Happy New Year!

We're taking it easy this New Year's Eve. We've got Civilizations 4 installed on both computers and have been playing together all day. Also I'm working on a raccoon plushie (Mooommy, sewing machine hates me! Again!), and of course some art. Thought I'd be like Kait (we do share a brain after all) and give you a recap of my year.

-The biggest thing of course, is that we moved back to BC in august, Craig is in school and we are much much poorer. But also happier. It hasn't been an easy fall, with car issues and job issues, but we're settling in here.

-I've taken up sewing

-We got a second computer (seriously newsworthy in my world!)

-All my friends got pregnant (I just found out about another one today, it just doesn't end!), and I got baby-envy.

-I started making actual freelance money online (as opposed to only mural and window work the year before).

...otherwise my life has been mostly the same. I spend part of my time at work and the rest drawing and reading. It's a good life.

Looking to next year...well I'm not really much of one for resolutions, but I have a couple goals.

-Get my portfolio to the point where I feel comfortable looking for children's illustration work (I'm happy with the quality, I need more quantity).

-I've decided that I'm ready to get my house in order (I'm not the world's best housekeeper...shocking I know). So I'm taking the plunge and joining Flylady...starting tomorrow. It's an online goup/coaching thing that helps you keep on top of things, cleaning-wise

-And on the fun side, I hope the new art forum I'm co-founding will be a success.

Finally, here's some WIP's...they were started in 2007, but won't be finished till 2008!

Angelness

Just realized I never posted this one up. She's an angel I made into fabric ornaments for the Holiday Ornament Gift Swap. I used ironable interfacing between two pieces of white cotton, then ironable transfers to put the angel on. They turned out pretty well:




So we're home, which is good. It's wonderful to spend lots of time hanging out with family...but there's a lot to be said for sleeping in your own bed.

And here's another sketch I did while away from my computer. She's a character (Matilda Anne Rackham) for an art forum I'm starting up with a friend. Yay for steampunk! (the robot's name is Franklin)


I'd show you Christmas photos, but I left the cord for my camera at my parents :(

Most Merriest of Chrissymasses!

Well, I can finally show off one of my sewing projects. This is Eco-ninja. I made him for my brother to take to South America on his trip. The idea is to take pictures of his adventures. It's a top secret ninja mission.

He's all hand sewn with a flannelette body and a felt face and leaf. His eyes are used buttons.



I got new snowshoes (!) as did Craig, as well as a new hat and shirt and 2 cookbooks and...a feather duster. Oh oh, and my aunt made me the prettiest throw pillows in the world.

I hope all of your Christmases were as good as mine, but I doubt they could be better!

Merry Christmas Eve

Well...it's 11:52...and I wake up at 5...and I haven't packed my clothes...sleeeepy.

Adventures in Snowshoeing

I don't have my film developed yet, but here's some that Craig's friend Shauna took with her digital. If you don't know me, I'm the one in the bright striped toque (because I luuuurve it) and the other lovely lady is Megan. Craig of course is the one being...Craiglike.

Yeah we decided to abandon the trail on the way back to enjoy bounding through powder. This was a less than well thought out decision that led us way of course, we hit the highway about 2km down from the car. Fun times though, and you can see that it was a truly beautiful day to play in the mountains.

Did I mention how happy I am to be back in BC?

Friday Five!

Well, today had fun adventures such as:

-snowplow scraping ice of the road at 3:30am. Soooo not impressed over here.
-my car being covered in a centimetre of ice...on the inside of all the windows!
-making a santa beard out of felt and sewing it to a hat for the Santa Pool Party tonight. I'm so not excited.
-Also yesterday I made two kinds of shortbread.
-Also we are officially poor students...as we got a food hamper from the church :P

1) Pop Art Toaster, has 6 different design plates..and 5 edible markers. I would think that by the time you finish colouring your toast would be cold.



2)Odo twirl 'n take camera. You twirl the wheel to produce enough energy to take the picture.


3)Bankstoels, recycled felt topped benches by South African designer Ronel Jordaan.



4)Candle carver...turn things from the fridge into candle holders :P



5)Rebekah the Snowflake amigurumi doll.
:)

Yaaar

Sorry about not posting yesterday. I seemed to misplace it. The day I mean, where did it go? I did a lot of finishing presents and some wrapping. Craig and I made Owl thumbprint gift tags which are pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Oh right, and I spent the whole day drawing.

Kerry is a girl I know from back in the high school days and she is engaged and planning a pirate themed wedding. So she commissioned me to draw her and her fiance all piratey like.



Very amusing, I've never done pirates before. Here's the photo of them that it's based off of:

Blog Tour: Wayfarer's Journal - Site Design Review

Welcome back oh blog tourers and readers of mine. I had an eventful day of snowshoeing through the fluffy goodness that is winter in BC. Got a bit lost and fell down a small cliff but don't worry, I am fine! A little sore, but fine. Pictures to follow when I get my film developed (it was to foggy for the digital today)

Okay so today is the second day of the December CSFF Blog Tour for which we are visiting the Christian Sci-fi E-zine (do they call it an e-zine? Isn't there a less...nerdy term out there somewhere?) The Wayfarer's Journal. If you want a general overview, read my next post. If you want a story review, come back tomorrow. If you want to listen (read) as I spout off design opinions, keep reading.

First off, in Jim Black's interview, Terri (the site's editor-in-chief) did say that he knows he is not an artist/designer and that he is hoping to improve on the sites design. Which is great because you know what I've noticed about writers? As wonderful and adorable as they (you) all are...the majority are not artists or graphic designers. And it shows! Writer webpages give me a migraine. Don't be afraid to ask for help people! That's why we're the graphics people! It's what we do!

That said, the Wayfarer's Journal does not give me a migraine (hooray!). It's not terribly exciting, but better to be a bit simple than so packed full of fantastic ideas that no one can see them.

Here's what I liked:
- Navigation was at the top and easy to use. No funny stuff. No hiding of links.
- Consistent theme.
- It was easy to find the stories and poetry...which is after all the point.
- Everything was fairly easy to read (meaning font sizes were good, and the text was always visible on the background)

Those might seem like boring obvious things...but sooooo many sites don't bother with them and the result is...annoying to say the least.

Things I would change:
- The banner on the first page is a low image quality. All the other pages have a high quality banner. I'm guessing (hoping) that this was a graphic typo.
- The text is a little close to the edges, this is easy to fix.
- The author guidelines info escapes the layout.
- The grey, black and white thing? Just doesn't do anything for me. Maybe it's the sterileness off space? Unfortunately it just makes me feel a bit bored...but I think they know that.


My main beef would be that they say that even though they only publish twice a year, there is always new content. It's not obvious what is new, so if I just glanced at the page again in a month, I might think that nothing had changed and write it off. I think people need to be excited about updates to the site...or why bother returning once you've read everything? Maybe if the blog was incorporated into the first page and updated...weekly?

And now a question for all of you:

Do you find chat rooms or forums more accessible? I personally am intimidated by chat rooms but love to lurk around and post a bit in forums. Also, forums have the advantage of being able to converse with people at any time, and keeping a record of interviews and conversations. Is this just me? I'm honestly curious because if it were my site I would have gone with forums and I wonder if you would.

Blog Tour: Wayfarer's Journal

So this month on the CSFF Blog Tour we are visiting the Ezine: The Wayfarer's Journal. This is a Christian Science Fiction site with both short stories and poetry.

Here's a snippet from the site:

" Wayfarer’s Journal (http://www.wayfarersjournal.com), a new science fiction e-zine, was launched in February 2007. The publication focuses on publishing science fiction stories with a “spiritual dimension.”

“By spiritual we don’t mean preachy,” comments Wayfarers editor Terri Main. “We mean stories which not only project the reader into the future technologically, but see how those changes impact the morality, ethics and spirituality of believable characters.” "

Tomorrow I will talk site design (because I am obligated to) and I shall try to do some reading to give you a recommendation by Wednesday.

Read some more reviews:
Brandon Barr* Jim Black* Justin Boyer* Grace Bridges* Amy Browning* Jackie Castle* Carol Bruce Collett * Valerie Comer* CSFF Blog Tour* D. G. D. Davidson* Chris Deanne* Jeff Draper* April Erwin* Marcus Goodyear* Andrea Graham* Jill Hart* Katie Hart* Michael Heald* Jason Joyner* Kait* Carol Keen* Mike Lynch* Margaret* Rachel Marks* Melissa Meeks* Rebecca LuElla Miller* Mirtika or Mir's Here* John W. Otte* John Ottinger* Rachelle* Steve Rice* Cheryl Russel* Ashley Rutherford* Hanna Sandvig* James Somers* Steve Trower* Speculative Faith* Jason Waguespac* Laura Williams* Timothy Wise

Winter Windows

A couple windows I painted up at work last week. It took less then 24 hours for some punk kids to scrap their initials in it. @$*!@&$^&!!

Dum de dum, still getting ready for Christmas. I want to do some baking on...Wednesday probably as we're going snowshoeing tomorrow with a couple of Craig's school buddies (heaps and heaps of lurverly snow out there). And I have some sewing and lots of wrapping still. And maybe a couple more stocking stuffers. Other than that I'm all done my shopping.

We went to Nelson on Friday and walked up and down Baker Street with me showing Craig all the things I thought were pretty. Then I went to visit my pool buddies so he could buy me presents and hide them in the trunk. This system works for both of us. Then we went up to Hohns because my Mom and Barb & Blair were up so we got Gramma and had an early Christmas party because Gramma won't be able to travel out to our real Christmas Eve party. Which will be on the 28th. Don't ask. Anyway we had heaps of yummy greek food and played Pit at the top of our lungs. Then the next day I went shopping with Barb for a bit and then went to work. As I did yesterday. Also went to a friends Christmassy party. Then today was Aquafit, touching up my window painting, and then working on a commission all afternoon. I'm a busy little bee :)

Saturday Five?

So sorry, I was out yesterday doing my Chrissymas shopping! Well here's some Christmassy ideas.

1) Furochic, reusable fabric wrapping based on Furoshiki, a traditional japanese thingy.



2)Make a Gingerbread house online, surprisingly amusing.



3)The shirt reads: The Internet was closed so I thought I'd come outside today.
Tragically I already have Craig's Christmas present.



4)Does someone on your list want a Stunning Diamond Necklace?



5) I love these earrings so much, they're a collabaration with Ana Ventura (an illustrator) and Abigail Percy (a jeweler).

It burns!

My finger that is. No matter how often I use a glue gun I just can't seem to master the ways of not burning myself. Just finished my ornaments for the holiday ornament swap, very exciting stuff. Also, in excitement, I got three whole packages in the mail today! Hooray. Firstly I got a blog tour book, secondly I finally got my Christmas cards, and they are fantabulous, I'm just in love with them. I'll have to keep one for myself. The third item I can't tell you about, but yay for mail!

Also, how do you like my blog's festiveness?

Dear Mom: you would tell me the books you'd like for Christmas 6 hours after I place a book order. That's it! No books for you!

Dear Jen: the things you said you'd send me for the thing? Need them right away please!

Dear Barb: please update your blog you super slacker. See you on Friday!

Dear Karl and Am: I have lost my password to your blog. Apparently my computer ate the cookies (yum).

Okay bye.

Shhhhhh

Gah, I don't even know what to post these days. I'm working on many exciting projects but I can't show any of them off because too many people on my gift list read my blog! So just expect a large and amusing post after Christmas.

I wanna show! *runs away before secrets burst out everywhere*

Oh oh, and I think I (and Craig) might try making some candy this year. Anyone have a good recipe?

Friday Five

1) Octopus Soap and Scrubber by Boston Warehouse



2)Eight Nesting Lotus Bowls by Whitney Smith. I just love these. Love!



3) The Daniel Craig Tea Towel by Emma Bridgewater. Ehehe!



4)Park Planters by Science and Sons. They make your plant look like a tree! Such a cute idea...I should get one for my Norfolk Pine.


5) Ehehe! Look at this calendar by Noa Bembibre, Read the coloured letters for the month.

Not feeling the Christmas spirit yet?

How about now?

Hola!

Again, not dead. I was really really frustrated with the car situation, plus gone for three days. These things add up to not so much blogging. Um, so what's been up...I'm mostly healthy now. Although I did spend three days mostly in the water in Nelson taking a course. Retaking a course actually. The moral of the story is apparently you should re-certify LSI more often than every 6 years. They frown upon that. It was really cold (hot tub was broken) and made me really tired. So tired that I curled up and fell asleep in class on Saturday. Slept for 1/2 an hour. Woke up with drool on my sleeve. How embarrassing for me! Got teased for the rest of the weekend.

We had piles of beautiful snow that didn't survive the two days of rain :(. I'll take snow over slush any day. Yuck yuck yuck. I did however brave the knee deep puddles to run to the florist and buy a little two foot norfolk pine tree. It's my Christmas tree! Seemed like an option that is both green and space saving (as my place is not so roomy). And it's cute!