Wow! Time Flies!!

Yipes! It's hard to believe two years has past since my last post. How can that possibly be? Rather than recapping all the events of the last two years, let's just start fresh, ok?

So who am I now? I am a licensed artist (meaning I license my artwork to manufacturers not an actual license, like a driver's license, you should see the looks I get when I say I am a licensed artist!), a wife, a mom to two wonderful kids who are about to be 7 and 4 in a matter of weeks, and a creative lifestyle entrepreneur. There's one of those terms again, creative lifestyle entrepreneur, what does it mean? Good question! In my case it means I design many things, besides art, that are made with top artisinal quality, so in my case it's about art, creative entertaining, great stationery, artisinal food, all those little details in life that make things sweet and memorable.

There's a lot of heart and soul that goes into everything I do which is hard to balance when you have a husband who travels a lot, two children, and client deadlines often causes me to feel like I am being pulled in a million directions at once. I am learning that I am not elasti-girl. I am learning to say no and focus on the things that matter most to me - not an easy task for me. I am learning that my art and product design really are worthy. Most of all, I am learning about self care and making a concerted effort at that because it's really easy to do put your self last on your daily to do list.

One of my goals is to blog at least once a week, so please come back and check out my progress and you'll get to see the sneak peaks of what I am working on, which are some exciting things!

Here's to fresh starts and achieving goals!

My Daughter's Class, School Annual Art Auction Projects, second two bags

These are the Favorite Fruit and Veggie bag (green bottomed bag), and the Dinner Bag (red bottomed bag). My sewing machine died before I finished appliquing the children's artwork to the bags so these two bag's appliques were hand sewn on. Thank heavens for all those great sewing techniques I learned from my mom, grandmother, Aunt Joyce, and of course all the 4-H projects and magazine projects I have created over the years!
This green bag is the only bag that has the entire class on it. We were the lucky bidders on this bag and my daughter is over the moon that we "won" it for her!

I am thrilled to say each bag went to great homes! The parents were thrilled with the bags and I'm even more excited to say these three bags raised a little over $300 for the school. Yay for the kids and yay for the school!

My daughter's class, School Art Auction Projects first two bags!

Our totebags were the hit of the art auction and truly a labor of love! I made these totebags from scratch, which ultimately claimed the life of my Singer sewing machine, atleast it was for a good cause. *Singer if you are reading this, we really have a chat about your products!* Our theme was based around favorite foods. I worked with the four and five year olds in my daughter's pre kindergarten class to create the art that is appliqued on to both sides of each bag. This post features the Lunch Bag (yellow bottomed bag) and the Dessert Bag (pink bottomed bag).

The bags are roomy approx 17"wide x 15"deep x 6" in depth. They were made of white denim and oudoor canvas so that they would be sturdy and handle all the elements. They have an inside pocket perfect for keys and the all important cellphone and a ribbon tie closure. Of course they had to have generous handles too.

I worked with the children on three occasions. First I quizzed them about their favorite foods, then we worked together to draw those foods. Next I took their drawings and transferred them to cotton muslin. I took the muslin pieces back to class where each child painted their foods. Each child was on at least two bags and some were even on three bags. Aren't they just darling?!

My Son's Class, School Annual Art Auction project

Each spring the school that my children attend have an art auction. This happens to be the project I worked on with my son's class. In my son's class the children are either just getting ready to turn two or are two years old. So this project was especially sweet. I painted their hands with paint, and for a two year old you would have thought I was painting mud on their hands, some loved it and some just hated the thought!

The kids who weren't so in love with the concept of having their hands painted are on the top, with the exception of Golden she loved having her hands painted! But you have to work with the esthetics and thus she only got 1 handprint. But the kids who loved having their hands painted were the two handed hearts on the bottom. For me getting prints of their hands was important to me because they are this little for just a short time and especially with my son that time seems to be flying! I wanted to cement that little handprint in history so to speak so I can always remember this time. I know the new owner of the stool, Oliver's family will appreciate that!
The top picture is of the top of the stool with the kids handprints that I turned into hearts. The second picture shows the darling dots and stripes on the base of the stool. The third shots shows the saying I painted "With love (shown with the heart) we will thrive". The fourth is another shot of the stool.

Don't Look If You're Hungry!

Just a peek at some of the appetizers from a recent dinner party. Here we have in the front artichoke pesto, in the back my roasted garlic hummus, surrounded by Stacy's Tuscan Herb Pita Chips and 34 degree crackers, both of which are HIGHLY addictive because they taste so good!











Here is the other side of the tray we have my roasted garlic and roasted garlic dip, which has the roasted garlic with the cchicken broth rosemary reduction from roasting the garlic mixed with goat cheese, divine!
My famous cheese gougers (that's a fancy name for cheese puffs!) Easy to make once you've mastered them and such a crowd pleaser especially when they are fresh from the oven!

Our Atlanta License & Design Collection Booth

Here is another shot of the front tablescape.
Here's a shot of the back of the booth. It's a little washed out with the lights in the booth and the flash from the camera.
Another booth shot. We were in a 8x10' space on the 3rd floor of building 2 of Atlanta's AmericasMart. We had good traffic flow through out the show. The show was extreamly busy with buyers so many of the art directors we wanted to see simply couldn't make it because the showrooms were overflowing with buyers writing orders. But we sure loved the art directors that took the time to come down and see us! Atlanta's weather during the show simply put was insane. Or as friends across the way put it "stupid cold". Friday's traffic was very slow as that's when a dusting of snow and very icy roads brought Atlanta to its knees. By Saturday and Sunday the traffic picked up significantly. We even had a crazy marching band march through our aisles on Sunday!


Here's a picture of me and my sister Erica, I couldn't have done it all without her help! I told her that after this show she is required to go with me to every other show I exhibit at!

Our Atlanta License & Design Collection Booth

Here's the booth just after set up but before we added the fresh flowers to the tablescapes. As you can see it was a very colorful and cheery booth. Thankfully we had a prime spot where we were right in the midst of the traffic flow. Thank you Amy for that one!
Now you can see the fresh flowers added to the front tablescape.
Here's the other side wall of the booth.
A closer picture of some of the collections on one of the side walls.