Ice skating

Here is another little celebration of wintery frostiness. I learned how to skate on frozen cranberry bogs near our house, and I remember the ice was very bumpy, sometimes with loose cranberries frozen into the surface. My skills never exceeded skating in a straight-ish line, but I used to imagine being able to twirl and spin effortlessly.

My favorite part of this illustration is the cozy legwarmers; I used fabric from my softest scarf and I love the grey and white.

This print for sale in the Etsy store, enjoy!

Lace Trees

I realized the other day that after Christmas and New Year's, there is really nothing to look forward to in winter besides the coming of spring. Normally, I grit my teeth and wait impatiently for green leaves. This year, however, I will at least attempt to embrace the wintery portion of the year! And so I find myself making art to celebrate the icy, lacy frostiness of the season.

This is the image that has been floating around in my head; nothing particularly fancy or complicated, just the starkness of the landscape accented by one bright red bird. The frosty white lace, besides satisfying my latest obsession, brings the wonderful quality of snow dusted tree branches to the picture. That has always been one of my favorite sights in the calm after a snowstorm, every tree dressed in white.

Well, I hope we make it through the winter! If a print would help make it bearable, find one in my Etsy store. Stay warm!

Quiet day

The day after Christmas I learned that I have had mono for the past week or so, which is giving me good motivation to take some slow, quiet days to recover. Today my major excursion was getting to the post office to mail out all my recent orders, so Etsy friends- please watch your mailboxes, goodies on the way!

Right now I'm working on an illustration I've had in my head for a few weeks, and I'm really hoping it comes out the way I've been seeing it! In the meantime I wanted to memorialize my sketchbook, which I've filled the last pages of today. Isn't the cover great? This summer at Foo Fest in Providence, AS220 had a screenprinting station set up, several screens inked and ready to pull. They had blank items for sale or you could print on your own possessions; I whipped out my moleskine and screened it with this lovely drawing by (coincidentally) a friend of a friend.

So, that's the story of this sketchbook.

Packaging prints!

Hello, friends! Hope your holidays have been lovely. I wanted to quickly share with you my process for packaging up orders from my Etsy shop.

Here's one of my prints (signed in the corner!) packaged in a clear acid-free sleeve.

I slip one of these "About the Artist" cards in the back of the protective sleeve, just a little info and a way to get in touch with me later.

I always write up a little note on my beloved cursive typewriter. It took me two years to find this one!

And here is everything tied up together in a bit of lace trim. I usually include a little extra surprise, like one of my postcards, just as an extra thank-you for supporting me!

soft drop pendants - fabric jewelry

I'm excited to announce that I have some new jewelry creations for sale! It's an idea that I have been playing with for a while, trying to find a way to create wearable showcases for precious bits of fabric. My previous attempt fell victim to technical difficulties, but a more recent project led me to a simple technique of enclosing flat objects within fabric. Pair that will my favorite teardrop shape (1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5) and we have:

So there you have it. All six of these pendants, including the skeleton key shape, are for sale right now at my etsy shop. I'm anxious to see if anyone else likes these as much as I do... I really hope so!

papernstitch

Have you heard of papernstitch? It's a little showcase of handmade items curated by Brittni and designed by Jeff. They both deserve a lot of credit because the site is beautiful and impressively simple to use.

Here's a peek at my shop. Be sure to look at all the other wonderful exhibitors this month; I'm especially excited about Allison Cole, Nosideup, Mati Rose, and Selflesh.

A new look

My website has needed a sprucing up for a while, and today it all came together, finally! Hope you like it. Thanks to everyone who has been supporting me by buying my prints! I'm constantly working to keep the store stocked with new prints, so be keeping an eye out.

Work in progress

Today is such a busy day that this spool of thread is all I can manage to post; it's a work in progress that you will be seeing more of later.

Tonight is a meeting with the Birds of a Feather ladies to work on our window display. Less than ten days until the opening!

Books Are Great

I have been reading a lot lately. Almost finished with my current book; time to start looking for another!

you are the best