ON SALE ON ETSY!!

Pretty in Pink Button Necklace

Pretty in Blue Vintage Button Necklace

I'm having a sale currently on Etsy, two vintage button necklace pendants that I've created.  They're only $15!!! What a deal!! Hurry soon, because there is only 1 of each !!!

Victoria Day Tea Party!

So today I'm hosting a little Victorian Day tea party, and all my girlfriends are invited. It looks like it'll be a fun evening full of gossip, chatter and combined with some cookies, cucumber sandwiches, strawberry sandwiches and some nice sunshine!

Happy May 23rd everyone!!!

New Service Available on Etsy!

The elephant who was stuck in the tree

Hello! Today I've added a new service to my Etsy shop! I am offering my services as an illustrator, and I want to help adults capture their favorite childhood stories on canvas with paint! All they need to do is send me a clear, large colour photograph or scan of their favorite page(s) of their favorite story, and I will recreate that page on canvas using acrylic paint. The illustrations I've included in today's post shows the quality of work that I can do. The paintings are for a great price. For 8" x 10" paintings on 0.75" deep stretched canvas, they can get one for $175. Each painting will be done exactly like the page in the book. This is an excellent gift idea for mom, dad, your kids, your nephews, nieces,  birthdays, or even baby showers! Never know!

For more details, please visit my Etsy shop, Curious Little Bird at http://www.etsy.com/listing/74629348/painting-from-favorite-childrens-story-8 for more information, or to contact me for a commission. I look forward to hearing from you! Above and below are examples of the paintings.

Dumb luck

The elves and the shoemaker

 

The princess and the frog

Flash as a rat

My Softie/Monster Collection

This is a small collection of my monsters/softies that I've made and I'm currently selling on my Etsy shop, Curious Little Bird. For more information, to purchase one already made, or have a custom order, please contact me through the Etsy site at http://www.curiouslittlebird.etsy.com! Enjoy my monsters/softies  :)

Threadless T-Shirt Submission

Hey everyone!! Happy Wednesdsay!  I've created a new t-shirt design for little boys, and you can help me get my design printed by going to Threadless and scoring it. If my design is printed, Threadless will pay me $2,500 in cash and prizes for it!  Please help spread the word!

So tell the world (post on Facebook or Tweet) and let's see if I can get my design chosen as a winner!!

Here's a larger image of the t-shirt:

Thanks everyone!! Let's vote this a 5 and get this puppy won (pun intended)! :D

New Sketches

I did these sketches yesterday when I was watching the film Pretty Woman which I have to say is pretty awesome! I think Julia Roberts is beautiful, and Richard Gere's a hunk! :) So the above drawing is Bear and Boo. They're based on ideas I want to use for future softies/monsters.

This drawing is entitled Robot and Dog.

Medium: Blue 0.7mm hi-techpoint pen in my 5" x 8" moleskin sketchbook.

Garden Bits

I finally got my garden plants yesterday!! I'm so excited! I'm looking forward to the weather warming up at nights so I can put them outside. I can start my sweet peas cause they like the cold, and this week it's rainy and cold, which is perfect!!

 

 

 In the front is a mint plant, and the little one behind it (closest to the window) is thyme.

 

 This one's sage. I look forward to growing this, and drying it and having nice, fresh sage to put in my dishes!!

Ooooh this little baby is a spicy oregano!! Yumm!!

The plant by the window (the one with the blue tag) is a Japanese eggplant plant. The eggplants grow long and skinny. I can't wait to grow it, and then eat it! I got 2 tomato plants, and one red pepper plant as well. I thought I got a purple sweet pepper plant, but I guess I forgot to buy it at the market, or we did buy it (my friend and I) and I forgot to grab it?? Darn!! That's so sad cause I was really looking forward to growing and eating purple peppers. Like Peter Piper who picked a peck of purple peppers! hahaha

These ones are parsley and yes, that's a yellow onion sprouting greens!! I read online somewhere that if you put the sprouting onion in some water, the greens will grow and they're edible too! They taste almost like scallions or green onions! I just trim when I need green onions, and new ones grow in later on. It's awesome! I never thought of that. I have 2 sprouters that haven't gotten this big, but I have 2 that have, and for just me, that's plenty.

I forgot to mention I also got some nice, sweet basil, and some geraniums to make my front balcony all pretty. ;)

This is Littleone, my little sweet guy. He's looking outside (or checking out my plants). I wanted to share him with the world, cause he's so adorable and my baby.

This cute black and white guy is Squeak. He's my other sweet little man. He loves spankings and long walks in the park! Hahaha kidding about the long walks, not kidding about the spanking!

I will post photos later when the balcony garden has started. :) Happy Sunday!!

Rainy Saturday

Good morning fellow readers ;)

So today I'm going to the farmer's market. I'm going to buy myself some fruits and herbs for my balcony container garden. You're thinking fruits?? Yeah, fruits. :) You know, like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers... the "veggies" that have seeds that are actually classified as fruits. Hehe don't believe me? That's okay. It's just a shame that it's raining today, and the weather network says it will be for the rest of the week. I don't remember ever seeing so much rain in the spring.

I think it'll be great that I can finally start growing tomatoes since I have a lot of sunshine on my back balcony. It's a very sheltered area, so hopefully they'll like the heat too? I'll make sure to put them against the edge where hopefully they'll get a breeze. The pesky squirrels in my neighbourhood can easily jump from the power lines to my back staircase, and I've heard that they really love tomatoes so I'll have to buy some chicken wire to protect them. It's a pain to have to do that, honestly. I'm really looking forward to having my 'veggies' and herbs this year. I think my garden will be more successful than last year's. I tried to grow kale, broccoli,  sweet peas and yellow onions, and the only things I got were yellow onions and sweet peas. I think last year's weather was too iffy. The temperature kept dropping down below 5ºC and when that happens the plants decide it's time to stop growing, and most of them stayed dwarfs or they went to seed. My front balcony gets sun for 1 hour in the morning, but I think the only thing I could grow out front would be catnip for my kitties since this balcony is unreachable by the stray cats in my area. :)


I've been working on a new 'monster' for my Etsy shop!! It's a little bear... here's a photo the embroidered mouth..

I'm using some nice, bright pink rayon thread to embroider the little bear's mouth. You can see I traced the mouth with a pen so at least it'll look straight! hahaha I've often embroidered things on felt and then when I sew it on the face, I realize it's all crooked! haha That usually adds to the charm of the plush doll as you know it's been handmade (and always made with love in my case... I love making monsters). Below is the cut out pattern from the weaved polyester fabric I found at Fabricville (Fabricland in non-French areas).

As you can see I pinned the eyes down so that way they'll be straight when I sew them on. I just know the final result will be super cute! Stay posted for the finished product!

Cheers and enjoy your Saturday!

Some Tidbits I Found!

Hello fellow readers! :) I hope everyone is well! I've been reading up on my new book The Handmade Marketplace and it's really given me some good advice that I didn't know about! It talks about pricing your wares, marketing yourself, blogging and/or website, etc... I bought it from Chapters/Indigo online when I had a $5 off coupon not really knowing the content of the book, and I'm glad it did, cause it's really helping me!

The other day I was out trying to buy a lamp from a guy who was selling it on Craigslist, and he forgot to give me his apartment number, so I ended up walking back to the metro and just going home. On my way home, I saw there was a church bazaar, and since I wanted to buy a lamp, I figured I'd stop in and see if there was anything good. Well the place was full of vendors selling clothes, plants, and after a little walk around the middle bit, what did I see???? LAMPS!!!! Yes!! They had one floor lamp (what I originally wanted), but they had an even better table lamp that had a halogen bulb and 2 different intensity buttons. I tried it out, and it was perfect! Bright light, just what I need to do my crafts and only $8. Not a bad deal. So I continue walking and I see a table of fabrics! I'm already thinking about my monsters at this point. I did find this great retro pattern.

Lucky me it only cost $0.50. I think I might have only gotten about a yard and a bit, but that's all I really need for my monsters. :) So i continue walking and there's this round bit in the middle (I forget the name - you normally find them out in parks and they're covered and have a 'fence' around the edge and stairs going up to the elevated bit.. oh what's the word??) Anyway, so I go up and take a look. I don't see anything but then my eye spots these:

BUTTONS!!! I love these buttons!!! They're obviously vintage, and what I love about them (especially the burgundy one) is that it reminds me a bit of Jupiter and the swirling gasses on the planet's surface. But really, the colours are just gorgeous!! I can just imagine using these for monster eyes, and how nice it'll look. The sheet cost me $1.00 and I got 4 colours to choose from, and 4 different sizes for each colour. That's a lot of buttons for $1. A steal! If I had managed to find that guy's apartment and buy that lamp, I would never have seen this church bazaar, and I wouldn't have found these great finds. I'm looking forward to seeing what my monsters will look with these on them.

Stay posted and when I make them, I'll take pictures and post them! :) You can also see and buy my wares at my Etsy shop: http://www.curiouslittlebird.etsy.com  and you can view my website here: http://www.curiouslittlebird.ca

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Redesigned for a new brand

I changed the look of my blog today. I've made it match my new etsy shop, and my new business cards so that it's all consistent. I think it's great! The colours are nice and soothing...

I'm still finding it slightly difficult to write regularly in my blog. Sometimes I don't know what to say. I think I have an unnatural need to write super cute, or awesome like some of the blogs I read. I guess I have too high expectations for myself, and I should really take baby steps. I should just write what's in my heart, and eventually the rest should follow... non? :)

Hehehe I was in my French class today, and I was speaking to my French teacher and I told her every time she put 'non' at the end of a sentence, I felt like shouting "Non!" in response! She thought that was funny.

So the next thing on my list is to get a cork board. I want a nice big one so I can pin up illustrations, or things that inspire me (or CAN inspire me). My dad's going to bring me a desk for my art room and I'll finally have something to work on! Once I have my room set up a bit more, I think I can focus on having some goals. I guess I could post sticky notes all over the place, but it seems like such a waste! To get me started and focused and excited about getting my crafty business going, I bought this book...

I got this book as an early birthday present! :) I think this book will help me to focus myself instead of aimlessly wasting each day. I've noticed that since I've been out of work, the days seem to fly by!! It's odd how that works.

On May 11th (my birthday incidentally), I'll be attending the Freelance: Graphic Design event at YES Montreal. It's a chance to meet with a woman who started her own design business. From the description of this particular workshop, I think it'll be helpful to getting me started in the starting of my graphic business. That means that on one side I'll be promoting my crafts, and on the other doing graphics for random companies. I figure if both do fairly well, I should be able to make a decent living from this, and never again have to work for a someone, or be a different person!! Yay!