Piper's Birthday

We've been busy with the move and the new house but I managed to hand-make Piper's invitations for her birthday party.

We're Moving!

We are in the process of moving to Carmel Indiana. It's crazy to say the least but so far we really like it here. We won't even be in our new house until Friday so things are only going to get better I think. Here are a few new journal pages I've managed to fit in. All of them are done with a Micron pen and watercolor in the book I made at Paper Source (Coptic Stitch, March 19, 2007).

Spring!

It's finally getting nicer out and flowers are starting to bloom! I love this time of year, especially the tulips. Here is a tulip I drew the other day and added watercolor to today.

Haiku Project

This is part of a 4th grade project for a school in Buffalo Grove. Each student wrote a haiku and then each Calligrapher was paired up randomly with a haiku. It's funny how I was paired with this one because I have 3 of my own cats and the woman organizing the project didn't know this! Here is my interpretation of the haiku. I will have a chance to meet the 4th grade poet at a class party on the 21st, I can't wait!

Crafty Card

I made this one today for a neighbor. I learned this awesome technique from the current issue of Somerset Studio. I swear this is the best issue yet of that magazine. The background is watercolored and I used Bombay inks to color the text.

The Graceful Envelope Contest

Here is my entry. I took it to the post office today and sent it on it's way. I made the envie out of black Canson paper and used gel pens and Twinkling H2Os. The theme for this year is A Mailable Feast. For more info on the contest and to see beautiful envelopes from previous years go HERE.

To infinity and beyond!

Tomorrow (March 27) my husband and I celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary- holy cow has it been 8 years already?! I had this idea for a card design for him- a heart with a #8 wrapped in there somehow but I couldn't make it look right without turning the 8 on it's side. While talking to my way cool sister this morning she reminded me that the infinity symbol is a #8 on it's side! How cool is that?? We've made it past the "7 year itch" and are now on to infinity!! Ha ha, very cool indeed. Here is the card I came up with, and my preliminary sketches- I love to see how other people work so I thought I'd post that as well. I painted it with Twinkling H2Os and it's all sparkly and cool. Oh, and he doesn't read this blog so he won't see it early. Ugh, I just spent 10 minutes agonizing over the shade of blue of the envelope to match the card until I remembered he's colorblind and it DOESN'T MATTER. Sheesh.

Coptic Stitch

I made this book in a workshop at The Papersource yesterday and had to share. It was a lot easier than it looks and turned out very cool. I took the pic like this so it would show off the spine and the beautiful paper.

Journal page

It was 73 degrees here last Tuesday and it felt AWESOME after a long winter. It's back to reality as far as the temp goes but here is part of a journal page from that day. The page was wet when I took this pic so it's sorta lumpy. It's from the Jordi Labanda book.

My art journals

Deb, from the day2day journal goup asked us to share the covers of our journals. Lately I have been bouncing between 3, not including the kid's, and here they are. One is a comp book covered in paper with a ribbon bookmark and elastic strap added. The next is a notebook I found at target with lined paper and the third is a Cachet hardbound sketchbook with my handprint, a ribbon bookmark and elastic strap I added. I usually like to work in just one book at a time but somehow got caught up in 3 this time. Not really fancy, but this is what I'm working in these days.

Comp Book Grid Challenge

Dawn on the Comp Book yahoo group posed this grid challenge the other day. Here are my results...

Illustration Friday- 80s

I haven't done an Illustration Friday for a while but how could I resist this one?! The 80s were the best!

HandCrafted Cards

I have been working on some cards lately and thought I'd share a few...