what a party!

It seems that both The Queen of Cupcakes and Sir Jack have recovered fully from their Pink Canary Cocktail debacle. I, however, am still beat! Setting up for such a wonderful party is a lot of work and cleaning up is an even bigger job. And, don't forget, I was off visiting everyone else's parties this weekend too. A generous bunch of party throwers has resulted in me winning two prizes! I will share photos of my goodies when they arrive. In the meantime, I would like to announce that the winner of my felt, cupcake tea bags is She's Sew Pretty! And speaking of felt tea bags...


After so much excitment, I decided to take a bit of a rest in my backyard. As I approached my outdoor lounge, I decided it just wouldn't do. So stark!



After a little fluffing, I think it looks much better now, don't you? See what a blanket, a pillow and a tea cup can do for a spot?



In no time at all I had a wonderful place to relax and write in my new journal. Don't you love it? I bought it at Afiori and highly recommend that you run to her shop NOW and purchase one for yourself.



I also have a special offer for you. I have decided to offer a special edition pillow each month, using the scraps of fabric left over from the previous month's projects. They are sure to be wild and interesting and in limited supply because I am limiting myself to only using scraps. The May 2009 scraps from my first quilt resulted in this pillow.



I call it my Vintage Picnic pillow. It seems like the kind of cushion one would drag outside with them for a nap in the hammock or to lay back on after a particulary filling picnic lunch by the river.



It measures approximately 11" x 11". Because this is the first time I am offering something I have sewn and it's the first of a collection, I am offering this pillow here only and at the special price of $20.00. The $20.00 includes shipping! (I told you this was a special deal!) You can order it by clicking on the Paypal button below. (Attention Google Reader users, you may have to click through to my blog to see the button. There's only ONE of these pillows available and only two in the world, so if you want it, buy it now. Don't forget it's the first in an ongoing collection.

I have to say, that I'm quite nervous about offering my sewing up for sale for the first time, but I'm also excited. I'm working on some very exciting projects and I feel like my art has taken on a new meaning. I'm looking forward to sharing my fabric art journey with you as I dip my toe into the water ever so slowly. Thanks for being my life jacket!

Cupcakes, Candy and Pink Canary Cocktails

Lady Vanessa of A Fanciful Twist is having her yearly Mad Tea Party. Of course, the Queen of Cupcakes requested that I set-up the garden for a proper tea and join in the celebration.

You do know the Queen of Cupcakes, don't you? (Here's a hint, last year she masqueraded as a flamenco dancer, but that's another story!) The Queen is very shy around cameras as she doesn't like to be recognized in public, so I am only allowed to show snips and snaps of her. I will give you hint about what she looks like though. She has milk chocolate hair with strawberry streaks and bittersweet cocoa eyes. She is very tiny. At only 40 inches, give or take a tablespoon, she often disguises herself as a small child when she goes out in public. If you see a sweet little girl, it just might be her. You can tell for sure by taking in a delicate sniff. The Queen of Cupcakes always smells of vanilla and sugar and, even in disguise, is unable to cover her bakery scent.


But, enough about the Queen's disguises! She came to the party as herself today. As you can see, she was wearing her cocktail cupcake hat in honor of the Pink Canary Cocktails I promised to serve. (Of course Pink Canary Cocktails only contain Sugar and Birds and are alchohol free!) As usual she was accompanied by her best friend and body guard, Sir Jack. (Sir Jack is a striking pup with fur the color of caramels and marshmallows, with a touch of licorice in case you were wondering.)

The Queen is never above serving others and has even offered to pour our tea today. Which flavor tea bag will you choose?

We have Lemon Cupcake, Chocolate Cupcake or Strawberry Cupcake flavors.

Would you like some candy with your tea? I highly recommend the candy canes. They are the flavor of Smarties candies!

I don't want to brag or anything, but the Queen was tickled pink with my flower selection. Cupcake flowers! There will be no bellowing of "Off with their heads!" at this tea party.

And she loved the Fantasy Candy Garland. (If you would like the recipe for the garland, click here.)

Oh Dear! Oh My! It appears that, while we were chatting about candy and flowers, the Queen has helped herself to the Pink Canary Cocktails!

I can't really blame her, as they are served in birdcages and look too good to pass up, but the Queen (and don't tell a soul where you heard this!) isn't very good at holding her sugar (if you know what I mean). I should bid you adieu and send you off to your next tea party. (Don't forget the party list is on The Fanciful Twist blog.)

Before you go, if you liked the Cupcake Tea, please leave a comment today and I will pull a winner on June 30th. You just might win some lovely, felt, cupcake tea bags!

Oh! I must be off. It looks as though Sir Jack also dipped into the Pink Canary Cocktails and is now passed out on the Queen's chaise lounge. It's really quite unseemly!

shop update!

I have some super new items in my shop. As my regular readers know, I've recently been playing with sewing and embroidery. Most projects have been just for me and my family, but today I'm releasing some embroidery work to my Etsy shop. Call me crazy, but I think they are really cute. Little, tiny hand-embroidered works framed and ready for purchase. I only have two up right now, but I am hoping to get more done really soon. The embroidery designs are my originals, so you aren't going to find these anywhere else.


Here's a little shopper's hint too. I marked down the cupcake design because there is a slight discoloration flaw in the muslin. I still wanted to put in the shop (because each one of these little works takes awhile to create!)but I also wanted to be fair, so I discounted it. Just in case you are in love with these and want to start off your collection with a deal.

As I was making these and framing them, I was thinking it would be really cute to attach ribbons to them and hang them all together on a wall. Right now, the frames come ready to sit on a table, but it would be easy enough to adjust them if you were so inclined.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this new offering. Is it something you would buy? Should I keep working on more?

painting

I don't think I've painted in months. I've been so busy crafting and sewing, that I haven't been interested in painting. Then, the latest issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors hit my doorstep and inspiration hit me like a ton of bricks. Avoiding my to do list and, under the guise of playing with my daughter, I asked her if she wanted to paint (I knew the answer would be yes!). I started with some exercises by Jacqueline Newbold on the last page of the magazine and then I was off and running. I flipped over to an article by Kelli Nina Perkins and it was all over. Nothing else got done the rest of the day.



It's funny, I am always insisting (to myself) that I want to paint with acrylics, yet I think my best work is usually done in watercolors. The paints flow exactly where I want them to go. Shading and light are easier. I have a long way to go with the technical elements, but I find I am getting there faster with watercolors. So why do I struggle against it? I'm going to make an effort to embrace what comes easily. Oh, and to have fun too!

These paintings today aren't finished, but I did want to scan them. I am very happy with them so far, but they need more work. I have found that if I scan before the next step, I lose my fear of ruining the work. At least I'll have the scan, right? I have to go paint now. In addition to these two paintings that I am sharing, I have four others started. I told you I was out of control. I'm thinking we're having frozen pizza for dinner tonight.

swaps

I don't know what I was thinking, but I agreed to participate in two swaps in June. Yes, June, when I have family obligations galore and my business retreat. Slap next time I do something like this, would ya? I haven't done a swap in over a year and now two? In my busiest month? After a marathon day of sewing, I can say I'm officially done with my swap goodies and everything is off to the mailbox. And it's on time! I can't wait to see what I get back! I'm sure it will all be so good that I will completely forget the pain of getting my packets ready. Which brings us back full circle and my request to slap me. I'm telling you now, I'm going to get all those cool goodies and completely forget that I don't have time to play in swaps! Just watch me! So you want to a peek of what I mailed off?

The first swap I particpated in was Faerie Dust Dreams' Things With Wings swap. This one was a whooper as I had to produce 25 charms! I'm fairly happy with my laminated paper charms, but can I just tell you how impressed I am by my fellow swappers work? Check out the photos on the Things with Wings Flickr Group Pool. I hid my charms on card that had same the print as the charm itself. Can you find them?



My second swap was Speckled Egg's Hair Accessories Swap. I couldn't resist. Accessories are my weakness. Remember my post about the headbands I was sewing for my daughter? Well, I got the crazy idea I was going to make some for the swap. Luckily, this swap only needed 6 items, but being a novice sewer did slow things down a bit. That and the fact that my sewing machine was in foul mood.

So I'm done with swaps for a bit. Maybe. Or maybe not. I just might have a little announcement in a few days. Just don't slap me when I tell you about it!

mermaid party

The invitation read "You are invited to a Mermaid Tea Party. Pirates Welcome." I had to add the pirate bit in order to entice the little boys to attend!

My four year old daughter loves mermaids, so we celebrated her birthday with a mermaid tea party. I was bound and determined not to have a Disney party, which made things a bit complicated! I used one of my original illustrations of a mermaid as my theme and went from there. The party was a day before my Multiple Streams of Income retreat, so I wasn't able to do everything I wanted, but I am pretty proud of the results regardless. Most importantly, my little mermaid was a very happy birthday girl.



We had the party in our backyard. I hung green & blue streamers and blow-up fish from the trees and the table umbrellas to give the backyard an under-the-sea vibe. Sticking to a color scheme of light green and blue really helped me keep a focused, pulled together look.



For food, I served mermaid bait (aka Goldfish crackers) and cake and Ben & Jerry's Phish Food (TM) ice cream. The cake was a Disney character cake. I didn't have time to make one and getting a bakery to make a generic mermaid cake would have been too complicated a task. If I had more time, I would have added some madeline cookies since they look like shells and maybe some starfish cookies, made using a star-shaped cookie cutter. Maybe some tuna fish finger sandwiches too. We also had pink lemonade for the tea and mermaid water. I dressed up the mermaid water bottles with scrapbook paper to keep wit the theme.



Entertainment consisted of hunting for treasure, (basically plastic coins and necklaces buried in the sandbox) and a craft project. I wanted to have them decorate mermaid crowns, but couldn't find the supplies, so we settled for some cute foam sandcastle kits. We had a very short water balloon fight as the Southern California weather didn't really cooperate with us that day. We also gave the kids sidewalk chalk, and had them trace each other on the patio. Instead of legs though, they added mermaid tails and then decorated themselves as mermaids. It was a pretty cute activity.



For party favors, I filled sand pails with a mermaid notebook (okay Disney snuck in there) and t-shirts with my illustration on them. One is being modeled in the photo at the top of the post.

Can I just vent here for a minute about party favors? Why do moms do this to each other? When I was little we didn't have huge favor bags and we all lived. I don't know a single mom who likes to see their child come through the door with a huge bag of little plastic toys that are only going to end up in the couch cushions. Why can't we all just decide that we don't need to do favors? The only way around the favor thing for me was to invite fewer kids so that I could send the guest home with things they might actual use and remember the party by. I keep a strict rule about only inviting as many children as my daughter is old. This keeps us all sane. I don't have to do plastic toy favors, my daughter isn't overwhelmed by the number of guests and she doesn't get a ridiculous number of gifts. She gets gifts from her closest friends, who really know what she likes. Does all that make me a birthday scrooge?

Okay, this wasn't supposed to be about my stance on children's birthday parties. (But I would love to hear your thoughts!) Just mermaid fun. And I, for one, had fun!

lucky number 13

Today is my wedding anniversary. Thirteen years with my sweet, nerdy, handsome, smart, kind husband. The photo was taken on cruise we went on years ago (pre-children). It's one of my favorite photos of us. I think my husband looks VERY James Bond in it and I have a little Marilyn Monroe going on.

I'm incredibly lucky to have found my soul mate to spend my life with. We certainly have our ups and downs but I know we will always be together and, in this uncertain world, that's a nice thing to know.

I LOVE Bruce.

coffee filter flowers

I have another tutorial up on the Art Glitter blog today. Learn how to make these vintage-style flowers out of coffee filters and glitter. Don't forget to leave a comment!

another chance to win!

The Stone Soup Challengers are busy offering up free stuff again! This time, talented artist, Jolie Guillebeau, is offering an original oil painting! WOW! The painting is shown above. Radishes actually have incredible childhood memories for me. They remind me of visiting my maternal grandparents in the summers. They lived near Cleveland, Ohio and had a a lot of acreage and my grandfather kept a large vegetable garden. I remember sitting in their screened-in porch, with my grandfather cutting pieces of radishes, salting them and giving them to me.

Pretty much all of Jolie's art brings back childhood memories. Remember Viewmasters? And these cool shape balls?

Visit Jolie's blog today to enter to win her radishes painting.

(Photo courtesy of Jolie Guillebeau)

new look

For those of you who read my blog through Google Reader-please click through to my blog today and check-out my new look. I'm cleaning up the old blog. It needed a little refreshing. There's a new banner, a new profile photo and I'm cleaning up the sidebar. If you are looking for some new blogs to read, check-out my reading list. I just cleaned that up too. I'll be working on the blog housekeeping throughout the week so keep coming back to visit.

About the banner. As a business and marketing person, I know the importance of consistent branding, but I'm always torn about blogs. As you know, my cupcake has been my logo and my "look" for quite awhile and I have consistently kept it on all my online presences. But I feel like I need to have the room to be creative with my blog. What are your thoughts on changing out the look of a blog? Do you change yours regularly?

I'm also torn about my look and/or brand. Part of me loves my cupcakes, but another part of me loves the illustration look. (Kind of what's in the banner now.) To me they look completely different though. You all see the bigger picture better. Are they as different as I think they are? Or do both say "katydiddy" to you?

retreat

My Multiple Streams of Income Retreat is over. Seven super smart entrepreneurs joined me for a day of relaxation and business advice. I think everyone had a fantastic time and I have every reason to believe that they are all busy today, implementing the plans we made for their businesses.

I want to thank my good friend and superstar, Susan Hanstead Kuntz of Possibility Thinking, for helping all of us overcome our fears and negative beliefs about money, success and business. I also want to thank my sister, Jenny, for giving great massages. Not only is she a certified masseuse, but I am hoping to see her blog up any day now. Sitting in on the retreat has motivated her to get started on her writing career.

As my star students develop their online presences, I'll tell you about them. I know we are all going to benefit from their skills! I couldn't have asked for a better group to work with!

If you weren't local, and/or missed the retreat, stay tuned. I'm going to launch an online version of the retreat any day now (Unfortunately, I can't include the massages online though!). I'll keep you in the loop. Thanks to everyone who sent me supportive emails wishing me luck yesterday. You all are the best!

P.S. Everyone received awesome goody bags at the retreat. Thanks again, Sakura, for supporting educational efforts!

believe

Yesterday was my daughter's fourth birthday. We went to Disneyland. Now I believe. I believe in faires and princesses and magic. I believe in four years of complete and utter joy and unconditional love. Happy Birthday my darling girl.

blogging tips

Time for the June ezine! This month, I have a couple of tips for bloggers. The tips are ones I just personally discovered and have implemented. Here's a bit of the article:

Three Techniques That Will Change the Way You Blog

Blogging. Whether you do it for fun or use it as a marketing tool, you want to see visitors and comments. Oh the joy of comments! Here are three techniques you can implement today that will help you get bring more visitors to your blog.

1. When you link to another blog or website, be sure to type out the name of the blog. I've heard that search engines like to see blogs with links that do this. And you want search engines to like you, right? Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Don't do this: "I just saw an awesome tutorial on this blog today."
Do this: "I just saw an awesome tutorial at www.katydiddys.blogspot.com today.

To read the rest of the article, visit my newsletter archives. The full newsletter will be up there within a few hours.

sew easy

I've been sewing away. It's so fun to play in a new medium. It really refreshes my creativity. Unfortunately (for my bank account) that means I also have a whole new genre of crafty books and magazines to buy. I think I have a problem-I'm addicted to craft books. Amazon is usually my "dealer" of choice, but lately I've been sneaking off to Barnes & Noble too-especially when I need a quick fix. One of my recent purchases was Sew Darn Cute by Jenny Ryan. It's a very darn cute book and the projects are super simple-even for a clutzy sewer like me. Jenny even teaches you how to maintain your machine! (What? You're supposed to put machine oil in it? Change the needle after most projects? I've had my machine for about 10 years and I never did those things. Now that I have given the machine a little love, it doesn't act up as much. Who knew?) Anyway, one of the projects in the book is a cute headband. It only took me about a half hour to whip one of these out and then I went crazy. I think I've made about 5-6 different ones now. My model in the photo above loves them & keeps coming to me with requests to make one for every outfit.In addition to doing projects in books, I am also striking out on my own and combining my sewing, embroidery and painting into new exciting projects. I used my new found quilting skills to create my House Rules pillow. First, I scanned my House Rules painting into my computer and printed it out on an iron-on. I ironed it onto some muslin fabric and then embellished certain elements with some embroidery. Then I did some patchwork, quilted around the house and the patches and ended up with this darling pillow. I can't tell you how pleased I am with it. I'm even thinking of making another one to add to my shop. I just need to work up the guts to start putting my sewing projects up for sale. You'll be the first to know when I take the plunge though! (Oh! How cute is the fabric I used for the back of my pillow. I love it. I want to cover my entire house in it. Do you know where I can find a slipcover pattern for a whole house?)

Art Glitter Guest Blogger

Two posts in one day! But I have some exciting news for you. I am a featured guest blogger on the Art Institute Glitter's blog this summer and my first project went up this week! I created this awesome faux hard candy using their Fantasy Film product. Be sure to visit their blog today for the full tutorial. And show me and Art Glitter some love by leaving a comment over there. They are just starting their blog and I know you want to support craft manufacturers. Especially ones that give you great ideas on how to use their products!

Inspire Me Thursday: The Lost Art of Letter Writing

In 1995, when we were 24 years old, my husband (then new boyfriend) moved to Hamburg, Germany to work on an experiment for his PhD thesis in nuclear physics. Now, Al Gore had already invented the Internet at that time (remember that infamous quote?), but email wasn't in every household yet, and unlimited calling plans didn't really exist yet either. So, being short on cash and resources, we were forced to develop our young relationship via letter writing.

I remember some months, when the letters would come fast and furious. And others, when they trickled in. Our letters speed reflected the ebb and flow of any relationship, only in ours was done in writing. I would run to the mailbox daily, heart pounding. If a letter was there, I would hold it close to my heart and run back to my apartment to read it over and over again. If no letter came, my heart would drop and I would tread heavily back to my home. For awhile, letters didn't arrive. A male neighbor friend, who had his eye on me, would wait by the mailboxes everyday and try to take advantage of my disenchantment with a long distance relationship during these letter-free weeks. He would offer to "cheer me up" by offering to take me out to dinner. I refused his tempting invitations. I later found out that those letter free days were a time of crisis for my boyfriend. He wasn't sure he could continue a long distance relationship anymore.

My husband tells me he experienced the same highs and low. He talks about how the office secretary (through whom I sent my letters) would get excited by the brightly decorate envelopes I would send him. They would usually be covered in Star Trek stickers and glitter. A tongue in cheek joke for my scientist boyfriend.

Halfway through my husband's stay in Germany, I flew to Europe to visit him and he asked me to marry him. We were married a year later.

We still have our letters. We are lucky to have documentation of the beginning of our love story. For our 10th wedding anniversary a few years ago, I had two of our letters to each other blown up to 16" x 20". I framed them and they hang in our bedroom. To remind us of how it felt when it was all so new. There have been times, after a fight, when I have sat on my bed, facing those letter and rereading them. They remind me of why we work to stay together. They remind me of the man I feel in love with.

One day, I'm quite sure, my daughter will be embarrassed to see those letters. No teenager wants to know their parents have a romantic life. But I also hope that one day, those framed letters, might be proudly displayed on our great-great child's wall and, when visitors ask about them, they will proudly tell them they are the letters of their great, great grandparent's love story.

To read more about the Lost Art of Letter Writing, or to submit your entry, visit the Inspire Me Thursday website.

Happy Birthday!

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. He is finally as "old" as I am. I'm six months older than he is and for six months, I had to hear all about how he's only 38 and I'm 39. (He can't wait until November so that he can say he's only his 30s and I'm in my 40s.) My daughter and I made him his favorite cake-lemon poppy seed. I also made a fabulous picnic of fried chicken and sun-dried tomato pasta salad. We were planning to take him on a surprise picnic to the beach, but the weather in Southern California has been unusually unpredictable, with thuderstorm cells passing over every so often, so we decided to have a little picnic at home instead.

In addition to an iPod docking station for his office, I also made my husband a cozy for his french press. On the weekends he likes to make coffee with it but, by the second cup, the coffee has gone cold in the glass carafe. I saw a coffee cozy project in the book Sew Pretty Homestyle, and knew I had to make one for him.

I was a little tricky though! I made the reverse fabric a little girly, just in case someone (ahem) wanted to have a little sip while she was sitting in the yard.

refrigerator inspiration

As I was walking by my refrigerator last week, I saw this coloring sheet I worked on with my daughter hanging from a cupcake magnet. There was something so pleasing about the composition that I had to take a picture. I'm going to put it in my art journal. I know it will inspire me. Whether it be a cupcake dress or just the color combinations. We'll see what comes of it. Where is the strangest place you have found inspiration?

it broke and so did my heart

I inherited this sugar bowl from my paternal grandmother back in the early 90s. I love it. The whimsy of it. A long time ago, I decided that I would actually use the things I love instead of saving them for a special occassion. Every morning, I would spoon sugar from my bunch of grapes and smile to myself.

Well, you know what's coming. It broke. Last week, as I was fuzzy headed and sick and cleaning, I broke it. I moved it over to clean the counter, and as I was disentangling cords for the coffee pot, I bumped into it and sent it crashing to my tile floor. It seemed like it happened in slow motion. (I'm telling you, nothing good comes from cleaning!)

I cried. It upset my daughter, so I tried to pull myself together. I don't want her to misplace emotions onto things, like I was doing. That night, when I told my husband what happened, he looked relieved. He's a bit of a bull in a china shop and his life has been threatened many times in regards to his handling of the cherished sugar bowl. Yet I was the one who broke it.

The funny thing is, I took this photo just mere days before it broke. I was going to show it off on my blog. I feel so relieved that I did. At least I have the photo.

My lesson? To keep using my stuff. At least I had a good five or ten years of enjoying my sugar bowl before it broke. I'm also going to take photos of the things I love more often. At least I'll have the memories.

Retreat Special

If you are still deciding on whether or not to come to my Multiple Streams of Income Retreat on June 13, this may help. I'm offering a 2 for 1 special on the retreat! Find a friend and register together for the low price of $150. That's a super bargain at only $75 per person! Just contact me and give me your contact info and your friend's and I'll invoice you for the special. If you have already signed-up, and want to bring a friend, let me know and I'll honor this offer. This offer is only good until June 5, so hurry! Hope to see you at the retreat!

Want to win something really pretty?

Hop over to The Stone Soup Challenge blog today and find out how to win Mary Lanigan Russo's stunning print, Celtic Knots (seen above).

While you are in her shop, feel free to buy this print for me as a gift. The card would make me just as happy too.

(Photo courtesy of Mary Lanigan Russo.)