Vintage Airmail Stickers

Vintage Airmail Stickers
Originally uploaded by Crab Apple Design

My blog has moved!

Friends,
I'm now using my Crab Apple Designs blog exclusively. Click on the image on the right and bookmark that link so we can stay in touch. xxxooo melissa

Poor Loo!

Our little Loo was attacked by what I can only assume was another dog earlier this week. She came when I called but was outside the fence. She was so dirty that I didn't see her injuries right away, but heard her crying in the kitchen and found blood everywhere! I took her right to our awesome vet and they fixed her right up. Until I saw her shaved, I didn't realize how many wounds she had: 9 in all and 3 are stapled up. She's healing nicely I think, and still wagging her tail even though it's obvious she's in pain. Love your puppies EVERY day and keep them safe. We were lucky this time! LOO!!

Cute.

My dad just visited and gave me lots of family pictures. Actually, about 8 decades worth! I can't wait to really look at the old old ones. This is one that I particularly like of my dad and 2 year old me.

acorn violence

acorn violence
Originally uploaded by Dahleah

My First Card Design!

bouncing apple card
Originally uploaded by Dahleah

I got Blogged!

Thanks, Suzi! It is an honor to see my work on the blog of such a talented artist! Check it out: LuLu and Suziblu

Suziblu and Lulu Cookie

I've mentioned Suziblu in my blog before, but it is worth dedicating an entire entry to this amazing woman. She is a talented artist who creates short instructional and inspriational videos encouraging girls like me to DO art.

I've been watching her videos since the end of last year and since then have become reinvested in art as a part of my daily life. So much so in fact, that my art/craft business plans likely would not have come to be without Suzi's encouragement through her blog and videos.

Like many others, I feel like I have a new friend and have enjoyed following Suzi's personal adventures through her blog. A recent new adventure for her is getting a precious puppy named Lulu Rainbow Cookie. Of course, there is delicious naughtiness in that puppy, which inspired the following drawings:

animals stamps

animals stamps
Originally uploaded by Dahleah

These are delicious - the design is so retro-school days, which is what I think I love about it. You can find these stamps at several places, but I got mine from a lovely little online store called Broadway Paper. It came with a handwritten thank you note! Now that's classy.

How to get to my "business-y" blog

I've been fiddling with the html,
but can't get my crab apple designs blog graphic
to link to my other blog.
So until I figure that out, here's how ya get there.
Four links to it in one post: beat that! (Five - ha!)

Saturday fun

I love Saturdays!

I've been taking stock of my collections and have a few fun photos to share. This one is my growing collection of old blue bottles. These came from a few ebay purchases, one of which I posted about last week (note: it is pure coincidence that I arranged the bottles on the shelf EXACTLY like they were in the ebay seller's photo), but I also have a nice collection of "found" bottles which I will post once the light is good enough to take a picture.

Weekends are glorious.

In a search for a really usable color wheel, I came across this from Realcolorwheel.com and it prints out beautifully.

I had a ton of school work to do this weekend but I managed to get in some satisfying arty activities. Of course, the best arty activity of all is collecting goodies on ebay. I won these things:



Each of the photos were taken by the sellers: flower buttons, clear flower buttons, glass buttons, and vintage bottles.

Also, I have been very interested in red lately, as this joosee montage demonstrates. I'm not thrilled with it, but it is part of my beginning attempts to teach myself how to put together interesting combinations of color.

Illustration Friday Post: Homage

My "homage" to baby animals sprouting in the zoo-garden.

Finally: Luscious Bugs Appear on Luscious Bugs

Harvey met me for lunch today and got to see my office and joocee dead bugs for the first time. We took pictures because it was a historical moment.

This is how my bugs arrive out of the tube: frozen or melty-wet, semi-smashed, often dismembered and all jumbled together in a glorious pile.

I sit here for 6 hours at a time sorting bugs by order and identifying them to family.
AND I love it.

They sort of smell like food until they dry out. But not good food. Here, Phasmodea.

This is my favorite series for keying out insects.

Hooray for Patterns!

spring chick

spring chick
Originally uploaded by Dahleah

I'm just doing a little test to see if linking flickr to my blog is going to work!

Drawings on Flickr!

I've consolidated by library of drawings and they are now on my Flickr page, in case you'd like to take a look!

This and That.

Ahhh, I must take a break. Parasitoid flies, invasive ants, effects of invasive grasses on herbivorous insect assemblages, survey of chaparral and river terrace communities... These are the papers I am writing concurrently. Ouch-ee.

So I will blah-blah-blah about my other developing project: Crab Apple Designs. This is the name of my soon-to-be-official crafting business. A blog [Edit: now an active link!] and etsy store front are established, but so so naked right now. I'm doing little things between school projects to get ready for launching this summer. Mid June, maybe? I have thyroid surgery scheduled at the end of May. After that, I can put all my energy into building up inventory.

The littlest things can become SO HUGE when you want to get it perfect. I've spent about 8 hours (until 2 last night and up again at 7 this morning) trying to find this one exact font to use for my banner. It's beautiful and I want it and that's that! Well, *hurray* because I finally found it. Now it is added to my growing "shopping list" of things needed to begin the funnest part - makin' stuff!

Because Harvey was SO generous with Valentine's goodies this year (he always is!) I thought I would start a new tradition of making him a Man-Easter-Basket (a Measter Basket?). The Peep image is one I drew in Inkscape and printed on an iron-on to make a very manly peep t-shirt. Note: unless you are using a white t-shirt, select the iron ons for dark colors. Harvey is now the owner of a translucent peep shirt.

Later this week, I'll post some photos of some inspiring designs - paper and fabric - acquired over the weekend that are sitting in my little cabinet (and under my butt because one is a chair cushion from Ikea) making it very hard to concentrate on parasitoids.

Illustration Friday Post: Heavy

Martha Love

Hooray! I love the Martha downloads (sometimes). This one is so exciting. It's tricky to get off the website, so I'm including the actual pdf here, but all the details are at the Martha website. I can't wait to run this joosee thing through my new Xyron laminatah.