bzz bzz bzz busy bee!

not much to say- other than i am jess gonacha's biggest fan. c: on top of the fact that she is sooo crazy good at everything she does, she was the biggest help with fabric block printing drama. we are talking about doing a trade (i know, i really feel like i've lucked out and that she is out of her mind) so i will have a fun update of that when it happens-


i finally completed the wholesale order for 3 sets of undersea notebook sets (each set = 4 undersea creature notebooks) yesterday- this was a particularly fun project, as it resulted in three new cute animal blocks (i'll show them later! it's a turtle, sting ray, and blowfish along with the jellyfish one i've already posted)... the girl who runs the shop (Splendid Little Shoppe in Petaluma, CA) suggested i make little name plates(?? idk what to call it) for the back of the notebooks- she also suggested i make an artist's bio to put on display! ry designed it for me, of course, and even though he was a big negative nancy about the final i LOVE it. i made a little stand out of folded cardstock so it's freestanding! dorky but fun.


the "bio" says: "Julie Malone is a 20 year old artist from Atlanta residing in Philadelphia, PA. After attending art school for two years, she realized her true calling and transferred to Temple University for Wildlife and Environmental Sciences. Her love for wildlife shows in nearly all of her work through reoccurring linoleum cut
animals. She works primarily with printmaking techniques to produce hand-pulled prints and one of a kind paper goods, but occasionally dabbles in other mediums."
IT'S FROM THE FUTURE! i didn't want to put a lot of "almost" and "is going to", but for the record i won't be 20/attending temple until august. big whoop! I felt a little silly writing that up, since I still don't take my stuff serious as "art" or anything- it's just a lot of fun that I have been doing lately, and I hope it never ends!


lastly, here is a sneak peek of a super fun project i've been working on... my cloth napkins! as i said, jess was a HUGE help with some problems i had on my first attempts last night. this was about an hour into it, and i spent the rest of the afternoon being a craft machine and pumping out a bunch more! i'll post those as i finish the sets... i'm trying to sucker ry into doing the bellyband design but i might end up winging it myself.

eek okay so apparently i had a LOT to say! but that's it, i swear! i just had half a cup of iced coffee forgetting it's 1AM and will probably be all crazy for a few more hours.

ice cream parties

i just love summer. ryan has been cooking out nearly every night we eat together, so i'm getting veggie burgers or fresh grilled veggies at least 3 nights a week! i'm also loving how late it stays light out- i think it helps night people like me stay totally focused & productive for many more hours! (and not feel so bad for waking up inexcusably late every couple of days, ack)


lou & i had some friends over last night for an ice cream party- it was suuuuper gooey sugary sweet fun! i had made a joke the night before about putting lucky charms on my ice cream, and lou went out and bought a box! ha. so we had chocolate syrup, whipped cream, lucky charms, m&ms, and my super embarrassingly large sprinkle collection to choose from. above is a little photo collage of everyone's ice cream masterpiece! i think i missed a couple but they were all pretty similar... lots of toppings!


ohh! speaking of food! my dad USPS'd me a box of green tomatoes! it was totally unexpected & kooky (he does strange things like that sometimes) but i fried them up and made tons and tons of fried green tomatoes... now i have this lingering craving for them all the time. i've GOT to get back to juliette, GA (sight of the classic movie) to the Whistlestop Cafe (!!) for more. that was like the best southern meal i've ever had, period.


also, of course, i've been keeping up with my linocut stuff. it's so strange how much i'm enjoying it, that i haven't gotten tired and moved onto a new medium. i'm usually gung ho with stuff for a few weeks or months, then feel very obligated to the medium and move on- or worse, experience a total inspiration dry spell. i think because it is a pretty vast medium & it's given me the courage i've never had to start attempting to illustrate things. the image above was a quick, two minute doodle and 15 minute carve.



that tangent actually reminded me, last summer around this time i got some money together and bought everything i needed to start casting resin. that lasted about 3 weeks or so when i became discouraged after i realized how easy it is for everything to come out looking really kitschy and cheap (which, oddly enough, would be how i endearingly describe my paper goods style). welp, the other afternoon i found a bunch of pieces that i actually like and i went ahead and drilled them & started attaching wire so they could be pendants. i literally stopped mid-posting the last paragraph to try to get some nice pictures while there is still some daylight left in my room- maybe i'll post a few pictures here. & i would love honest feedback, my feelings won't be hurt since this was a medium i never took the time to learn about. are they ugly? are they something you would wear, or even a kooky relative would wear? i would love feedback because if i keep holding onto them i'll eventually trash them like everything else. (there's not supposed to be a cat hair in the second! i didnt notice it until after i uploaded the pic, & it brushed right away.)

that should be about it for today, i think. i'm going to try to be a little better about smaller, more frequent posts rather than these massive ones. ohhh but be excited! this time next week i should have some sets of cloth napkins ready! i am sooooo excited about fabric block printing- i'm going to start practicing tonight on scraps. c:

a very etsy post

so i survived that nasty heat wave we had last a week ago or so- it was like 100 degrees and unbreathable humidity. nuts! today, though, it was like 78, sunny, breezy wonderful. so i recruited mistie & we ran some errands back and forth, then walked into the area i used to live to go to pearl... ugh it was sooo nice out! we easily walked about five miles the whole trip, and it felt so so good out that i hardly noticed at all. i hope we have at least a few more of these days before summer humidity comes in full swing, yucky.


let's see, what else? still leisurely crafting. made two pretty big linocuts last week- a jellyfish and a set of coral. made some new stationary & books with them, and one of the jellyfish hello cards is listed at the bottom of an etsy front page article! (http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/thisHandmadeLife/article/etsy-world-tour-bermuda-with-lusciousnaturals/1977/) super cool. did i mention that a few weeks ago i made etsy front page itself? that was pretty fun, too! not that the admin really hand pick each item to be on the front page, that comes from treasuries.

aaaand speaking of, i finally had good enough timing to snag a treasury and get some of my favorite items out there! i'm really hoping it makes front page because i really, really want all of the items to sell for these artists because they are pretty amazing. you can view it at: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=13341
clicking on the items helps the chances of it hitting front page, i think, i'm not really positive how the admin pick particular lists. but anyway it's totally worth sorting through because they are crazy amazing.

alright well check those links if you have time! etsy sure is fun. i'm going to go work on a super secret corn dog crest linocut... ha! but really i am. let me know how you're doing in a comment, i love to know who actually keeps up with this. c:

warm thoughts

so although i was listening to this album nonstop a few months ago, i sort of forgot about it recently -- even though now the weather is really suited for it. anyhow, just saw this video about two minutes ago and it was so heart warming (plus! oh! that little apartment made me so sentimental feeling) that i wanted to show it right away



other things:
picked out paint for my bike today- the bike itself was a real (lucky! saved me tons of $$!!) fluke and i couldn't be more excited. ry found it along with some other bikes his grandpa owned when he did repairs? and/or built them? it's very vintage and petite and i cannot wait until it's all updated and ready for me! the paint i picked out tonight is the dreamiest creamiest ice blue! and i'm going to get peach or yellow handlebar tape, depending on how light or dark the paint actually turns out after sanding/priming/painting/top coating.

summer looks good, so far, already. the bike is a big, big plus because i'll be able to head over to my old stomping grounds more frequently, and i can finally ride around the park with ryan. and mistie just got the most adorable bike, too! so we can add that to things to do together.


cats are behaving a little better, although we dealt with a bit of a traumatic situation earlier when (and we're still not positive how) scuz fell out of the second story window! he is totally fine and actually seems unphased, but he hit the awning and then the ground. our assumption is that he got spooked by lilly and/or she chased him, and he jumped into the window harder than usual and popped the screen out (it was practically mangled into the awning). here is the handsome devil, just hours before the whole thing went down.


it hardly looks like 125 but it is! 20 pages each, = 40 front and back

i finished the wedding order! it took me three days (day two, i made 76 IN ONE SITTING) and now i'm not sure what to do with myself! i worked very hard to get it done, since their wedding is the 13th- but i feel a little sad that it is over. what an adventure! they chose the two patterns & color scheme. i kind of wish it were silver ink, because it's so much subtler but i think this matches their wedding and looks pretty nice anyhow.

one bbq and then (ack, mustache) party tomorrow, very exciting- tonight was a rather impromptu bbq. it was short and sweet, basically a group dinner, but it got me excited for more (planned out) ones. ++ ice cream party?? hopefully??

(i am drinking about two of these a day)
i'm really happy in this house. i was so sad about leaving my apartment, but i couldn't be in a better place. and! for the first time in like two years i have a full-sized refrigerator AND ice!! as a result i am making massive amounts of iced coffee (which i served alongside the veggie burgers/veggie hot dogs ry cooked tonight, so weird! but good) the only thing is my dang roommate gets to GO HELP WITH A PAULA DEEN PHOTOSHOOT ON SUNDAY as part of an internship and i think i couldn't be more jealous of anything in the world, besides like my best friend sleeping with bobby flay or ryan leaving me for giadda delaurentis (btw how creepy is it that i spelled that right the first try?).

it's so late! hopefully ryan will get back soon so we can play his wii for the first time in forever, and get some sleep in a cool room before it hits in the 90's tomorrow. ! hope everyone is having a great weekend, and special thoughts to dear san on her birthday.

thoughts on moving

i have nearly finished unpacking... this is probably the slowest i've ever packed & unpacked, but there's just so, so much stuff and i keep getting so distracted! i wish i had a picture of lou's living room on move-in day, it was amazing to see the heart, soul, and guts of my old apartment disassembled, bagged, and in puzzle-packed three cubic feet boxes.

lou's cat, scuz, is having a hard time adjusting to his first real interactions with another cat. he's taking it out on everyone, (mostly lou) but is calming down a little more every day. i feel so bad because it's his home and lilly bumbles around like she owns the place.
she thinks she is in heaven with all of the snooping and adventuring that a new house & moving boxes provides. not to mention carpet, hello! she just rolls and rolls and massages it and rubs her face on it- in my next life i want to come back as a fluffy overfed ugly cat.

(lilly in her second fav spot in the new place. she loooves this bathroom window)

just spoke to my mother for the first time in about a week i guess, and she was asking me about the move and and the house and all... and she started asking me about lou, since i referred to him as the nicest guy in our group of friends- and she said "WHAT i thought he was MY AGE! i thought he was old! like in his fourties or fifties!" and then started asking if he had a girlfriend, if he was a "nice guy", and if we shared a bathroom. so apparently she's thought that i was moving in with a 50 year old man for some time and never thought to ask any questions, but because he is around my age group she starts to think suspiciously? seriously, she thought i was going to live with an old dude?

i am quite tired and trying to get on track with this wedding order & a custom order. i just want my room to be doooooone. and before i go, here is the finished al borland painting. it's been done for many weeks but i was too lazy to cut it down, photo, and post it.