Space, the final frontier

Today I was sent this photo by Camelot Fabrics, of NASA Rocket Scientists holding a stuffed rocket made from my fabric in my Outer Space collection. Cool!

Then I immediately thought of all the artistic liberties I took while drawing the space related items, and how wrong it must look to them. Heh.

So Completely Amazing!

For the better part of a year I have been working on, and have had the lucky fortune to be a part of, the launch of Kleinfeld Paper. Yes, KLEINFELD.... as in "Say Yes to the Dress", aka the world famous bridal boutique! The number one name in bridal has decided to produce their own line of wedding stationery, and I am one of the artists involved.

Not only do I create designs for Kleinfeld, but I also work behind-the-scenes, as this all came about in collaboration with LookLoveSend, so I wear my Art Director hat for not only LLS, but Kleinfeld Paper as well. What does this mean exactly? Well a lot of things - besides creating my own designs and trying to grow my own business (the Vita Mechachonis brand), for LLS and KP I also deal with our artists, approve designs, do all of their graphic design, a million other things, and most visibly - designed their website. It's a big team effort, getting a huge business off the ground, and I am so proud and excited to be able to talk about it and show everyone what we're all about. And I've learned so much in this process, about web and printing, letterpress, raised ink, SEO and more. My head is spinning, and I am working all the time.

Though the official launch of Kleinfeld Paper isn't until January, we've started early, and are currently offering an exceptional collection of wedding stationery, and also for the holiday season, an exclusive line of holiday cards. To celebrate, now until the end of the year, everything sitewide is 20% off. So if you haven't purchased your holiday cards yet, please check us out! Click here.

A selection of my holiday card designs on Kleinfeld Paper

My wedding collection Happiness & Joy on KP

Amity on Kleinfeld Paper

Love Birds on Kleinfeld Paper

Two Hearts on Kleinfeld Paper

And here's a few of my holiday cards on LookLoveSend. They are also running a discount at this time. Get 15% off your holiday cards with promo code HOLIDAYSTYLE15

There is so much more to see on both of these websites - go and check them out!

Happy shopping! 

Puzzle Time!

I received this week a package containing a puzzle I created for MEGA Brands earlier this year, Pet Shop. Its a hidden-items puzzle, meaning that some parts of the puzzle can only be viewed with a special red-film viewing device, and is for kids ages 5+. I'm really pleased with how it came out, and I had such a great time with this project. Pet Shop will be in stores in a few weeks.

I just finished up a second hidden-items puzzle with MEGA Brands last week, and when I get the green-light, I'll blog about that one too.

Lookie what came in the mail

Last week I got a HUGE package in the mail from Camelot Cottons, weighing 54 lbs, of fabric samples of my art - YAY! Here are a few pics.

 Come on guys! How about splitting it into TWO boxes? :)

 Everything unpacked.

 Some of the fleece. I love love the penguins eating ice cream cones.

 Sam wanted in on the photo shoot. Here he is with Diva Silhouettes in flannel.

 Whales! All in flannel.

Jolly Christmas in cotton - available now here!

Art for Babies and more

The past month has found me doing a lot of show follow-up, catching some nibbles, and working on moving things forward. I've been doing a couple new assignments, working as always for LookLoveSend, and trying to find time to enjoy summer as well.

I just finished a new baby collection for licensing, Mama & Me. Fun, sweet animals. I hope it goes over well!

Surtex 2012 recap

Surtex is over and I am back home, just picked up Sam the dog, and am daunted by all the unpacking I have to do, and cleaning, and grocery shopping, and laundry. The show was Sunday to Tuesday, and it was 3 days of excitement, stress, nervousness, fun, and wow! Ooooh boy I have work to do now - all of the follow-up! I met some great new potential clients, caught up with current clients - some of whom I was meeting for the first time in person (shout out to the Eugene Textiles crew!), visited with fantastic artist friends in other booths, met wonderful new artist friends, and spent some time with my college friends in the city. All in all, pretty good!
As I've mentioned before, this was my 6th year exhibiting at Surtex, but the first one in my own booth, representing myself. It was a great experience and I'm definitely going back next year. I made some mistakes, nothing too bad - next year I'll get a few less postcards printed, and order my banners a couple inches shorter, and I think I'd like to have someone to help me in my booth so I can leave it without worrying and check out the Stationery Show and something to eat - but all in all the show went off without a hitch. I'm a very happy girl.

before and...

...after!

Quilts

My friend Mercedes made the most amazing quilts for me, using my fabric designs, to display at Surtex. They are small - maybe crib sized - and are lovely. I couldn't be more impressed. This is it, now I need to start quilting.

Art Buyer Magazine

The latest issue of Art Buyer is out, and you can see a little editorial about me here, and see my ad here. Surtex opens in 5 days!

Buttons

My buttons have arrived today - they are so stinking cute! These will be giveaways for Surtex... if you want one you'll have to stop by booth 355!

Its becoming real!

Wow Surtex is just a couple weeks away! I got an email this morning, letting me know that the latest issue of Total Art Licensing is online and available for viewing. You can read about me here and see my ad here.

And for more viewing pleasure, a sneak peek of my newest collection called Robots:

Print & Pattern

Yay what a wonderful day! Bowie over at Print & Pattern has posted about me - you can read it here. Thank you Bowie!

invitation samples

Here are just a few samples of some of the wedding stationery collections I have over at LookLoveSend. There are a lot more, but I got frustrated with the lighting and my camera and stopped at 3 photos... I guess the camera isn't liking me today...

Always, ALWAYS back up your files.

Last week was INSANE. I had my usual almost-full time work with LookLoveSend, which takes up most of my time, plus several ads and editorials due for the various trade magazines associated with art licensing and Surtex due at the end of the week. For whatever reason I finished them up early and emailed them all out on Monday and Tuesday of last week. Phew wow, I felt good to get them out the door. Then on Wednesday morning I get an email from the Surtex people saying that a better booth opened up and would I like it? Heck yeah I would! So I put several things on hold, and RUSHED to revise all of the art and editorials that I had just sent out and let them all know that hey, my booth number has changed, so don't use that art I sent, use this new revised art. I heard back, and great, they all got the message. Nice.

Then Wednesday afternoon, my computer kept freezing and I had to force-restart several times, and by the end of the day with one last forced restart, it just DIED. Wouldn't turn on at all. Gray screen of death. Uh oh. I scheduled an appointment for the next morning at the nearest Genius Bar (which is an hour from me...sigh). It turns out that my hard drive crapped out. No going back. But thankfully I use Time Machine and back up faithfully all the time to an external hard drive, so I knew I didn't lose any files (or if I had, it wasn't much). So I ordered a new hard drive and left my baby (the iMac) with the Apple Store and headed home. I wasn't under warranty anymore (my applecare expired last year), but it wasn't much money to buy a new hard drive, so I was very happy. When I got it back in working condition the next day (that was a pleasant surprise, because they said it would take longer) I plugged in right in and started the restoring from Time Machine process - it began on Thursday night at 6:30, and I couldn't believe it but it took over 50 HOURS to restore. WHAT?! Sometime during the wee-hours of Sunday morning the process was complete - when I woke up I checked and yes, all my files were there. Thank heavens!

I learned some lessons through this experience:

1. Always ALWAYS back up. ALWAYS.
2. Use a firewire connection for that external hard drive. Mine was a usb, and I think that may be one of the reasons it took so long to restore. I ordered myself a new external hard drive - bigger faster stronger and with a firewire connection. It arrives tomorrow.
3. I've since invested in the cloud, and am using it as one more line of back-up.
4. Its pretty nice to have several days in a row off, even if it was forced and not planned for, and a little stressful in the beginning.

So at the end of this all, I have my computer back, running smoothly and better than ever. And I am in a great booth at Surtex - booth 355! Right in the thick of things! Yay!

The latest

I'm up to my eyeballs in preparations for Surtex 2012 - 2 months away! And here's a sneak peak of my latest floral collection that I'll be debuting at the show - Garden Path. Bright and colorful! Whoa!

There's so much to do - design ads and postcards and the booth, price out banners, figure out logistics, and prep my ipad for my portfolio. Plus actually create new art to show, and juggle all my clients who must have banded together and decided to call me all at the same time. Despite all that, I'm having a very good time putting everything together and I'm getting very excited for May. Mark your calendars - May 20-22 at the Javits, booth 656.

It's a new year....

Hello internet-world! I haven't posted in months, being so busy with my new job at LookLoveSend.com (I'm their Art Director now, in addition to creating invitations for them) and juggling various illustration projects (which I can't share just yet) and also signing on again with Eugene Textiles to create some great new quilting fabrics. Oh yeah, I also no longer have an agent and am doing it on my own! And I'm deep into preparations for SURTEX 2012 in May, and this year I have a booth all by myself :) YIKES. ok, breathe...

Last month I finished my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project and mailed it in to the Brooklyn Library. I was able to go back, after I finished the pencil sketches and a little ink, and fill in some parts with color (colored pencil) and I'm happy about it. The cover turned out great I think, though the inside pages weren't as accepting of colored pencil.... ok I guess, but the kraft paper of the cover showing through the colored pencil is just delicious.

Here's my story, from start to finish. Enjoy!