here and gone

She breezed in, put together a couple of transparent mobiles, made an unholy mess in my studio & then breezed out. Yelling over her shoulder something about a trip to San Francisco. My muse, I mean. She's gone again.

On Thursday, in a desperate attempt to lure her back, I went shopping with my three year old daughter. We went to a couple of shops I've been meaning to visit; Paris to the Moon (which was amazing!) and Debra's Cottage. I bought the cupcake ornament at Debra's Cottage. (My muse is like a crow-shiny things usually attract her.) Then my daughter and I went to Wonderland Bakery. It had amazing eye candy. It was like a dream bakery. My only issue? By the time I ordered cupcake for my daughter, all decked out the way she wanted, it cost $7! Yikes! Want to see what a $7 cupcake looks like? Here you go:

When I was taking pictures of it, I didn't realize all the shots were set-up looking up the ballerina's dress, hence the censorship. Really...the seven bucks didn't buy me an x-rated cupcake, I just thought the shots were taken from a weird angle.

I also made this lovely canister from my Sweet Shoppe print. Cute, huh? I thought it would make a nice candy container. The Russian Nesting Dolls are actually measuring cups-each piece is a different measurement-from a cup to a tablespoon. My husband bought them for me at Anthropologie. I love them.

So that's what I'm doing while my muse is in San Francisco doing goodness knows what. Is your muse back yet?

it looks like i'll be on the phone a lot this week!

I have a big week of listening in on experts giving great business advice this week. Both calls are free, so I find it hard to pass up great information like this:

On Wednesday night at 5:30pm PST, I'll be here:





On Thursday night at 5:30pm PST, I'll be here:



If you want to join me, just click on the graphics for each and you will get sign-up information. I hope to hear you on at least one of the calls!

a challenge

Brenda Pinnick kindly challenged me to work through my creativity block. She gave me five words and asked that I use them as inspiration for a project. The words she gave me were:

circles
string
transparent
crocodile skin
ruler

I am really struggling creatively and was at a loss as to what I could do for the challenge until Saturday morning. I was rolling the words around in my mind since Friday morning and this mobile idea just popped-up. As I worked on it, it changed from my original plans, but I'm quite pleased with the result. I'm not going to go through and explain how, where or even if the words are incorporated into the project, but I'd love to hear what you see in it.
It was an easy project to construct, although I did have problems balancing it since this was my first attempt at such a project. I cut circles out of transparency paper using my Fiskars UltraShape Xpress and then put rub-ons on the circles. I used a silver leaf pen to outline the edges of the circles so that they would pop a bit when hanging. It was a very quick project and has a lot of future potential. I'm thinking of using my Sticklers from Sakura to make another one. Or even printing some of my original illustrations onto transparency paper to see what comes up. Lots could be done to the structure as well. So, I think the challenge worked. Five words later, I have a ton of ideas swirling in my head. I can't wait to see what Brenda came up with using the words I challenged her to! Visit her blog to check it out!

more cupcakes

I had batter & frosting left over after I made yesterday's "Popcorn" cupcakes, so I decided to try out a technique I saw on the Martha Stewart show a few weeks back. Instead of using cupcake liners, I used parchment paper. The cupcakes came out a little misshapen-I think it was because the batter I used was too light. I liked the effect though and decided to use a large star tip to apply the frosting. This allowed me to follow whatever shape came out. The end result is very romantic without being too girly or fussy. I think these would be perfect for a wedding shower. The cupcakes shape reminded me of iittala Aalto vases, and setting a wedding table with these cupcakes and Aalto vases would create a really beautiful table.

I think that the parchment paper liners are a great idea. I'm thinking blueberry muffins for breakfast, served in this style would give the table a rustic, yet elegant table.

Here's the link to the recipe from the Martha Stewart Show. Enjoy!

movie night

My muse is still on vacation and judging from the number of emails I got to the last post, there must be a muse convention going on somewhere. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who misplaced her muse.

Since I need to keep busy, and art isn't happening for me right now, I'm hanging out in the kitchen and making cupcakes. When all else fails..eat. That's way I'm not the skinnest blogger in town. I found these really cool "popcorn" cupcakes in the book, Hello Cupcake! Then I found the plastic popcorn boxes in the dollar bins at Target and knew I was destined to make them.

I made vanilla cupcakes and vanilla buttercream frosting from Amy Sedaris' book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. The "popcorn" is made from white & yellow marshmallows. They were incredibly easy to make and have a big WOW factor. Actually, all the cupcakes in Hello Cupcake are like that. And the author has a blog! Check it out here.

Wouldn't these be a great dessert for an Academy Award bash? Or a little girl's slumber party?

P.S. The talented Brenda Pinnick has kindly offered to be my temporary muse. If you want to come and play with us, visit her blog here.

my muse is on vacation

Ever have one of those weeks? I just don't have any creative inspiration. I really, really, really want to paint or make something. I have actually had some spare time, and my studio is fairly organized for once. But I go in and nothing happens. If I force myself to do something, I'm unhappy with the result. I'm so frustrated I could cry. It's like the desire to create is there and really wants to come out. It just can't. Very frustrating and almost physically painful. And it's been going on for weeks now. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm focusing too much on the business side of things. I sometimes get too focused on doing my art for business and my muse gets very cranky with me about that. So she packs up and heads out on vacation. To teach me a lesson. To remind me that I'm doing this for a living so that I can have fun and do what I love. Not to turn art into a chore. Anyway, she's gone. I wish she would at least send me a postcard. If you see her out and about (she's the one in sparkly shoes, red hair with blond highlights, too much jewelry and can be a little loud) could you tell her I miss her and want her to come home? I have candy.

sweet memories

Today I sent my very excited daughter off to preschool with a bag full of valentines to pass out. Remember when you exchanged valentines in grade school? The careful choosing of the design. The excitment of wondering if the boy you had a crush on would give you a "good" valentine. And was the saying on his valentine one that he carefully choose, just for you? (As an adult, I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" he didn't carefully shuffle through his stack of store-bought valentines to find the one that shared his feeling for you.) But it's fun to watch my daughter experience this darling tradition for the first time. (Sans crush on boy. I'm hoping she's too young for that!)
I made paper lollipops using my Fiskars Ultra Shape Xpress and heart shaped punches. The back reads, "you are sweet". It was really fun to make them and when I showed them to my daughter, she asked if she could buy one from me! (I'm thinking I've been talking too much business lately!)

Speaking of business, I just sent out my monthly newsletter. This month, it's all about the different ways you can make money with your arts and crafts. If you aren't a subscriber, you can see past issues here.

box of chocolates

I have seen this project in a million different places and have always wanted to try it...mini cupcakes made to look like a box of chocolates. It was a rainy day last Friday, we were stuck inside and I decided to finally try out the project. I'm so glad I did. It was incredibly easy, yet the results look fantastic. I think the trick is to find a really good ganache recipe for the icing. The recipe I had, from this book, was the perfect consistency. I just dipped the cooled cupcakes in the icing bowl to coat the tops. There were no drips and the icing hardened to a beautiful sheen. I had some fun looking online for ideas for what my "chocolates" should like. Next time, I'm going to be sure to include with some chocolate sprinkles on top too. I think this would be a perfect dessert for a Valentine's Day party or even to give as a gift to your lovey.

The heart-shaped candy box is from my personal collection. Before we had my daughter, my husband and I always went away for a long weekend around Valentine's Day. He always brought a box of chocolates for me. We would eat them in bed for breakfast and drink room service coffee. I've saved every box he has brought me.

I had some leftover batter and made a few full-sized cupcakes too. I think I should call these, "Pretty Please With a Cherry on Top".Stay Tuned! I've a lot of Valentine projects in store for you this week!

Sakura

This is the last post about CHA. Next week, I'm back to my regular life! I have a couple of great Valentine posts to share with you. But first I wanted to show you some cool new techniques I learned at the Sakura booth while I was at CHA. Sakura has these really cool stickers called Sticklers. You put the Sticklers onto a surface and then color in the design with Sakura's gel pens. Before going to the booth, I had no idea how many ways I could use this product! To make the "Love" tag and the "Sushi" card, I put a Stickler onto transparency paper and colored in the Stickler with Glaze pens. Then I punched an opening on the card or tag and glued the transparency into the opening.

Of course, once I got started, I couldn't stop playing with this product and was running all around my studio looking for things to embellish. I've had this plain, glass box on my desk forever, and now I love how colorful it looks! Almost like stained-glass.
The other technique I learned was how to make the pens act like watercolors. Again, I used a Stickler, but I put this one onto some watercolor paper. Then I took the Glaze pens out again, and laid down a spot of ink. Working quickly, I then pulled the wet ink across the image with a damp watercolor brush. This is a great technique to use if you want to do some shading with your markers.

Okay, I'm off to play with my pens some more. Do you think my husband would be very mad if I embellished the windows?

Perfect Printing Pouch

More CHA! On Monday, I was lucky enough to work at the ScraPerfect booth for a couple of hours. They have the greatest product ever. Here's a video that explains everything. It was shot at CHA on the day I was working, and you can see me in the background. I won't even go into how shocked I am to see myself! I HATE myself on camera. But I guess my willingness to show you this video, tells you how much I love the Perfect Printing Pouch! You can order one here. Tell them I sent you!