Pia.

Look who came to live with us! Her name is Pia and she came all the way from Fiona at hop skip jump via Mahar Drygoods. She was packed in her very own little green suitcase with it’s eggplant colored stitching and handle!! Yay!

p.s. The order will be placed shortly! So, please email me at vegasandvenice@comcast.net if you are interested in purchasing a Shy Monsters coloring book or stickers in the next run. I will keep the run very limited again and only order the amount requested. Thank you very much! Have a wonderful day!!

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Alpha-Betters.

Last Matilda-esque picture for a little while I promise! I really have more important things to show you. Anyway though, this is the prototype of a little sticker set that I have been drawing obsessively. They are so much fun!! I call them alpha-betters and they are little personalized monogramed hand drawn stickers. This one is on Matilda’s skirt and you may have already guessed that M is for Matilda *smile* See, I told you yesterday that you were a smart little carrot and I was right!!

Speaking of carrots, most kittens don’t like water but mine are doing the backstroke in their dish. Why it that? Must they splash around? Doesn’t that seem unnatural? What does this have to do with carrots? hmmm ... pondering.

p.s. The order will be placed shortly! So, please email me at vegasandvenice@comcast.net if you are interested in purchasing a Shy Monsters coloring book or stickers in the next run. I will keep the run very limited again and only order the amount requested. Thank you very much! Have a wonderful day!!

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Matilda Monday.

So, I have decided to impart the same advice to you as I did to Miss Solomon and I quote “I know that pirates are ALL the rage right now, but I am not 100% positive that eye patches are really all that comfortable! You have to pace yourself. Point and then laugh. Wait till you are done laughing before attempting to point again and then repeat the cycle!” Lastly, please don’t make me draw a diagram!

Here she is, Matilda. Now you may be asking yourself “Self? Is that ONE stripey sock that I see Matilda wearing?” Because, I can not read your mind (at least that’s what I tell people) you will have to answer yourself. So tell yourself “Self, that IS one stripey sock that Matilda is wearing. It looks as though it was lovingly and painstakingly embroidered right on her leg.” And ya know what, if I could read your mind, I would tell you that you are a very very smart little cookie to have figured that out so fast!

This Matilda was created specifically for Miss Korallin who really helped me out when decision time came around for the Shy Monster coloring books. Which may have another run very soon. So this jazzy little cupcake of a doll is going to be traveling to this jazzy little cupcake of a doll very soon! Thank you again Miss!

P.S. Please email me at vegasandvenice@comcast.net if you are interested in purchasing a Shy Monsters coloring book or stickers in the next run. I will keep the run very limited again and only order the amount requested. Thank you very much!

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Work + Work + More Work = In Progress.

I finished Matilda! After four attempts and quite a few days, she is finally finished and now my sewing machine makes this sheepish noise “Baklunk, klunk, baklunk ... ahem, baklunk.” So the sewing has halted. I bought new needles and sewing machine oil and sewing machine lubricant in hopes that one of those things will help it to feel better. I am only showing a piece of her to you right now because I wanted to give you time to prepare. Especially, those of you who hurt themselves laughing and pointing after seeing my last post *ahem ... cough... ahem... Miss Solomon*! Tomorrow, I will post more.

In the meantime, I have hand drawn 1200 stickers in the last two weeks. Not to mention all the mailing envelopes, little cards and sticker package labels. My hands hurt. Now I am drawing stickers for fun! You know what they say “No pain ... uh... no 1 inch round dots to adhere to stuff randomly.” I am spending a lot of time drawing and I am working on a birthday present for this girl I know.

I need to put together a post called 150 things to show you, because literally I have like 150 things to show you. The days have been a bit to dark for photography or I have not been feeling good or I have been busy or well any number of things. The biggest thing of all though is that it is taking me like 5 hours to post! I do not know if it is my Yahoo upload or Iweb or what, but seriously it is ridiculous! I want to re-design a bit, but it just takes so long that I am not sure if I should try building with another type of software. Anywhoo...

Thank you a million times for bearing with me. It really means the world. You are all so supportive and encouraging. It has always been my dream to be an artist, but I don’t even think that I can draw. It is a strange predicament to be in. For the first time in my life, with a lot more practice and all of the kind words that you have shared with me, I feel like it may be a dream come true!

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Don’t Hurt Yourself.

On this site, laughing is always encouraged. Always! If you were to hurt yourself, however, while you were laughing and pointing at my Matilda doll, well then I would be simply unable to forgive myself. I would find it hard to continue on! So please I beg of you, be careful when you are laughing and pointing. You could accidentally poke an eye out! Scary!

Now then, this first Matilda did not work out as well as I hoped. I sewed her on the machine stitch by stitch (i.e. needle up, needle down ... repeat, repeat, repeat ...). Her little limbs were to thin to hold the extra fabric required to turn them and we had a little bit of seam burst-age. It is a shame! She looked cuddly! So back to the drawing board, or photo-copier, as I attempt to enlarge her! *pout* Please send happy thoughts *smile*!

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Thanks For Everything.

These are our fathers. Both of these men are incredible. One has moved on and is now only with us in spirit and one has simply moved to far away.

Oh sure, I left the state first, but I choose to believe that it did not count, because I did not leave the time zone. I know you might disagree about who is at fault here, but if there is one thing I inherited from my father it is his stubbornness, so you might as well save your breathe!

We love you Dad. Thanks for everything.
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Pink Bubbly Champagne.

My Etsy shop is open!! Yippee ka doo! There is the very limited run of 25 coloring books for sale along with a few packs of stickers. My goal is to add new types of items weekly (jewelry, books, plushies etc.) so I hope that you keep checking back. I also have a lot of favorites. If something of mine does not interest you, please check out those other incredible artists!

And yes, if you enter the word “Yippee” into the “Message to Seller” box during checkout you will get one Free Shy Monsters Coloring Sticker with each item purchased!

I hope the champagne does not make you tipsy for shopping *wink wink* Thank you for your support, for your encouragement, and for joining me in this celebration!

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Wip It ... Wip It Real Good.

We made this book for Si a couple days ago. It is a nice natural card stock outside, with an inner liner sheet of pale green vellum. Inside there is 40 spaces for the various birds he comes across.

We expected it to last quite a while, but in one week he has almost filled the whole thing. I am considering the possibility of making a few more of these books for different subjects, but I guess I better make another one of these first or we might have a backlog. It needs a couple of improvements so this is a quick example of one of my wips (works in progress). There are a lot of them right now, but this is the only one I have a photo of right now. Sorry!

Okay, something a bit more interesting on it’s way, I promise! I am a WIP and so is this site! Are you bearing with me? If so, thank you!! It means the world to me!

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Crushing.

Last week, I bought three books to study at Barnes & Noble for 85 dollars. When I went home I looked them up on Amazon and ordered them from there instead. Free 2 day shipping, I got EIGHT books for a hundred dollars. Five more books for just 15 dollars more. Crazy good prices! We returned those original three books today and when I saw this one, I had to have it. I wanted it right away and so I completely did not care that I was paying the Barnes & Noble price.

Am I the only one totally crushing on this book? Have you been holding out on me?

It is absolutely lovely and very well designed inside. The pictures of the projects are fabulous and the illustrations from vintage children’s books are incredible! This is the best book ever!! I love it so very completely. It is called See and Sew by Tina Davis. She has another book called Look and Cook which will have to go on my wish list! Please tell me that I am not the only one who drooled all over my keyboard!

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They Are Here.

Yippee Ka Doo! The coloring books came back from the printers today. I am very excited! I am still pretty nervous about the whole thing, as I have the frightening feeling that they will be here gathering dust for years to come.

I realized today, that if I was really trying to market the book, then I would have made the cover bright and fun and attractive. However, I was really hoping that people would color the cover in the colors that they love. Even if it is not all that exciting from a sales point of view. Ah well. I simply can not wait to get them up in the shop. I would like to maybe have a couple other things there too over the next few days!

I have a ton and a half of packages to get out. It’s on it’s way tomorrow, I promise! So I will address that first and then get together a miniature group of things for the official shop opening *eek*! I think that I will have a miniature “Grand Opening” party and send out tiny little flyers and virtual glasses of champagne! What do you think?

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In The Mood.

I am in the mood for a complete overhaul. The website, I mean. On the other hand, what couldn’t use an overhaul around here? This is my new business card, although, not the best version of it (hmmm... looks blurry). It goes along with the new shop.

I wanted to post yesterday to tell you that I had the coloring book in hand. Alas, it was not meant to be. We went to the printers to see the proof and there was a few necessary changes to be made. They called this afternoon though (hopefully everything is fixed) and they are finally all ready! We get to pick them up tomorrow! Yipeee!

In the mean time, I really want to mix the site up a bit to reflect the feeling that I have going on in the business card here. Oh well, one thing at a time ... one thing at a time!

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The Aerialistas.

So, of course, I have a million a half things to tell you. I will start here, with the Aerialistas. As I promised in my last post, I present you with cheerleaders climbing ropes to do aerial feats of wonder in an airplane hanger as the half time entertainment at the last Rat City Rollergirls bout! They were totally incredible and if you ever have the chance to see them perform (they are not always dressed as cheerleaders), I highly recommend it. There is not a whole lot out there that can compete with the sheer wonder that is the roller derby, but this came awfully close!

There is a lot more news coming. I have a relatively mind-boggling amount of projects on-the-go and fun news to share with you. I will be working to catch up with blogs and e-mails today and maybe every subsequent day for the next week. You have all been busy!

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