How Children's book Illustrators party

Its been an out-of-the-ordinary week last week. My rep, MB Artists, (formerly known as HK Portfolio), throws a great party every other year in which the illustrators in the group get to meet up and also get some face to face time with our clients. Throw in some pineapple mojitos and we've got ourselves a party!
Here is the invite for the party at Spice Market. The space was gorgeous, and if I was a good blogger I would of brought my camera with me. (Oops!) All the illustrators in the group contributed a black and white line art for the invite. Guess which one is mine? (see below)
A nice surprise was the party favors- a cotton tote bag with all our art on it! Many of us illustrators used it the next day to carry our portfolios in when we went on our appointments.
There were too many kind illustrators, art directors, designers, editors and awesome people that I met in the past few days to mention them all here. Being an illustrator is such a lonely profession sometimes, and getting some face to face time with my peers is priceless. Thank you for your warm smiles and kind words.

A blogger shout-out to two fellow MB artists with blogs whom I met the past week: Valeria Cis and Macky Pamintuan. I regularly follow their blogs and its great to finally meet! (their portfolios are amazing...check it out!) I think a few other MB artists blog as well, I will have to go check those out.

Thats it for now. Thank you, Mela, for throwing the best party in town!

Look, mom! There is my book!

Thanks to Alicia Padrón for taking this awesome picture at her Barnes and Nobles! I'm going to enjoy every moment of this till they take it off the shelves after Halloween. Now everyone go to your nearest bookstore, find my book and make sure it is, um, "strategically placed"...*wink wink nudge nudge* :-)

Its also interesting to see what other Halloween books are out there. When I was working on this book, it was no where near Halloween. Now I can look back and see what other quirky things/ideas I might of missed.

This week I am taking a class and a much needed mini vacation. I'm sure there will be interesting things to report back. Have a good week, everyone.

New Greeting Cards

I finally made this blank greeting card out of the illustration I did from The Wish Trees giveaway post. I don't have any real personal stationary to use for everyday so this will be very handy.

You know how when you are an artist, and your friends and family expect that everything you give them must be handmade or with your art on them, especially greeting cards? Hey, sometimes I don't have time and have to pick up a Hallmark card! My mom seems to be disappointed when that happens though.
I've also put some of them in my shop. Its been seriously neglected but I hope to be back into it soon.

My Re-Ment Miniatures Habit

I love my siblings!!! What's this, you say? I just got a package of Re-Ments from my sister who recently went on trip to Japan. Look at all of this! I never got this much Re-Ments all in one shot!

If that wasn't enough, my brother also went to Japan (separately) and hooked me up with more Re-Ments, the grocery shelves and cabinet:
So here is my awesome Re-Ment grocery aisle, I love looking at it and re-arranging the foods and signs. It stands about 8 inches tall:
One of my mom's friends came over and saw my toys and asked if they were from my childhood. I said, "Umm, no000 I just got that the other day!" Hahah! And then she found out I was a children's book illustrator and it finally made sense to her. My profession is a lovely excuse to have toys around and get away with it.

I'm so thankful for having siblings who feed my habits. And also those of you who send me chicken links and chicken things!

Thank you for everyone's comments on The Haunted Ghoul Bus book. I am not sure if its available internationally, but I hope so. I can't wait to see it in Barnes and Nobles...its going to be a huge milestone for me.