Gift Tag Doodlings *^_^*
The holidays are just around the corner and I wanted to share one quick crafty project I did last year that anyone can do to add a nice touch to your gift giving. :)  Every year, I try to attend the "Zero Land Fill Upcycle Event" in Seattle where collected samples of fabric, carpet, wood, tile, stone, and more to get them out of the waste stream and into hands of the people to create new works of art.  It's a free event for the public to attend.  I collected quite a bit of laminate wood samples which I thought were great for gift tags.  I was able to doodle on them some happy snowmen w/ nothing too fancy, in this case, Crayola Crayons. :) Attach a piece of twine and wrap with your gifts to your loved ones. I used mine to tie up some adorable wooden stationary stamps as gifts to friends. So cute!

Alphabet Illustration Project:
I love children illustrations.  Children's picture books in the bookstore is one my favorite sections to be at for hours and hours. And with an expected baby boy on the way and a couple of good friends' also expecting, I really wanted to start a project that would become a precious gift for our children.  I started with the idea of designing and creating a poster of an alphabet illustration with fun adorable animal characters. But then I wanted to make my animals have a little more fun as well which I don't often see in other alphabet illustrations for children. It was quite challenging though to come up for each letter, an animal as well for the animal to make sense w/ the object they are interacting w/ associated w/ the same letter.  A lot of brainstorming was in the works... even getting ideas from my husband as well.  :) So, without further adieu, here are some images from the project! :)

Above are working sketches for each of the letters in pencil.

From the working sketches, I redraw each animal on my phone by hand using a stylus and the app, SketchKit, adding color and final details. Finally then, importing them into my computer to arrange and design the overall layout of how I want the poster to be.

Above are some of my favorites! :)

And finally! Printed and framed and ready to give as gifts! I am quite pleased with how they turned out! What do you think? :)  I certainly can't wait to go over these w/ my little boy in the future! :)

Hand-Made Thank-You Cards: *^_^*

I really really and I mean really enjoy personalizing anything I give to my friends and family when I have the time. It makes opening something as simple as a Thank-You card so much more fun and exciting for the receiver.  :) 

Recently, I was lucky to have good friends organize a baby brunch shower for me and was showered w/ many thoughtful gifts for my husband and my soon-to-be born baby boy. I wanted to thank each of my friends in a special way rather than just sending a pre-made thank-you note/card.  So I used my fictional character, "Cat", as the main character for each card. Cat would show off each of my friend's gifts in a fun adorable way and a 2nd notecard would be attached w/ my personalized note.  All cards were individually hand-drawn in a combination of fine black ink pen and black sharpie.  

This was a really fun quick project for me.  Hopefully these cards made all my friends smile when they opened them. :)