Coloring book final details

Today I am finishing the cover and detail work for my coloring book.... which will be available by the end of the weekend.
I had hoped to get it out on the 18th, but sometimes there are delays.

I'm pretty excited about this. I do a lot of different things but this is something I've always wanted to do. I'm working on a much more extensive one for the future, but this was for me to learn and get feedback. 

I'll post more pics once it's out and available... and my readers will get a special link that will give you my Black Friday/Small Business Saturday/Cyber Monday price  no matter when you buy it.
Because I am grateful and appreciative of all your support. 

Tangle on the go!

A while ago, I realized that I was always in danger of my tangle supplies getting lost. Either in the bottom of my purse or whatever, so I thought and came up with a design to make my art books.
Complete they look like this

Everyone that has seen them liked them... so I put them in my etsy shop. :) 

I have 3 orders to fill so I've been working on those

That's been keeping me pretty busy. :) 

Home Sweet Home... Buffalo, NY

I complain a lot lately about my 9 billion tons of snow and how it snows so long here, and I joke that I've been to a huge % of the world and yet still ended up back here, but there's a reason.
Buffalo is an AMAZING place to live, the people are friendly, there's a ton of culture, history and art as well as some of the prettiest summers anywhere.
Plus you know... Niagara Falls! (Which I almost never go to unless I have company in from out of town, you really DO take things for granted)

But Buffalo is a special kind of place. I've had lots of ideas of things to do to commemorate my hometown for a long time but it never felt quite right, until recently I came up with a plan.
Here is the first in that series.

Buffalo, NY  #buffalolove

I like this a lot, I plan to do a series of originals for Buffalo as well as skylines from other places for my shop.  I'll do originals and prints as well as notecards, which are things people have been asking for.

It was so much fun to do!

Now to get started on the next skyline!

What are you doing today?

Photos

Pictures of my products are actually really not my strong suit.
I have decided to try and remedy that by using a camera and by making a lightbox.

Here's my lightbox, it's not pretty and the insert will be swapped for matte posterboard eventually.

 Already I can see it's going to make a difference, even snapping a quick shot with my phone.

#onedozenfandoms

Progress on sneakers. This is another pair of Deadpool, I actually wish this order had come in last week because I JUST finished a pair yesterday, but am waiting for the varnish to dry. I love when I can do multiple pair at once because then it's fun to lay them side by side and see how different they are while remaining true to the design. They're still fun to do.

The ones with the purple are for my minion. :)

Still bitter cold here. My son is sick... my daughter is out shoveling (which seems like such a waste of time since it's going to do it again tonight!!!!)
Spring is coming someday right? :) Stay safe, stay warm.

Sometimes creativity is hard to show!

Over the last few days one of the things I've been working on that has been taxing my creativity is revamping my descriptions based on what I've learned about Etsy and SEO. (Which isn't much.. they really need a SEO for the hopelessly clueless or something)
I took my listings that read "Custom Converse, Wonder Woman" and changed them around to something like this...

https://www.etsy.com/listing/198964954/wonder-woman-custom-converse-superhero

Then I had to write descriptions.
Have I mentioned I'm not really a writer? I just kind of type at you the way I'd talk to you if you were hanging out in my living room... while that works ok for my blog, it's not ideal for sales copy.
The listings are better than they were, but they take a lot of time and a lot of thinking so that's where I have been focusing my creativity for the last day.
It doesn't make for the prettiest of pictures (ugh.. pictures, that's my other dilemma. I'm just not that great with a camera so that's up next) to share with you, but it needed to be done and I only have so many hours in each day.
Back to the pictures... I do have a project that I need to do that will work with my shop and give me something fun to share with you. I'm going to make a light box!

What have you been up to this week? I'd love to see!

Video!

It's not a demo video this time... but it's fun.
I have an etsy shop and sell some really fun custom sneakers there, so yesterday in between painting and stuff, I made this.

It's not perfect, but I'm learning and I like it, I think it's very "me" and my brand, so that makes me happy.
Plus, it's colorful for sure right?
Time for a little Bijou!

Relax

I love how my tangles look when I'm relaxed. I can tell by looking at my tangles when it's time to curl up in my shell and take a nap.


Ah naps... a snail after my own heart. :D

Hope your day is awesome Friends! Keep creating!

Deadpool Converse

These are a recent custom design. I knew as soon as I saw the Converse themselves that they were destined for a pair of sneakers I'd been dying to make. (This style would be AMAZING for Harley Quinn too)

These took a little longer than sneakers normally take me but I am really quite pleased with how they turned out. 

Now, I think it's time to go work with pen and paper for the rest of the day!
I need to post them in my shop too, but that can wait til later.

Hope everyone is being super productive and creative today!

I haven't been slacking, but I haven't been posting

This is hardly a real post either.

I've been super busy with a ton of projects and I just haven't had a lot of time to post.

I did make some pretty math.... I'm not in love with it, but it has some cool pieces to it. I'll keep practicing!

I made some sales on my Etsy shop so I've been focused on those, I think I'll post some of the completed when they are done and I created some cute stuff to send to a friend. (These got made into a set of notecards)

Also, I played with chalk which was awesome. More pretty math. :)

What has everyone else been up to?

Work in progress....

This is a different project than my pen and ink and something I love to do.

I thought I'd share it with you!

It's not done yet, but it's getting there!

Getting started, I want this one to have a very tropical theme and my work area really set the mood too!

I'm messy... you can see the paint splattered everywhere already (including on the plant in the background!

A little bit of detail work.

Some shading and highlights

Flowers now... I'd have done more, but it started to drizzle and that's not good for painting!

This is going to go up on my etsy shop, Whimsy by Kelly when I'm done. (If you haven't taken a peek I'd love to have you look!)

Anyway, I  love to paint and play with color, which might not always be obvious in my other projects, but paint is up there as one of my favorite things ever. 

So this is what I'm currently working on along with my mandalas and the plan for my next challenge template!!!

Shameless Self Promotion Tuesday!

I don't know if I've shared this, because the original purpose of my blog was to keep myself creating, not to self-promote. Today I'm going to break that rule, because, well..I'm trying to get my Etsy shop really going somewhere. I don't know if any of you knew that, so I'm trying to spread the word about my shop but I don't want to be all spammy on here so I'm going to try and limit how often I talk about selling stuff. I'm always going to share my artwork, because it's what I do, and this blog is ABOUT my creative process, but I don't want to constantly be asking you to come buy things from me.

Today though, I am going to ask if you don't already, if you'd consider liking my facebook page, and if you are an etsy shopper if you would consider clicking "Favorite" on my shop. Also, if you wouldn't mind passing my link along to anyone you think would enjoy my artwork I'd really appreciate it.

I have added a few things and I hope you like them.

• Shops with more "favorites" are much more likely to get hits, hits equal sales and sales mean that I have more money to buy more art supplies which keeps me happy. 
• These kids of mine... sheesh, they are all about the eating. Did you know that a 13 year old boy can eat ENTIRE pizzas in one sitting? That makes them hard to keep in pizza so pizza money is helpful!
• I like seeing my artwork on people, or in their homes or anywhere really. It makes me happy. 

Ok, so that's that. 

Here are my links, gonna make this super easy! 

Etsy

Facebook

Instagram

Pinterest

I don't know how to use Tumblr, but my daughter is going to teach me, she said that especially my nerdy stuff needs to be on there. So, that'll be another project for another day. 

Now, I'm going to open my blog up to all of you today. Post in the comments. PLEASE!

Go ahead. Promote yourself. Tell us why you rock. Share your blog, pinterest, your instagram, your etsy, your facebook page, your twitter, your EVERYTHING! And then go look at what else has been shared, there are some amazingly creative people that visit my blog. Maybe they have something you want, maybe they will turn into a friend, maybe it's raining and your house too and you could use a fun day of looking at creations!

Spammy isn't always bad.