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We made a piñata! And it wasn’t that hard! But it was SUPER MESSY!!! We started with a balloon, a bunch of tape, some string, 2 empty rolls of TP, and a whole lot of office paper (since our city doesn’t pick up paper with the recycling, I save it & reuse it myself. You know, making piñatas.) Oh yeah, and I cut up a cereal box for the ears. We used about 1 part flour to 1 part water for our goo.

Here we are starting the piñata. Note my helpful husband pointing out where we’ve screwed up…

Then we let it dry in the garage overnight. And then I forgot about it for a day. So then 2 days later we added the SECOND coat of flour-goo-covered-paper. Since we were using office grade paper instead of newsprint, it turned REALLY HARD. I was afraid to put on any more layers. So we let it dry in the sun.

Thursday Ella & I started painting. This is her “nice smile” face…

Here she is concentrating a little harder…

And the final product, complete with cardstock crown:

(Note: Child picked her own outfit. State of child’s attire not to reflect upon mom. Mom is just happy to have one less thing to do.)

There was a handy little hole in the top from when the balloon popped before the 2nd coat of goo dried & the whole thing sagged dangerously. We used it to stuff in the 30 lbs of candy. It was so heavy that my string started to pull through. So then I wrapped another string around the head a few times & called it good.

The kidlets at the party weren’t excited about the blindfold, so we let them go at it with a bat 2x each. Despite that, it still took TEN KIDS before it even fell from the tree. So then we let them pummel it on the ground. When Ella delivered the final 2 blows, her dad picked it up & shook the candy out. And that, my friends, is what makes a good party…

I’ve been working on some workbook illustrations over the past few weeks. I love love LOVE black & white line work. It’s so easy, so fast, so fun. Here are my two favorites from the batch I finished this week:

(Looks like the poor girl totally biffed it on the playground. Sadly, I can relate…)

I finished this little job for Highlights magazine last night & thought it turned out pretty cute.

And we also started Ella’s paper-mache-elephant-princess pinata last night (I wasn’t kidding about that – she requested an elephant princess or Lightning McQueen. I thought it’d be fun to make one. Silly mom…). Dude, it was MESSY!!! I haven’t done paper mache since I was about 12. I think I forgot what a mess it makes. Or maybe it’s that I’ve never tried it with a 3 year old before. Her clapping whilst covered in flour-goo slime was NOT helpful. But it was fun… Our creation is drying in the garage right now. Tonight we’re going to slap another layer on. Then we’ll let it dry for a few days & paint it on Thursday. I’m afraid it will get to hard if we make it too thick & the kids won’t be able to get the candy out!

I just finished this baby announcement & thought I’d share.

I love drawing babies. They are so delicious & squishable. My poor baby is always getting smothered with affection. She, at 9 months, already turns her head & squirms out of my kisses. And yet, she still wants me to hold her ALL THE TIME. Poor baby. Either getting too much love or not enough… But can you blame me, when this much cuteness is at my fingertips???

I love the work I’ve had lately, but what I’ve always wanted to do is make my OWN books. From scratch. All by myself. So I’ve been working on a few ideas. This is the first page of a board book with flip parts. Here’s the page with the flip-part down (I’m sure there’s a technical name for it, but for now it’s the “flip-part”…)

And here it is with the flower flipped up (or what you’d see under the flower anyway…)

I did the skin tones & hair in watercolor. The line was done in black colored pencil, then scanned & made into a duo-tone file in photoshop to make it a nice sepia (I’ve found that brown pencils are not really just brown, the light lines can be a completely different shade. Since I wanted the line to be rough but still uniform, I used the duo-tone technique.) I painted the background with acrylic on a separate sheet. I scanned in fabric to use for the shirts & flower. Then I collaged it all together in Photoshop. It was pretty fun putting it all together that way. I heart collage. Even though this isn’t very traditional collage…

You know how everyone has a blog, including your 80 year old grandma? Well now I have one too. I’m going to use it as a place to post my projects, crafts & artistic endeavors.

I decided to try a new technique last night, and of course I’m in love with it & want to redo my whole portfolio. Again. I first made a nice messy sketch on my wacom tablet in photoshop, then printed my sketch & used a light table to ink it in with my beloved pigma micron pens. I then did some loose watercolor on top. Then I scanned the watercolor, added some detail in photoshop (the white lines on the wings, the green dots on the skirt, etc). Ta da! Ella was super excited when I showed it to her this afternoon. I’m getting them printed up at Costco right now…