Monday's Treasury: Slate Blue

Today's treasury is based on my favorite color, slate blue.  It's a mix of items from jewelry to pottery, I would love for you to take a look!  Etsy is such a wonderful place, full of such diversity and incredible artists.  Since none of the items in the treasury are my own, I can't include a picture, but I'm working on my own image for the Monday's Treasury spot, should have that done for next week.  In the meantime, please click the link below to see this collection of slate blue items.

Slate Blue Treasury

Welcome 2012!

This is going to be THE year! Isn't that what everyone says? From being THE year to lose weight, THE year to start saving more, THE year to do whatever, how many resolutions actually stay with us?  I have so many of these that I don't even feel like making a resolution because I know I won't stick with it. 

2012 is already beginning with changes for me: the biggest being I start a new, full-time job on Wednesday.  The boys will be going to full days at school, four days a week.  And seeing that M is having a full blown tantrum on the kitchen floor as I write this (over not being able to hold the Polar Express DVD box) you would think I'm chomping at the bit for this change.  While I'm certainly not dreading it, I wouldn't say I'm super excited about it either.  It's going to be hard, especially with not having the relatively free and flexible schedule of a SAHM anymore.  But it will be nice to be with adults again and know that the boys are having fun in a place they know and enjoy.  And they should be together in the afternoons, I think, so that should help them out too.

All that being said, I am hoping this year to grow Striped Turtle Studio and possibly expand into a sister shop selling handmade soaps.  On the immediate horizon is a new look and two fun little mascots for the etsy shop, facebook page and this blog.  I plan on being much more active on all three sites.  And to begin this, I'm introducing "Monday's Treasury" a weekly self-curated Etsy Treasury.  I'm hoping to have a regular blogging schedule, but for now I'm starting slow... after all, too many changes at once isn't a good thing.

With all the new changes on the horizon, I'm excited, nervous, anxious and a touch overwhelmed.  But I'm looking forward to this year being a good one, cheers!

IF: Shadow

Another Illustration Friday post! This week is "shadow" and my immediate thought whenever I hear the word shadow is of my former shadow, Dragon. She's my tiny little black cat and she used to follow me wherever I went. Nowadays, she's much happier to wait until nighttime to be with me, when there are no little hands trying to grab her tail or little heads trying to use her as a pillow. Instead, she sleeps upstairs during the day, maybe appearing once or twice to eat or use the litter box.

So here's my little shadow, sleeping on the arm chair in our bedroom last night. This is my first attempt at sketching, scanning in the sketch, redrawing with illustrator and painting with photoshop. I kept it all very simple, but I really like the effect.

Logo and "Mascot" Characters

I'm working on a new logo and a couple of little characters for Striped Turtle Studio! It's a little slow-going since I don't get a lot of design time on the "good" computer these days. It's in the basement and since there are two little monsters running around the house most days who can't be contained down there, it's hard to get into the basement to do anything productive.

I did get some progress done this morning while Babyman was at school and Tinyman cooperated by playing somewhat quietly and non-destructively. Then he decided he wanted to sit in my lap at the computer and play on the keyboard, so that ended computer time fairly effectively.

So sorry, but I can't give any sneak peeks until the new designs are done. But I think they're going to be really cute - I'm loving them already!

IF: Asleep

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Asleep." (Can you believe it? I'm finally doing an IF entry! Woohoo!)

When I saw the topic, my immediate thought was of my little guys sleeping. It's always such a wonderful thing when they sleep, whether it's a nap (rare) or at bedtime (when Mommy and Daddy sigh in relief). I have tons of pictures of them sleeping since it's the only time they are still enough to get the perfect shot easily, plus they're just too adorable when they are all peaceful.

So I decided to create two images for the topic, one of each of my guys. Both are digital photos that I played around with in Photoshop Express and PSCS5. My PSE is super simple, on my iPad, so I played around to see what it could do. I liked the results, but they weren't exactly right. So I brought them into CS5 to go a little further. I love playing with the artistic filters, it was neat seeing the effects I got on top of the PSE files.

So, without further ado, here are my sleeping angels. Just for the record, that's probably the only time I'll call them angels, when they're sleeping. ;)

My little guy sleeping on Daddy's arm, where he falls asleep almost every night.

My big guy with his multiple bedtime friends. One of these days he's going to end up looking like ET in Elliot's closet of stuffed animals.

Click the pictures to see them full size - the details are much better full size.

Pre Madonna

Nope, I'm not referring to the era of music just before "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin" hit MTV (back when MTV actually played music). I'm actually referring to the latest (and possibly the best) malapropism I've seen in a long time. Facebook tends to be good for that kind of thing and today was no disappointment.

In referring to one of the NY Housewives (Ramona, I believe), someone stated in the comments section that on their Morocco trip she was being a "real pre Madonna." I'm pretty sure they meant to say "primadonna." Now I have to admit that one of my biggest pet peeves is misuse of grammar and incorrect spelling, though I'm not one of those people to correct a friend or acquaintance (my kids and husband are a different story, lol). In fact, most of the time it makes me laugh, especially on Facebook. And "pre Madonna" definitely made me laugh!

Crayons!

I've been learning the ins and outs of molding crayons, and I'm really enjoying it! It's a lot of fun finally using all my chocolate molds for something other than candy that no one is going to eat. I made a whole bunch of different sets of crayons, with more in the works, but for right now here are a few of the current sets available for sale in the shop.