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In other news, all but a few photos in Mama Trashheap's abode have been replaced by newer and better photos.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 :)

Vintage Ice Cream Paper

Top of the evening to yah,

Does anyone else recall "Ice Cream Paper"?? It was this cute paper that we used to use in kindergarten grades to write our letters on... it had three lines: chocolate vanilla and strawberry and a great little illustration of an icecream sundae at the top... Anyways, for whatever reason I woke up this morning to a picture of this paper in my head. I used to love the stuff and my mom used to have this mass supply of it. So I asked her if she had any left and sure enough she did... Long story short, My latest brainstorm was to create my own version of this paper, and so I did. And then I was so inspired by the idea of making paper for little kids to learn with, that I made another design... and then another.. cars, trains, cats, sock monekys... all in all I came up with 8 designs, finsihed and just waiting for me to list in my shoppe. I believe I will be listing them in my Ations shoppe. I will let you all know once they have become available for purchasing.
Later in the day was the writing class I teach for a local youth organization. It was a great class and after 4 classes with these students I am really feeling like we are making some good progress. Their homework for next week was to start a book which will be an ongoing project for the remainder of the class... I am really amazed by the intellect and communication skills that these kids are already showing at the tender ages of 13-16... Can't WAIT to see what they come up with for this book project. With their permission I may post a bit of their writing in a blog at the end of the class semester. THats all for now, Lennon and I went to the Library earlier and borrowed a new (to us) DVD for him.. So I'm off to go cuddle up with him and see what "Chicken Little" has in store for us :) G'night and Be Well!
Kalee

Banners and Blurbs

Hola, Aloha, and Hello!
My illness is happily passing and I have subsequently fallen back off the wagon... Several New additions to Mama Trashheap's today, including a series of three bracelets/ Wrist Cuffs inspired in part by the ultimate arch enemy: THE JOKER. Not too long ago, I was playing around with a bit of wool in some of my favorite colors, green and purple (MMmmmmmmmmmm....Puuuurple), and decided to do get my hands wet with some felting.. After lots of soapy elbow grease I unrolled my felting mat and heard this crazy, CRAZY, lunatic of a voice in my head say "why so serious?". So I pulled out my needle, a pinch of Red wool and my button stash... and VOILA, three fantastic little creations that I couldn't be happier with.... I'm debating pulling a listing and keeping one for my own wrist!

Next, I listed a new Crocheted Tam hat that is part of an ongoing upcycling project. I save all of my scraps of yarn, along with bits of ribbon, shoe laces, fabric strips, hemp, cord, and such.... wind them all into a ball and once it's big enough I toss it into my pocketbook for a quick and easy fix anywhere and anytime! The latest Scrappy Ball turned into this really cool and quirky hat, lots of handspun wools, some nice satin ribbons and eyelash yarn, and a whole mess of hemp twine! Check it out and let me know what you think... I LOVE these hats but since I already have a good dozen or so for my own personal wardrobe I figure I better let this ole girl go... WANTED: A GOOD HOME FOR HER.

This afternoon, I also sent my Printable files off to my local staples, as my printer is suffering from an incurable and fatal illness... an inability to print in color... fortunately this is nothing that a 20 minute trip to staples can't cure and I have a good 30 or so files to print (which makes it even more efficient and economical) .....soooooo, Revised Melloheads listings coming soon AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: by this time tomorrow my new Animal Antics Line of Printable Paper Goodies should be up and available for you to take home and love'm up real good!

My final frolic of the night was a digital one... Directly above this post you will see but one of the fruits of a speedy "paint" job (I don't have Photoshop on my little mini Acer Aspire yet, only on a rather cumbersome old desktop)... I have also designed new banners for Mama Trashheap's and for my more personal (and random) blog, "Musings of me mind". That's about the size of it... I don't quite feel like I've gotten my fix for the day but I should probably retire to my bed, or else I fear I may stay on here doodling away in crappy and cheap windows drawing programs all night and come tomorrow morning I'll be very very sorry... A fine evening to all and to all a grand night,
Kalee

Marketing and New Venues

Hello again,
I've been a busy little bee today! Spoke to administrators at my local library and another local childrens-geared business about donating some items for them to display with my name and business info, and have gotten the green light on both which is pretty cool! :) I am also working like crazy to try and set up my new Artfire "Melloheads" shop while Lennon is napping. Have 5 items up already, I'm hoping to get at least 10 and then start on Mamatrashheap and Ations at Artfire as well. We'll see how it goes, I'm hoping to find some other good venues, etsy is just getting so big these days that it is hard to get your items seen. Any suggestions?
Later,
Kalee

Drawing at the playground

Greetings Enablers!
I took my little one to the playground this morning... did I play? Chase him around? not much... instead I walked behind him DRAWING all the while in my notebook... It was around 40 degrees and Lennon and I were all bundled up from the triple layered jackets to the wool hats... all except my fingers which were FREEZING but which I had to keep exposed to hold a pencil... I also discovered once I had arrived at the playground that all of my pencils were virtually pointless... so I used a pocket knife to whittle some points! Am I strange?? I have no idea... But the one positive thing about this odd behaviour is that it keeps me from having to engage in parental gossip sessions :) So I sit here drawing again... and having again refrained from my felt for the moment, I am starting to jones like you would not believe. Tommorrow just might be the day I give in... I have attached a few photos of some recent sketches. A friendly farewell and a happy hoppy day to all!
-Kalee

one day at a time

Today was mostly a good day... I did pick up the pen once or twice... drew a few new Mellohead designs... One is a book plate, and another will be the design on my business card. I also sketched out a few ideas for a new line of stationery products I am working on which will eventually be found on myothersockisamonkey.etsy.com. I have this love of all things sock monkey, and I will be puting all sorts of fun funky socky items on there as well!

I feel like I am getting stronger, and though I slipped a little, all in all I did seem to fight my creating cravings pretty well. A few times I thought about my felt.... sweet, sooooffftt, felt.... and had a yearning or two for yarn... but By eating I was able to avoid giving in... another day in the books, does it ever get any easier?

Happily, I am finding more and more enablers out there who have been so gracious as to take away some of the evidence, a dreadlock bead over at mama trashheap's curiousity shoppe went just today. Yay! One less incriminating goodie in my home... Thanks for reading, and come back soon!

Houston, we may have a problem...

Hallo and Welcome! I am Kalee, and I may be a compulsive creator. I think it all started when I was a kid... I started out with the normal childhood outlets... play dough... crayons... maybe the occasional permanent marker when my mom wasn't looking... it all seemed harmless enough at first...

...But as my illness progressed, I soon was obsessed with embroidery floss and toothpicks... my worry dolls were the most detailed worry dolls the earth had ever seen.. and I made them by the dozens. Worry dolls of my favorite band (instruments and all), worry dolls of Disney characters... and worry dolls of every color, style, profession that my little 7 year old brain could possibly think of. I still stumble upon one here and there with a fair amount of regularity...

Phase after phase passed.. I found all sorts of new materials to get my fix... beads, pom-poms, and chenille stems... empty coffee cans, clothes pins, and colored paper... and then it happened.

The pen found me at 9 years old, with my first poem entitled: "The baby". It was about, what else, my new baby sister. I'm not sure if I have a copy anymore but I do remember it started with the lines: "The baby sleeps, The baby weeps, when the baby cries, she sees many peering eyes looking at her, just her"... A version of it, with a small drawing I had done won me a blue ribbon in a local fair children's contest, and gave me my first taste of recognition as an artist... even more than that, I realized that through my creations I could finally have my voice be heard... and in a family where I was but one of six children that was no small thing!

Anyways... from that point on a monster had been unleashed, and nothing could keep my pen from the page. As the years rolled by I continued to use my "gateway drugs", the pencil and pen, I also discovered in my early teens, the paintbrush and canvas... later I would fall in with a bad crowd and get hooked on the guitar and the song... but none of that compares to the addictions which now wake me at night, in a cold sweat... visions of trash and wool dancing about... Sometimes I wonder if I should seek help, but I am far too busy trying to pull every thought from within the deepest crevices of my mind... and to give them a solid form.

The needle marks from my felting needle are getting harder and harder to hide... and it scares me that someone might find my stash of plastic bags and cardboard and have me commited... but I hope that maybe with this blog, this psudeo-anononymous confession, and my growing number of Etsy shoppes (5 and counting) in time I may be ready to accept help.. after all, the first step is admitting you have a problem ;) ... and in the meantime, perhaps I will be able to find a few kind folks to take my creations off my hands, and thus ridding myself of the evidence... lest my loved ones catch on.


Please visit my etsy shoppes and take home the evidence!