Things that make me smile

Things that make me smile...

1. Cuteness will get me every time, even if its gonna make me to buy...clothespins. Got them at an Asian supermarket:

2. Flowers from Math boy..."just because":
3. Seeing a friend's 1 and a half year old light up when she played with the puzzles I illustrated for. Not alot of my friends have children and this is the first time I got to see a child reacting to my work. Its a wonderful feeling.

4. A lovely call from an art director for a job well done. I just finished a picture book and it was so satisfying to know I did a good job!

Hope you all have something to smile about today! :-)

Spring

Working at home sometimes got its disadvantages- like not getting out of the house enough. I went to visit my parents in Philadelphia so I can get a break from my own place. I love my laptop and can just work about anywhere. Now I am back and feeling refreshed, here are some finished crafts I've been meaning to take pictures of.

Above is my recently finished needlebook- who knew a girl needed a needlebook? Honestly, I didn't know of such things until I've seen a few people made them and indeed, it was handy t0 have. So I decided to make it out of felt, something I haven't worked with since childhood.

This is my initial sketch (done in Illustrator, of course!) Originally I wanted to use scraps of fabric with the felt, but it didnt turn out the way I wanted. Its fun to see my idea and the final result.

I've wanted to post this for quite a while now. Its my first quilt-and first project made with my hello kitty machine. Its a lap quilt-around 23"x23". Now I have a whole new appreciation for quilters!

Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments on my website. I am so happy to get so much positive feedback. Happy Spring to all!

Website finally updated!

Wow, I didnt realize its been a while since I posted. I've been working on updating my website and its finally done! Please visit and let me know what you think. I am not the most web saavy person in the world, so updating my website really means redoing the whole thing. Now that I have that done...
To promote the site, I also got these postcards made at psprint...I am pretty happy with them. (The color is a bit off because of my camera and poor picture taking skills). They have the option of a short print run (starting at 125 cards) which is way better for me.... the prices are reasonable and they have sales for different products every month. I also like Modern Postcard-very good quality, but the problem is that their printrun starts very high and I have way too many left over, enough to cover my walls.
Here is the actual illo, some of you may remember the sketch. Thats about it for me here. Busy working on a book that I am excited about. Its a secret right now but more soon!

The crafty side of Chickengirl

I finally got around to taking some pictures of the crafts I 've been working on. I got this fabulous Hello kitty sewing machine for Christmas (you can get one too from Target.com, isn't it cute!) Its very basic but it gets the job done.
I am only a beginner and right now I am just happy to figure out the technical side of things. Everywhere online people are so generous to give tutorials. Also, I 've been getting many books on sewing from the library.

So here are some stuff I've been making. My first lined tote bag. I even made pockets on the inside for my cel phone and things. I squealed with glee when it "worked." The tutorial was from Super Eggplant:
And the coolest criss cross coasters tutorial from Allsorts. Here is my version, except I kinda made them too small...but glasses still fit on top of it OK. I like how the color combination worked out though:
My TV died about two weeks ago, so to keep myself entertained I've been crafting in the evenings. Its better than being a couch potato....