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.

Above is the completed booth. It wasn’t all on the floor like I expected so that was good. I had a great first day and got to meet a lot of familiar bloggers like:

Carol Eldridge
Tara Reed
Cindy Ann Ganaden
Liz Goulet Dubois
Laura Fry
Mary Beth Cryan

Plus several others that I can’t think of right now (sorry guys – my brains pretty much mush right now), but hopefully I will later.

I made a few good contacts and one really great one about 15 minutes before the show closed. I’ve heard that tomorrow (Monday) will have the most people and Tuesday’s crowd will start to dwindle as the day goes, but it could only take one good contact to make the show successful and so far I have several!

I’ll try and blog again tomorrow night!

I’m here! After months and months of working on things for Surtex, it’s finally here and I’m ready for it! Today was the set-up day and it was pretty rough. There was no air conditioning on, my booth was by the huge open dock doors and with all the humidity and heat, my tape wasn’t sticking to the walls and my things kept peel and pop off. So, we went and bought scotch tape and that was working but only a little, so I’m heading back bright and early in the morning to see all my work on the floor and tacking everything up with command poster strips (I boughts all they had at the CVS by our hotel). Hopefully with the air on tomorrow everything will stay stuck. I’ll try and post an image of the complete booth set up tomorrow.

I finally got to “meet” my fellow Illustration For Kids member Jannie Ho. We didn’t get to talk long but am sure we’ll make up for it in the next few days. My booth is next to Monica Lee, Barbara Johansen Newman, Caleb Gray (the only exhibiting artist, I think, who is from my neck of the woods), and Nancy Woolf (who’s work is super cute!).

After set-up we walked back to the hotel (our hotel is in a perfect location!) and then headed out to eat at the Bread Factory and then to Time Square. Since I’ve never been to New York, the crowds and sights were pretty insane. I’m already tired of all the honking

We left yesterday for Surtex and since we drove from Nashville, we went through Virginia and Pennsylvania (both of which I have never been to). It was an amazing drive and although I’m from the country, I’ve never seen so much countryside. I did not expect to see so much and am kicking myself for not bringing my professional camera (I didn’t want to lug it all over NYC). All I brought was my little Samsung pocket camera. I’m going to have to come back and go on a barn “photo safari.” We made great time yesterday and spent the day today in Intercourse, Bird-in-hand & Strasburg, PA (which is Amish country) before heading up to Bordentown, NJ which is where we’re spending the night tonight. Tomorrow we’ll head into the city and set-up the booth at Surtex. I’ll try my best to post about it all tomorrow night.

Below are some doors from Strasburg today (love doors!):

Here’s my tree display from yesterday’s ornaments. All my painting & gluing is done so tonight I get a manicure and I’ll be set!

Quick iphone picture of what I’m working on right now. A couple of ornament mock-ups from my designs.

Starting to pack up all my supplies for Surtex and trying to think of what I might need if I ran into issues with anything. We leave bright & early Thursday!

Organized Chaos. Still a lot to go!!

Just a sneak peek at what I’ll have at Surtex. I love this circus pattern and the little plush lion as a mock-up of what could be done with a character. My licensing manager made the lion and I love how it turned out!!

I’m going to try and post everyday until Surtex and plan on blogging and tweeting from there too! All my tweets will show up on facebook too in case you’re not on twitter.

I leave for Surtex next Thursday and I’m getting everything together and hope to be done with it all at the end of this week. Above is my little promo giveaway. It has my bio card, samples cards, business cards and some will contain access to my private gallery. Today I’ll be gluing everything on study boards and tomorrow will consist of cutting and mounting. I still have a lot to do, but the stress of it ll is gone. It feels great!