…it’s about the appreciation of photography and a glimpse of the The White House behind-the-scenes. Love the candidness of all the photographs. Check out more from The White House flickr stream here it’s worth a look!

I’ve made a little video to show my Junk A Doodles™ process (where I recycle junk) in celebration of earth day. The Woog painted the earth blue and helped pick out and suggested pieces. Can you find her peeking her hands in the shot and my red pj pants? It’s around 9 minutes and worth the watch if you have the time. Hope you like it!

This was the 3rd and final cake for the Woog’s 5th birthday (here’s #1 and #2). I’m done eating and baking cake for a while. The party was a school theme since she’ll start kindergarten in the fall. It might be hard to tell from the picture but the pink cake is a backpack.The cake and the party were a big hit with her!

Surtex is officially one month away and I still have a ways to go, but I;m feeling really good about my progress so far. I figured out my booth layout and what all I will show (the biggest stressor for me). I used my skills from my environmental design class in college to work up a to scale elevation of the booth:

The green areas are what I already have printed out, the pink areas are what I still need to print out, the blue areas are signage and the orange areas are things I need to mock-up (I’m still working on my last panel though). I spent Tuesday and Thursday this week printing. I am using someone’s large format printer by paying them per square foot. I like this better than sending it out somewhere and hoping it looks good when it’s all done. This way I can check progress as I go. Luckily I haven’t had any issues. I’ve cut everything out and will later mount it all on boards:

This week I also worked on some postcards for Surtex. I decided not to use the USPS postcards like i normally do because I’ll be writing small notes on some of the mailers and I couldn’t do that with the others. One is a mailer I plan to get out next week (we went through names yesterday and have about 220 people to send to), a bio postcard to hand out as giveaways and I had extras printed to include in any samples we mail, and thank you postcards (for Surtex and later). For the design I went with a design I originally went with
last year:

I still have to print my other giveaway goodies, so hopefully I’ll get to all that next week. Other things on the to-do list:

• Get everything printed and assembled for my press kit (everything is written, just need to print it all out)
• Mock up several physical products to show
• Mock up products to put in design book – I think I’ll get my designer to work on those next week
• Start packing my suitcase of of things I’ll need for the booth (scissors, stapler, tape, etc.) – just filling it up as I go so I won’t have to get it all together at once
• Chart out our road trip via Garmin
• Download audiobooks for the trip
• Shop for clothes and comfortable shoes

Now I’m off to spend the day preparing for the Woog’s 5th birthday party tomorrow!!

The above is a thank you postcard I designed last week to send to clients after I work with them (this is for my licensing clients – I have a different one I use for my children’s illustration clients). I am getting them printed through Overnight prints since they did an awesome job with my business cards. I hope to get them early next week and I’ll show the final product then (along with my Surtex postcards!).

Exactly one month from today I’ll be on my way to NY for Surtex. Things are coming along great and I have yet to freak out (but there’s still time). I finally figured out what I will show in my booth and how it will all look. That was the biggest stressor and now I feel like a load has been lifted off. I’ll be posting tomorrow or Friday on part 5 of my Surtex Planning.

The Woog turned 5 today! Now that she’s 5, she can apparently do a lot of things “since she 5 now.” We had a very small easter lunch and party after church with just us and grandparents. I also made a quick snow white cake.

Next week is her “BIG” party so lot of prep coming up this week! With a cold coming on, the easter bunny coming, cake and riding her new bicycle, she’s now zonked out on the couch.

Happy Birthday Woog!! I love you!!!

The Woog turns 5 on Easter so she’ll have double the goodies! Her party will have a school theme. These invitations were mailed in a clear envelopes from ClearBags so the world would see that “Walker turns 5!”

Thanks for all who donated and/or re-posted my last blog post. In one week (via a facebook & twitter campaign) they were able raise $7,000 and receive $2000 in skymiles. Very cool!!