Final Jumper Joy of 2012

This is officially the last cat in a jumper I am drawing this year. Or well, I drew. I am pretty tempted with coouring this fella, but so far - this is it! :)

Merry Catsmas!

From me and the Santa Catsmaspudding

from Sofia

Hello!
Couple of weeks ago I was pretty lucky to win Sofia Sobeide's giveaway! When it arrived at first I thought it was something from my friend Martyna, whose handwriting is very very similar. But then I saw that it was packet from Finland! Hooray! So it came in a miniature version of a pizza box, which upon opening revealed....

A paper bag from old comics. It was very very cute.

And inside the bag were...

A cute dog brooch and crocheted bunting! Bunting got immediately repurposed to...

...Become a Christmas Tree chain! :) It works perfectly on my sad synthetic tree :)
And then I found that one of the comic pages were actually an old Star Wars Comic. I didn't know Darth Vader could also speak Swedish! :D

December! Photo time! :)

I confess - I have been a bad egg. I did not update blog much over past 2 weeks... Reason? I was SUPERCHRISTMASBUSY! (Also got a cold on the way, your typical excuses all the way!). For that I shall make it up to everyone and publish some action shots. In that time I did 3 markets, here's some shots from Noir! the Christmas Fair:

This is the fabulous Fi of Fiona Heather with David Anderson (who took the following picture:)

 

...of me and the Fi!

Something amazing has also happened. The elusive Christmas Jumper Cat Christmas Jumper came to life!

(there is still one available and if you are in UK you can get i on time for Christmas!)

Grumpy Henry

If he takes everything into consideration Henry does like Christmas. It is quite a difficult one. He has to wear a silly jumper his mom made. He has to spend quality time with his family. And then his girlfriend makes him wear this ridiculous hat! But then... Deep down he loves the smell of a Christmas tree. And then there is the food of course. Above all else Henry loves food.
(click on him to view bigger image or if you want to... buy him!)

Monday Moodboard

1. Autumn leaf-feather bracelet - MadebyMegrShop
2. Vintage string holder - Pemmy's Emporium
3. Wooden heart brooch - Vivid Please
4. Printer's letterpress drawer - French Vintage SHop

Marshmallow Lady's Festive Exhibition

Hello!
So last Wednesday (I am unfirtunately pretty sow with relaying these things, but November has been pretty busy!) I attended the exhibition opening for a GROUP EXHIBITION in which I am PARTAKING ;)
It's pretty exciting :) Here are a couple of pictures from the event:

And this is me with some of my bags (trees!) and jars of marshmallows.... mmmm!

 

 There were marshmallows, muled wine, lovelyness, and obviously I managed to mess something up too (i.e. arrange to meet someone at the same date and time - I still can't apologize enough :O).

The ehibition is running through to the end of December so get down to Marshmallow Lady's to have a look! :) (and of course taste the marshmallows).

PuddyFAT

 

Hello! My name is Ollie. My family calls me puddyfat, and always stresses the "FAT". I really don't understand why. My favourite activities are having dinner, having breakfast, having lunch, I also like to go in the garden sometimes and get a small between-meal snack. I managed to hunt some cocktail sausages too once, but instead of praise I got a telling off! I don't think my family understands me...

Similarly to Mr and Mrs Cat, Ollie agreed to participate in a line of canvas bags. These are ones that feature her little (round) face!

Fox in Fog

This is a part two to the Michelle and Ghost picture. I am not sure if I am too happy with the fox, but I thin this is the first fox I drew in ages. So I just need more practice practice practice!

I just realised that the first picture I did in June. Time passes waaaaaaaay too fast!

Mrs Cat also works hard

 

Well guess what... Mr Cat does indeed have a girlfriend! (Or is it wife? Maybe you should ask him?) She works as a typist and has a taste for handknitted jumpers and cardigans. She also decided to feature in a line of bags, not for the money, mainly for the fame. :)

Go HERE if you want one!

Astro Cat

This is an absolutely fab print I got as a part of a swap with Aljona - the most talented young designer :). We have been on and off buddies for Etsy Christmas Bootcamp thing (yes, this probably is just a bunch of words that don't mean anything to You). The swap was probably the best thing that came of it SO FAR. You know what it's like, advice for an advice, eye for an eye, cat picture for a cat picture... I though the vintage style photo will be fitting for the nature of the print (read: I could only take photo with my phone and the wannabe hipster in me decided that using instagram is the best thing since sliced bread). I am utterly loving the print. The paper is lovely, the packaging was great, the little baby print that I got as a freebie was amazing too... All I need now is a frame fitting of this picture. And all YOU need now is your own copy OF THIS ASTRO CAT. You might now think this is a sponsored post or an advert. You are totally wrong. :) Young artists can't afford those!

Stall at Out of the Blue! And a preview of what's to come :)

Hello! Yesterday I had a stall at an art market at Out Of the Blue in Leith in Edinburgh. I have worked my bum off all week to finish off all the new things for the show :) You can admire them (and also my most handsome little helper - Karen-Anna of Arga Ankan) on the above picture :) You can play "spot a new item", as a lot of these I am photographing (like, right now) to put up on Etsy ASAP!! :)

Water

For Illustration Friday. There are many uncovered mysteries in the depth... :)

Listophilia

I have this terrible habit of making lists. They don't always work as means of motivating me, but they definitely work as means of making me happy and making me feel organized. Most of the time it's not true anyway, but I eep making them. I am doing a wee craft show thingie on Saturday and I could not resist NOT making a list of things I want to get done for it (i.e. stock), but since I have 4 3 days left till the zero hour, i thought I will at least make a rough plan of what I want done by when. And the great Aljona suggested I should make a dinosaur shaped one. Just for that little bit of extra motivation.

Up and away

I am away for the weekend in a peacefull cottage. I am hoping to draw loads while I am here, including some more new cats to go with the famous working Mr Cat:

A lady Cat is on her way, but so are a few other pictures. It is pretty rainy here, but that only adds to the cosyness. And there is a real fireplace and not much around bar fields and sheep. I totally love it.

I am not sure if I will be able to post thigns on here straight away, but surely will put up some fancy shmancy instagram pictures :)

lighthouses.

I absolutely love lighthouses. I love the sea, so I guess this is a natural extension of this affection. It is also partially because of my love for one particular Moomins book where they move to a lighthouse. Quite some time ago I did a series of drawings of polish lighthouses. This was the first one and the only one that I actually went on to the top of. One of my ideal places to live would be on an island with a lighthouse.

I just keep on dreaming.

Bear-ry picking!

I did this one few weeks ago, attempt at a story told by one of my colleagues - as her granny once went berry picking and met an unusual companion (that you probably want to avoid).

a Gazillion

Today I made a gazillion of mini sketchbooks :)

...I promise I will post some new drawings this week!

Autumn collection

Of brooches and things :) The brown bear will undergo some adaptations though, as it came out pretty dark...

Neon Tree Prints

They truly are a thing of beauty ;) I really love how they turned out. Watch this space for more stuff like this! :) It's also nice that my tree a day thing is not just going to waste ;) these are the first time I tried to do a multicoloured screenprint!

These are purchasable here.

Bags! (Full view post preview ;) )

I have been super busy recentely working on LOADS of new projects/items. I already have some things that are nearly made for Christmas! :) But before they are revealed, photographed, and more importantly, actually MADE, here's things that are already done! If you click on the images you will be transferred to a nice place where you can look at more pictures of them and exchange your money for them ;)

This one  is one of my favourites - it was quite challenging to make with all the colours! But they turned out absolutely fab :) It also made it to the Etsy front page on the first day of being listed!!!

This is the famous narwhala in the bag form ;)

And for something completely different, whale song! Ok, not really that different ;)

There has also been few other colours of octopus added to the line (the black ones look really really good!!):

And this is last, but not least one of the Recycled Saloon series. It is actually the last one of the series and there have only been two of each design made! "Sister" of this bag I have myself :)

Front Page Etsy!

My treasury made it to the front page of Etsy! (the European variety ;)). For thse that don't know, treasuries on etsy are member curated selections of items. Like this one! I am pretty happy about this :)

To see the actual treasury (as they only stay on the front page for so long...) click here!

Preview of a preview of a preview

I just realised I haven't written in here for a while now - so I am fixing it just now! My 7 posts a month thing has clearly not been really working (well, it's been half-working with months when I managed 6 posts :)), so I am going to try my best to make it this month :)

In the meantime a wee preview of a preview of a preview of some nice bags that are joining the family! They've been freshly printed last Wednesday and are almost ready to be available. Almost! :) And since I have been putting all those previews of things that are to be available soon but not posting actual items - a lot of brooches from last post ARE available just HERE. :)

Suspend

Eelcat hanging in there for Illustration Friday! :) I seem to be going through phases of drawing dark black and white images and colorful cheery eelcat ones. This does not reflect my mood in the slightest though!

Things Yet to Come

Some sooner, some later :)

refresh

Malin is not so refreshed... Eelcat certainly is!

And on a side note, I am not refreshed at all either. I had the pleasure of waking up at the middle-of-the-night o'clock, courtesy of a little mousie. I think I could really benefit from an eelcat's company! (Or any other cat for that matter).

Michelle's Ghost

So apparentely Michelle saw a ghost one foggy morning on her way to work... Because she took a shortcut through a graveyard, which (after my scrupulous research) is not actually a shortcut. But sleeping people are easier to get past than crowds of people in a hurry/on the bus stop. And I don't know, there is just something weirdly pleasant and calm on that graveyard anyway. But was it really a ghost?

space

Toffo's off for another adventure. Space for Illustration Friday! I kinda didn't want to illustrate space as in planets and stars.

Still Growing my Forest!

So today I am a bit snotty and sneezy and the cold medicine seems to only makes it worse and I seem to be whining quite a lot, so I thought I will do at least one positive thing. I haven't written much about this project here lately and I am coming up to the tree number 100 soon! So I thought it might be nice to remind everyone this is still happening (despite few blips along the way). Just to recap: I draw a tree a day for 365 days. I started sometime in March (or February? Can't remember now!) and it's passed wayyy to quickly to notice! Click on the tree on the left to go there!
So there. Enjoy!

Things that happened last week which I'd rather didn't