Tag Archives: pet portraits

wrapping up 2024

We got our first real snow on December 4th. We were only supposed to get an inch or two, but when I woke up and looked out my window it was a winter wonderland! There’s such a specific feeling to going to sleep with no snow and waking up to this beauty, and it cannot be explained. The fact that I have a friend who lives in New Zealand and has never seen snow in his life still boggles my mind.

Of course it was very heavy, wet snow which resulted in us losing power for a few hours, so I went outside and built a little snowman while we were left in the dark. He had a face on both sides: one for us and one for everyone driving by. The faces didn’t end up lasting long (the eyes very quickly started to melt out), but the snowman [incredibly] lasted for days. He defied all logic — and gravity — by bending completely over, while never losing his head. By the time he melted, his head was almost touching the ground, while still remaining firmly attached to his body.

I truly magical snowman.

when you wake up in the night to a snowplow going by your house, you know that you’re going to wake up to something beautiful in the morning

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creative flow

I’ve been giving a lot of energy to my Etsy shop lately, and creativity is going in multiple directions. One day I’m spending hours in front of the sewing machine, the next I have a paintbrush in hand. I’ve also been creating videos to add to many of my listings (adding optional videos to Etsy listings is a fairly new feature on Etsy, but I’ve never used it until now). I feel like my shop looks really good right now, and is successfully reflecting my current creativity.

The hardest part for me when it comes to listing new items in my shop is still setting the prices for them. Does it ever get easier!?

My first reaction is to always think that I’m pricing things too high, because you can pick up things much cheaper from Target, T.J.Maxx, and Walmart (although those are all mass-produced items, unlike everything found in my shop).

But when I deduct the shipping cost (I offer free shipping on everything, so I pay $4 – $12 shipping on each order, depending on the items sold), and the Etsy fees (6.5% of each sale), and the taxes…don’t ask how much I’m left with for the time I put into my work.

Finance can get tight when you run your own business (as they are for me right now!), but this is really all I want to do, so I make it work, and I’m excited to keep branching out!

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latest update

To say that my creativity has been flowing lately would be an understatement — I’ve been having so much fun making things for my own enjoyment (Christmas quilts for me and my family!), and for my shop.

I’ve started to add a few new items to my shop (with more to come), some of which are quilted throw pillows (using my new favorite FPP sewing technique!).

every color on the butterflies — including all the small black lines — is an individual piece of fabric that is sewn together to create them!

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exciting new things

I painted my room pink.

After years of debating, I did it, and I couldn’t be happier with the end result. It’s a pale, light pink, but the paint color is called lavender moon, so it has a subtle lavender undertone which makes it super soft 🌙

looking cute in one of the outfits I finished this year (although 90% of the time lately I’ve just been in comfy shorts and an oversize t-shirt because I’ve been workiiiiiiing)

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8 guinea pigs

I just finished my most recent rewatching of Grease (possibly my favorite movie of all time), which may sound like a pleasant thing, but alas, it typically means that I’m up late at night with something ailing me.

More often than not, Grease gets put on at 2am when I’m sitting up alone, drinking tea, and praying that the magic of Sandy, Danny, and the rest of the musical gang will lull me to sleep. It’s one of my top comfort movies, and it usually works pretty well — this time I dozed off and completely missed Danny singing alone at the drive-in. A tragedy, I know.

I’ve hardly gotten any good-quality sleep in the past week due to a persistent (and very tickly) post-nasal drip that has me continually clearing my throat and excessively swallowing. It’s stopped me from being able to comfortably lay down (pretty much torture for someone who greatly enjoys the pastime of laying down), which has made the nights feel endless. At first I thought I was getting ill again (just after I had recovered from my previous illness last month), but now I’m wondering if it might just be more allergy goodness (yay).

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woodstock sanctuary donations

Like I previously mentioned when I painted some donation pieces for Barn Sanctuary’s auction: I love donating art. If I could make a living off simply donating art, I would. The pressure of getting every detail of someone’s beloved pet is off, and I just get to loosen up and enjoy the work.

I chose to paint Colin the cow, and Kellen the goat for Woodstock Sanctuary’s Harvest Picnic Gala, and I couldn’t have been happier with the outcome ❤

click the photos to enlarge them

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recent work

Some recent pet portrait work!

I’m currently working on a couple art pieces to donate to Woodstock Farm Sanctuary’s Harvest Picnic Gala. It’s always nice to take a break from dogs and cats for a minute and paint some cows and goats.

❤ to see more of my work, click here

❤ to order a portrait of your own, click here

one of my 4″ x 6″ portraits

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pet portraits

Ahhh, pet portrait work. A real love/hate relationship for me, as some of you know.

Let me just say: as much as I love being able to share my artwork, there is a constant underlying stress when it comes to custom work like this. Especially when it’s dealing with peoples’ pets. Sometimes I think people may love their pets more than they love their own children (I mean, I can’t blame them…for 7 years my best friend was a guinea pig).

click on the photos to enlarge them

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work

About a month ago I attended a birthday party while wearing a new maxi skirt that I had just sewn. I got multiple compliments on it (it did come out very nicely, if I do say so myself), and each time someone expressed interest in it, I offered them an exuberant: keep an eye on my blog, because I plan to get the sewing tutorial posted later this week!!!

At the time I had full intentions of doing just that, but here we are, almost a month later, and the maxi skirt has still not graced the page of my blog. A disappointment, I know.

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