A Calico Christmas

Calico Christmas Trees 1.5" Photo Binder

I am getting a bit of a head start on the holidays and designed a group of Calico Christmas - Yule trees. This was kind of fun to design. I again started out in Illustrator and made swatches in green, red and ecru. I have stripes, gingham and snowflakes adorning the trees. The longest part was the tiny little snowflakes that appeares in two of the trees and the background. I wanted a simple country charm for this design, not a lot of bells and whistles.

I plan on picking up my paint brushes again soon, just lately when I look at the paper nothing comes out. It happens though and I never force out a painting just for the sake of posting something new.

Calico Christmas Trees Postage Stamp

Calico Christmas Trees Christmas Card

Calico Christmas Trees Photo Card

Also Zazzle is having another promotion

Save 10.31% for Halloween
just enter code TRICKORTREAT

*10.31% of the net sale price will be deducted when the coupon code TRICKORTREAT is applied at checkout. For most products, the net sale price is the price of the product (excluding shipping and taxes). For Zazzle Custom Stamps, the net sale price is the difference between the price of the Zazzle Custom Stamps (excluding shipping and taxes) and the face value of the postage. Offer is valid from October 19, 2009 at 12:01am PT through October 31, 2009 at 11:59pm PT. This promotional offer may not combine with any other Zazzle promotional or discount offers.



.

Welcoming Baby Cards

New Line Of Baby Cards On GCU!

I often times overlook Illustrator but on occasion I get around to opening it up and playing around with it. Since I don't have a drawing tablet Illustrator is not my first choice to use but I wanted to do another line of simple baby cards for single up to quadruple births and I wanted to make them multi-cultural.

First I started out with the background, I made a small swatch of polka dots in light and dark pink then added it to the swatch pallet. I applied it to my card background and added type on top. To draw the baby I started out with a circle for the face, drew half circles for the eyes, two small circles for the cheeks and placed them accordingly. To make the pacifier I made an oval and placed a half oval on top for the handle.

To make the bonnet and bow I began with a oval made from the pentagon tool. As I was stretching it I held the up arrow so the sides increased to around twenty or so. I used the "pucker and bloat" filter to make the billows in the bonnet. I then added a smaller regular oval to serve as the lip. For the bow I made a triangle and moved the anchor points to round it out. I copied and pasted in front of the first triangle and reflected it to form the other side of the bow. Add a circle for the knot, some lines for the creases, and the bow is finished. For the tails I just drew them freehand with my mouse and repeated the copy, paste, reflect for the other side. I moved the bonnet behind the face and the bow in front and placed it on my card. To change complexions and colors was easy from there by just selecting the items and picking the colors from the color palette. To add extra babies I copied the face after grouping all of the shapes and pasted them.

There are cards for single, twins, triplets and quadruplets and if you need more babies feel free to drop me a line and I will be more than happy to make one up for you. Cards are $2.79 with bulk purchases being lower.

to be continued...