This Year

Soooo, the new Christmas cards all made it safely to their destinations and people liked them! The guy at the post office had me a little worried because he was highly opposed to the metallic pen I used to address the envelopes and that I had chosen to write the return address on the envelope flap instead of the top left corner of the face. HIGHLY opposed. I actually felt like he hated me a little bit but I stood strong, assuring him that I had no problem last year and that I was going to send them as they were and that I was not afraid of him or his threats! And what-do-you-know all of my cards arrived on time. Many the very next day. Black pens and top left corner addressing be damned!

But anyway, here they are.


I made the case out of chipboard and the pine bough image is a stamp using metallic ink, then embossed, craft-lady style. And the all-important song this year was a cover of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" originally recorded by Darlene Love on the Phil Spector Christmas album. U2 did a pretty nice version as well. Happy Holidays, folks.

Last Christmas...

...I made Christmas cards! Me, Johnny and our dear friend, Moz, recorded a Christmas song together and decided to send all of our friends and family a CD. The song, which can be heard here, was a cover of George Michael's "Last Christmas" with Johnny on guitar and keyboard and me on kazoo, (Moz covered production duties). If you can carry a tune but are too shy to actually sing in public, the kazoo is for you.


The construction of 50 handmade cards/cases with photos, ribbons, stamps and hand-drawings ended up being much more of an undertaking than I had anticipated, but after a couple of weeks of hard labor and several tears- yes, I cried over these cards- the finished product was pretty nice. And, most importantly, everyone who got one was really delighted. Tears forgotten!

So this year we're at it again, and as soon as the new guys are in the mail I'll share them with you. No spoilers here.

Sunday

As I mentioned last week, this past Sunday was Boston's Bazaar Bizarre and I was there! A lot of other people were there, too. A real lot. Sunday also happened to be the first day of snow this season so I was surprised how amazingly busy it was. If I didn't have to be somewhere Sunday I surely would've been on a couch in pajamas watching bad television, but people definitely turned out, some telling us they waited in line for 45 minutes to get in. Whoa. People just love their crafts, it seems. Here are some pics of my table...


So it was a long, but very good day and many thanks to all those who purchased my goods or had kind words for my work. It's really nice to show your work and get positive feedback on stuff you've been privately slaving over for several months. I've been running a one-woman sweatshop in my apartment for the last few weeks trying to produce as much as possible, and it was well worth it, so thanks nice people.

And the biggest thank you is to my husband, who is so helpful and patient, and good at carrying heavy things and finding parking spaces, and for sitting in a chair next to me for 8 hours at a craft fair. What a guy.

P.S. Two new prints are now available in the shop and more stuff is coming very soon. Later!

Still Here!

Hi there.

It's been QUITE awhile now. Almost four months! Last time I visited it was summer. And since then Halloween costumes have been worn and Tofurkeys have been eaten and now it is cold and almost Christmas! It's just crazy. But I have been busy so I might as well show you some of what I've been up to.

I've spent the last few months working on a whole new line of goods- new illustrations and related paper products- stationery, notesets, notepads, and some other cute papery things. And I will be debuting all of it at this year's Boston Bazaar Bizarre on December 7th! That's this Sunday, folks. Here's a peek...

Lengthening

Nesting

?

These are 3 new painting/drawing/cut paper pieces that I'll be selling prints of at the show and then later in my very, very neglected Etsy shop. Oh, Etsy. It's shameful, really. But next week I'll be loading it up with brand new stuff. For real.

While I'm here I'd also like to give a long overdue public thank you to Ariadna Ramley from Design This Design That Magazine for featuring me in the very awesome Illustration issue back in September. I'm pretty sure she puts together this beautiful online magazine all by herself and I'm just really impressed with her work. She did an amazing job and found such a great group of artists and it was just really, really great! And you can still see the whole thing right here, so please do.

I feel like there must be more to say but I'm a little sleepy so maybe I'll just be back in the next couple of days. Or months. We'll see.

Just Checking In

So it's been awhile since I've visited. I'm the worst, I know. I was pleasantly surprised to come back to some very nice new comments, though. So thank you!

As far as what I've been doing, well...lots of things! Johnny's 30th(!) birthday was last week and we managed to pull off an awesome backyard affair complete with tents, a dancefloor, DJs, lights and a fog machine! And the biggest feat of all- the cops didn't show up until 3am. Apparently our fog had created a serious mist over all of Lower Allston and the neighbors were scared. I was too busy playing hostess to take any pictures during the party but I do have a few from the sad aftermath.

I think the true mark of a successful party has to be finding someone's BRA in your yard the morning after, no?

Alsooo, after being lost somewhere in the Boston area for over a week, my big gift for Johnny finally arrived on Tuesday (thanks, FedEx) and we are now finally fufilling our dream of brewing our own beer! I got him a complete homebrewing system and a recipe kit to make his favorite style of beer so in a couple of weeks we hope to be enjoying a few bottles of Belgian White Ale. Now our real dream is to make both our own beer and our own cheese, but I figure it's best to start slowly.

Talk Talk Poppytalk

Hi there! So I'm pretty excited that I'm part of Poppytalk Handmade's Home Sweet Home Market this month, which launched this very morning. I have all of my Apothecary prints featured as well as 3 of the original collages, all available for sale in my Etsy shop. Go see!

Home Canary

I just stumbled upon a nice little mention from Kelly Aiglon on her prettypretty blog Home Canary and I'm here to say thank you! Lots and lots of beautiful stuff being featured over there and I'm delighted to be in such lovely company. Thanks again, Kelly.

Alsoooo, I'm ashamed to say I haven't been very productive the last couple of weeks and I have absolutely no work to share. None! The few times I've tried to sit down and make something happen the results have been less than successful, so I'm taking a little break right now. I'll be back when there's something to be back with. xo!

Fawns!

I've started a little series of paper fawn collages and these are the first two. They had an outing at the Market last week but today marks their first appearance on the interweb. They measure 5" x 7" and are pretty darn cute, in my opinion. All cut paper on illustration board.

Pink Forest

Green Wood

I won't be selling any originals until the series is done, if ever, (because I'm greedy with my work that way), but prints will be available soon in the shop. And speaking of my shop, there is actually some new stuff in it right now! Unbelievable. New prints, paper dolls, a notepad, gift tags...Do go have a look.

Market Day

The Paper Apartment was at the South End Open Market in Boston, Massachusetts on Sunday, June 1st. These are pictures!

It was a lovely day! I was really happy with everything I'd made over the last few weeks and it was nice to get a great response from a lot of people. Great weather, though a little on the windy side. We spent the better part of the day trying to keep the merchandise from flying away, but all in all it was a good time. A lot of friends came out to visit and it was just a really nice day. Thanks everyone! We're back on July 13th.

New Print!

Thanks to my superfantastic new printer I've made a bunch of new prints for the Market, and decided to put just one in my recently dormant Etsy shop. The print is of an illustration I made a few years ago called Paper Fawn. The original is part drawing, part cut paper and definitely a personal favorite. It was also the first piece I ever did to go into print, as a cover of the North American Review. In fact, a copy of the NAR still inexplicably shows up in my mail several times a year, but I'm not complaining. Johnny likes to read it and having a literary magazine on your coffee table makes you look smart, right?

And Here I Wait

And wait. Unable to do anything until the UPS guy arrives. I'd like to run a couple of errands, but I can't. I'd also like to take a shower at some point today, but I can't. What if he comes while I'm in there?! Then I won't be able to sign for my package and they'll take it away and who knows when I'll get it! Oh, the agony. For now I will just continue to work in this really inconvenient spot by my front window so that every time I hear a large vehicle driving down my street I can jump up like a paranoid freak to see whether or not its the delivery truck.

UPDATE!

After a long 11 hours in my UPS-created cage the package finally arrived at 7:30pm. The amazing-ness of my new printer almost made me forget what a long, sad day it had been. Almost.

Hello Hello

Figured I would take a moment to post a little something since a good deal of what I've been working on will be stalled for the next week or so and I've got some time on my hands. Unfortunately my trusty printer has decided in the last few weeks to become not-so-trusty and I decided this morning to do something about it. I am now very excited that this guy should be arriving at my doorstep in about a week!

Here's hoping he's up for the job. I already believe in him.

I guess now would be the perfect time to get back to some drawing as most of what I've been doing lately has been printing up all my goodies for June 1st. I've made a couple of gift tag sets, stationery and notepads that I'm pretty into right now and maybe, if you're lucky, I'll even post pictures of them later today.

And on a very personal note, I'm very happy to share that Johnny and I were married last week in a private ceremony at City Hall in Boston. It was really lovely and exactly what we wanted and we're very very excited.

That's all for now.

I'm a Deadbeat!

Blogger, that is. Real bad. And I apologize. But while I am here I'd like to give a big thank you to Aprile from notpaper.net for featuring me on her very cool, and well-attended to blog. She's featured some really great collage work and you should really go take a peek. Thanks again, Aprile!

In other news, I am, as I mentioned before, a very busy lady these days. I'm working nonstop to compile inventory for the Sowa Open Market next month and I still have quite a bit more to do. I've got four very cute new note sets with matching lined envelopes, new prints and my paper dolls are FINALLY finished! Man, what a project. I had plans for two more designs but I don't know if I have it in me to produce them right now. We'll see. Next step is getting a few of my larger scale illustrations scanned and printed. Here's a snippet of one of them-

As for Etsy, well, I'm not doing much with the shop lately. I'm letting the few things I had posted just kind of sit while I horde all of my new merchandise for next month. I'll be posting pictures, though! Maybe later today. So farewell for now. I'll try to visit again soon, blog.

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry I've been neglecting you so.
I'm just a little busy right now.
But I swear, the next time I visit I will have lots of pictures to post and interesting things to say.
Promise.

xo,
A

The New

A new collage for me, a new print for the shop. He's a little guy- 4x6.

Hi Monday.

Today I packed up some goodies and went down to the post office to send them on their way. I find letting original pieces go to be a bit painful, but I think this is something that I just need to get over. I'm just being greedy, really. And after all, I am sure they are going to good homes where they will be well cared for. Bon voyage, old friends!

I also added a few new things to the shop today. Prints! Finally! At the moment prints of For Weak Women, Taken the World Over and For the Cure of... are all I have available but I'm working on more as we speak.

Right now it is back to work I go, but on this somewhat cold but still enjoyable spring day I will leave you with this...


I'm pretty happy about whats happening with this little daffodil bunch I got at Trader Joes the other day for a whopping $1.39. Pretty pretty.

Bloggedy Blogged

So I was pleased as punch to discover that Holly Becker of decor8 had some kind words for my work on her ever so lovely blog this week. I'm quite sure that this had everything to do with the sale of a few more collages in the shop today! See it all here, along with every other amazingly pretty thing that Holly writes about.

Thanks again, Holly!

And speaking of the little shop, which is somewhat depleted these days, cute new things are in the works and should be available very soon. I'm most excited about some paper dolls I've been laboring intensely over, and once I make some packaging decisions they'll be ready to go. I can tell you now that they have amazing haircuts and outfits that I want to wear. Oh, to be 8 inches tall and completely flat! If only.

Johnny, Arted

I thought it would be cute if we had matching silhouettes in the living room and I think I was right. Mine isn't finished yet but hopefully by tomorrow we'll both be hung on the wall and immortalized for all time.

And there's also this!

My shiny new Deerman, courtesy of Melabo's Etsy shop. I've had my eye on this guy for some time and he's the perfect addition to our mantle.

Welcome. Deerman.

We Heart Tents! And Parking Lots!

Good evening! I am very excited to share that I will be a part of this year's Sowa Open Market in the South End of old-timey Boston! I think that might even call for a "woot, woot!"

Thats right, my life partner in crime and country farm stand assistant, Johnny, and I will be setting up shop one Sunday every month from June through October. I've got lots of goodies up my sleeve and a lot of work to do on some new projects, and hopefully I'll have the time to pull it all off the way I would like to. Can't wait!

In the meantime, though, I'm delighted to currently be a featured vendor on the market's website blog. You really need to go witness me talking about myself in the 3rd person! Really.

Public Paper

Many thanks to Amie Needham of APunkinCardCompany, who makes very cute things herself, for featuring my work in the Paper Arts section over at MyGizmo.us!

Please take a peek at the article, and then visit the forums to hear me blabber about myself.

Nothing to See Here

Snow Day

A little snippet of a collage/drawing/painting I made a few years ago and have yet to do anything with. "Maybe, next year."

Don't forget...

...to brush your teeth! A new piece. Image is 4 1/8" x 8 1/2"- paper on illustration board, of course. I'm feeling pretty charmed by this one and not sure yet if I'll put it up for sale. We will see.

This Charming Man

A new addition to my little collage collection. Paper on illustration board. Image size is 5.25"x7".

Collages for Print

These paper collages on illustration board will soon be available as giclee prints in my shop.