Half-way through outlining the pink deer silhouette in brown, I thought to myself, “Something about this process seems rather difficult to me…” Ah, life would have been so much easier if I had planned better and done the background first.

But hey, at the time I was just kind of coasting on the rush of making stuff with my hands again. This painting isn’t quite done; I plan on adding some pink polka dots or some other weird embellishment.

Today is my very last weekday off–I start the new job on Monday–and I plan to spend it on a bit of painting and video game playing.

Here’s what happened with those little bird silhouettes from earlier. Not bad, really. The set actually looks pretty cute. As soon as the big bucks start rolling in from the new job, I plan on getting these babies framed so I can hang them all in an arrangement similar to the one in this pic. It’s not that I think that they’re technically that great–as you can see, there’s plenty of splotching with the brown that creates a bit of unevenness. It’s just nice to have produced something with a little bit of texture. You don’t always get that with digital artwork.

The results were so inspiring that I thought to myself, “Hmm… what else can I make with my hands?”

I wanted to keep going with the simplicity of the silhouette theme from this great tutorial by Anna Maria Horner, but with one of my own designs this time. I decided to use Roy the fawn because of his rather distinctive shape. As I recall, I originally considered using him as a silhouette but decided against it for the final prints. I had a blank canvas laying around from my old days with acrylics plus all of the brushes and paints, so I blew Roy up (in Illustrator, that is… Yay, vectors!) and made a little stencil out of him to trace on to the canvas.

This sounds a bit weird, I know, but it was really exciting getting to work with regular, old-fashioned paint and canvas. The process itself–the preparations, the tracing, the actual painting–was very exciting. Just when I was beginning to feel a bit slump-y when it came to my digital art, I was lucky enough to get inspired by painting again. I guess it’s all cyclical, really.

I plan on painting the rest of the canvas brown and then adding some polka dots or something like that in pink. But we shall see.

This is a 16×20 inch canvas–refreshingly big compared to what I’ve been doing. As I work on this piece, I keep reminding myself that I shouldn’t be trying to figure out how I’m going to sell a print of this on Etsy. It’s hard for me not to be so goal-oriented, but I’m hoping that the new job will help take the financial pressure off of Paper Cuts Studio.

Via CRAFT, I found this very fun tutorial on how to make some fun silhouette art. The talented Anna Maria Horner demonstrated how to make some very cool-looking art with some paint, fabric, and a cool stencil–she even provides two awesome, ready-to-print stencils for your use.

Since I didn’t actually have any fabric in the apartment and I’m a tad too broke to go out and buy any, I decided to take Anna Maria’s tutorial and kind of put my own spin on it. I used one of her included stencils and shrunk it down a bit so it would fit on the 4 x 4-inch pieces of watercolor paper I decided to use as an alternative to Horner’s fabric canvas.  Instead of one big piece to hang on the wall, I wanted several small pieces that would go together to make up a set.

Here’s what I’ve got so far. If you’re wondering, they’re drying on top of my oh-so-fancy home-made lightbox. I’m waiting for the paint to dry (I used acrylic) and then I plan on painting the white spaces either pink or blue.