A Whole Lotta Love SALE!

Just a note to say that there is a Valentine's Day SALE going on in my shop and the savings on a whole slew of prints and paper goods is pretty darned awesome, if I do say so myself.

So come on by and pick up something sweet!

You can find my sale section {HERE}

And can I also just add that I had no idea how many heart/pink/love related items I had in my shop? Yeah, I had no clue. I'm such a sucker for romance!

Enjoy!

xoxo,

Paper Dolls and Sellotape

Don't you just love it when inspiration suddenly slaps you in the face?

Yesterday, I was trying to think of something fun to make for Gracie when it hit me... Gracie LOVES my snobs, so I thought perfect... I'll make her some snobby paper dolls. But not just any snobby paper dolls... jointed paper dolls.

So I pulled out my sketch book and VOILA!


Okay, yeah, I still have a long way to go... but this is going to be Charlotte (Gracie named her) , who is very snobby and very elegant, and will carry a parasol and a couple of other fancy things (which I have yet to draw). She measures just over a foot tall and will be very colorful (pink and red, compliments of Elaine and Beth - Yay, Twitter friends and their ideas!).

She'll have a couple of doll mates - Gracie requested a mermaid in particular. And then I'm considering making the characters from Alice in Wonderland... which reminds me... I really need to finish my Alice series that I've blogged about here and here and here.

Gracie is pretty darned excited to get Charlotte when I'm finished with her. She was even inspired to make some paper dolls of her own:

By the way, those are paper doll people of Gracie and Harry Potter (who Gracie fancies herself in love with) . Notice the heart above the handsome Harry's head... and a garden (of love) for them to walk in.

And then Annelie made some amoeba-people paper dolls.

Are they not the cutest things you have ever in your life seen?

Before I go, let me just share... this song has become the anthem of my paper doll designing, compliments of my husband who has been singing it in my ear since I first mentioned paper dolls last night:



Lets break it down together, folks:

People people
People people
Pencil pencil
Pencil pencil
Paper paper
Put the pencil to the paper
Give the paper to the people
Let the people read about the sellotape
Oh baby baby
Yeah

xoxo,

Working on Rapunzel

I just wanted to share a few photos of what is going on in my studio.

Rapunzel as a work-in-progress. You can click each photo for a closer look, if you want to see a little more detail.

So, first things first... sketch.

After I sketch out my illustration, Sophie and Somersault check over my lines, making sure they are perfect.

Somer is a perfectionist, so she always tells me where to erase if she doesn't think my sketch is up to snuff. Notice how she is using a Pink Pearl eraser... the only kind I use.

I really hope you know I'm kidding. I may be Crazy Cat Lady, but I'm not that crazy.

(I'm not kidding about the Pink Pearl eraser part, though. Pink Pearl erasers = magic)

Face always goes first. If I mess up something as simple as a nose, or the shape of her lips or eyelid, its back to square one. Things like hair, or background, or clothes I can always fudge if I mess up, but the face has to be perfect, or there's no point in moving forward. The face is my favorite, but its the most nerve-wracking.

Somersault inspects everything. She's checking to make sure my pencil shavings are in order.

Again, kidding. But seriously, its a bit of a challenge sharing my studio with a 2 year old, a 4 year old, and two rambunctious, curious kittens.

Okay, moving on. As I work on foreground, I always have to consider my background.

This illustration is going to be a mixed media collage... so here is my ripped up text (from a vintage fairy tale book) as I glue it onto bristol board.

(pssst! Book lovers, don't freak out. The fairy tale book was badly damaged and not worth a cent!)

Then I paint! I love getting my fingers messy. Here is a peek at my 1/2 painted background. There is a LOT more to do... from finishing the paint, to adding in the layers of colored pencil, to the detail.


Just a close-up as I work on that stone tower. Lots of blending and shading to bring out the stones.

And your last sneak peek is a close up of the stone tower with roses... not quite done yet, but close. I still have to do some detail work in the roses, to bring them and the leaves out.

Stay tuned! This illustration will be done in the next couple of days. I can not wait to have her finished... and to begin the next one -


Cinderella!

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: Pregnancy Sucks

Here's a little photo of me, from my Annelie pregnancy, with three months to go... yes, that's right - Three Months. I already felt like I was going to pop and I still had THREE freakin' months to go.

Annelie, my itsy bitsy tiny little baby, turns three this month and currently Will and I are saving money for him to get the snip. Why? Because I HATE being pregnant. I'm talking hate, as in loathe, despise, and abhor every single waking, breathing moment of it. Do I need more synonyms for hate or do you get the picture yet?

I have major envy of all the mothers who love being pregnant. I wish I had those feelings. I wish I could glow. The only reason I'm smiling in the above picture, is because I had already bought Annelie's baby book and it had one space for a photo of pregnant mama, and I wanted it to be a happy-looking one.

Yes, I was filling the pages of her baby book with LIES. Happy pregnancy? Me? Uh, no. More like psycho-raging hormones, being sick around the clock, swollen cankles (yeah, I said it... cankles, as in calf-ankles), 45 lb weight gain (darned Sonic Bacon Double Cheeseburgers with Tots), and the inability to be rational for even a second (just ask Will, he'll tell ya).

And worse than pregnant - the actual labor and delivery, or in my case, the freak-out over having yet another c-section. FYI, I hate c-sections.

I have an anxiety disorder, and it definitely reared it's ugly head during both of my pregnancies. I was 100% positive, when I was pregnant with Gracie, that I was going to give birth to Siamese twins. And then when I had the ultrasound and learned that I wasn't, I became 100% positive that she would be a hermaphrodite. And then when I learned that she wasn't, I was 100% positive that I was going to die in child birth.

I didn't. But then I got pregnant with Annelie and the irrational anxieties came back.

Do Will and I want to have more children? Yes, definitely. As long as we've known each other, we've talked about fostering to adopt older kids who are close to 'aging out' of the system, but who still don't have a family to call their own. Obviously, we are waiting until the girls are older. Fostering older kids is very challenging, so I've heard, and Annelie is enough of a challenge for me, right now.

But we LOVE kids. We ADORE kids, and we can't wait to have more. We're just thrilled that we can have them without the whole pregnancy thing happening again. Letting Pregnant-Marisa become just a flashback is mighty fine by me. Plus, just imagine how whacked-out my blog and shop would become if I had psycho-preggo-hormones in me. Not a pretty picture, to be sure!

Do you have a flashback of your own? Head over to Tia's blog (here) for the coolest meme in town.

xoxo,

Happy New Year!

above reads: Happy New Year
(in Welsh - if you can pronounce it, I'll give you a gold star... we're working on the girl's and their Welsh pronunciations... not the easiest language, in case you are wondering)

Happy 2010 to all my bloggy friends and family! I hope you have been ringing in the new year well, so far!

I won't be around for the next several days... our friends from Wales are visiting, so our house is filled with enormous amounts of British chocolate (Cadbury Double Deckers... WOOT!) and endless cups of tea.

And, in order to give our Welsh friends a proper trip to Texas, there has been a lot of BBQ eating and day trips into the wild, wild west. Yippy-i-o-ki-ay!

I'll be back soon!

xoxo,

The Artistic Genius of Annelie

Oh, how I love bed head on a little kid

Okay, so perhaps you wont look at Annelie's work and think WOWEEE! That girl is phenomenal! But remember, I'm her mom and thats what we moms are like. My kid is PHENOMENAL.

It is very hard for me to think that Annelie is the age that Gracie was when we started the Tootsie and Grace shop. Annelie was only a year old then, and now that she is coming up on age three, I still want to think of her as a little baby.

But this morning, she came over to show me her picture and it was like a slap in the face. My baby is a grown up! Look at that skill! That talent! She is amazing!

In case you can't figure out what the heck is in the above picture... those are people! No, not amoebas... people! Mommies and daddies and children and babies... isn't that a work of art?

I stopped working on Tootsie and Grace pictures with Gracie when she turned four. Her work became a little too sophisticated for the look I was going for with our Tootsie shop.

Not to mention, she sorta has the biggest, most gigantic crush on Harry Potter, so every picture she draws is one of she and Harry getting married, or she and Harry as mermaids.

Or she and Harry building snowmen together with Hermione Granger. Yes, my kid is a little kooky. But she's cute, so its okay.

I do have a few pictures she drew when she was three, that I have yet to color in. A couple of farm animals, a sea turtle (its a really great one, too!) and the King and Queen above. I have pretty much left Tootsie and Grace by the wayside. It was never supposed to be more than just a little fun and pocket money for Gracie, so I tend to forget the shop even exists...

But maybe its time to involve Annelie in our artistic fun. Annelie is definitely at the skill level Gracie was back when we used to work on our sharpie/colored pencil collaborations, and art has definitely become a passion of hers (good girl!).

Whether I color in any of Annelie's work or not, there's no doubt in my mind that my kid is an artistic genius. Yes, just her mother talking... but still.

She's PHENOMENAL.

xoxo,

A Camera... AAAAHHH!

I just had to share... nothing is cuter than super excited kids opening presents on Christmas morning.



I especially like that Annelie had no idea what her present even was... she just needed to scream to let that excitement out (translation in case you don't speak 2-year-old: she's screaming out, "A new THING!")

** Please note: I got an "oh, your poor terrified dog!" comment to that video, yesterday... but my dog wasn't at all terrified. The girl's commotion excites him -- the more excited they get, the more excited he gets, until its one loud shout/bark-fest in our house. Didja see his wagging tail?

And then of course, there's this look... it's the "I just took the wrapping paper off and I got THIS BOX... Hurray!" face.

Christmas was pretty darned awesome in the Hopkins house this year. I'm not sure anything can beat our very first Christmas in our very first house... and it didn't hurt that snow was still all over the lawn. Present opening, hot chocolate drinking and a snowball fight, all in one morning... that's heaven.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and if you are looking for a way to beat the post-holiday blues, head over to The Mama Dramalogues (here) to see what we'll be doing today.

xoxo,