Vintage awesomeness.

I have always wanted one of these (but I am not sure why). Happy, happy rooster cheese plate!

The youngest Veggie Art Girl fan!

(And probably the cutest) :o)

Merry, merry!

From my heart to yours, happy holidays to all! May you be surrounded by love, light and happiness! :o)

Open House recap

Business has been good at the shop and it's nice to see so many people shopping locally this holiday season. We celebrated last week with an Open House shindig- lots of fun, delicious food and great energy! Jim Tyrrell rocked the stage with a fantastic blend of music while people shopped and socialized. Hannah Banana loved the cake I decorated!

Anna was a naughty girl...

This is my lil' shop helper, all dressed up in her party dress. :o) She made the BEST raffle ticket master!

Happy Holidays, everyone! :o)

A lil' holiday baking...

I made this cute pie! And it was guh-huh-hood.
*nom, nom, nom.*

Nutty design.

This has been an exciting design project- package design for a locally made organic granola (that is DEE-LISH!) I've done everything from the logo design (a vintage truck drawn in my sketchbook) to the package concept and sticker design. I've loved working with a vintagy color palette, giving the package a classic feel...but keeping it a little bit funky. I love the green rice paper bags that the granola comes in! The granola is sooo yummy, loaded with nuts and comes in small or large bags. They even have a crunchy baked or a soft baked and make it right here in Holderness, NH at the Holderness General Store!

For more info, you can find Nutty Granola on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/search.php?q=nutty+granola&init=quick&tas=search_preload#!/pages/Nutty-Granola/133333246703973

Holiday Open House!

I'm really, really, really excited about this.

It's our third annual Holiday Open House at my store, and last year we had such a great turnout that we're doing it again! Join us Friday, December 10th as we provide you with an alternative Christmas shopping experience. Jim Tyrrell will be playing some music as delicious refreshments are served and we giveaway great homemade items! At the end of the evening, we have a Yankee Swap style raffle, which is ALWAYS a hootin', hollerin' good time!

Aaaaand...recently I have admittedly become obsessed with giving away prizes at my shop for knowing a "secret word." There's one in the flyer here that I made. Find it, tell me what it is on the night of the Open House and you win a prize. :o)

'Tis the season to be crafty...

I have been spending hours and hours in my studio, painting away! Lots of new signs will be coming to my store AND to my etsy shoppe...stay tuned! :o)

THIS is the chaos that is my studio. There's paint everywhere, and usually bad 80's music is playing... Been painting a lot of birch trees...

Paint, paint, paint...everywhere! :o)

Gobble, gobble.

Happy thanksgiving, y'all! Wishing you peace and love with family and friends this holiday season! (illustration compliments of Natalie Dee: www.nataliedee.com) :o)

FREE CLOTHING SWAP!

I have seen so many of these in my travels, but not so much in my hometown. So I got to thinkin'...why NOT make one happen? After turkey time and family gatherings, swing on down to my shoppe Sunday for a little clothes swapping. Everyone has that pile of clothes that they don't wear anymore...or think "someday they'll wear"...but alas, they sit on the top shelf of the closet. :o) Bring 'em in (men's, women's, children's AND accessories welcome) to the Veggie Art Girl Boutique this Sunday and go home with something new!
And the best part? Any leftover clothing is going straight to charity! Come have fun with us!

Veggie Art @ Jewell & The Beanstalk!

My handpainted signs have made their way to another location! On the little side called Somerville, hides a hidden treasure: Jewell in the Beanstalk. It's a funky diner, with serve-yourself coffee and tea, made-from-scratch goodies, delicious (and healthy!) meals and NH made arts, crafts, jellies and jams lining the walls.
My lil' handpained signs and The Beanstalk seem to be a perfect match, with so many nooks and crannies to hang my funky signs...

While I was there, I was treated to some homemade brie & bacon quiche, fresh fruit, homemade bread and rosemary potatoes that were uh-maze-ing. If you are ever in the Manchvegas area, swing on in for a delicious meal and say hi to Amber...and be sure to check out all the local art!

Local Shop Hop!

This is another thing I am doing: organizing this event along with nine unique businesses an all-weekend event of sales, raffles and more! The fun starts Friday, Dec. 3rd and goes through Sunday, Dec. 5th with a giant raffle at the end. All shops will feature in-store specials and refreshments for your shopping pleasure. Mark your calendars...this is not an event to miss!

Need the map to download? Here you go! Have fun!

roar!

I originally wanted to be a dinosaur for Halloween this year, but the second I discovered that I could just add some wings to my costume and then have an excuse to breathe fire, my inspiration turned more to a dragon. Or as people have been calling it: "an alligator with wings"... Whatever. I don't care. I had fun making it. It's all scraps and findings and a lot of hot glue and thread. Total cost: $1.75....and about 8 hours in labor. :o)...but I don't really think it's all that scary. And I haven't mastered the fire breathing trick yet, but there's still time... Happy Halloween everyone!

ink.

I FINALLY got a new tattoo this summer...not the owl that I want next...or the cherry blossoms or the foot piece I have been designing. Ok, I want a lot of tattoos. But my lil' sister and I went to Forever Bonnie to get inked this summer with our buddy Carol (who got a sweet trinity knot on her wrist). Now that I can see this new piece (the other 2 are on my back, so they are surprises in the mirror at times!), I want more! This was my original sketch...

...which turned out like this!

And now my sister and I have matching tats! This is the piece I have on my back shoulder.

Please send money by mail or carrier pigeon. I need more ink. :o)

Follow your dreams.

My freelance projects as of late have been all across the board. On any given day, my creative tools range from a paintbrush to a heap of junk on the side of the road to just my lil' laptop. This week, I worked on a whimsical book cover for Glenna Rossi, a local dream worker. It had been a while since I picked up oil pastels, which is how I created the base of this design. I added the digital aspects afterward, but wanted to really capture windy, fall weather at dusk in northern NH. It reminded me how much I love the color and emotion you can get from layered oil pastels. Onward with this newfound inspiration...I think I will do some more oil pastel pieces this winter when I am working in my new shoppe studio. Thank goodness for sloves and hot cocoa! :o)

Asheville!

I just got back from my favorite city in the world. It was a whirlwind week, full of sweet surprises, creative affirmations and fantastic friends. Here are a few snapshots from my trip:

Sunshine in the city!

Some of my favorite Asheville peeps.

The Smoky Mountains!

This is the site of a new creative project I have in the works...more on that later!

Inspiration, inspiration everywhere! :o)

Iluvasheville.

I am getting ready to take a quick jaunt down to my favorite city at the end of the month and cannot wait! While I do not plan on spending a giant chunk of the winter down south this year, I am anticipating a few trips. In getting all excited to be in the heart of that wacky city for 6 fun filled days, I got to browsing through some Asheville pics from this past spring...The Sky Bar: a fantastic place to see the sunset, enjoy a glass of wine and view the whole city I took Jim up there (via old fashioned, slightly sketchy elevator) on a whim and we enjoyed a glass of white as the sun set the night before I left to come back to NH

The architecture in Asheville is so varied and beautiful. There's literally art on every street corner!

Ahhhhhhhh... IcannotwaitIcannotwaitIcannotwait. Weeeeeee!

Doin' Flipz!

I have been painting quite a few murals lately, and this one was a fun challenge. First of all, I had to paint a portion of it on a trampoline! The goal: fill a GIANT gymnastics studio with some elements that would fill the room, match the color palette and be easy to paint around. This was tricky.

These are some of the inspiring elements I came up with (note the trampoline location!)...

I think my old high school English teacher, Mrs. Beaudin would approve of this wall...

That was fun. But it certainly reminded me that I am no acrobat. :o)

Crafty Kathy: pimpin' out a vintage suitcase

This groovy suitcase was my grandma's from before she married my grandpa. It has her initials embossed on the top and is so beautiful, but the inside smells not so beautiful. So it has become a prop in my store. It already had one old label stuck to it (the middle round one), and I decided that I was going to add more bling. I picked up these labels in MY travels and decided to give some new life to this treasured vintage piece by mod podging them on. Mod Podge is awesome stuff, man. You can stick anything paper to anything: furniture, walls...anything.

And it dries clear. Now it's a beautiful piece that shares a piece of my grandma and my travels in one. I just love it! :o)

Tip: if you want to make something like this, scope out thrift stores and yard sales for old suitcases. Save those wine bottle labels or use squares of funky paper and a lil' Mod Podge to create a vintage piece of awesome!