posted by erika on April 8, 2013 – 11:48 pm
A long time ago I painted a watercolor of green leaves and someone had suggested I make a print out of it. There is a great site called Spoonflower where you can submit designs and they will turn those designs into fabric. So fast forward probably three years later and I have made my first fabric. I love how it looks and the quality is just better than I imagined. There is a blizzard coming so I scanned in the fat quarter proof I ordered.
What do you think? So now I have one print for sale and I can’t wait to make more. Whenever I can get more time I want to learn how to screen-print as well. Never done it and would love to see what it’s like.
posted by erika on April 2, 2013 – 10:36 pm
The planning for Addison’s first birthday has started and I’m trying to determine what kind of planner I want to be. How much DIY projects and what will her bday traditions be? I was researching online and there were so many planning lists. One of the items on a list was “don’t compete with other moms” and that was comforting to read. I am a busy person and so is Raul so I am constantly checking in with myself about whether what I want to do is for A’s special day or am I trying to compete with another mom out there.
There will be some DIY projects and I’m excited to see them finished. Everything can’t be created from scratch though and I’m okay with that.
Did you learn a lot from your baby’s first birthday? Anything you would do differently? I’m all ears.
P.S.
Where did the time go? I can’t believe she will have been here for a year in just a few more weeks.
posted by erika on March 29, 2013 – 11:15 pm
We have big plans so far. We’ll possibly go to a community Easter egg hunt if we can get up early enough. Baby-cakes is only 10 months old so she won’t be heartbroken if we don’t make it. Would be fun though. My parents are coming tomorrow and spending the night so Raul and I can go celebrate a friend’s birthday downtown. I can not wait!! We are “pub crawling” which involves walking from pub to pub. Cocktails and food? It’s been awhile and I don’t care, just glad to be getting out at night, with adults and having a good time. Then Sunday will be Easter grub at my parent’s house.
Hoping to get a chance to make these marbleized Easter eggs at some point too.
We’ll see!
Wishing you and yours a very happy Easter weekend.
posted by erika on March 22, 2013 – 11:27 pm
I’ve been looking longingly at my camera and at my painting supplies for awhile now. I vow to document more and play with my process of shooting and filling my blank watercolor canvases.
Right now my process is making a sketch, scanning it in and adjusting the size in Photoshop. For this one the final is 6 ” x 8″. I then print out the sketch with crop marks, cut it down and place it on top of watercolor paper on top of my light box. Then I lightly trace my sketch onto the watercolor paper. This whole time I am thinking of a color scheme and just putting the colors together in my mind. I have pictures I’ve been inspired by in magazines or catalogs (love Anthropologie, Madewell and JCrew). They are great places to look for color combos.
Now it’s time to paint and I jump from section to section around the painting, waiting for sections that are right next to each other to dry completely. A little over a week ago I finished this peacock painting and it took all day. I was entertaining my 10 month old in between waiting for washes to dry and I posted the progress bit by bit on Twitter.
This beautiful peacock can be flown to your home because he’s been added to my shop!
One of my dreams is to have a show in a gallery, I want it to come true soon. Thanks for reading, I hope this gives a little insight into how these illustrations come to life.
posted by erika on March 13, 2013 – 11:11 pm
I’ve been consumed with a whole bunch of this. Giggles, squeals, clapping, “talking”. The whole nine. Baby A is the best and she has transformed our world as we know it.
I have New Orleans roots so gumbo is one of the foods I grew up on as a child. I had never attempted to make it before, left that up to my mom. Since we were going to most likely get a lot of snow this weekend, be stuck inside the house and I have had a hankering for some gumbo; I decided to try my hand at it.
Although I found a couple recipes to work from, I needed my mom to walk me through the way it’s really done (thanks xox!). I used king crab legs, shrimp, bay scallops and little-neck clams. Only burnt the roux once! Raul had three bowls and when I brought over some leftovers to my parents, they gave it a big gold starred seal of approval as well. I loved it too but it is a long process, won’t be making that again for awhile.
We went to Whole Foods for dinner and there was an illustrated sign for this Sumo fruit. There was sumo wrestling fruit in the illo! I had to try this citrus at this point. It’s pretty okay, a milder type of orange is how I would describe it. They are only available for a little over a month, go try it too.
We got more snow this weekend but these bird pics are from the weekend before. Raul noticed the birds first and they were everywhere. I love their little round fat bodies so I snapped some shots before they kept it moving.
posted by erika on March 12, 2013 – 10:27 am
One of the items on my to-do list was to give some love to this site. In the form of design and behind the scenes maintenance. So I did that, I hope you notice the little changes and they make this place feel a little homey-er.
Since this site is really more about you than me, is there anything you would like me to write about? I have things to say and then I go to write a post and draw a blank. Let me know.
I try to stay away from talking about the weather but here it is, snowing again. I was out traveling in it earlier today and it was like driving on a huge ice cube, ice as far as the eye can see.
Hope your Tuesday is going well. TTFN.
