Zip-a-dee-do-dah!

Zip-a-dee-ay! My oh my what a wonderful day! (This song has been stuck in my head all morning....read on to find out why.)

After a long blogging hiatus, I've returned! As usual, school was to blame for my absence. I was running on about 4 hours of sleep per day, and generally too busy for anything other than work, school, and freaking out. My very last class of the fall semester is tonight. My projects are completed and all that's left is to present them. Hallelujah! *Clicks heels together in the air*

Other good news today? I'm featured in an Etsy treasury! Check out my Snow Penguin print in the lower left hand corner. A big thank-you to AceQuimby for choosing my print for her treasury.

A little while back, I was also featured in a blog. Another big thank-you to Across The Pond. Her shop is lovely, by the way. You should definitely check it out. I'm totally in love with her Czech glass button cocktail ring...and also her antique clock hand earrings. I'll post pics later if I get permission from the seller.

Anyway, I have a lot of things to talk about so you can pretty much expect me back here. That is, until spring semester starts up again, anyway...

Mail Artists Association

The Mail Artists Association is getting along swimmingly! We even have new mail art posted on our brand-new Flickr group. Here are some pieces that I've sent out recently. You might recognize a few of the images. I've been using my 21 Day Challenge doodles to spin off into tiny paintings. See, that challenge was good for something! (Don't worry, I'm only posting artwork that has already reached its destination. I won't ruin the surprise!) This one went to sparklerama:


This one went to AlwaysAmy:

This one went to LaMiaDesigns:

In return, sparklerama sent me this:

I thought it was rather ingenious that she sent me mail art in a cd case. She just put the mailing label on the inside, taped it shut and away it went! Inside the cd case were to little envelopes full of goodies (also pictured above). The next thing I received was this lovely fabric brooch from LaMiaDesigns:
Little did she know that one of my favorite fall outfits involves a t-shirt and jeans with a blazer over the top. I usually pin a fun brooch to the lapel of the blazer. What fun! (And perfect timing!)

And last but not least was this adorable fairy bookmark from Tamarasherbes. Now I don't have to dog-ear my Typography text book!

I'm working on three new pieces to send out this week. I wish I had more time to work on this group than I do. (Too bad I have to work full-time and am attending night classes...darn homework. Haha!) I have so many ideas. Including how I can recruit a few new members. And I still have to create an avatar for our group. Anyway, I hope everyone is having fun. And if you're not yet involved in the group (but want to be) just send me an e-mail at honeydewstudio@gmail.com

As soon as we have enough newbies, I'll send out an updated member address list to our group.

Soooo....sleepy...

Yaaaawn!!!

This is how I feel today. My class ran over last night. This means that (with the commute) by the time I got home, it was 11:30 at night. AaaaAaand...I still had some final bits of homework to complete and print up for tonight's class. Which means I got a grand total of about 4-5 hours of sleep last night. I got about the same amount on Tuesday night. I am exhausted. This working/school thing is going to be the end of me. The only way I even survive the drive home is by singing REALLY loudly in my car to my iPod and having a snack.

On a happier note, a couple envelopes were waiting for me when I got home yesterday. One an Etsy order I've been waiting for, and the other was a mail art piece (SO adorable - I'll make sure to post it soon). That kind of mail really does make everything better. It's the best, it really is.

I'm so glad I started up the Mail Artists group. I already have some new ideas for it. Someone suggested a blog link exchange -- which would be good. I was also thinking that after a while, we could come up with "themes" every month for our mail exchanges. Let me know if you have any other creative ideas!

That's all for now. I think I'm off to heat up my leftover coffee from this morning. Hey - desperate times call for desperate measures!

Music and jewelry

I've talked about musician Ryan Love, in the past. This year he released a self-produced record, Life in Orbit (which is available both on his website and through iTunes). For full disclosure, he does happen to be my best friend. But honestly, I wouldn't promote him on my blog just for that reason. I'm writing about him for the same reason I've posted about fellow artists, illustrators, or Etsy sellers here before -- he's talented.

That said, I have new Ryan news that I thought was worthy of a blog-mention.

This week, he came up with an idea which I find really creative and interesting. Instead of selling the usual band t-shirts and buttons to help promote his album, he'll be releasing a jewelry line for both men and women. Each piece will be created by Ryan and will thematically match one song on the album.

He's a creative jack-of-all trades and his jewelry designs are lovely. Of course, I can speak from personal experience, since he blew me away this past week by presenting me with 3 pieces of hand-made jewelry of his own design for my birthday. I would describe the set (it was a necklace with matching earrings and bracelet) but I think it's better detailed in Ryan's own words:

"It features champagne Swarovski crystals with freshwater pearls hanging on an adjustable (and interchangeable), chocolate-satin ribbon with matching earrings and a bracelet running on a trio of silver chains."

The strands if pearls themselves run from your typical white pearl to a cafe-au-lait color. Gorgeous! This set coordinates with the 8th song on his album "I Do". His jewelry line will be released in 2009, so sign up for his mailing list to stay posted. Keep an eye out for it...I'm trying to get him to sell the line on Etsy!!! (o:

This Past Weekend...

...was my birthday weekend! It was one of those landmark b-days too. *Gulp!*

*Not my actual birthday cake.

I took Friday off of work to relax, but wound up running a crazy amount of errands instead. This included taking my hedgehog to the vet, picking up packages at FedEx, and paying a visit to the post office (to name a few).

To all my Mail Artists out there - I sent out letters to everyone interested in participating and included the addresses of everyone in our group. You should be getting them over the course of this week. If you don't get anything by next week, just send me an e-mail at honeydewstudio@gmail.com

I also sold 2 items from my Etsy shop on my birthday! Woo-hoo! Goodbye Cabbee and Tap Dancing Squirrel. Enjoy your new homes!

I had to hit the post office to mail those out. Does anyone else have weird postal workers in their area? Nice. The guy who was shipping out my packages caught sight of my Honeydew Studio logo on the label and started chanting "Honeydew honeydew honeydew!" ...for the entire time I was standing there. I was like, "Er...that's right." and he kept going so I said, "If you keep that up, I'll turn back into a pumpkin." As I turned my back to walk out, I heard, "Honeydew honeydew honeydew!" Honestly, where does the post office find these people? At least he was cheery, I suppose.

I really want to make more items for the Christmas season. With school, I don't know if I'll have time to actually create anything or not but it's a hope. What should I start with? More bee ornaments for the holidays? More original illustrations? I don't know. What do you want to see?

I spoke too soon!

Wow. Just. Wow.

I posted that previous blog WAY too soon! I guess the folks who are on the Etsy forums in the evening are way more enthusiastic than the daytime forum people. My Etsy convo mail box as well as my gmail account has been bombarded. They are now full of e-mails from people wanting to participate in mail art! We gave quite the list of participants now!

I am so excited. I expect to be sending out a list of addresses to everyone who e-mailed me no later than Friday. So if you want to be a part of this, make sure you send me an e-mail or a convo before September 26!!! Then the fun part can begin. (o:

If there are any stragglers out there who are still interested in sending/receiving mail art, and would like to be added to my address list, please feel free to e-mail me at: honeydewstudio@gmail.com

TGIF!

I'm heading out of state for the weekend to see friends who I haven't seen in ages. I'm hoping that when I come back, I'll find that a bunch of people are really interested in exchanging mail art and have subsequently e-mailed me with their addresses. (Please? Pretty please? It's fun, I promise!)
I'm aiming for at least a dozen people on this list to start off with. I'm almost halfway there! Help me out by participating!!!

In other news, Etsy was on CNN today. Woohoo! Click on the link below th read:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/18/craft.revival/index.html

Snail mail, anyone?

I'm thinking about creating a mail art list for artists and craftspeople to connect and have a fun correspondence with each other. After getting feedback from my other blog posts, and having discussions with fellow artists and Etsians, there seems to be some genuine interest in participating in something like that. Everyone loves mail, right? Especially when it's not a bill!

However, with me being in school, commuting, plus working full time -- I certainly don't have the time required to run or coordinate anything, let alone a group!

Instead, I was thinking that what I could do was collect addresses from interested parties, compile them in a big list, and send them out to everyone. That way people could choose random names off the list of people, and start mailing little fun postcards, collages, doodles, tiny paintings (or whatever) to fellow artists all over.

If you aren't sure what mail art is, please click on this link. The options for what you send are wide open since the definition of art is pretty broad. The only rule that I absolutely want to stick to is that if you receive something, you should definitely send a little piece of art back to that person in return. Participate! Really, it's only fair. You can't just sit back and get cool art in the mail without sending any in return.

What do you think? Does anyone want to participate? Maybe I should put a deadline on submitting your address so the group doesn't get out-of-control huge. What do you think? Does that sound good? I'm completely open to any suggestions. I've never tried to put together anything like this before.

If you're interested (or have any suggestions) please e-mail me at honeydewstudio@gmail.com or you can just write me with your snail-mail address. Let's see where this goes!

Banksy and Other Anonymous Art

Whenever my husband and I travel overseas, we love taking pictures not only of the local markets and scenic bits, but of the local graffiti and ads on the street. This summer, we were in London. We were strolling around, taking a shortcut to Speaker's Corner when I spotted this piece of graffiti next to a CCTV camera:

I just thought that was brilliant. A little piece of guerrilla art can easily make my day. I halted the whole family so that I could take a picture.

Fast forward to my graphic design class last week. We had this assignment where we had to pick one word from a list, and set it with a picture so that it gave you another message than either the word or the picture could do alone. As our teacher said "1+1=3". Anyway, long story short, one of my pieces involved my word stenciled graffiti-like onto the page. The comment was made by a couple classmates that it reminded them of Banksy. I scribbled the name in my notebook to look up when I got home.

As it turns out, I'm already very familiar with his work...I am just horrible with remembering names. In fact, the aformentioned graffiti I saw in London this summer was actually a piece by Banksy. (This part I didn't know.) The pieces that I did recognize were these:






As I searched online, I continued to find more photos of Banksy pieces. I'm totally in love:






This blog could easily become the length of a thesis if I started to talk about guerrilla artists or anonymous public art. I recommend that you check out the Banksy links I posted above. There's also loads of stuff online to look at if the topic in general interests you . I don't know about you, but it inspires me.

Even a small piece of guerrilla art is still something. For example, the same night someone mentioned Banksy to me in class - I found a small anonymous typewritten note taped to the inside of a stall in the women's room at my college. It said, "What was the last thing that made you cry laughing?" Simple, but I found myself actually wondering about that. It took me out of my life for a second.

Another favorite public art project of mine is The Lemon Project - invented by Heather, a fellow Etsy seller. You can read all about on her blog. Make sure you read parts 1-3. It still makes me smile. Thoughts?

Mail Art

The image above is one of Ray Johnson's mail art pieces.

For the past year, I've been interested in ATCs (artist trading cards). I even spoke with a fellow Etsian who referred me to the ATC group that she participates in. The problem is that with school, I don't have too much time to create and trade mini works of art, as much as I'd love to.

As I mentioned a couple blogs ago, I recently saw the documentary How To Draw a Bunny which reignited my interest in mail art. Though at the time I didn't know it had a name, I used to do this my friends. I don't think I could keep up with ATCs right now, but I do think I might be able to send out the occasional mail art piece.

Much to my delight, I found a thread on the Etsy forums posted by sparklerama who had also recently seen (and been inspired by) How to Draw a Bunny. We're making plans to send each other some mail art. I'm pretty excited about the prospect.

I'm wondering if anyone out there is involved in an organized mail art group? I've been able to find ATC groups, but just started wondering about mail art. If not, I wonder if it would be possible to get some sort of mail art group together. How would that work? Would you have to send a piece to each person in the group all at once? Or do we all take turns sending one piece to a different person each time? If anyone can enlighten me, I'd be interested to hear it. (o:

Hi, my name is Honeydew...

...and I'm an Etsy addict.

It's no secret that I tend to buy more things from Etsy than I sell. It feels like the ratio is 10:1 most of the time, and that especially goes for this month! I've been on a handmade-item shopping spree, no doubt. Most of it is valid (I had a baby shower gifts to buy! etc) But some of it was simply my own "must-haves". I figured I share my purchases with you today.

My slew of recent Etsy purchases started off innocently enough. My sister and brother-in-law are already planning out their giant Halloween bash. Halloween is my most favorite holiday. There's no pressure to buy anyone gifts, you get to dress up funny, and there's excessive amounts of candy involved. Really, what's there not to love? Their party theme this year is "'80s Prom". Since you can never be too prepared, I've already found (and nabbed) my ensemble - all thanks to Etsy Vintage. Take a look at this purple dress from Iron Horse Vintage and tell me it doesn't take you back to the days of big hair and Pretty In Pink:
I am going to rock that dress. Eat your heart out, Molly Ringwald. If anyone has a suggestion for '80s outfits for my husband, please send me a link or leave me a comment! As a funny aside - I actually saw this exact dress in an '80s flashback moment during the movie Bam Bam and Celeste. I had just received the dress in the mail, and it was sitting on the couch next to me during the movie. Freaky!

Moving on...

The next Etsy purchase was entirely necessary. I had a baby shower to attend this past Saturday. I'm friends with both the mommy and daddy-to-be. They have decided not to find out what the sex of the baby is until the day Baby M actually arrives in this world. This lead me on a quest for unisex onesies. Daddy-to-be is the lead singer in a local cover band...how perfect is this little onesie from Fun 2 Wear 2 ? Entirely appropriate and way too cute:

I also found this onesie in Fun 2 Wear 2's shop. It cracked me up, so of course I had to buy it too:This month I've been on a mission to have my house absolutely perfect before I start night classes again on September 4. I don't want the stress of working full time, homework, school, and my commute to be added to the stress of an unorganized, unfinished home. This has meant fixing things we've been putting off fixing, patching things that need patching, painting things that need painting, and generally a whole lotta extreme cleaning. (I got down with a toothbrush to clean, folks. I honestly did.) Anyway, one of the things I'm doing is painting and decorating my living room. We had plans to do this when we moved in three years ago. It just never happened. I was browsing through Etsy for decor items I could add to the soon-to-be-newly-painted walls when I came across this gorgeousness from Copper Leaf Studios:

They are even more lovely in person, let me tell you! I can't wait to hang them. I just need to get the walls finished first.

And last but not least, there's the much-needed purchases I made for Baxter McPrickles, my hedgehog. It was Baxter's birthday this month on the 20th. He turned 3 years old. The poor little guy has not been having an easy time, however. Even though we are very attentive hedgie parents, he somehow managed to get his first (and hopefully only) case of mites. I suspect it may have been from when we left on vacation, and he stayed with a friend who has two little dogs. Either that or they came in from outside since we sometimes leave the door open near his cage when it's warm. In any case, his skin is flaking off and (much to my absolute horror) his quills have been falling out. He has an appointment with the vet today, which I'm sure he won't be happy about. I'm going to toss out many of the items from his cage, including the felt blanket he likes to sleep underneath. Instead, I bought him two new sleeping bags from ellencho. He won't get to use them until he is all medicated and healing, but they've arrived and are waiting for him. Here's the winter sleeping bag:

And here's the summer one. (I picked the pattern purely because I knew my husband would love it, and it would get a laugh.)

Ellen is the only person I've been able to find who makes these. Our breeder gave us a critter sleeping bag when she sent baby Baxter home with us, but that one has been loved to bits. I was so happy to find Ellen's shop on Etsy. There's nothing a hedgehog loves more than snuggling under cozy layers in his house. Happy birthday, Baxter!

Hopefully that'll be the end of my crazy Etsy shopping for a while...at least until Christmas! (o;

Sketches: Denmark

Hi.

Remember me?

I know I've fallen off the face of this blog, but I have really good reasons, I swear! Since I got back home from my adventures in Europe, I've been working two jobs all summer. Then, my best friend came home from across the country and is visiting all month. In addition to that, everyone I know suddenly decided to get married and/or produce a baby. This has left me with exactly zero free personal time. My weekends are booked with things that end in "shower" (baby or bridal, take your pick) in addition to the weddings. The hubby and I have also been trying to fix up the house before I start my evening classes again on September 4th. (That alone is kind of making me freak out.) The cherry on the top? I sprained my ankle last week.

Now that I have my excuses and stories out of the way, I'm just going to finish posting the sketches I promised to post a month ago. Sorry.


This will (mostly) conclude the sketches from my travel sketchbook. All of the following were created while touring Hamlet's Castle, Elsinore, in Denmark: This was a sketch of a recreation of the Queen's wedding gown. She was only 14 or so when she got married.

Don't worry, my sister took a photo of the above painting without flash. Though, I'm afraid I can't say the same for some of the other tourists.

I have a few more sketches to post, but this blog has been waiting long enough. I'll get through the rest of my stories and sketches in forthcoming posts.

So...how've you been? (o;

21 Day Challenge: Day 6

Looks like someone's umbrella broke! Poor puppy.

I snagged my first Etsy Treasury yesterday morning. I spent some time working on it and was proud of the collection of favorites I put together.

Around quarter of 6 last night, I got home from my aerobics class, logged onto my computer and found out my treasury made it to the front page of Etsy!!! I was so thrilled, but since I was home alone all I could do was shout about it in the forums and then call my mom. I was ecstatic! Then I felt like a dork. Hey, it's the small things that make me psyched. What can I say? AspenSpa was kind enough to take a screen shot of my 15 minutes of fame (you can click on the picture to enlarge):

Thank you, AspenSpa!

21 Day Challenge: Day 3

I aaaalmost skipped this drawing exercise last night. Almost. My husband and I ordered a pizza and watched two movies in a row. This is after I'd worked all day then hit my aerobics class. Phew! That's a late night for me! I was really tired and just wanted to go to bed. Then, I felt bad. How can you form a habit if you're already ditching out on day 3??? So, I did this quick sloppy doodle of the newest addition to my studio:

It's a giant stuffed octopus I bought from Deelind on Etsy. I've had my eye on it since I joined the site. I finally caved in and bought it when she made a note that the fabric was discontinued, and she only had a limited amount left in stock. *Gasp!* She was nice enough to send him to me this week before she goes abroad for most of the summer. I think he looks right at home in my studio, wouldn't you say?

P.S. This is my 100th blog post! Woo-hoo!

What next?

In typical Libra fashion, I'm having a hard time deciding what creative project to work on next. I'm good with a commission and a deadline, but if I don't have either, I tend to freeze up. It would be soooo easy for me to waste my summer, I'm afraid. But since you guys are so good at giving me a motivational kick in the pants, I figured I'd reach out for suggestions.

Should I create more items for my Etsy shop or potential art fairs? Should I create more bee ornaments? More stuffed animals? More little illustrations? Should I brainstorm new products? Or should I work on some "serious" paintings? My children's illustration portfolio? Arg.

Maybe I should take the advice of my SCBWI crit group, and just start with the "21 Day Challenge". (I think it was Anne Marie who put the challenge to me at our last meeting...? I know Gina's been working on this. She posted the results of her exercise on her blog, which you can check out here.) From what I can gather the challenge is to make the time to draw for 15 minutes every single day, for 21 days--no excuses. Maybe it'll jump start my creative process. I hope. /o:

Hello...? *crickets*

Yesterday I finally posted pics of my painting and...not a single comment from the peanut gallery. )o: I hope you guys aren't going by the "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." mantra. I would love some feedback. Even if it's just a critique on what I could've/should've done.

On a happier note, I was featured in yet another treasury!

And profiled (interview and all) in a lovely blog by fellow Etsian, Princess Tiffany's Creations. Read it here!

Transparency

Either my readers are incredibly astute judges of character, or I'm completely transparent. The following was my favorite comment received on my blog this weekend (I've left out the name just in case this person wasn't interested in being mentioned!) This cracked me up:

reader: Honeydew-congrats to your friend-but get painting!!! The deadline is looming, and there is a piece of work waiting to tell it's story... :)
Cheering you on!

Oh man. You have me pegged, that's for sure! From now on, I'm going to leave it up to you guys to give me the much-needed kick in the pants. In regards to the aforementioned as-of-yet-unfinished painting (which has a Wednesday drop-off due date) this is how my weekend broke down:

Friday: when I got home, I immediately went to my studio. I decided to stop working on the portrait part of my piece for a little bit and work on one of the other 3 layers instead. I painted some lyrics to an Edith Piaf song around the edge of my mat. I decided to play the song while working. Bad. Idea. Ok, playing a heartbreaking Edith Piaf song while hovering over a painting of your deceased French grandparents is not a wise idea. I spent half of my evening sobbing before I decided it was time for bed.

Saturday: got up early to work in my studio. I finished painting the edge of the mat while (wisely) choosing to listen to NPR's morning programming. Car Talk and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me! are much happier choices than Edith Piaf. I also got some work done on the portrait portion of the painting. Work actually lasted into the afternoon--even though by then I was absolutely sweltering. My studio is in the loft. Imagine working in an attic with two skylights in the middle of the summer, and you get the idea. I stopped painting when I received a dinner invitation from my mom. Dinner with my mother and family friends turned into a chit-chat with everyone in her living room until 10 at night.

When I got home, I found out that my best friend had finished his album and his website (which I blogged about below). This led to a flurry of e-mailing and messaging with him. While online I, of course, logged onto Etsy. I was shocked to find that my hearts and views had exploded. I had no idea why, so I asked around in the forums. People said that one of my plush characters had been on the front page for a long time on Saturday. OMG. It's been a mini-fantasy of mine to someday make it to the front page...and I missed it!!! I suppose I can't live my entire life on Etsy, though. (Just most of it. Haha!) I was psyched though. Looks like there were good vibes for both Ryan and I on Saturday.

But...so much for finishing the painting that evening.

Sunday: tried to hit the studio again in the morning. I sat miserably in a puddle of sweat totally unable to function, let alone paint. Once the hubby woke up, I forced him to take the air conditioners out of the closet and put them to use. One goes in our kitchen/living room area and the other goes in our bedroom. I moved my painting and supplies from The Inferno to downstairs at the kitchen table. The hubs left to go hang out with one of his buddies, I watched tv, painted for a teeny bit, got lonely, and then called my sister. We had dinner, a bottle of chilled pino grigio, and watched a movie over her place. (Hey, can you blame me? The girl has central air!) Buuuut...I'm still not done my painting.

This is why I'm thinking I'll need to take a day off tomorrow. It's no big deal. I have 2 personal days that I have to use up before the end of June, otherwise I lose them. And I've got a lot to do. I still have to finish the portrait portion of my painting. The mat is at least 95% done. Then, there will be a painting on the glass of the frame. Which I haven't even started yet. Ahem.

I can do it! Really! I swear, it'll be done by Wednesday. Just watch me. (o;

When it rains, it pours

I suppose I also could have titled this blog "zero to sixty", "all or nothing", or any other cliche you'd like.

The point is that within the last week, I seem to have received a mimi-avalanche of exposure online. Today I got an e-mail notifying me that I was included in yet another treasury. This time, it's Beeda Kahlo who is making an appearance:
Keep your fingers crossed for me that this one makes it to the front page. Really, that's my biggest Etsy dream (second only to the dream of oodles of sales, of course). Lol.

Happy Friday!!!

Treasury

I wasn't quick enough posting this, but I was in yet another treasury over the weekend. This one featured my newest hedgehog illustration:

That treasury has since expired, so unfortunately I can't link you to it. But that's the third treasury in 2 days that I was featured in! None of them made it to Etsy's front page, but I'm hoping someday one will.
I do have lots to blog about - the gallery exhibit this past Friday, my final project, and tomorrow's last class (for this semester, anyway), etc. However, I can't seem to find the time to create a lengthy post at the moment. I am sooo busy! I promise a more in-depth blog a bit later...possibly on Wednesday. For now, it's back to work! /o:

I'm in an Etsy Treasury!

My Madame Meow plush character made it into an Etsy treasury this morning!

Go take a peek! Everything in this treasury is NH-Made. It was put together by a member of our Street Team, Sweet Lollipop Shop. (Yes, she actually makes yummy lollipops...that isn't just the name of her shop! Lol.)