delighted

 This is the face of the new thank-you card I'm having printed up soon.
It's not the face I make when I walk into my bathroom. That look is one of fear and trepidation.

Yes. There are still crickets in my house.

I don't know how they're getting in.
The apartment manager says he has treated for crickets and has now requested that I round the little fellows up and invite them to stay in cozy plastic bags. I will then drop those bags by the office. Presumably this proves that I know what a cricket looks like and haven't gotten it confused with a mosquito or a grass hopper.

I wish I'd known they wanted that Thursday. I got home from a truly hideous evening of sitting in traffic and of course there was a sumo cricket contentedly enjoying the bathroom rug.  I could have urged him into a baggy then. But since I didn't know this was desirable, I smushed him good.

So now I'm in the unfortunate position of hoping another big cricket shows up, so I can bag and tag him for the landlord. I have already caught one of the tiny ones, but these are not going to convince anyone that I have reason to be grossed out. They may chew through cloth, plastic, and wood just as well as their mighty brethren, but they look completely inoffensive.

Does anyone else have problems with bugs? What do you do?

Serenity Now

I'm not feeling as calm as the girl in my doodle right now.

For the past several days I have been finding crickets in my apartment. Big ones.

They were usually in the bathroom so I looked online and some people said crickets might come up drains that aren't used very often and are dry. Like in attics or basements.

Other people said it was incredibly unlikely that crickets would come up a drain. That they're probably coming in through a broken seal on a window or something.

Well I guess my life's incredible.

I came home from work today and since the apartment manager hadn't been by, I thought I'd run some water down the shower drain, just in case it was drying out enough during the 23½ hours I don't use it to let crickets crawl up it.

And a HUGE cricket popped out.

Yeah. I guess it's dry.

Fortunately, I have a drain that can be popped closed. So I can stop them from coming in until the landlord is able to fix it, but I cannot even begin to describe how grossed out I am.

Happy Birthday

It's not really anyone's birthday, I just finally got around to designing a birthday card to be printed.
I generally just draw them up as needed, but I've always thought it would be nice if  I sold birthday cards and soon, I will.

What are your favorite birthday memories? What other kind of occasion cards would you like to see in the shop?

Annoying Children

Goldielocks is sort of the ultimate self-entitled brat.
You think kids today are rude and inconsiderate?
Obviously this is an ongoing problem, and Goldie is here to prove it.

I can only assume that Goldielocks exists because of parents who wanted their kids to be respectful of the neighbors and basically ended up threatening their children with voracious, porridge loving bears who would settle for dining on small children if angered.

Recent experience has shown me that the need for these types of stories/threats is still in existence.

I went to see the final Harry Potter flick last night.  The theater was packed, of course, and I ended up sitting next to a family of two million, three thousand of which were children.  I was prepared to put up with a little whispering, but apparently this was a foolish thought.

There was no little whispering. There was talking. A running commentary of the movie from children not old enough to see it. "There's Harry. He's sad.", "Neville! She's getting Neville!", "I bet they're french kissing."
All this was accompanied by the flash of one fidgety child's L.A. Lights sneakers.

It took all the restraint I had not to lean over and inform the children that when they were in their own living room they could talk as loud as they pleased, but not in the theater. My friend wanted to tell their parents that they owed us $8.50 for the large portions of the movie we couldn't hear.

So when I have kids I'm telling them the story of Goldielocks, the girl who was obnoxious at the theater and was eaten by the bears sitting behind her. 

Have you encountered any wretched children recently? did you do anything about it, or suffer in silence?

Robin McClure: Freelance Writer

I designed these business cards for my friend Robin McClure. They each have a different type of writing Robin specializes in so she customize her marketing plan to specific customer needs.

Listing all the kinds of writing Robin is good with might actually have the effect of making her sound like an amateur.  But putting one type of writing on the card shows that it's a type of writing she focuses on. So I took the five kinds of writing that Robin specializes in (Contemporary Fiction Writing, Travel Writing, Web Content Writing, Freelance Magazine Writing, and Fantasy Writing) and I made cards that were distinct for each, yet had a cohesive look for Robin's writing identity.

Thanks to Moo cards we were able to do that without paying for full runs of five different cards. Usually people have one image with all their information on one side of the moo card and they alternate pretty pictures or patterns on the other side, but we used the side that remains the same to have just a simple background and logo and the changing side to have the changing information.  They arrived today and I think I was as excited as she was to see them in print!

Cartoon Portraits

 When I draw in public, people often stop to ask who I'm drawing.
Typically I'm not drawing anyone at all. Most of my illustrations are pure imagination.

But when I doodle during youth group lessons I have such a fantastic and interesting group of kids around me that I have to draw them.

These girls are a couple of my favorites, they have the most gorgeous hair, phenomenal taste in clothing, and they're hilarious.

So when Tiffany asked if I would draw a picture of her and her bestie, I said yes on the spot. I'd never drawn a picture of the two of them together, but I've always thought I should.

I sorted through their facebook photos, did a couple sketches and
emailed them to Tiffany for approval. Once she'd selected her favorite I started coloring them in. This photo already had a gorgeous color palette so I tried to keep it similar. I sent that off for Tiff's approval and then it went to print, which took  about a week.


The best part was that at some point during this process another girl from youth group had requested I post a sketch I'd drawn of her and Celeste commented that the girl was so lucky because she'd always wanted me to draw her.

Which made the whole project even more exciting :)

Edit: I offer a similar service in my etsy shop, for those who are interested.