Sunday, June 21, 2009

Fantastic Fathers!

Happy Father's day all you papa's out there... and all you double-duty single mama's too :) I'm taking a little break from all the digital art and design I've been pouring most of my working time into the past few days... You can check out some of the fruits on the new banners/avitars for mamatrashheap.etsy.com ations.etsy.com and magicaljewelry.etsy.com (my mom and pop's shop)... I also will be listing a new and AWESOME (if I do say so myself ;)) Alphabet poster though I haven't decided which shop it will be listed in.... and a few new digital art prints are also in the works... I've also decided to try my hand at selling banners and avitars.. I designed a few simple and basic ones to start out... if there is demand for it I may offer custom services for more elaborate CUSTOM shop banners/avitars/logos and graphics... a few teasers in the photos below...

Most letters were sent out last week with the exception of 2 single letters and 1 name, and to the recipients of those: don't worry, they are on my agenda for the next 2 weeks.

I don't know about the rest of the country but here in Connecticut it has been RAINING. and RAINING. and RAINING. for nearly the past month straight... I have managed to sneak in a bike ride here and there but nowhere near as much as I want to... and Lennon has not gotten nearly enough playground time... Not to mention the strawberry fields that are calling my name! I am so hoping that this coming week will contain a bit more sunshine than the previous few... so much to do, so short a summer :)

I did some major overhauls of my email setup, finally got outlook going, AND installed Photoshop on my main laptop (as opposed to only having it on my mom's computer that I use infrequently) so hopefully the digital creation and communication processes in my life will be MUCH easier and much less time consuming now... which should give me much more time to devote to more hands on important tasks... and for mommying..

speaking of which... Lennon said his first musician/band name yesterday (completely unprompted) and appropriately enough it was "BEATLES"! He has also been watching the yellow submarine over and over throughout these rainy weeks and is starting to sing along with "all together now"... as in counting and the ABCs :) Leave it to the Beatles to be teaching my kid the essentials, lol!

Thats about all for now, my "to do" list is getting longer and longer and not nearly enough check marks :)

Until later!
Kalee


REMEMBER TO CLICK ON THE PHOTOS TO ZOOM AND GET THE FULL EFFECT :)










Saturday, June 13, 2009

GIVEAWAY WINNER

Scanning back through the past couple of posts I noticed that I never announced the winner of the Giveaway. There were only 2 entries that made it into the pool and the winner was JESSICA EVANS. Congrats Jessica, you won a $25.00 gift cert to any of my shoppes. Please send me a message to let me know what you would like to purchase and I will create a special free listing just for you! Sorry for the late announcement. I will be running the giveaway again starting retroactively June 1st (if you've already commented you have an entry!) and will run through July 15th Midnight Eastern Time. To enter all you need to do is COMMENT. Here are the details:

WINNER receives a $25.00 gift certificate good for any one of my shops.. to enter leave me a comment... you may leave as many comments as you like for as many entries with a limit of ONE COUNTABLE COMMENT PER POST (so you are limited to the number of blog posts)... comments should be constructive or applicable to the post you are commenting... in other words, please do not just go through each post typing in "HERE'S MY COMMENT" or Spamming advertisements all over (though one or two plugs of your goods is fine ;)) and to receive 15 entries you can post a little blurb and link about my blog on your blog or website and then come back and tell me you did :) Refer someone else (they must become a "follower" to count) and receive 10 entries, and you may refer and unlimited number of followers... The contest will be going until 12:00 AM JULY 15th 2009 . On July 16th I will place each entry in a big ole jar and pick a winner with the ever popular swish and grab technique :) Winner will be announced on my blog shortly thereafter (I promise I'll be good about being prompt this time!). Have fun! :)

ENJOY! :)
Kalee

Friday, June 12, 2009

Patchy Postings

Greetings and Hellos,
It's been awhile again! I have a feeling Summer-time is going to be a bit patchy with the posting if the spring is any indication so far! Between riding my bicycle, tending my wee one, creating randomness, filling orders, teaching 2 different summer camps, farmer's markets, craft shows, and my summer-long mural project for a local youth theatre group.... well.... you get the idea ;) Here is the latest... I have been painting like mad the past 2 weeks, finishing and catching up on all of my Letter orders for ATIONS. Depending upon wether or not varnish is dry enough tomorrow morning (it's SUPER SUPER humid here...) they will hopefully ALL be shipping tomorrow (otherwise I will hold them back until first thing Monday), and then I am totally caught up with the exception of 1 name, and 2 single letters which I'll easily finish next week. HURRAH! See photos below for a taste of the fruit of HOURS and HOURS of loving labor. Anyways, I will be posting new letter styles in ATIONs as I try to polish my photos and come up with my own designs after several years of mostly mimicking and matching bedding lines and decor. Please don't hesitate to contact me for an original design JUST FOR YOU... I have many good ideas to pull from, lots of experience and passion for painting, and I ALWAYS love the challenge of custom work :)

In other news, all but a few photos in Mama Trashheap's abode have been replaced by newer and better photos. Please take and look if you have a moment and I GLADLY welcome any feedback, ideas for better photos, personal favorites, etc! Most of the photos in Melloheads have also been replaced except all of the greeting cards which have to be re-shot. Those will be fixed this week so be on the look out for that. I also have a few new designs in the works for the next few weeks... I have lots of ideas for the melloheads line but I've been holding off on really going all out on it since sales haven't been terrific... opinions? ideas? Do you like the characters? Does the line just need to be expanded? polished? tweaked? Euthanized? I am really in need of some feedback on this shop, pretty please :)

On that note I should head off to bed... Lennon and I went out on our bike for a couple hours tonight after three days straight of sitting in a chair only exercising my painting hand ;) and I am DOGGONE tuckered out.. Lots to do this weekend, I will be going to see a play done by my little sister's theatre group tomorrow night, attending a family gathering tomorrow morning/afternoon, finishing a few touches on a present and celebrating my niece's 1st birthday on Sunday... packing a couple dozen letters to ship, and putting in several hours of work to help out my parents business (www.magicaljewelry.com) whew, lots of fun but I am definitely going to need to conserve energy by getting some "beauty sleep", lol! Good night all and have a wonderful weekend, I will try to check in at some point next week.
Later Gators,
Kalee

P.S. ALL PHOTOS can be clicked to zoom and see full detail.. and in some of these there is A TON of detail that will be missed if this is not done :)















Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Tag Sales and Painting

Hola,
I'm about to head off to bed but wanted to post a quick update before I do since its been almost a week and a half since my last post... Time flies when you're having fun! :) I've been working so much lately and I spent all last week either painting preparing for the tag sale I had this weekend... My signs were the prettiest tag sale signs you've ever seen (all painted works of art) and I had so many comments on them from the visitors at the sale... and it was a pretty successful weekend... I saved the signs which will be reused several times this summer... I'll snap a few shots next time around...

I managed to finish a couple of orders from Ations, as well as completing most of another (just waiting on a few letters to be shipped in to finish it up)... They all came out great, and I was even able to squeeze in a set of letters today for my sister-in-law's soon to arrive nephew, the set came out great and I hope he and his mommy love them! Anyways, if you have ordered letter sets or PIFs you should be recieving your order over the next two weeks. I am on a mission to get all current orders done this week soooo.... :)
I have also updated a whole lot of my listings this past week and listed all of the kids writing paper I had designed and previously mentioned... which started selling IMMEDIATELY! Get'em while they're hot! ;)Seriously, How awesome to have sold several orders of paper within the first 48hours! I will be designing a whole lot more of it soon... Finally, I am hoping to get started on the mural project (the inside of practically and entire building) once I catch up on my orders... I can't wait, I've been planning out these murals for over a year now and had to put it off after I got sick last year... my paint brush is ITCHING to hit those big empty wall! I shall dream of murals and gigantic paint buckets with dancing brushes tonight.... Until next time
Kalee