Get Your Handmade Shopping Done Today!

Put on your Sunday best and join myself and Diskgrunt at the Formal Holiday Artisan Fair for your last minute holiday shopping. There will be live classical music and and a gift wrapping table benefiting P:ear, a youth outreach program.

Best Cord Management I've Ever Seen

I am constantly looking at jumbled rats nest of cords. I would go for this clever way to turn cords into a faux architectual detail. Nice!

Artist Maisie Maud Broadhead

via the style files

6 New Pocket Notebooks in my shop!

I am stoked about the way these turned out. I'm loving kraft paper more and more because its good for the planet and ink looks beautiful on it. Each book has 32 blank pages of recycled paper. These make awesome stocking stuffers and I hope they do well over the holiday season.

Pocket Full of Posies Pocket Notebook


Worker Bee Pocket Notebook


The Traveler Pocket Notebook


Shattered Pocket Notebook


Penguin and Polar Bear Pocket Notebook. This design is a collaboration between myself and diskgrunt. Yay!

Black Friday Handmade Holiday Virtual Tour

Diskgrunt and I have been running the pop up shop for the past two days. I want to give a quick and dirty virtual tour of our handmade goods. This was taken with the iphone so excuse the bumpy filming. If you haven't made it in yet, please stop by on Sunday or shop from Etsy.

Embroidery Cards

My embrodiery cards were featured on apartment therapy. Very cool!

2010 Desk Calendar has Launched!

After many weeks of frozen pizzas and long hard hours on the printing press I am thrilled to announce that my 2010 calendar is for sale in my Etsy Shop. They will also be for sale at the Black Friday Handmade Holiday Popup Show at Tribute Gallery if you live in Portland and want to see them in person.

My main inspiration for the illustrations was nature + geometry. As with alot of my work, pattern is a heavily used element. I absoutely love sitting down and making patterns so it was only natural for me to have several in my 2010 calendar. I also tried to keep my line work feeling free and I really tried to embrace the little imperfections. Sometimes its hard to predict how your illustrations will change when they go from paper to computer to print, but I'm getting much better and smarter with the way I work. The ink selection has such a big impact on the final print. I think I was even suprised how changing one color can totally change the emotional response to a print. In the end I hope people enjoy the prints and can get some bit of happiness by seeing them on their desk.





I have learned so much the past two weeks while printing. I want to give a huge thanks to diskgrunt for all of his help printing the calendar. It would not have ever happened without him. Also, if you know of any botiques in your area that would be a good match for my calendar, please let me know.

Calendar Process Photos

I am soooo close to finishing the 2010 calendar. It should be up in the shop by Friday. Woot! I wanted to share some of my process photos.

My Neck Warmer

This is a project I finished up recently! I bought this beautiful yellow yarn in Vancouver and was inspired to make a neck warmer. I used funky vintage buttons and alternated the placement to give it some interest. I really like the way it turned out when it is just laying flat, but when I wear it it doesn't look like quite right. I think I will have to mess with the pattern to get it just right.

Black Friday 3 Day Art Event at Tribute Gallery

Get on over to Tribute Gallery Black Friday Weekend and support independent artists!

I am very excited to announce that Diskgrunt and I, are having our first ever handmade Popup Show at The Tribute Gallery for 3 days of handmade arts, crafts, apparel, comics, bags and more the weekend of Nov. 27-29th.

So heres the scoop. We will be having Free demos every day at 2pm

Friday @ 2pm I will be teaching the basics of how to make fused plastic, a versitile material that can be used for a variety of projects.

Saturday @ 2pm Diskgrunt will be teaching how to prepare your artwork for silkscreening.

Sunday @ 2pm Diskgrunt will show how to coat and expose a screen. This is great if you are a newbie to silkscreening.

Sneak Peak at 2010 Silk Screen Calendar

I'm printing this years calendars again with the assistance of Diskgrunt over at his independent silkscreen press "The Pull" in North Portland. It is awesome to see my ideas come to life. I am deep in the production process of getting all of the calendars printing. It is fun and intense and so different that my normal day of 8-10 hours in front of a computer. My back isn't happy with me but I'm enjoying myself. So far I have 4 months printed so I'm a 1/3 of the way done. Woot! Stay tooned for more updates.

Also, if you ever have a project you want to silk screen, make sure to contact Diskgrunt. He is a very talented illustrator and runs a nice silkscreen shop.

Lee Meszaros

I'm enjoying these merit badges made by Lee Meszaros this afternoon. I was always secretly envious of my big brother in boy scouts with all his badges. Now we can all buy these uber cute merit badges for our various accomplishments in everyday life.

Merit Badge for Knocking Socks Off

Merit Badge for Sweet As Pie

Merit Badge for Pushing the Envelope


I'm getting ready for my trip to Vancouver and I have a ton of work to do. Why do I put things off until the last minute? I guess thats how I roll.

DIY Paper Flower Bouquet

I made these flowers from this tutorial with Jeffery Rudell. Go check it out because it is surprisingly easy and relaxing. I made this bouquet to greet me when I first come in the front door. It adds nice color and personality to my entry way and the best part is it NEVER dies! The paper I used was mostly from paper sample books and junk mail. I happy with the patterns and colors I was able to find and mishmash together.

DIY Crochet Rug Made of Sheets

Woah. So I've been mia for awhile now. I think I'm going through an anti-social phase, but don't worry I still have lots of cool DIY decor to share. I have been busy making little projects for the new house. The first one I want to share with you is this crocheted bath mat I made out of old sheets. The basic idea is to rip your old sheets and fabrics into strips and then crochet with those strips. Just to give you a general idea this bathmat was about 3/4 of a full size sheet. I liked the ripping part of this project. I was able to take out a lot of aggression on the one sheet!

I wanted to keep the bathmat quiet because of all the patterns already happening in the bathroom. I debated for a long time on how to finish the mat. I ended up going with a red trim to make it stand out from the floor just enough.

The texture of the rug is really beautiful and functional as well. It is actually really cushy and comfortable to stand on. And the best part, you can just throw it in the washer/dryer when it starts getting funky.

New items in the Shop!

Check it out here.

This puffy little birdy is too cute. I wanted to experiment with combining embroidery, fused plastic, and other paper scraps into one piece. I really like the three dimensionality of it.



As you can see I've been super obsessed with triangles lately. I just can't get enough of them. My other breakthrough is that I can use fused plastic for more than just bags. It looks great stretched on canvas stretchers.

Software Engineer + Performance Artist

I'm feeling very inspired by the ideas and projects of Golan Levin. He is finding really cool ways for people to interact with computers and make art in real time. I like his exploration between sound and how shapes relate to each other. Very Cool!.

M.I.A.

Ok so I've been a little quiet on this blog lately. I am in the middle of moving neighborhoods so my attention has been on packing, cleaning, moving, purging, unpacking, and more cleaning. I'm exhausted and tired of seeing boxes. Hopefully it will all be over by the end of this coming week.

The new house is great and there is soo much more space to work with so I'm excited about that. It needs a lot of love and I'm sure there will be many DIY projects in store to make this new place home for me.

Be patient and stay tuned.

Flora Bowley: Portland Artist

I have fallen in love with Flora Bowley's paintings. They are very representation of nature and the movement and flow of life. I appreciate all the layering and textures and gorgeous colors put into every painting. I relate to what the artist says in her bio...

Ultimately I find purpose in the very act of observation, relating forms and colors to each other, and allowing new stories to unfold before me. My finished paintings are not meant to be conclusive, rather they are a celebration of the present moment, chaotic, subtle, beautiful, mystical and ever-changing.

I think a big part of being a good designer or artist is your ability to observe. To notice everything and find an appreciation in the subtleties of life.

I want these socks!

These marimekko socks are so perfect for Portland winters. I have extreme design lust for all things marimekko. If only I could afford them...
seen via Design Sponge

Fancy Swimware

I'm loving this number from Burda Style. I'm not sure I could pull off the gold, but the cut looks like it would be really flattering. I guess I'm a sucker for ruffles and rouching. By the way Burda Style just revamped their entire website. It's looking pretty sexy.

Thanks everybody!

Just wanted to give a big shout out to all the folks that came by our booth and supported us. It means alot!