First off, thank you so much for the nice emails and comments on my last post. I really appreciate it and feel so much better getting it all out.

Since the past couple of months have been crazy, I'm just now getting a chance to show teacher gifts from December. I didn't get a picture of it all packaged up (I did good just getting them out the door) but this is what we gave:


I took one of our countdown to school projects and made notecards for all the teachers along with their own rubber stamps. The cards were printed at Overnight Prints and the stamps made at Simon Stamps I highly recommend them both. Great prices, quality and fast shipping!

On another note, I've had to switch my comments over since Haloscan move to a new product. I'm still getting used to how it works and looks.

Labels: junk-a-doodles

Today my grief ends. I've had a cloud of grief hanging over me for more than a month and just when I though I had gotten my groove back and felt so much better last week, I got another devastating blow. I make it a point to not post too much about my personal life, but maybe this is the only way I can flush it out of my system and start to feel normal again.



^this was a woogie wednesday project we did back in 2008 - a portrait of 4 generations of women

My grandmother passed away a few weeks before Christmas. Her death was something I knew would hurt me worst than anything and I remember a few years ago when my dad suddenly passed away I told my husband that when my grandmother passed away that is when I would be totally beside myself. And I think I was. I knew it was coming and had a week to, for lack of a better word, "prepare" for what was going to happen. That might have made it easier for me but it was still just as hard as I thought it would be. I not only lost a grandmother (my last living grandparent), but my daughter lost a great-grandmother and I think that was even harder to bear. It's so hard seeing a child grieve but also a blessing to have the comfort of that child when you're grieving. Her sweet words and tender heart have amazed me.

As I said I got my groove back last week and then got another devastating blow. Thursday night my grandparent's house, the house that my grandfather grew up in (he would have turned 101 this year), the house he raised his family in, the house where all my childhood memories seem to come from, the house where my daughter was creating her own memories at last summer, and I extending mine, was struck by lightening and destroyed. Burned to the ground. My mother came over early Friday morning and I knew something was up. She said she had news but it wasn't about anyone and everyone was fine, but it is devastating and I should sit down. At that moment I knew what it was. Weird that I knew, but I knew. That second I felt I had lost everything from my grandparents. I had lost them all over again, I had lost the feeling of being at the house, the sound of the screen door slamming, the porch swing that had rocked so many generations, but most importantly their legacy. I was completely broken.

After a total freak out, I somehow got it together and went out to the house to see. The scene was heartbreaking. Still on fire that next morning and I left it that afternoon - still on fire. It was so surreal and still is. I sent Walker off to school that day without telling her why I was crying but let her know everything was ok and I would tell her about it after school. It was her 100 day celebration so I wanted her to enjoy her party. When I picked her up from school she immediately asked me why I was crying. We got in the car and I told her. She teared up a little but I don't think she knew what that really meant. We headed back to the house and when we pulled up, she knew exactly what it meant. Her little face scrunched up and filled with tears and started sobbing. Seeing her so hurt, hurt me worse. My husband took her around the house and I could hear that they had started making a game out of it and seeing if she recognized anything (which there was hardly anything) and that seemed to help her cope. She was very glad to see her tree swing was still there and that we would be bringing it home for the backyard. That night when I tucked her in she asked for a picture of the house to put in her room. I am thankful for the memories she has of it.

I had my husband email a few of my clients that were expecting work due to them on Friday and I thought his simple words, summed up the importance of the house to my family:

"Her grandparents' farm house (almost 100 years old) was struck by lightning and burned down last night. Thankfully nobody was living there at the time. She has a very tight-knit extended family and that home was the epicenter of their family. As you can imagine, the emotional connection to that home is huge."

And now for the pictures. I debated showing them but I am. I guess this post is pretty much about me healing so seeing a comparison would be good. The neighbor across the street took pictures as it was burning. We are so grateful she took them, but they are awful and I don't have those to show.


^fall 2009


^view from the front yard


^view from the garage - my granddaddy had a love/hate relationship with lawn movers - you can see 2 of them here

Thankfully a lot of things had been taken out of the house for safe keeping. There was still a lot of china, silver flatware, glassware that was lost among the other things that had no monetary value but did have sentimental value to us all, but the majority of it was not there. We are most thankful for not having to tell my grandparents that their house was no longer there. My grandmother would of taken it in stride and would have put her energy in comforting all of us, but my granddaddy would of never recovered from it.

So from this day forward my grieving will end. My body and mind can't take it anymore and I am done telling people about it all. My aunt summed it up the other day that she felt she had been living in a dream for the last two months and I think that's how we all feel. But I am ready to wake up. Through hard times come blessings and I can see and appreciate them and for that I am beyond grateful.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one guys. I just needed to put it all out there.

Labels: on the farm

It's 19 degrees and snowing in Nashville so The Woog and I made ice ornaments. You can check them out here.

Labels: woogie-wednesday

As I said yesterday, here is a detailed look at the Valentine's placemats avaiable through Oopsy Daisy. I love how they turned out - a combination of found objects and lettering - my two favorite things!

These designs are available to license as a whole or each "section" as individual pieces - wouldn't they make a cute pack of Valentines?

My new year started off great when I found my work up on Oopsy Daisy's site - even in cute styled shots (see the mermaid on the beach?). I licensed a few Junk A Doodles® with them and can't wait to get my hands on the actual canvases. They have been on my client wish list for quite a while and I'm glad my persistence and follow-up paid off. So excited about this new relationship!

Tomorrow I'll show you a detailed look at the Valentine's placemats I did for them - super cute! I blogged a sneaky peek here.

Labels: junk-a-doodles, licensing

Target recently contacted me (via a contact made at SURTEX) to send them "my book" to share with their creative team. My 3-ring binder of samples or my black leather portfolio was not going to be good enough for them, no, no. I needed something that said "Hey, look at me!", showed off my style from the front to the back and incorporated my love for found objects, lettering & color, so I created an entire customize album (that I can use later) where the contents can be easily edited and expand to any size.

I mailed it off a few weeks ago and got it back today in the same condition I sent it. I had a professor in college who had made this really cool portfolio that turned into a house (as part of her application for a architectural graduate program) and when it came back to her, she said the person looking through it must have been eating a snickers bar. There was caramel & nugget stuck to most of the pages. So thank you Target creative team for taking such good care of it.

Labels: lettering, licensing, promotion, surtex

I was recently interviewed by Thomas James of Escape From Illustration Island about how I promote my work. The podcast is now available so take a listen. Hopefully you'll get some ideas on how to market yourself as an illustrator. After my Surtex trip to NYC I became more aware of my southern accent so if you hear some "twang" in there, feel free to giggle. It apparently amuses those not from the south :)

And in other news, next year I will be relaunching Living The Creative Dream. After a year of examining what I've done (I've even written a book on marketing for illustrators - but no takers yet) and what my original plan was to do with the site - I've decided to stick with what I know best so I'm shifting the focus more on helping other illustrators with their marketing. So stay tuned for that.

Labels: interview, podcast, promotion

For the last year I've been doing some work for Uppercase Living. If you aren't familiar with them, they are a company from Utah that produces vinyl wall expressions. Their products are only available through company reps and are pretty popular all over the country and their Design Manger is one of the best people I've ever worked with!

I've done about 250 design for them so far and just a handful are in the current catalog. More will come out in Spring/Summer and next Fall/Winter. You may be able to point out a few of mine that involve some sort of illustration or hand lettering. I've also done several traditional looking ones. If you had a specific question as to which ones I've designed or want to know if I designed a particular one, just let me know. You can flip through their catalog here.

If you'd like to purchase some of my designs or others you can order them from my friend Rannie - and to comply with the new FTC disclosures, I receive NO compensation for referring you to her :) These do make great Christmas & Housewarming gifts!

Labels: lettering

I've been working recently on a ton of licensing and children's illustration projects (guess people are back to spending money again before their budget year is up). So above is a sneaky peek of 2 projects. Yeah, I know you'd love to see the rest, but I think I need to hold off for a while.

Labels: junk-a-doodles, licensing

This is an older Junk A Doodles® piece but thought of it when I saw this week's illustration Friday topic "flying."

Here are other "flying" pieces in this style:

Labels: junk-a-doodles