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.

A spree. A bookstore spree. The best kind of spree.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about establishing an Etsy shop this summer. I would like to prepare a series of paper products and plushes as well as other sewn fabric items that satisfy my various design compulsions. COMPULSIONS, nation! I've got ideas coming out the wah-zoo, but when I held them in my hands, I couldn't resist these helpful books that I've been wanting for a while: The Cute Book by Aranzi Aronzon, Sew What! Skirts by Francesca Denhartog and Carole Ann Camp, Softies by Therese Laskey, and In Stitches by Amy Butler. Although it took up my spree budget for March (!), I'm looking forward to having time to create some of these delicious little items and finally stocking my (as of right now) unstocked Etsy storefront: sweeteebee.

Slap it, shoot it, Kaboodle it.

Kaboodle!
Then you can tell the world that you are longing for...a frog wallet and 5 zillion other things.

Is it stealing or BORROWING?

I'm pretty sure I don't want to know the answer. I find graphics all the time that I absolutely love and I want to make them my own. They really aren't my own, though, and that there is the problem. For instance, I have hearted the Magpie store logo for years now. So I decided to play with it and I am pleased. It has a body now. [NOTE: just double checked the website to find to my horror that they have added a body to their logo but at least mine looks different, right?!?] So the body is mine but the head is not, even through I drew it myself. It's just that I was staring at the original the whole time. Ho-hum.

Improved Peel Proof Weeble

I never had Weebles, but lord I wanted some. while Googling these coveted objects, I came across the work of Jason Chase, who has amazing oil paintings of Weebles doing Weeble things. They look SO real! I intend to create my own entire set of egg-shaped friends and maybe even obtain some vintage Weebles from Ebay. I've started by whipping up a digital Weeble friend based on one of the vintage characters from the Weeble family. I really want to wobble a weeble.

Garden for Illustration Friday

The wonderful Suziblu shared this neat website called Illustration Friday on her blog and vlog. Each week, they select a topic and people submit art inspired by the topic of the week. This week's topic is "garden." Lately, I'm really into doodling birds, so here is what I submitted to Illustration Friday.

People: It's phlo-em. FLO-em. Umkay?

Oh, phloem. For that matter...oh, conducting tissue. If you have pets named Torus and Margo, then you totally know what I'm talking about. So, please don't say "floam." It's vile. And get it straight: sieve tube, sieve plate, sieve area, sieve pore. Get to know the phloem. Here is a visual aide for you. You say you like plants? Prove it!

Virtual shopping is fun.

Here are some of my favorite virtual shopping websites: Fred Flaire, See Jane Work, UncommonGoods, Jet Pens, GelStuff, EverythingSmells, Good to be You, Daddy-O's...the list goes on and on! This is PLENTY for an afternoon of creating "wishlists." Hee hee.

I made cupcakes just so I could take pictures of them.

What a glorious profession it must be to bake cupcakes. I have been wanting to make cupcakes so that I could decorate them and then take pictures of them. Last weekend, I bought a cupcake decorating kit at Hobby Lobby and today I finally busted it out.

It was SUPER fun and it reminded me of when Annie's mom let me do some of her wedding cake decorating or at least just play around with the icing tips. Actually, my technique is pretty sad so for the photos I ended up just "erasing" my icing design with a butter knife before applying the seriously awesome sprinkles. I wanted blue ones and Harvey wanted pink ones so I did both. I squealed the whole time and I got to use my Kitchenaid mixer AND my cutie cake plate.

Shop indie.

If you're extra-girlie like me, it's all about the cutenesses. This is a so-fun indie craft website with the BEST stuff FO-SHO. Go to Shana Logic for good times.

Congratulations, Populus deltoides!

Earlier this week, the much under appreciated cottonwood tree was nominated and simultaneously named winner of the prestigious 2008 Tree of the Year Award. Populus deltoides prefers riverside habitats and if unchecked, may grow to impressive heights. Melissa Madison, inventor and judge of the Tree of the Year Award, commented that the deeply grooved bark was the persuasive factor in choosing this gentle giant as our keystone tree. Stay tuned for up close and personal interviews with the illustrious award recipient.

Oh, Sock Monkey

What a glorious moment. I went to Hobby Lobby to pick up a little gift for one of my students, and of course I was compelled to wander. While browsing the varieties of Modge Podge, something caught my eye on the bottom shelf. Could it be? No, certainly it could not. But it was, for the love of all that is holy: a do-it-yourself-GENUINE-sock monkey kit with the most delicious set of instructions. Made in the USA, bitch.

We have a puma in the hood.

I'm serious. I have seen it 3 times. I think. Maybe. It was a giant-sized black kitty with a very long, heavy-looking tail. I described what I saw to one of my ecology professors, and he said, "Oh, that's a puma." So there! Pumas do live in the Texas hill country and like to snack on livestock. They may appear dark gray or black depending on the light according to Texas Parks and Wildlife. So now I shall no longer check the mail after dark. Yay Puma!

The Graphics Fairy is Heavenly

The Graphics Fairy has got it goin' on. This is an amazing website for lovely vintage graphics to download for use in paper projects, for example EGGS. Love it. Go to it. Now.

My Last First Day at UT

O, how I love the first day of school. New pencils and all the potential for a glorious learning experience. Today I had a botany class, "Plant Anatomy and Histographic Techniques." The professor said that people who love plants do well in his class. I love plants. I love plants because they have cool parts with awesome names like "plasmodesmata."

My glorious and most delicious husband gave me an amazing 10th anniversary gift a few weeks ago: a surprise vow renewal ceremony in the spot where he proposed. We exchanged new rings, and mine is the dreamiest. A picture...

I have shocked myself.

I have created a blog. Unbelievable.