So it's Not November...

In fact November is looong over, I complained about Pink Slime and then my blog fell into a black hole.  December came and went, now January's way more than half over. Anyone who knows me knows I HATE being cold and it is COLD in my office where the scanner is.  This is a pathetic excuse not to upload what I've been working on and share it on this blog.  I admit it. But everytime I go in there thinking well, I can stay in here half an hour, how bad can it...BRRRR, forget it!  I turn around and come right back out.

I have two new digital collage packs up in my Etsy shop.  A set of Valentine's Day designs and a set of designs for anyone who has ever tried to find a non-lame sort of design to use in a scrapbook for a tween or teen guy.

 

Patriotic Super Stars

My entry into the Spoonflower's Stars and Stripes Contest.  There are lots of vote-worthy designs this week.  Take a look and choose your faves.

Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Peeps

Upside down girl, tiny punk rocker and Leonard from Big Bang Theory.

What's been going on here is that I haven't been doing much with this blog. I haven't done Paisley of the Week for almost a month. My apologies! But I have been keeping up with a person a day.

Both of these girls have have weird awkward arms. I never know what to do with the arms so they end up looking stiff and strange. Leonard from Big Bang Theory new and improved. Notice the lack of arms....

More free Paisley Wallpaper!

I haven't done a free wallpaper in a while.  I had to share these 4 new paisley backgrounds in the season's most popular colors:  Harvest, Frost, Plum and Teal.  For use with your desktop, Twitter, blog.  Simply right click to download and then set it to tile in whatever format you're using.  Under creative commons license. You may not resell, redistribute, or claim as your own.  I hope everybody has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Red, white and green

Pretty, no?

Letter Doodles

There's an 'N' in the works too...

For those of you who might want an entire set of paisley letters.

Water Marble Nails

Nails like Good -n- Plenty!

Want super fun nails that get you noticed?  Try a water marble manicure!   You know how when you try to artistically enhance your own nails the left hand looks good but then your right will look all shakey and messed up? With a water marble mani both hands will look awesome!  For a tutorial visit  My Simple Little Pleasures blog.  Colette, its' writer, has dozens of easy to understand tutorials on how to get this cool and unique swirly look.

Some things to keep in mind:

While this type of manicure is not difficult to do, it does take a while and it is messy so give yourself about an hour of uninterrupted time plus drying time. 

If you're doing your nails for a special occaision, I recommend that you do them a day beforehand.  Like I said, marbling can be messy; there's always some nailpolish on your fingers and it's easier to get it completely off of your hands when it's totally dry.  You can use nailpolish remover but it may mess up your marbling if you slip up so I found that it's just better to wait.

Pick colors that contrast with eachother.  If your colors are too close together (like pink, red, orange) the swirly effect doesn't show up quite as well.

Paint all of your nails with white (or another light color) first. It gives the other colors a backdrop like a little canvas for your 10 mini-masterpieces!

Start of Summer

Is the End of the school year.  At the beginning of the year, my 10 year old asked me to design a binder cover for him.  Now it's June and summer has officially gotten underway and the doodle has held up pretty well.   This summer I have a lot of things I want to do.  Silkscreening and tye-dying to name a few.  Not to mention finishing up sewing projects that I've started.  How about you?  What are your summer project plans?

Finished it Thursday

Pink -n- Black -n- White always look tasty!

Sunday Squiggle

Guess the Paisley of the Week!

I love this paisley watch by GUESS.  I want this watch.  Anyone out there who wants to buy me this watch please feel free.  It's available at Macy's....

Hmmmmm....

This one I am sure of.

This one, not so sure.  What actually goes with mauve? It hasn't been around for so long that I forgot.  It might be peach or it might not.  What do you think?

Paisley of the Week! Henna Tatoo

 This week's Paisley of the Week! is something very special.  Jaewalker is an artist that I've met on deviantart and I was hard pressed to choose just ONE of her fantastic works as Paisley of the Week!  Like me, she doodles and draws paisley as  a form of meditation.  Unlike me, her doodles are on skin instead of paper.  Henna tatoos are semi-permanent, which means that they'll come off but not right away.  This paisley palm is Jaewalker's own, which seems to be her favored canvas.  Look at the details!  If you get a chance to take a look at her gallery, please do!

Paisley of the Week!

Hello out there, Paisley fans!  I am starting a new feature right here on this blog called "Paisley of the Week!"  Each week, I'm going to feature someone's paisley--it might be a fabric, a drawing or an article of clothing.  It might be a well known artist or designer, or it might be someone who's been hiding their light under a bushel.  Just about everything paisley catches my eye--so it could be anybody's!

This week's Paisley of the Week is a gorgeous mosaic wall hanging by Christina Colwell.  This is not the only paisley offering in her Etsy Shop either.  Go take a peek if you get a moment!

Oh!  And don't forget to vote for my fabric "Daffy o' Dillys" in Spoonflower's Fabric of the Week Contest, you have until the 31st,  Thanks!

Inadvertently Inverted

Sometimes I sketch something and I don't really like it all that much.  I liked the bold lines of this and the fan-flowers but this sketch went ignored for some time.  I always thought it was too un-balanced.  It's all spiky on one side, bubble round on the other.

I've scanned most of my old notebook into my laptop.  When I'm scouting around for inspiration, I'll open one of these scans in Photoshop to see what I can do with it or what elements from it I might use.  By accident, I inverted this sketch and it looked so different--wow!  After deleting the black negative space around the drawing it looked like a stamp or a woodcut and now  I really like it.  I moved some of the smaller paisly elements around and rotated things to spread it out a bit.  I'm still fiddling with it but it's going to be a toile or batik design. 

New Thing

Update!  3-23-10
Color added (see below) a la Spoonflower's Art Nouveau Fabric of the Week contest.  Vote for my design!

On paper is usually where my textile design ideas are born.  Photoshop makes it clean and symmetrical. But sometimes the asymmetrical and humanly flawed is more appealing I think. I've been thinking a lot about the Art Nouveau style a lot.  It's fancy without being overwhelming like Rococco and there's the element of the organic about it.

"Objets Nouveau"