Sewing Up Mod Girls and Eating Beignets

I wish the photograph above could be a new Olympic event.  It could be called, the "Wearing neon while lifting weights and balancing on colorful striped hoops" event.  These guys would win.

I have been busy sewing.  A lot of what I have been doing has been finishing my toy shop order and doing custom mobiles.  This one above is a nice break.  Someone wanted a blonde girl in a print.  I love vague requests because I can fill in the blanks.  She's going to be rollerskating and maybe delivering hot dogs.

 We went to New Orleans.  I love it.  Love.  It.  It's vibrant and colorful and gritty and strange.  We went to the French District to see the street performers.  This guy is sitting still and painted solid gold with feathery wings in 1,000,000,000 degree heat.  He is amazing.  

All of Jackson Square smelled like these beignets.  I finally was able to eat one.  I didn't get to do it at the romantically historic Cafe DuMonde because the line was too much for a toddler to bare.  We ate them in a mall outside of New Orleans and it still felt romantic.  The dough has this delicate texture and it vanishes in your mouth like a sweet dream.  The powdered sugar gets all over your clothes and makes you want to lick them when you get home, just to re-live the experience!

Louisiana

Hello!  I am a Louisianan now.  I like it so far.  I like the Cajun accent, and it feels exotic to me here.  People are different in the south.  The main difference I notice is that in the mid-west, people are cautious about privacy and sort of keep strangers at arms length.  Here, people talk to you.  They just do.  And, they call you baby.  Joseph doesn't get called baby, but I do, so maybe it is a bit sexist?  I actually don't mind.  About 90% of the people I have talked to called me either "Boo" or "Baby".  We live in a small town about an hour from New Orleans which we are visiting tomorrow.  I am going to check out their monthly art market to see if I would be a good fit, and then we are going to ride the trolley (my son will probably pass out from the excitement), eat beignets at the famous Cafe DuMonde, and check out the street performers on Jackson Square.  I am giddy with anticipation.

Meanwhile, this is our new home.  The tree in the front yard is actually two trees.  A pine tree is growing right up the center of this other flowering tree.  It is unusual.  This house used to be a duplex, so the layout is very strange.  You have to go through Joseph and my bedroom to get to the kitchen and the rec room.  I'll go ahead and call that "cozy", I actually like it.  It's also elevated off the ground.  All the houses are down here since we are basically at sea level.  There is a lot of flooding.  Underneath our house somewhere is the previous's tenant's pet python.  You may think I am joking, but I am not.  He lost it, and I saw it the other day slithering around and moseying under our house.  Every time I open a cabinet, I prepare myself for the possibility of seeing him curled up in there.  It makes cooking dinner an adventure.  Next time I see him I will put him in a box and take him to an animal shelter.

All over Louisiana are snowball stands.  My main experience with snowballs is from when I was a kid and had a snow cone machine.  I think Snoopy was featured prominently on it.  Here though, they are "snowballs" and they come in wild flavors (see menu below).  There is one just down the street from where we live.

 

Walter quickly sucked all the syrup out of his through the straw.  That was a mistake.  Both for him and for us.

The trees down here are big and beautiful.

 

Our things are all unpacked and out of boxes.  I long to paint the walls, but our landlord isn't going for it.  One day, when I am a homeowner my house will look like a crayon box because I will finally be able to paint the walls.  I will have so much pent up "wanting to paint the walls" energy from years of renting that no beige wall will be safe.  Watch out beige walls!

Also, there is a really nice interview with me up on this beautiful blog:  Gallant and Jones.

Ahoy!

Things have been going so well for Pink Cheeks lately.  I thank you from the bottom of my hearty heart heart for your support and encouragement.  A couple exciting things have been:

1.  A feature on Apartment Therapy

2.  I am going to be working with a new toy shop that's opening in Brooklyn called Norman and Jules.

I have never been able to accept wholesale orders before, but I thought I would try with them and so far I am loving the experience.  These ninjas above are for them.  I love the idea of my toys mingling together with other toys.

I made a custom mobile for the fabulous Kitty Pink Stars!  I loved making this for her so much.  She is a wonderful person.  I can't say her name out loud without getting a twinkle in my eye.  She is special and unique in this world.  She started encouraging and buying my mustachioed men very early on.  It's like she sent sweet and tiny little fairies with rainbow wings over seas to be near me and encourage me to keep sewing and creating.  Sometimes when you share your work online there is this unspoken competition happening, but for Kitty Pink Stars, she flies above on her unicorn and offers generous support and genuine excitement and admiration for other people's work.  I just adore her.  Also, her son has magic, multi-colored eyes.  

This Baa-lerina mobile goes to baby Elle in Arizona.  I like the yellow, black and white.  Hip sheep!

I am going to take a break from this blog for 2 weeks.  I'll keep up with my face book page, but bye for now here, next time I write I will be a Louisianan.

STUFFED! And, Pink Shoes

Three of my forest orphans are in the summer issue of stuffed.  It's fun to see my work in print, it is also a sort of strange.  I wish I could elaborate, but I am at a loss for words today, I'll keep writing and see what happens though.  I think what I enjoy the most is seeing their stories in print.  I have this dream of having Pink Cheeks Studios at a place where I can supplement my family's income comfortably and also have days that I can devote to writing books and illustrating them as well, in the style of my latest prints.  I have to laugh at myself, though because these past couple of months I have been working on getting Pink Cheeks profitable enough so that I wouldn't need to get a part-time job after we move to Louisiana (just a couple of weeks now).  I am nearly there, and so grateful, really, and now I am already getting greedy and wishing for this other goal to happen.  Maybe that is good?  Maybe that is a very general "business plan"?  It feels a little greedy though, so I guess I'll slow down, pull in the reigns and try and enjoy the time at home that this Pink Cheeked business allows me.

We move to Louisiana in a little over two weeks!  I am getting increasingly nervous about it.  Mainly because people who have been there love to tell me all about the summer weather.  I sort of recognize that weather is a fun, communal thing people can talk about, and that sometimes things can get exaggerated because weather is a fun thing to kick around and complain about.  I also know that I can tolerate heat like a trooper.  I like the feeling of the sun on my skin.  However, I am really starting to wonder, is it actually like a sauna, as people say?  I have never experienced that.  My brother, who has lived near Savannah for the past 2 years says that when you are driving in the summer down there, sometimes you need to put your wipers on even when it is not raining because it is so humid that moisture gets all over your windshield.  If I go outside down there, will my glasses fog up?   Are Walter and I going to hole up in the house all day and hide from the heat and alligators?  I am very curious about this place.  One thing that did make me feel better though, was a blog entry by Joy the Baker about New Orleans.  She calls the place "magic", and I love magical cities and places that feel unique in the world.  I also really love chicory coffee, which apparently is a nut they used to use to extend coffee, when rations were low during war times, but I love that nutty taste, and it is all over New Orleans.  Also, beignets.  I am going to eat a bunch of those. 

In sewing news, I am working on a mobile for the ultra pink and super fabulous Kitty Pink Stars.  Here is a sneak peen.  Or, should I say sneak pink.

New Prints in the Shop and Sumo Steam Roll

Several new prints are available.  The good news is that they are only $12.00!  I decided to go with the chromogenic prints to make them more affordable.  I can't tell the difference between them and the inkjet (which are a good deal pricier).  I order my prints from iprintfromhome.  They do great work.  I am so happy with these prints.  The textures look so real, that I have to restrain myself from touching them just to check if iprintfromhome did some sort of magic to them.  I have this plan of doing a series of animal portraits like the delighted frog and the melancholy polar bear and offering them in a large size.  I think they would look so fun in a child's room, like life-size animals are peering in on them while they play.  In fact, I am so drawn to the idea that I will make a few for Walter's room first.  I will put the animals in charge of helping Walter to feel comfortable in Louisiana. 

Also, I am working on a Sumobile for a wee one in Texas.  This picture happened spontaneously.  That's what happens when tiny working trucks are all over your house.

Milly and Harold

I channeled my younger self when I designed this one.  I was a happy, but weird kid.

Polar Bear Girl and Frog

She goes deep into the woods with a finely sharpened pencil to do detailed drawings of trees. The bear suit keeps the wolves at bay.

This guy makes being green seem like a walk in the park.

I am still over here loving this new medium.  It's the kind of work that actually makes me want to try 5 hour energy, the drink, which actually I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.  But, it would be nice to take it in the middle of the night and do several hours (five, to be exact) of solid work.  Wow, that could be interpreted as being a pretty lame statement!  What a wild and crazy woman I have become!  No, I've always been this way, and I think most people who read this blog would have the same desire to not need sleep, but rather burn the midnight oil being creative.  It's okay.  That is one of the gifts of being in your thirties, I think, is that you can more easily accept your quirks with a shrug of your shoulders and an "eh, that's right." 

I have a sad story about a frog that was given to me for my sixteenth birthday by a cute boy.  We named him Caesar because he jumped into the pizza box ("pizza, pizza").  It's such a sad story that I can't even type it.  It is also gross.  One day though, I am going to re-visit this dark story and make a comic book out of it.  A comic book of the sad and dark variety.  Caesar will look a lot different from the frog above. 

Alright, back to my happy place.  I hope you are all having a lovely summer week and that you get to spend some time splashing in a pool.