Illustration Friday, Doris and Tic Tocc

Doris is asleep.

This is my illustration for Illustration Friday where the theme is asleep.

Doris is dreaming about the upcoming release of her book to pdf (she's going untraditional) and she's dreaming that more people will like her's and Pete's FACEBOOK PAGE.  She wants to let you know that if you want to like her facebook page there's a badge for it in the sidebar, see it?  Good.   Just hit like and it will make you sign in to FB and you will automatically like Pete and Doris, that's it, simple.

This is my Tic Tocc exrecise this week.  Kat from Wright Story provides a prompt via newsletter and then you respond to the prompt in a creative manner, not excedding 20 mins.  So this is my unedidted continuing adventure of The Crowley Family.  If you want to read the scenes before this one just look for Sharonda, Pete and the Crowley family in the labels there in the sidebar.  I have not finished writing the scene befor this one, so it kinda jumps.  It also takes kind of a dark turn here.  It might also seem all over the place cuz I had so much stuff in my head and a limited amount of time.

“Okay,” Pete said remember what I said would happen to your world if all the mythologoical creatures crossed over into this dimension?”

Verona and I both nodded our heads because what would happen was really bad. “Well, you know that was detrimental to the existence of everything, well this is detrimental to the existence of me.”

“So, that note means something serious.” I was referring to the small tattered parchment paper that laid on the beach in front of us. We had it weighed down with a rock so it wouldn’t blow away. We were at the beach again. Looking for more clues on my aunties’ space ship landing that we thought the adult world was concealing. While searching for clues Verona found the small piece of parchment buried in the sand. Written on it in scribbly handwriting were three words, garnet, blood, magic.
Pete’s unicorn cheeks were glowing bright pink. “Yes, it actually means the death of me!”
“What,” I shouted way too loud. Some passerbys craned their heads to stare at me.
“Yes and I also just figured out who and or what came through the porthole with me.”
“Well,” Verona said with big scared bug eyes. I’m sure my eyes were bugged out too. The thought of somebody wanting to put an end to Pete was unbearable to think of.
“A unicorn hunter.”
“Somebody is hunting you?” I asked.
“Wait,” Verona said biting the corner to her lip. “I thought only mythological creatures lived in the second dimension.10min
“So, you just assume that the unicorn hunter is human? You humans are so full of yourselves,” Pete snapped looking back towards the water.
“No, it’s just that,” Verona stammered with her cheeks flushing.
“Oh, I’m just messing with ya,” Pete said giving us a mischevious grin.
“Pete,” Verona shouted slapping him in the neck. “This is no time to be joking.”
“But how is that possible,” I asked.
“Okay, back in the day like way back, we’re talking medieval times, there was some porthole over in England somewhere and these young unicorns discovered it on our side and slipped through. They would hang out with these maidens in the woods and they went back and forth a few times and then the unicorns’ moms found out or something and they stopped coming, but in one of the trips some medieveil dude must’ve slipped back with them.”
“Is that why in books you always see like medieval girls like sitting on unicorns with flowers in their hair and a castle in the background.”
“Yes, exactly, why do you think unicorns and princesses go so well together. It’s not just a little girl pretty pretty princess type of deal, this is the stuff of legends we’re talking about.”
“Uh, Pete,” Verona said rasing her hand in the air like she was in school. “What about the part with the garnet, magic and blood.”
Oh yes, well this unicorn hunter has been hanging around the second dimension since, well, midevil times, but he has yet to get his hands on one of us and supposedly we’re much easier to take down in this dimension.
And why does he want to take you down? I asked. 20
“Well, if you spill a unicorns blood, saw off their horn, that’s where the magic is kept, and mix it all together or something and do some sorta spell while holding the garnet, you will then possess the unicorns magic. A human with a unicorns magic is capable of doing almost anything, so this unicorn hunter dude I think has prolly been hunting me for a while and slipped through the porthole into this dimension with me.”
“Holy crap,” Verona and I said in unison once again with wide bug eyes.

Doris, You're Still a Rude Bird Visits Sweet Saturday and Sunday Sketches

By now I'm sure you all know Doris.  You've seen her paling around with Pete a lot lately, but she does have her own story, Doris, You're Still a Rude Bird.  If you've followed my blog for a long while now you've actually already have seen all the illustrations, so I think that covers about 11 people (this was really a while ago, almost a year).  How does this apply to Sweet Saturday, well beneath her attitude and sometimes rude behavior she can actually be quite sweet. 

Doris is coming soon to pdf!  She doesn't want to wait around anymore, so her story is starting out for sale as pdf, hopefully sometime next week.  I'll be selling it on The Illustrated Section website.  It's a cool website started by illustrator Dani Jones that sells comics and illustrated stories.  I'm putting my story up there once I write a good decription of it!

Why did I decide to release Doris as a pdf, why not.  It's a totally finished children's story just sitting around, so while I'm waiting for people in the traditional market to respond I figured I'd do this.  Then, in maybe a month or two Doris, You're Still a Rude Bird will also be available as an epub, that's an e-book format, just in case you don't know.  You'll be able to purchase it in the iBook store on your iPad and on the Barnes and Noble website.

I actually did all the epub formatting myself and I want to double check it and then check it again before I release it as an epub. 

Now on to Sunday Sketches.

This is kinda dark cuz I took a photo of it, I scanned it, but I only have a document scanner and it did not scan well.  This is a digital stamp I made ( a digital stamp is pretty much a black and white line drawing, just in case you don't know) and I colored it with my Prismacolors.  I then made it into a card for a bloghop I'm particpating in on my other blog.

Oh, one more sweet thing.  Check out the sweet stuff I won, I put it up on a post yesterday.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Some Awesomeness I won

Recently I won the giveaway my friend Anne was having on her blog My Giant Strawberry.  I was the lucky recipient of one of her wonderful handmade cuff bracelts.  Sorry if the first picture is a little blurry, I think I was too close cuz I was wearing the bracelet and taking a picture of it.

 Here' the bracelet with the lovely packaging it came in.   The card in the box there is handmade by her.  She collaged together all those little pieces of paper to make a lovely pattern.

Check out Anne's beautiful Etsy shop HERE!

Also recently I partook in National Picture Book Writing Week over at author Paula Yoo's blog.  The participants were eligible to win prizes and I was choosen at random and won an autographed copy of Erin Eitter Kono's childrens picture book Hula Lullaby. 

Erin even added a flyer for the newest book she has illusrtrated with a lovely little handwritten note on it.

Blogland and the mail have been so awesome to me lately!
Thanks Anne, Paula and Erin!

Creative Tuesday, Tic Tocc, My Crafters Digital Art Center Group

These are my crazy pattern trees for Mr. Toasts' Creative Tuesdays, where the theme is TREES!  I was in a pattern mood, don't ask why there's binkies in the grass, there just is.  I'm sure I could have come up with something nicer, but I had some catching up to do on somet hings cuz I was in Chicago the whole weekend away from my computer.

Also Pete and Doris say, "Don't forget to check out our Facebook Page.  There's the like box in the sidebar on the left and our page link is below."

Pete and Doris

Promote Your Page Too

Here is my Tic Tocc exercise for this Tuesday:

The Continuing Advetures of the Crowley Family

My whole family sat around the dining room table, my mom, dad, sister Verona, the twins, George and Georgina, Pete, Auntie X and Auntie Minniford. The lawyer stood at the end of the table making us all a little on edge, he wouldn’t sit down. The whole situation seemed a little off. The other day we got a phone call from the lawyer that stood at the end of the table. One Janus Himmmelfarb. He looked oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He had a head fully of strickingly blond hair that almost looked like a horse’s main and a long drawn out face with large flaring nostrils. Over the phone he said my family came into an inheritance and we had to meet up with him to claim it. He wouldn’t tell my mom over the phone who we inherited something from, it all seemed fishy. I told my mom, but she said that we did have lots of distant relatives and she pointed out Auntie X as an example. I looked over at my aunt who sat to my right. She was wearing her silver zipper up unitard/space suit and large black sunglasses with her hair slicked down her back coming to one sharp point at the end. She was a distant relative who just kinda showed up one day. I was convinced she an alien, but the adults in my family seemed oblivious to it.

Janus Himmelfarb spoke. “Theboy Etib left these items for you all in his last will and testament.” On the table Janus laid a broach, that was of a bronze color and had an elaborate floral design, a CD with nothing written on it, a large yellow bubble mailer and a gold charm that looked like a little pair of running shoes.
I was the first one in the family to speak. “Who in the heck is Theboy Etib?”
“The one who left your family these items,” Janus answered.
“That doesn’t answer much.”
Janus just pressed his pencil lips together. I looked around at my family for help. Pete was licking the table, the twins were picking each other noses, Verona was looking at me looking at everyone else, Auntie X was staring into space, or her home as I like to say, but my dad, mom and Auntie Minniford all sat there with their mouths hanging open.
My auntie Minniford, with her mouth still hanging open reached across the table and picked up the broach. “Reginald gave this to me before he……”
“Ah, isn’t Reginald your bird?” I asked pointing to the bird inside the birdcage that she kept in her hair. She nodded yes. I was utterly confused.
My dad picked up the little running shoes and flipped them around between his fingers without saying anything. My mom then picked up the CD as if she knew it was just for her. Since everybody was picking up an item off the table I picked up the envelope. I checked everyone’s expressions to see if it was allright and they were all kinda blank. I went on and slowly opened the envelope. I reached in and pulled out a binded document. On the cover of the document it read: Action Plan to Return the Unicorn.



Let's see, what else for today.  If any of you are my crafty friends I now have a group at Crafters Digital Art Center.  It's a web community for people who enjoy using digital stamps.  So, if you don't know, a digital stamp is pretty much a line drawing crafters use in place of rubber stamps, cuz that's what I'm selling in my Etsy shop.  I'm hoping perhaps by having this group it will help spread the word cuz so far I've only had 3 sales, so if you're a crafty friend or know a crafty friend go to (or tell them to go to) CDAC join the site and the join my group.  I love you!  Bye for now!

A Message From Cecile and Emile

Pete and Doris Have a Facebook Page

"Hi everybody, it's Pete here." 

"Hey, and Doris."

"Oh yes, and Doris.   Right now we're at the park, but we figured it'd would be a nice time to tell you all that we started a Facebook page."

"You all need to like us yo."

"Doris, be polite, but we would be highly appreciative if you did hit the like button in the sidebar.  All it will do is make you sign in to Facebook and then after that you like us, simple right.  We think it would be fun if we could get as many likes as possible."

"Okay, it's Doris here, so spread the word, Tweet about us, Facebook about us, blog about us, whatever it takes to achieve mad crazy fame."

"Doris!"

"What?"

"We're not fame seekers, we just want to be able to keep our fans updated on our happenings, new stories, new illustrations, maybe one day you will be able to download a story about us or something."

"A story aboout how we achieved our fame and fortune!"

"You have to excuse Doris, I think she ate too many worms this morning, so thank you and hopefully we'll see you all on Facebook."

The Time Space Continuum Task Force

So my Pete and Doris poll is almost over, half the votes magically went away, but I think twelve people voted, or seventeen, I think it's twelve, so at least twelve people said they would follow Pete and Doris on Facebook (it makes me happy that people go along with my crazy ideas), the two of them are pretty excited about it and want me to set up their page, so keep an eye out for that.

Now, the story below was another Tic Tocc exercise, every week Kat -emails out a newsletter full of inspiration, so now another tale from the Crowely family.  If I can, all my Tic Toccs are going to follow the Crowleys.

We were all pressed up against the wall next to the front door, well, Pete was really the one pressed up against the wall and I sat on his back with my arms wrapped around his neck and my sister Verona sat on my shoulders, steadying herself with a hand on the wall. Our mom stood in the doorway wearing a red running track suit with a maginifying glass hanging around her neck and her sleuth cap on her head. She says it doesn’t hurt to stay on the case while your out exercising. On the otherside of the doorway, in the hall stood a unicorn wearing a suit and standing on his back to legs, as if he was trying to blend in with the humans. Next to him was a, I actually wasn’t too sure. “Is that a sasquath in a business suit?” I whispered into Pete’s ear.

The actual photo the Time Space Continuum Officers
showed Sharonda's mom.  He looks a lil' different
cuz it's an older photo.

“No, that’s actually a yeti.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
Pete shook his head, it was one of his, Oh, you silly human from the third dimension head shake. “Two totally different beings, I’ll explain later.”
“Will, you stay still down there,” Verona said through gritted teeth looking down at us.
We refocused our attention to what was going on in the doorway. The unicorn pulled out a badge. “Ma’am we’re from the T.S.C.T.F..”
“The Tsctffff,” my mom said trying to make it into a word and not an acroynym.
“The Time Space Continuum Task Frore,” the Yeti said also flashing his badge.
“Okay,” my mom said totally unfazed that she was talking to two mythological creatures wearing business suits and flashing badges trying to sound official.
“I’m Officer Todd,” the unicorn said said putting away his badge and pulling out something from the breast pocket inside his suit. “Have you seen this unicorn?” He held up what was supposedly a photo.
My mom studied the supposed photo. It looked like she was trying to hold in laughter, her lips were pressed tightly together and her cheeks were slightly sucked in. It was prolly over the fact that the unicorn was called Officer Todd. I found it funny too, what was with unicorns having boring human names.
“Isn’t that a drawing,” my mom said after a few seconds.
“No, ma’am,” the yeti said. “That is an actual photo of the perp.”
‘The perp?” My mom said.
“Yes, ma’am, the perp, he is a pepartrator of illegally shifting the time space continuum.”
My mom pretty much ignored what the yeti said and said, “I didn’t catch your name.”
“It is Officer Bob ma’am.”
I snickered, I couldn’t help, seriously a yeti named Officer Bob, you couldn’t get much funnier than that.
“Is somebody there?” Officer Todd asked trying to look past my mom into our apartment.
“That’s one of my toddlers, I should actually go and tend to their needs and I haven’t seen the unicorn.” My mom shut the door in their faces and immediately turned her attention to Pete.
“You have some explaining to do mister,” my mom said to Pete with a finger point and a shake that told you that she meant business.

-------------------------------------------

“First, why does a supposed photo of you look like a pencil drawing?”
“Well,” Pete said rolling his eyes up in thought as Verona and I jumped down onto the ground. “It’s kinda embarrassing.” Pete paused, clicked his tongue and continued.” “Where I come from, the second dimension, that’s what I look like.”
“Huh,” Verona and I said in unison.
“Here in the third dimension you guys have two planes, one is along what you could call the x axis and the other one is along the y, so it’s kinda like the surface below you and then the, hmm, how do I explain this, then the surface that goes up and down, like your height, since you all exsist along these two planes it allows you to be three dimensional, well where I come from we only have one plane, and it’s like the ground your standing on, so we’re only 2d, you can compare it to 2d and 3d cartoons.
“So, you really look like that,” my mom said.
“Yes,” Pete said his cheeks turning a bright pink.
“Oh, Pete, it’s nothing to be embarresed about,” I said petting his mane.
“You guys can’t send me back there,” Pete said looking up. “ I love being able to look back and see my big old round hiney and I love being able to walk around a tree insteada just walking in front of or behind it, oh please no, no, no.
****************************************

After the dotted line is where I just kept writing after the twenty minute mark, I had to keep going cuz I had these ideas and I didn't want to forget them, so I had to type them out.  Bye for now, peace out.

A Game of Tag, Sweet Saturday and Sunday Sketches

So Blogger has been crazy and it wiped away many comments and even rearranged the layout on my new blog (I changed it back), so I'm saying thanks to any comments made cuz in my post before this there was 21 comments and now there's eighteen, wonkado! (Well, there's actually 19, but the 19th one was added after the others got wiped away)  So, this post is covering a post I was going to do on Thursday, Sweet Saturday and I'm throwing in my Sunday Sketch, it's like a super post (nah, not really)!

Carla Jansen from Carla’s Writing world "tagged" me and now you’ll get to know a lil’ more about me through the questions that are involved in this game of tag, it’s pretty fun. I then go and tag three others when I’m done here.

If you could go back in time and relive a moment, what would it be?
Oh, I’m sure I should say the birth of my children or my wedding, or something that tugs at your heart strings, but I’m going with, the last Bright Eyes concert I went to (March 15, 2011) cuz it was AWESOME!  So very AWESOME!

If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?
I prolly woulda changed my undergrad major.  I had two teachers who tried to convince me to switch from traditional animation to what they were teaching.  The first one who tried to get me to switch majors was a painting teacher I had, she really thought I belonged at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago being a painting major and the second teacher who tried to get me to switch majors was a fiction writing teacher I had, he found some of my stories quite entertaining.  Maybe I shoulda listened to one of them, but then you never know how my life woulda turned out if I did (I'm a fan of the life that I have right now).
What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality?
I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie Garden State (oer even heard of it), but Natalie Portman’s character kinda reminds me of well, me. She overly enthusiastic and bubbly about things, a lil’ off kilter and likes little cute animals and things. Her character also wears the first Bright Eyes tee-shirt I owned cuz if you don’t know by now, Bright eyes is my mostest favoritest band ever!

If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would it be?
While I can think of many, I don’t really want to answer this one cuz with my luck the next day that person will end up in a horrific tragic accident and then the cops will be at my front door.

Name one habit that you want to change in yourself?
I talk too fast and loud, especially if I’m really enthusiastic over what I’m talking about!!

Describe yourself in one word.
Awesome, no really, I am, but if I’m not being full of myself I’ll say artistic.

Describe the person who named you in this meme in one word.
Lovely.

Why do you blog? Answer in one sentence.
Hmm, mainly so I can meet people who are into things I like and then once I connect with them I can share my creations with them via my blog and we can build a happy little community, or I could say: To show off my awesomeness!  I kinda cheated, total run-on sentence and this sentence makes two.

Name at least three people to send this meme to, and inform them.  If anybody else wants to play along, go ahead, I love you all, but didn't want to take the time to add more links:)


Hannah from My Picture Garden

Anne from My Giant Strawberry

Kat from Wright Story

Now, Sweet Saturday and Sunday Sketches.  They're kinda combined and it might be cheating cuz it's really just a labeled picture of the messy corner of my desk, but on my desk is one of my sketchbooks which contains sweet little sketchy doodles (you will prolly have to enlarge the picture to see them, or even read the labels).

Have a great weekend everybody, oh, and take my poll (please, it's in the sidebar there, see it?  Yeah, right there on the left).

Creative Tuesday and Tic Tocc

A pretty purple penguin with a pretty pink purse and bow, standing up against a pale purple backdrop.

The theme over at Mr. Toast's Creative Tuesday is PURPLE!  I hardly ever use purple, so I had to actually think and think and a pretty purple penguin is what I came up with.

Now below is more of my story of Sharonda, Pete and the Rest of the Crowley family story that I worked on for Katina Wright's Tick Tocc exercise.  In there I marked where I got at the ten minute mark, the time I had to stop to tend to my children, they were all like, "Ah, tend to our needs mother." Then after that spot I think 9:21 I just wrote some more and didn't time it, oops.  I'm including an illustration that I made a while ago that goes with this scene,well, the end of the scene, so I apologize if you've seen this illustration 500 times before.

Ah man, the squirells are at it again, “ I said to Pete looking down at the marigolds ripped out of the dirt and strewn to the side. “I don’t understand why they do this. I bent down and scooped up the marigolds. The carnage looked fresh, so I was thinking maybe the flowers could be saved.

They’re out to get me,” Pete said. “And they’re using my loved ones to get to me.”

Pete, you’re crazy, squirrels are not out to get you.
No, I swear they really are. I’m pretty sure unicorns and squirells are natural born enimies.
Okay Pete,” I said getting up and walking across our small square of a backyard. With a few good strides I was at the garage. “C,mon I said nodding Pete over with my head. For some reason our garage has always scared me, I didn’t want to go in alone. Pete trotted over and I opened the garage door. The door creaked loudly adding to the spooky garage atmosphere.
“Whadwedoin in here,” Pete asked over my shoulder with his hot unicorn breath in my ear.
“I’m looking for something I could put these flowers in, I feel like nursing them back to health when we inside. “
Pete shoved past me and pulled the chain to the lightbulb in the middle of the garage. The lightbulb was dim and cast an eery shadows on the crates and many odd shaped things covered with old dirty tarps. “What is all this stuff?”
“Well, a lot of it belonged to the landlord before he passed and somehow we just inherited it and some of it is stuff from the natural history museum cuz when they go to throw something out dad sees it as a treasure that he just has to bring home. 10min
“Like this,” Pete said with a copper kettle hanging from between his large horsey chompers.
“Yes, and that would ,make a really cute planter.”
“It’s oddly heavy.”
“That’s cuz it’s copper.”
“No, there’s more weight than that.”
“Hmmm, put it down so we can take off the lid.”
Pete put it on the dark dusty garage floor and I squatted down next to something that smelled horribly of moth balls. Pete plucked the lid off with his teeth and we both looked inside. “Uh,” Pete said as we both stared at the bubbling glowing green liquid ooze inside.
“Verona,” I shouted. I had a sneaking suspicion that my sister had something to do with it. 9:21
“You know, she prolly can’t here you, being that we’re in the garage and she’s in the house and all.”
I threw Pete a mean look. “Will you go get her for me?”
“Fine” Pete said sighing like walkig back to the house was the hardest thing ever to do.
While Pete was gone I set the marigolds I was still holing on the ground and watched the liquid as it moved around inside the kettle, it was almost the consintency of lava, actually that’s what it lloked like, but green as apposed to the normal lava color. It bubble a few times and made a farting noise and looked like it was starting to oozed over the edge, actually it lloked like it was purposely climbing over the edge. I started to back up a bit. My sister then burst throught the garage door.
“Put the lid back on,” she shouted. “You can’t let that get out!”
I slapped the lid back on and stood up and gave my sister a good hard look. It was hard to believe there was an evil genius lurking in there. She had this sweet little face and wore her hair in these pigtails that I reffered to as her two snowballs cuz they were really just wads of fluff she put hair ties around. To top off her sweetness she always wore a cardigan with the button on top always buttoned.
“What in the heck is that!” I shouted at my sister.
Verona bit her lip and looked at the ground. “Remember the science fair not too long ago?”
“Yeah, how could I ever forget it.”
“Well, you know how my experiment turned into an eveil monster and tried to eat Mr. Pickels?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Well, Verona said pointing to the copper kettle on the garage floor. “That’s what created my vice-princple eating monster.”
“Oh snap,” Pete said.
Verona and I both looked at him and started laughing. He was such a dork.

So, if you can't tell, that was sooo unedited.  Okay, bye for now!

A Sweet Saturday and a Sunday Sketch

Here's some sugar cookies I made.  I didn't make them today, but a couple days ago, I took this picture yesterday and this is what was left.  They turned out pretty good cuz I was worried cuz I tried something new.  I added lemon juice and some milk to the mix because I wanted them chewier cuz last time I made them they were really crunchy.  The day I made these cookies I also made pancakes from scratch, no picture of those cuz my pancakes are never very photogenic.  Take a bite of my cookies if you wish and see what other sweetness is going on over at Sweet Saturdays.

Now here's my piece for Sunday Sketches.  I'm putting it up today because I don't plan on doing much tomorrow.  I'm hoping people will be fanning me and feeding me grapes, or something along that line.

If you can't tell, I'm still working on this, so this one is actually still part sketch, perfect for Sunday Sketches.  On the left I have the background in there, usually I do that last, but I wanted to see how it woulda kinda look finished.  Not to long ago I posted a recipe I made for They Draw and Cook a long while ago (I never heard back from TDAC after I submitted it) and some of you seemed to of enjoyed it.  Well, I wasn't going to make another one, but Pete and Doris wouldn't stop bothering me.  This is one of their favorite meals.  It's a recipe I came up with that combines my five year old's two favorite foods, pizza and chicken (all my three year old ever wants to eat is crackers).  Hopefully I'll finish this soon. 

 I've been working on my new blog and trying to put together a design team.  The new blog is all about my digital stamps, clipart and scrapbooking papers I am now making.  I didn't want to flood this blog with all that, so if ya want, check out Cute Crafty Land.  In a day or two I should be introducing a new design team member.  I'm really excited, she sent me a lovely photo and bio!

For those of you who are mommies, Happy Mother's Day!

Cute Crafty Land and a Design Team

Hello my friends as I've mentioned quite a few times already I started an Etsy shop where I'm selling digital stamps, clipart and digital scrapbooking paper, but I don't want to fill this blog with all my my Etsyness, like hey, look what I have in my shop now, or look what you can do with my stuff, so I was going to start a separate blog just for my cute crafty stuff that I sell on Etsy and D.A.I.S.I.E. cuz I want to keep this blog focused on my children's illustration and ocassional writing, so if per chance you want to follow my new blog or it might interst someone you know here is the new blog Cute Crafty Land.
So, here's the next part.  It seems I have no traffic going to my Etsy shop, the views that I have had, 14, have come from people I know here.  Many people who sell digital stamps and such have design teams.  Jehanne from Just Some Lines started one for her digital stamp line and it seems to be going great over at here blog which I'm sure helps drives traffic to her shop, go check it out.  Granted I don't have anywhere nice of a shop set up as hers, but maybe if I ever have more than one sale on Etsy I'll move on to my own web shop site.

So, if you are a crafty person with a blog (I know a few of you are) and you like to make crafts with digital stamps, scrapbook paper and clipart, any kind of craft, I need some design team members.  I know I only have a couple things in my shop, but as soon as I get a little crew together I'll add more.  If you or anybody you know might be interested, let me know.  I'm looking for around five more people maybe, I have one person, I bribed one of my sisters and not the sister with blog that I said, "hey, go follow," and she hasn't made any new posts, but a different sister, she's actually going to start a blog to help me out with this .
If you're like well, "What does this design team stuff entail?"

I'll send you free clipart, digital stamps and digital paper (sample of my paper above) and you make something with it and then send me a photo, so I could put it on the Cute Crafty Land Blog and it'll link back to your blog.  It'll be like look what FlufferNutter made with the Bunny and Sunny Digi stamp.  Then there will prolly be a link to where you can buy the stamp.
If you or anybody you know is interested hit the contact me button in the sidebar or leave a comment and I'll send ya more details.
If you read this whole post thanks.

A Mysterious Beach Closing

I knew the city was covering up the secret. The only reason the beach is ever shut down is due to high levels of bacteria in the water and they always tell the public about that, but this time the city officials dind’t dsay anything. Pete was there with me too as we stood on the beach looking out onto the horizon. He was standing next to me. Pete was my second best friend. My first one was my friend Preet and she’d been my best friend since fifth grade and Pete only came into our lives the year before. I could always say that Preet was my best human friend and Pete was my best mythological creature friend cuz he was a unicorn after all and techinquely my brother cuz after he came through that port hole into our lives my family couldn’t find a way to send him back through it, so he had to stay with us. We got use to his obnoxious unicorn behaviors and fell in love with him and then my parents legally adopted him.

You know,” I said to Pete as we looked out over the large lake. It was so large you coulda though you were looking out onto the ocean. “The city is so coropte that they just swept the space ship landing under the rug and pretended it never happened.”

“What, if it actually didn’t,” Pete said. “What if we’re wrong about your Auntie X being an alien?”

“Pete, out of all the people I know you’d be the one I would think wouldn’t doubt it. “

“This goes back to the whole me being a unicorn thing doesn’t it?”

“Yes, so you should believe in aliens cuz after all supposedly you don’t exist either, and supposedly aliens don’t either and it just seems to go hand in hand.”

“I don’t know Sharonda.”

“Well, can you at least help me with your unicorn senses.”

Pete sighed and said,” fine.” He then closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. While his eyes were closed a couple passerbys stopped and stared at us. Most people didn’t know how to react when they saw a unicorn in public and after a few seconds of staring they usually just continued walking, which this couple did. “Okay, I smell something sweet, kinda like anti-freeze, but then there is a bit of some sorta fuel smell, but not like our gas here, there’s something different, actually I don’t think it’s anything I ever smelled in this dimension before.”

“I knew it, wait, have you smelled this in the dimension you’ve come from before.

No in the second dimension everything has a floral fragrance, but in the fourth dimension………

I did another tic toc exercise this week based on Kat from Wright Story's prompt.  Her prompt inspired me to write a bit more about the Crowley's.  This scene is just sharonda and Pete though.  So it was a quick write and I didn't edit it, so there's some spelling and sentence structure and flow errors.  I also did a quick illustration to go with the story.  I'm not sure if I'm liking the gradient, but it was supposed to be a quick exercise so I didn't change it and not sure about Pete's shadow, but none the less, there ya go.

My Tribute to Mommyness

Some mommies are fuzzy.

Some mommies are funny.

Some mommies are scaly and some have pockets in their tummies.

Some mommies are friendly

And some are quite loud.

Some mommies are quite soft and all mommies are very proud.

Some mommies bake cookies and others eat bugs.

Some mommies play sports and others knit rugs.

but there’s one thing for certain about your mommy you see

and that is how much she loves her sweet sweet baby.

Above is my tribute to mommyness.  Just so you know, my story/poem is talking mostly about animal mommies, thus the scales and pockets in tummies (bet you can't guess what animal that mommy is)!  Now this poem thingy here isn't just for actual tiny babies, but big ones too cuz my boys will always be my babies, even when they're fifty!

This post is for Claudine Itner's Mother Day Blog hop.

Here are the other participants and their post dates:

May 3rd – Lynn Krawczyk

May 4th – Ishita Bandyo

May 5th – Jeri Greenberg

May 6th – Kathleen Mattox

May 8th – Amanda Ruth

May 9th – Judi Hurwitt

May 10th – Kathleen Murphy

May 11th – Hannah Phelps

May 12th – Helen Hiebert

May 14th – Hannah Klaus Hunter

May 15th – Claudine Intner

My poem was intended to be a story, I had a baby board book in mind.  I didn't know exactly what I was going to post today, so yesterday I started writing a story for the NaPiBoWriWee.  I didn't intend for it to rhyme cuz ryhyming stories have way less of a chance of being sold, at least that's what I've gathered from my research cuz I guesss so many people are not good at it, but then I tried to make it sing songy after the first couple of lines cuz I thought that it would make a nice mommy post, so there you have it.  So it seems I'm not Dr. Suess when it comes to rhyming, but I tried.

I think I might also try to make some actual illustrations for my poemy/story like creation.

Now these are my two little dudes.  So you know, you'll prolly never see a picture with their sweet little adorable faces cuz I've watched one too many episodes of Criminal Minds!  But just by looking at the back of their heads they don't look a whole bunch like me, at least pigmentation/color wise!  They totally take after my husband.  my sister-in-law always teases me and calls me their nanny.

But this photo is from when we went to this place called Entertrainment Junction and even with a name like that it was actually pretty cool.  They have the world's largest indoor train display.

As a mommy I think family trips/time together is always fun.

Here's a another pic from Entertrainment Junction.

So that concludes my post about mommyness.  Happy Mother's Day (a few days early) if you're a mommy.  Enjoy every second you have with those sweet little darlings of yours, even if they're not little anymore still enjoy every moment with them.  And if you have a great mom or grandma or know someone who is a great  mom, let them know you think so!  Bye for now!

Sunday Sketches, NaPiBoWriWee, Etsy Shop

This is my entry for Sunday Sketches, it also serves as an illustration for a picture book I just started writing and have to finish today because I just found Paula Yoo's NaBiPowriWee challenge, which is you write seven picture books in seven days.  Below you will find the silliness that I wrote, my five year old came up with the part of what super heros say.

This is a baby duck.  He says quack, but if he was a robot duck he’d say bee-bop quack, beep-bop quack.  And if he was a robot duck that was also part t-rex, he’d say beep-bop quack roar, beep –bop quack roar.  And if he was a robo duck-rex that was also part super hero, he’d say beep-bop quack roar to the rescue!  And if he was a robo duck-rex hero that was also part ninja he’d say beep-bop quack roar to the rescue huuuuwah.

Yeah not sure if ninjas really say huuuwah, but my five year old says they do and he knows everything (at least he thinks he does).

Oh, did I mention I opened an Etsy Shop, I did, I know, yesterday. 

I'm not quite sure how to get people to my shop, but I did sell one thing to Ileana at All Things That Make Me Happy.

I was thinking of starting some sorta design team thingy, cuz that's what it seems people who sell clipart/digital stamps do, like have a team of my peeps who make stuff with my art and then I post it, so if anybody is interested........

Come back tomorrow for my post for Claudine Itner's Mother Day Blog Hop.