kup kup

goodness, how amazing are these pieces by kup kup?

all that detail and texture and pattern is giving me goosebumps! what amazing work.

be sure to visit kup kup's etsy shop, as well as the blog and flickr page. it's all so inspiring and color-filled!

Indie Craft Experience this weekend!

good morning, my friends!

first off, THANK YOU for all of your unbelievable comments about my animation yesterday-- you truly made my day!! i'm so glad you enjoyed it. our invitations are being sent out today, so hopefully everyone who gets the silly little movie in the mail will like it, too. :)

secondly, if you are in the atlanta area this weekend, you will not want to miss ICE (the indie craft experience)! i have a booth and will be selling all my goodies, and this is seriously just a fantastic show that should be checked out of at all possible. be prepared to spend some money, though--- it's impossible not to with all the amazing things people make and sell there! it's like the renegade of the south. YES!

i hope you have a marvelous weekend, and i'll see you here on monday!

my wedding animation, finally!

oh.my.GOODNESS. this project was almost the death of me. i'm not even kidding. there were nights i would go to sleep as stressed as can be, because when i can't figure out how to do something, i obsess over it and stress over it until i figure it out. i had no idea getting into it that i'd be wanting to pull my hair out and scream as much as i did..... the good news is that i learned A LOT about flash through the process of creating this animation, and it's always good to learn new things. :)

so, after all that drama, here is my wedding animation. FINALLY. this will be going out to my friends and family as part of ryan's and my wedding invitations, and i couldn't get it to play the right size on a TV (because i made a rookie move and created it in the wrong size, i guess), but it looks decent on a computer.

i do hope you like it! i'm celebrating it's completion today, and i'm not sure i'll ever make another animation again! whew. it's hard.
(and yes, before you ask, it's supposed to be wiggly and choppy.)

*the song is "blank slate" by the national.

new painting: make your own luck

i have a new painting to show you today, which sort-of came out of nowhere yesterday. i love when that happens.

it's called " make your own luck" and is 10x10", acrylic, oil, india ink, and hand-carved rubber stamping on wood.

again, that yellow color... i can't get enough!

téo jasmin interior design

i recently received an email from paris-based interior design company téo jasmin, who specializes in digital printings on canvas, cushions and furniture, and i thought their products were quite fun!

these two (above and below) are prints on canvas-- they'd be such a fun addition to a room!
and i love the beatles, so i'm particularly fond of their beatles-related products.

and althought the union jack is not part of my personal style, i can picture this looking perfect in someone's home. wouldn't it be funky? i love the juxtaposition of the flag with the more traditional couch. so cute.

check out téo jasmin's website to see more of their products!

tagged!

(image by sesame letterpress)

I was tagged twice yesterday (by shelley and stephanie), and since i usually let these things go for waaay too long, i'm going to answer the questions today for a change! here we go.

What is your current obsession?
figuring out how to use Adobe Flash correctly.

What is your weirdest obsession?
reading go fug yourself each and every morning. i'm really not interested in celebrity lives, but I am in love with this blog for some reason!

What are you wearing today?
yoga pants and an ugly brown t-shirt. it's morning and i'm still in my pjs. :)

What's for dinner?
oh gosh, i have no idea! probably salad and roasted potatoes or something like that.

What would you eat for your last meal?
thai food. something with thick, fresh rice noodles, lots of chili sauce, broccoli, tofu, carrots, and cabbage. YUM. then i would have a big piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream fro dessert.

What's the last thing you bought?
75 blank DVDs.

What are you listening to right now?
Hard Ball with Chris Matthews

What is your favorite ice-cream flavour?
vanilla

What do you think of the person(s) who tagged you?
both shelley and stephanie are unbelievable talented, and so so friendly! i would love ot meet each of them in person one day.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
AMSTERDAM. without a doubt.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Iceland.

Which language do you want to learn?
Spanish.

What's your favorite quote (for now)?
"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music-- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people. Forget yourself." -Henry Miller

What is your favorite colour?
orange

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
black dresses that make me look skinny

What is your dream job?
a well-known designer (think Lotta Jansdotter or Orla Kiely) that has surface pattern designs all over the world, with a flagship store, lots of money, and lots of traveling!

What is your favorite tree?
magnolia

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?
a Flip video camera

Do you admire any one's style?
i really admire my sister's style. it's so effortless, and she always looks so glamorous. i don't know how she does it!

Describe your personal style?
quirky, colorful, comfortable

What are you going to do after this?
write some more blog posts

What are your favourite movies?
lost in translation, the royal tenenbaums, dirty dancing (FOREVER!), little miss sunshine

What is your favorite fruit?
grapes

What inspires you?
walks in my neighborhood, traveling, design books, nature, unexpected color combinations

Your favorite book ?
eat pray love by elizabeth gilbert. or hotel new hampshire by john irving

Do you collect something ?
not really. nothing in particular, unless you just count stuff in general. i have lots of that. :)
***
and here are the rules:

1. respond and rework; answer the question on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add more one question of your own.

2. tag eight other people.

so, the 8 people i'm tagging are:

lesley
jan
sarah
sarah
xander
michelle
jennifer
cameron

(or just join in if you want to!)

bhats on flickr

i'm really digging these drawings by bhats today. i wish i knew more about him... all i can find out is that he is 17 years old and lives in brisbane, australia. you can check his flickr page and tumblr site to see more. i love those flags in the bottom image!

i'm back!

hello hello! i'm back from boulder, and goodness, it was so nice to have a little break and see my family. i thought you might like to see some pics from my little sister's graduation... i am the oldest of 5 kids, and she is the last one to graduate from high school ( we all went to the same high school, so it was a big deal.) and it was the first time in about a year and a half that all my siblings had been together, so it was an especially nice weekend!

from left to right above: my cousin danielle, me, my sister jill, my sister bizzy (the graduate), my sister britt, bizzy's best friend stephanie, and my brother marc. i love this picture because my brother looks like a giant compared to all of us! he is 6'5".

and this is bizzy and me. she's so cute. :) (jill is in the background making a funny face.)

i hope you all had a fabulous holiday weekend-- i didn't realize it was memorial day weekend until thursday last week, so i spontaneously took most of yesterday off, to get back into the swing of things from being away for a little while. now it's back to it today!

i'm going on a mini vacation!

my dears, this will be my last post for the week, because i'm going home to boulder, CO, for my little sister's high school graduation. i'm so excited for a mini break! and i haven't seen my family since christmas time, so it'll be really nice to see them all.

i hope you all have a fantastic long holiday weekend, and i'll see you here next week!
xoxo

(the illustration above is from national geographic adventure, from an article about the top 5 green cities in the USA, of which boulder is one.)

mike lay (aka: padlaversusmoij)

i think mike lay's work is the most unique i've seen in a really long time. i can't stop looking at it, and i wish he had an etsy shop, because i'd scoop up that top drawing in a flash.

c'mon, mike! open up a shop! i'll be your first customer.

you can find many more of mike's incredible drawings on his flickr page right here.

lucy anstey

sometimes when i look at someone's work, i try to picture them in their studios creating it, and it makes me really happy. this is one of those times. i love trying to imagine lucy anstey in her studio, sewing a giant balloon that someone will sit in and she will photograph, or building a giant, person-sized nest. i can tell you, life in my studio is nowhere near that exciting!

check out the rest of lucy's amazing projects over on her website- i promise, you'll love it! she's quite the talent.

lizzy stewart

i'm totally crazy in love with lizzy stewart's artwork. wow. look at all that detail! i just want to hop into one of those drawings and live inside of it.

you can see more of lizzy's work on her website, her blog, and her etsy shop.
(lizzy lives in edinburgh, lucky girl! i'd love to go there one day.)

new painting: if you come back to me

whenever i try to capture the steps of a painting, i find myself getting caught up in it and then forgetting to take frequent photos, but here is a try! there's a semi-large gap in between the 3rd and 4th photos, because i always get really involved in putting on that yellow color. it's my favorite paint color, and i love it more every time i use it!

i hope you like seeing a few of the stages of this new painting-- a lot of poeple ask me about my process, so hopefully this will give you more of a visual idea of how i create my paintings.
this one is called " if you come back to me," and i'm quite crazy about the colors. it was inspired by this painting from last year, another favorite of mine.

tinekhome: gorgeous interiors

i don't post much about interiors on this blog, because it's not my biggest interest, and there are plenty of blogs out there that do post about interior design that you probably already read. but this, i could not pass up. tinekhome makes me want to throw away everything i own and start over completely, and the first thing i would do would be create a room in that color combination above. just look at that wallpaper!

that fuschia color (or is it magenta? berry? red-violet?) is KILLING ME right now, and paired with white and dark gray-brown (like in the photo of the little girls below), it's almost too much for me to handle. seeing a perfect color combination is pretty much the best thing i can imagine. i am a color fiend. a color nerd.

anyhow, i think you'll probably want to check out tinekhome's website, because it is gorgeous. flip through their catalog, because all the photographs are this gorgeous.

(ps- they are based in denmark, so they are scandinavian. which means of course it's all gorgeous!)

new illustration: don't let anything stop you

i posted this illustration that i did on pecannoot yesterday, but i wanted to share it here, too, because i'm quite fond of it. :)

this is it for me today, as i have to get ready for a show tomorrow. (it's supposed to rain-- wish me luck, as the show is outdoors, eek!)

i hope you all have a deliciously lovely weekend. see you monday!

us & them studio

oh my goodness, it doesn't get any better than this. these screenprints by us & them studio are just so good. and the coolest thing is that they're made in a studio which is an old tree house! doesn't that sound like it's out of a movie? i love it.

check out more on their website and also on the communication arts website, where the studio is currently featured in the fresh section.

new painting: 'little precious moment'

i have another painting to show this morning, which is sort-of along the lines of this painting.
i'm nuts for that magenta color these days, and i really love it with pale green... i have a feeling that combo will be appearing more often these days.

coasters and more coasters

i'm participating in a show this saturday, so i've been cranking out some new coasters the past few days. here are a few of the newest sets in some of my favorite patterns.

many of them are available in my etsy shop, and they make the lovelies gifts and coffee table brighteners. really-- they're all over our house and they look so nice!

and speaking of my etsy shop, yesterday i crossed the 1,000 sale mark, and i am thrilled to have reached such a milestone. now for the next 1,000 sales!