pushing myself

I went on a supplies shopping spree a few days ago. It had to be done. There was no more avoiding it. If I was ever going to get prints of my artwork finally made, step one would be deciding on a paper to use. Now I have no more excuses besides my own laziness or "lack of time", as I prefer to call it! I'm also making some greeting cards too, which I've already printed and packed in cute little clear sleeves. They look precious! Pictures to come of those soon.

This is an illustration that I've been working on that will be one of the first I turn into a print to sell. ...whenever I decide she's actually finished. That's my biggest problem..deciding something is done.



Tomorrow I have four wedding cake topper sets to list. Photos are all ready and waiting for me. So I should be able to get those in the shop tomorrow [evening].



I'll also be listing a pile of my "very teeny" Plini's and a handful of TEENY tiny Totoro figurines. Some have leaves on their heads too! Only an inch tall. I love them! So small!

cupcakes, more cupcakes and totoros

One day when I have a kitchen in a real-life house instead of this pitiful excuse for one that I have now in my apartment, I'd like it to have a cupcake theme. The other day someone on my twitter feed mentioned how she was sick of seeing cupcakes and people on Etsy making cupcake things and we should all grow up. But that's her opinion, and I'm okay with never growing up.

One of my Christmas gifts from my friend Yesenia was this super cute cupcake mug, which will go perfectly in my cupcake kitchen! She also got me a cupcake shaped plate, which I failed to get a picture of before my camera battery died.



Then at Target yesterday I picked up the CUTEST ceramic cupcake trinket box from their Valentine's section. So slowly the cupcake collection grows!



And of course with cupcakes on the brain, I had to make a few too. I'll be listing them in the shop sometime this week, along with a couple of other things.



Aside from cupcakes, I finished up a super cute custom order. A "romantic" Totoro set. How cute are they? The umbrella is removable (for ease of shipping and storage), and the figures are separate. But when you put them together, they look like they're holding hands!

another day, another Totoro

After much thought, I finally decided to craft up some characters from one of my favorite movies My Neighbor Totoro. I usually stick to making imaginary things that spawn from my brain, but I just couldn't help making a few Totoros because they're too cute to not! And as silly as this might sound, I don't even mind if they don't sell right away from my etsy shop because I think they make my shop look even that much cuter.

On a more serious note...I've been searching literally my whole entire life for polka dot tissue paper. I love using polka dot packing materials for my figurines, but for some reason I can't get my hands on polka dot tissue paper. I've scoured the web for hours, days, months, with no luck. I'm looking for the classic polka dot pattern. Not random dots all over, but organized neat little dots in a row. I can find random dot tissue paper everywhere on the web like it's my job, but for some reason I can't find the classic polka dot patterned tissue paper. Or I've run across neat dots in a row but for some reason the dots are HUGE. I'm not a fan of huge. Cute and tiny is the name of the game here. Color isn't even important at this point in time. Any polka dot tissue paper would do.
Okay, that's a lie. The dots have to be white. Any color with cute small white dots. Those are my only discrepancies. That's not asking too much, is it?

During my most recent endless search for polka dot tissue paper I stumbled on the Folding Trees blog where there's this really nifty tutorial on tissue paper carnations! Very cool, and amazing what can be achieved with a little marker accent.
I'd be all over this project if I didn't have evil demons for cats that I just know would promptly bat these flowers off the table and use as soccer balls. I really must invest in some display cases, or glass doors, something...