O Tannenbaum

I am finally on Christmas break-- that glorious time with no school and nothing to do but enjoy time with your family (and spend any leftover time doing artwork!).

I'm looking forward to Mass tommorrow night and then our tradition of eating pizza, baking Santa cookies, and reading The Night Before Christmas (and each year it gets harder and harder to fit all 8 of us on one single couch for Dad to read us that book!). This year my littest brother is old enough to understand what Christmas is all about-- he was so cute this morning when he said that Jesus was even smaller than he is!-- and he's also sooo excited about the presents.

Anyway, I made you all a pretty little Christmas tree. :)

I can't take credit for this idea; I'd seen a photo with a tree made out of stacked up books online a couple of months ago-- maybe on Pinterest? I can't find it now, though.

(part of my destroyable books series... only this one didn't destroy any books except the couple of pages used to make the bow/star. You'll be seeing a tutorial on that very soon.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

lost in a book

destroyable books blog series at shealynn's faerie shoppe

all photography belongs to shaylynn (shealynn's faerie shoppe), if you would like to share-- for personal use only-- you must link back to my blog, thank you!

A Plan for Joy

I'm very excited to announce that a very big project I have been working on is completed and published!

A Plan for Joy in the Home: A Workbook on Organizing Your Day for Homeschooling Mothers is a wonderful workbook written by Laura Dominick that does exactly what the title says-- it gives awesome tips for homeschool parents. It's available for sale here.

A few months ago, Mrs. Dominick asked if I could do layout for a book that she wrote. I'd met her briefly this summer at the ReginaoCon and had a blast with her daughters.

Of course I said yes!

However, I had no idea how to go about doing graphic design for a book. I've worked on the online magazine Ink and Fairydust, but that is a little different. A book provides a whole new world of publication requirements. For instance, I had no idea how to do chapter pagination or how to add correct page numbering.

Mrs. Dominick was very gracious and understanding as I researched and learned about this brand-new world. Very understanding-- not only was I trying to do this from scratch and make it professional, but I was also plauged with major computer problems that put me behind schedule!

I was so excited to recieve the email with her draft. As I mentioned before, the workbook is really helpful (although I think that I don't really appreciate it fully-- I'm only a homeschool student, after all! And yet it seemed really wonderful to me.) Mrs. Dominick shares various plans for organizing the day, and provides plenty of real-life ideas that her family uses.

In addition to the graphic layout, I also did illustrations for each chapter. The image below is from the last chapter.

 She also asked me to do the front cover illustration. It was a challenging and invigorating artistic challenge, and I'm very happy that she was pleased with it! The drawing was loosly based off a photo of her family. I changed some details, added lots of warm coloring, and made the family more cartoony to fit in with the style of the illustrations.

(For those of you who, like me, appreciate these sorts of details, it was done with black pen and Prismacolor colored pencils on Bristol board. I burnished the prismacolors with a wax pencil finish... which made the second layer of pen lines hard to apply! The title was added with InDesign).

This has been a wonderful experience for me... I've learned so much, so many skills that will be useful in the future. And my work is being published... Yup, pretty excited about that. I'd love to take this chance to say THANK YOU to Mrs. Dominick for allowing me to be a part of this project!

A Plan for Joy in the Home is available both as a PDF download and as a printed book from HERE. Please visit the website!

Mrs. Dominick talks more about the workbook on her blog: HERE. And you can read her far-too-kind comments about working on it here.



Giveaways!

I'm excited to announce an event happening here at the blog during the 12 days following Christmas!

Over the past few months, as the blog has surprisingly grown (like, alot, it's quite a blessing and exciting!), I've been approached by a couple of people wanting to do giveaways here. I hesitated, because I'd prefer people to visit the blog because of the content, not because of how many freebies there are.

However, I think it would be really neat to do a 12 Days of Christmas giveaway extravaganza! It also strikes me as funny, how we start decorating for Christmas before... well, sometimes even before Halloween. And yet, people are ready to take down their Christmas trees on December 26th. The Christmas season (if we are going to be particular) starts on Christmas and lasts much longer.

So I'm going to be bringing some holiday cheer to you in the 12 days after Christmas!

I've written to several handmade artists and designers who have very graciously offered to give away some of their beautiful creations here on the blog.

I'll also be giving away a few items (and not just the jewelry you usually see in the Faerie Shoppe).

There are still a few days with no giveaways, though.

If you run a small handmade business or would like to make something to give away, please contact me at Shealynnsfaerieshoppe{at}gmail.com

(just remove {at} and replace it with @, I'm trying to avoid spam. Thanks!)

Also, I just changed the blog header. Now the fairy is actually sitting on something, rather than floating around and sitting in midair. Hopefully the new design also solves some problems a couple people mentioned about viewing the page. Let me know what you think! :)

Saint Swap

This November my little sister and I participated in a saint ATC swap!

A.T.C. stands for Artist Trading Cards, and they are basically trading-size cards that you make small peices of art on.

The swap was hosted by the lovely blog Pondered in My Heart. Each participant made five pieces of art and mailed it to the family hosting the event. They swaped cards according to age and mailed them back.

(Next year I'm going to convince my brothers to participate!)
We recently recieved an envelope in the mail... with our trading cards in it! I just couldn't wait to share them with you all. :)

I recieved these drawings. They are all so beautiful...

(left top to right) St. Charles Borromeo by Margaret, St. Therese by Anna, Our Lady of Grace by Rosemary, St. Catherine of Siena by Mary, and St. Victor by Lydia.

My little sister recieved these cute drawings.

Jesus by Teresa, St. Elizabeth of Hungary by Katie, St. Lucy by Elizabeth, St. Francis by Katie, St. Catherine by Catherine.

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Here's the drawings we sent out in the swap!

My little sister drew five of the same picture of St. Therese the Little Flower.

These are my drawings. I had a lot of fun researching the saints and discovering the items that they are usually pictured with in religious artwork. And I had lots of fun researching the clothing worn by 7th century Celts. (Don't you love getting sidetracked?)

St. Dymphna (7th century Celtic martyr for purity), St. Adelheid (princess of Burgundy), St. Maximillian Kolbe (martyr in WWII concentration camp), St. Thomas Aquinas (great theologian, my Confirmation patron saint), and St. Madeline Sophie Barat.

A Pretty Package in the Mail-- Shipping Tips

I always love getting mail. Letters are the best, of course-- loving letters from friends and family-- and so are handmade cards and lovely magazines. There is always such a thrill in recieving something just for you. It's magical.

This is one of the reasons why I love to make all my packages be pretty. These are a few of my favorite things... I don't use much brown paper, but I do use lots of string!

I recently had several orders from the Shoppe and photographed my "shipping process." I've had several queries from fellow handmade artists concerning shipping... I certainly don't have all the answers, and since my Shoppe is small and I don't have a lot of money, I haven't done several things that are good ideas for business shipping (someday I would love to get gift boxes and stylized packaging!).

However, every order is shipped with love and care, and hopefully makes the reciever smile. So, for what it's worth, this is the way that I've been shipping items lately!

The first and most time-consuming step is making little jewelry bags. I use scrap fabric from old sewing projects (thank you to several friends who gave me their scraps!) and some beautiful fat quarters I found on sale.

Each one is cut to size to fit my plastic baggies (see below). This batch that I sewed up in November used several "Christmas-y" fabrics.

Sometimes if I'm in a hurry I don't fold over a hem on the top of the bags. It's still pretty that way.

Tip for anyone wanting to use this idea: Sew the bags in batches. It's much faster and less stressful.

I don't always use fabric baggies. Sometimes I use brown paper tied up with pretty ribbon, or peices of a wedding tablecloth (also tied up with pretty ribbon!).

The jewelry goes onto cards (printed on cardstock with holepunches for earrings and slits for necklaces). These cards are then slid into the fabric bags.

I have two sizes of cards, baggies, and bags to accomodate most peices of jewelry.

Isn't it pretty?

Each item gets its own baggie, and I usually put up to three baggies in each fabric bag (or brown paper package).

My business card also goes into the bag. Right now I'm printing them on cardstock and cutting it out with a paper slicer, but someday I intend to get some professionally printed.

The reciept and fabric bag slide into a padded envelope.

Right now I have some lovely brown envelopes that I quickly stamp on.

Unfortunately I'm running out of the pretty envelopes and will soon have to go back to the boring manilla ones.

I ship everything via USPS First Class mail with delivery confirmation (unless I'm asked to ship with other specifications). I print postage from Paypal, which is really nice because I never have to drive out to the post office.

Larger items get shipped Priority Mail.

In this photo you can see the "wedding tablecloth" that I cut up and tie with string or ribbon.

Did I mention that it's an absurdly large roll of wedding tablecloth? Mom found it at a resale store for me!

It's pretty and swirly. :)

Anyways, after the package is sealed and the postage is taped on...

 

I put the packge in the mailbox and imagine the smile on the person recieving it!

The Grand Finale

I've decided to stop apologizing about not posting very often. Real life is more important than what happens on the computer, and that's that.

(For the record, though... I am not this behind on the 30 Day Drawing Challenge. I was only a little over a day behind. Our scanner is only hooked up to one computer, though, and it happens to be the laptop that Dad had brought to work for the past several days).

Day 23: Something You Need

I stole Lydia's lovely idea-- of course, Our Savior is someone I need!

Gouache paint, based off of an icon on a prayer card. 4X6 as usual.

Day 24: A Couple

I thought about being all smartypants and drawing something like a couple socks or a couple dragon claws or something... but then I decided that this idea floating around in my head was just too cute.

Gouache paint.

Day 25: Scenery

Due to a very unfortunate spill, the backside of the Couple painting got smeared with paint. Now, I did the entire 30 Day Drawing Challenge in one little notebook, and was running low on pages. I had to do the Scenery drawing on this smeared peice of paper...

...so I ran with it and smeared more paint on randomly and then drew random cartoony scenery stuffs in sharpie. I call it the Magic of Random Paint Spills-- An Abstract Study of the Biochemistry of Gryphons. It's a masterpeice and will someday hang in a museum.

Day 26: Something You Don't Like

I don't dislike Rubik's Cubes. It's just the fact that my little brother can solve the entire thing in two minutes flat, while I... well, I can't even solve one side of it! ;)

Day 27: Someone You Love

When you can't decide who to draw because you love so many people... it's always safe to draw the cutest littlest dude around. Meet my brother, King of the Laundry Basket (we didn't have a mountain handy). Complete with the paper crown handmade by our eight year old sister.

Day 28: Anything You'd Like

Feeling a little nostalgic for Autumn. We just had our first sprinkle of snow and first frost to last beyond the sun's waking.

watercolor

Day 29: A Place You Want To Go

A ticket to Middle Earth? You shouldn't have. Aww, thanks. YOUR'E THE BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

(Here's another unforunate spill at work. My india ink made a nice big blot right on the bottom left corner. I did my best to fix it with some guoache paint and stained the entire map brown. Now I'm not sure if it looks all cool and aged, or all messed up and stained!)

Day 30: A Congrats Banner

I meant it when I said I was running out of paper! This is drawn on the back cover of my sketchbook. Sharpie and a wee bit of white watercolor.

Here's the linky... sorry it's so late... go ahead and use a seperate link for each of your drawings, or a single one, or whatever. :)