It's Christmas Eve Eve!

I'm almost done wrapping presents, sort of. (The paper is papercloth from Ikea. I think there's about an acre of it per roll):



I even made special gift tags from the animal icons I created last year.



And as a special very last minute sort of gift, instead of selling them in my Etsy store, I'm going to make these gift tags a free download. (Although if you download them, leave a comment. This blog has been far too quiet lately!)

Click here to download a PDF of super-cute animal gift tags.

In Which I Thrive On Deadlines

On Tuesday I got a coupon from Overnightprints.com for 30% off on note cards. It's been my plan, given the really encouraging success I've had selling note cards with the Twist Collective illustrations, to make another series of cards. This coupon (which expired today) was just the bump I needed to make three new paintings of adorable animals in knitwear.





These were a nice way to get seriously back to painting and composing illustrations. (I've been doing some freelance with pattern and textile work, which is an entirely different sort of mindset.) The ultimate goal is to build (rebuild) a portfolio to send to publishers. By January.

In other news, I moved to Jamaica Plain/Boston last week. It's an amazing neighborhood.

In Memory

A little while ago, my family's '95 Honda Odyssey was totaled. (No worries, everyone else is fine.) I loved this car; I've hauled a lot of boxes in it, and driven back and forth from my parents house in Western Massachusetts to school and friends in Providence more times than I can count, especially this summer. Maybe the air conditioner didn't work, and the brakes were about to go (again), and it was mainly used by my father to haul gasoline and gravel, but this car was "mine" more than any car has been.

I'll miss it.


And under the heading of good news? This weekend I moved to Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. The neighborhood is amazing, the apartment is beginning to look like adult humans live in it, and I can finally get some work done in my very own space. (I love my family and living with them since graduation was as good as it possibly could have been...but this is better.) Pictures are coming soon.