Candy Girl

I’m one of those people who romanticizes autumn, counting down the days until Pumpkin Spice lattes appear on Starbucks counters and all manner of squash pile up outside the produce market. I spend most of summer eyeing my cardigans and scarfs, longing for a bit of cool crispness in the air. I love fall.  And I love Halloween. So I’ve been trying to squeak out some seasonally appropriate cards in between freelance projects this past couple weeks. I’m hoping to have a least a couple more available in the shop over the next week, but for now there are a couple you can check out, including this one, just listed this afternoon:

Halloween Candy Girl greeting cards are available for purchase at She Can Lift a Horse on Etsy. Click here to go directly to that design or here to view the stationery section for that and other cards.

Here’s the original sketch:

The final art didn’t change much from the draft, except to get more cheerful. The final color combo – blue, orange, black, and white – makes me think of my wedding (almost two years ago!). That was our color scheme. There weren’t any bats on our invitations, but there were ghosts and pumpkins and a sheet white girl in a black dress.

Anyway. Fall! It’s the best!

The Hunt is On

Happy Easter! I’m eating caramel-filled chocolate eggs as I type this and I hope you’re doing the equivalent as you read it.

Watercolor Lurrve Part II

Happy Valentine’s Day, internerds! I made some watercolor valentines for Ben and my best gals this year. It was a rather feeble attempt, but I figure I have to allow myself a learning curve, and they were fun to make at any rate.

I wrote different things on all the cards — hey girl, love ya, oh baby — that sort of thing, and added scalloped edges and cut-out hearts where it seemed like a good idea. The above is the card I made for my momoo, which also happens to be my favorite one :)

^ For my tiniest valentine ^

I’m impatiently awaiting a UPS delivery containing OUR WEDDING PHOTOS! If they arrive today as per the plan, it’ll be the perfect Valentine’s day treat. And if they don’t… the UPS guy might want to wear protective gear tomorrow because I’ll be sitting by the front door, ready to charge. Tee hee. But really.

Watercolor Lurrrve

Practicing some type and watercoloring (which I never do but think I may prefer over colored pencils, if I can get decent at it) and making some valentines in the process. That’s like, three dead birds with one stone!

Patterned Undercrackers Pattern

Nothing says happy holidays like a snappy pair of festive undercrackers*. Undress your desktop (ooer) with this fancy pants pattern:

Large tile or Small tile

*A term I picked up from one fictitious Georgia Nicolson. Also known as underpants, underwear, bottoms, drawers, knickers, and most embarrassingly: panties. *shudder*

February Galentines

It’s February! That means there’s lots of pink crap everywhere! As for Valentine’s Day itself… well, I like just about anything with a heart stamped on it or that comes in a gaudy shade of fluorescent pink, I love stationery, and I have a pressing and ever-present need to consume chocolate. I see no real problems here. But I’m just as happy to see a showing of The Vagina Monologues and call it Anna Howard Shaw Day as I am to be wined and dined. For that matter, I’m happy to watch Bridget Jones’ Diary alone with a bowl of popcorn. They all sound like a good time to me.

I look at Valentine’s Day as an excuse for dessert, corny movies, and cute, dumb shit. Date optional. With that in mind, here’s some cute dumb shit I’ve been sketching lately to get even the crankiest of pants in the mood.

Bookplate Gifts

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Christmas with our families was excellent, and something that, between living out of state and working a retail schedule, I hadn’t been able to enjoy properly for moons and moons and moons. Good company, good food, and a truly ludicrous amount of gifts. AND SPEAKING OF GIFTS… here’s a crafty one I’mma share with you…

It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say I’m the aunt who only gives books — if there’s a pair of bow patterned tights with a bear on the butt, hypothetically, I’m going to go ahead and assume you need those — but I do mostly give books. So it seemed fitting that this Christmas my nieces be the ones to benefit from my first go at making bookplates.

The two endpapers pictured here are from the books A Girl and Her Gator and A Boy and His Bear, both excellent and silly rhyming picture books by Sean Bryan & illustrated by Tom Murphy.

I used scrapbook paper to make my own envelopes, then glued a bookplate to the front. I also used used the scrapbook paper to cover the Elmer’s label on two gluesticks to tie everything together. The envelopes comfortably hold 15 book plates and 1 glue stick each. I decided to leave blank lines instead of writing in Scarlett & Heidi’s names. One of the best things about looking through your old books is seeing your own messy scrawl, and how it changes over time. Of course you could print this on sticker paper, but I opted for sturdy semi-gloss inkjet paper instead (I already had it on hand) and gluesticks so that the girls can (eventually) glue them in themselves.

My sister-in-law Alison loves rabbits, so I chose those for Heidi’s theme — at 15 weeks Heidi doesn’t have too many interests of her own, that I know of anyway — and for Scarlett, a shoe queen, footwear was an obvious theme. I’d love to design more, but it’s nice that I can just send the files along for easy home printing and envelop re-stuffing.

Holiday Eats

Instagrammin’ all of our holiday eats! From L-R: Bakery sugar cookies and cupcakes at an ornament exchange, Almond Crisp cookies, See’s Old Fashioned Candies of which I ate entirely too many, Panne Siciliano (entirely by Ben and it was a masterpiece of breadmaking), more See’s chocolates, Cinnamon Buttermilk Muffins, Mississippi Mud Pie (with Heath bar pieces and coffee ice cream!), pear guts, and Pear Frangipane Tart in the making. The tart is baking AT THIS VERY MOMENT and smelling wonderful :) Happy holidays, internet! Hope you’re eating half as well as us!

From Our Weird Family to Yours

Alas, the big reveal! Our 2011 XMas postcard!

And a couple of sketches… I originally had the idea for a stupid sweater / costumed kitties card when I was living with my sister Michelle, but ended up going with something else. Anyway, here’s that original sketch.

Happy holidays to you and yours from me, Ben, Emilio & Hedwig :)

Most Festive of Greetings

HOLY TOLEDO IT’S DECEMBER 20TH! THE CHRIST CHILD IS NEIGH UPON US! I guess that means I can go ahead and share some of the holiday postcards I designed this year (plus one flashback to Christmas Past)…

4″x6″ postcard for my parents, front & back. After spending too much time playing with this Make-a-Flake Flash snowflake generator one day, I was inspired to… make a flake or two. It was fun.

4″x6″ holiday postcard for Shuler Financial Services. My sister’s mother-in-law was none to pleased when she found out her husband Leon was about to send out cards to his clients using the same generic template he’d use the year before. So she forced him to hire me :) And it seems appropriate that someone who loves mail the ole’ fashioned way (he even sent me instructions that were HANDWRITTEN on PAPER through THE POSTAL SERVICE, which DELIGHTED me) should have something original. I left the right side blank knowing Leon would need extra space for all of the vintage stamps he collects and covers his mail with (another reason recieving mail from him is such a treat).

This is two things 1) a snowflake I cut out because I felt like it and 2) the first family Christmas card I designed way back when in… 2006? Featuring me, my sister Michelle and her kitty Clementine. I had no idea how to print them so I went through the process of making xerox color copies, cutting them out, and gluing the images to paper cards that I also cut, and stuffed in bright blue envelopes. I still love ’em despite all the Photoshop missteps I can see in it when it’s blown up.

Me & Ben’s 2011 card is up next!