• Family Matters,  Shop Talk,  The Desert,  the sticks

    My Own Private Super Bloom

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    Bug and I drove off into the night to The Sticks this last weekend to attend a maker’s faire in my old stomping grounds. Friday was a busy day for me, rushing around gathering up art, packing my car, picking up prints from the printer and finishing up last minute jobs so we didn’t get on the road until well after 9pm. This was not a good thing for me, the cursed morning person. But we made it and that meant I got to get up with my dad at the crack of dawn and walk with him on his dog walk with Spreckles the next morning.

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    Bug stayed snuggled up with the cats and opted not to come with me and boy did she miss out! The desert is SO pretty early in the morning!  Pull on some ugg boots over your pajamas and brace yourself for that chilly air (says the Southern Californian with extremely thin blood) because the beauty of the morning is breath-taking!

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    We didn’t even stick around long enough for golden hour and it was this pretty! Of course we could have stayed out there for hours letting Spreckles sniff coyote tracks and me taking a zillion photos but we had big things to do aka the maker’s faire.

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    Boom! Flowers everywhere! I don’t think these are wild but they are still pretty nonetheless. Whoever planted them had an eye for color.

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    Sometimes I feel like my parents live in a postcard.

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    My mom prefers roses and manicured English tea gardens but I will take cacti and succulents over them any day. Maybe it’s just because I was born in California and they will always be sentimental for me. She was born in Pennsylvania.

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    Over hills and vales to Grandmother’s house we go!

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    The sun barely peaked through the winter clouds trying to warm us up.

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    What’s that Spreckles? Finally found that perfect pooping spot? No? Should we go a little further?

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    Anyway, it was nice. It always is. I wish I lived closer to my parents so we could go on walks like this every morning.

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    I feel like I’m in Ireland with all this green. Wouldn’t it be fun to bring the dogs and let Whiskey (the Irish Soft-coated Wheaten) run and run and run forever? He would be so happy.

    But I didn’t bring the dogs because my parent’s don’t have a gated yard anymore and the coyotes are thick. AND they are my dogs are way too rambunctious to stay inside my mom’s house while we went to the Maker’s Faire all day. So they stayed home with Payam.

    Old-and-flavorful

    The Maker’s Faire was okay. I sold exactly three books and it was freezing. We shivered and sketched in our bullet journals. I talked to a lot of people though and it was good practice for me. I’ve never really had a SAJ booth before. Now I’m ready. As you can see the vector wall has been put to good use.

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    Every single person who stopped by our booth picked up the pink Hey Kitty Kitty book. I’m wondering if pink is a new theme I should explore…

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    Bug was a good little booth watcher. She didn’t complain at all being stuck there for hours. In fact I think she had fun.

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    It wasn’t a huge success but I’m counting it as a win because I got to hang out with my parents, Bug and my old elementary school friend, Tamie. Sadly she is not pictured because she was busy running her own booth!

  • Beach Bits,  photography,  Shop Talk

    Love Your Baggage

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    I have a new client that I am having so much fun with. You know why? Because they are letting me do exactly whatever I want. So much freedom! I’m sure at some point the reigns will be pulled in but for now I am taking over their instagram account with wild abandon and I am loving it! This is the secret guys: give a creative freedom and they will work for free, or practically for free.

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    We did a shoot at the beach the other day with a girl who had never modeled before. She was adorable and sweet and so shy of her own beauty. I could have shot her all day. She really was so pleasant and wonderful. And her skin! Have you ever seen such clear beautiful skin?

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    It also helps that the product we are selling (Jute bags sourced responsibly from Bangladesh) is really nice. You can check them out here. We are in the process of building a website so that will be coming soon. (Please message me if you are a WordPress whiz. I need help!)

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    I’m really loving this work and thinking maybe I should do this more. If you have a small company/product you are needing some help promoting, contact me. Maybe this will be my new thing!