Christmas Craftacular

Woohoo! It's over! But what a blast I had. The venue was absolutely beautiful, large and roomy with great lighting. I met some really great artists, exchanged wares, made sales, and made great connections! My husband was the best help I could have asked for. He helped with everything from stamping my tags, poking holes in the paper, to making sandwiches for us the day of the event. He also sat by my side and gave me great moral support almost the entire time. He deserves a huge thank you. I will definitely be doing more of these in the near future (even though I was utterly exhausted by the end of the day!)

Change is good?

I have taken the plunge and opened up a new shop on Etsy to showcase my fine art. I have kept my journals at Art Kitten, but thought I would make it look cohesive by leaving the artwork out. So you can now find it at Susan Schaffer Fine Art. There is of course positives and negatives about this, the negative being that you can't see any of my sold paintings and prints on the new shop, so it looks like I am new to selling my art on Etsy. We will see how it goes...

Please tell me what you think of the new shop!

Halloween, craft fairs and a new painting

Hello all, sorry it as been awhile since I rapped at ya (I sound like Jim Anchower from The Onion, for those familiar) I have been super busy getting books and paintings ready for the upcoming craft fair that I am going to be in. It is my first and I am super excited! This past summer I blogged about the Summer Craftacular where I posted some images of local Etsy artist's ware (read about it here). Well now I get to be a part of it!!! I have been waiting since I heard about the fair to be a vendor and if it goes well I am going to start to apply to summer craft fairs.

Anyway here is the link to the fair, and if you live in the area I would love it if you stopped by and said howdy or aloha or ni hao or maybe just hi :)

I also wanted to post some pictures of Maya from Halloween. I was pretty proud of how well her costume came out. It was my first time sewing an outfit on my machine and now I am definitely addicted! She decided to be a princess this year (really she wanted to be a Pikachu but I could not find her that costume, so she went with her second choice) and she picked out the fabric and I got to work. In the end there were a few mistakes but all in all I was pretty happy.






Doesn't she look lovely?


And here is a new painting that sold as a print in my shop :)

Late Birthday Thank You's

On October 16th I turned 30 years old. And I feel ok about it. I feel more in my skin as a 30 year old I think. For my birthday I had one of the best parties I have had. On the Tuesday before my birthday, Julia (aka Red Otter) and I went out for manicures as what I thought was a way to de-stress after a harried weekend. The manicures were wonderful and afterwards we went out for drinks. I had suggested ordering appetizers but Julia said that we needed to go. We walked across the street and she led me to my favorite restaurant, Muramoto (an excellent sushi restaurant) and there our husbands were waiting for us with presents! Yay! I was very surprised and elated. The best present I received (although the chocolates and flowers were pretty great) was a beautiful frame with some kind and wonderful words from my Etsy friends and Maya, Andrew and Nathaniel. So a huge thank you to Diana, Amy, Michelle, Julia and Michele Maule for it. I was so touched.


Thank you.






Also here are some pictures of Maya, Nathaniel and I on my actual birthday eating the cake that Nathaniel made for me :)

It is finally Fall

Although I love warm weather, and actually am not a fan of winter at all, fall is my favorite season. I love the beautiful colors, especially around my hometown, where the hills are filled with oranges, reds and yellows. I love the harvest of pumpkins and apples and canning, and it happens to be the season of my birth. This year, in about three weeks I am going to turn 30. I am still not sure how I feel about this, but I know I would like to have a big party of sorts, and have lots of friends there. Otherwise I might be remembering my mortality a bit too much...







Back to the topic of Fall, last weekend Jewels and I and our husbands went apple picking (she blogs about it here) and I got 20 lbs. of apples that will be mainly turned into apple sauce to tie us over for the winter. I have to admit I am a bit of a Susie Homemaker, I love gardening, canning my own food and baking. I have skills in these areas (other than the gardening, which I haven't quite figured out yet) that were passed down to me from my mom. She makes the best pies and I thank her for passing her knowledge on to me. Maya and I made an apple pie this week and I let her do most of the work, and it turned out great. The crust was a bit crumbly, but it tasted wonderful :)



This week I also finished the painting that I had been commissioned to make, and I am pleased with how it turned out. Today I also made a new journal with vintage typewriters and am hoping to work on my cicada painting now. What are your projects this week?

Favorites

Nothing much new here in Art Kitten land... working on a commissioned portrait for a wedding present, which is almost done, and my poor bunny was neutered on Tuesday. He is doing much better today and even did a few binkys (joyful jumps in the air). I thought I would post a few images of some of my Etsy Favorites today, and hope that you will find some new favorites yourself.


Rabbit by Esoule in honor of my poor bunny


Regina - knitting shrug (I want this sooo much) by Silvia66


Garden Tea Dress by rareturtle - in honor of Oktoberfest :)


Also Michele Maule's lovely treasury that she was nice enough to include me in made it to the front page the other day, yippee! Thanks Michele!

Color Me Mustard

I haven't done a treasury in ages, and happened to look at the treasury yesterday right when it was switching over, serendipity! I created this teasury based on my favorite color of the season, deep yellow. I can't get enough of this color! I just bought a blazer in it, tights and now a necklace! Please visit and comment if you have time.




Here is the gorgeous necklace I just bought from Mary Fly Fly. I love it! There are also matching earrings that I am coveting. What is your favorite color this season?

New Books

Jasper Journal


White Blossom Journal


This is the cover of a commissioned piece that I just finished this week.

I decided to do the Etsy Challenge

(it is my book that is in the challenge today, not my painting!)

I heard about it through Diana, on her blog, and decided to check it out (Diana won her challenge btw, go wish her congrats!). I entered a painting, and a book. If you would like to vote, you can here tomorrow, Sept. 15th. In other news... well actually I don't have much other news...



I had a wonderful relaxing weekend with my husband. We went out for breakfast at our favorite spot, and dinner last night at Tex Tubbs (a really fun Tex Mex restaurant). We were going to go see "Burn After Reading" (don't give anything away if you saw it!) after dinner but we had a bit too much food and margaritas and decided to go home instead. We ordered brownies and cookies to be delivered (I love living in a college town!) and watched The Burbs. Does anyone remember that movie? It is one of my all time favorites, but I was so in love with Corey Feldman when I was little (did I just admit that!?) An excellent weekend if I do say so myself.

Treasury

I think this treasury is so so pretty, don't you? Well, I did not get the teaching job, I didn't even get to finish the sub job because they transferred someone for it. Madison has too many less than full time art teachers, and so they need to fill up spots with existing teachers first, which means that it is a rarity for a job to open up to someone outside of the system. The problem with budget cuts, a mismanaged system and a town with a college in it.

Anyway I am happy to continue subbing and working from home for now. It means more time to focus on my art, which the painting bug has definitely hit me. I have ideas for more portraits, paintings of cicadas and a painting of the Dude for my husband for our anniversary. I have a portrait commission I am working on currently, and a lot of book projects, but once those are complete I can begin to paint for myself again (until I get new commissions).

What is everyone else working on currently?

School Days

Yesterday the entire family went back to school. Nathaniel started his second year of law school, Maya started first grade (she is growing up too fast!) and I started a long term sub job that will last at least two weeks. I really am enjoying it so far, and wish that it would turn into a permanent position. The job is open, but someone will probably transfer and take it. Cross your fingers for me, though and maybe a miracle will happen and I will actually get a teaching position!
Maya seems to be doing well at school, but I can't get her to talk about what she is doing she says, "she doesn't remember" :) I also have added a few new journals to my shop and a few new prints of paintings that have sold. Here are a few of the journals.


Koi Journal


Ephraim Journal - named after the little town we stayed at in Door County a couple weekends ago.


Apple Journal



Magnolia Journal

Tell me how "back to school" is going for all of you, if there is a back to school for you :)

Big time

writer's block. yep. and my "r" and "e" key are not working very well on my 'puter. I have been working very hard on a booklet of recipes for a customer's upcoming wedding. What I really really want to do is paint. I want to paint the cicada that my daughter found outside, and I want to paint other things as well, but I am having a case of painter's block as well... do I continue to paint portraits? Can I paint other things? Should I continue to develop a theme and style or do I say screw that, I'll paint what I want! Man oh man...

Anyway here are a few pretty things I just bought and am very excited to get in the mail.



"Ditto's" by the Peach Tree, aren't they so exquisite?



Sophia Messenger Bag from Glory Daze. I really needed a new purse.

On the front page, sort of

I have been selling my books on commission at a number of places and one of them is a shop in Milwaukee called Fasten Collective. They have a few of their items on Etsy, and I just found out that one of them is my Birdcage Journal. I saw the front page, and said "Aww man, someone is using the paper I use", I then clicked on it, and found out is was actually my journal...

Ho hum

Well I actually have a lot to post, that needs catching up with, but this one is (because I am feeling a bit down and out today and because of time constrictions) a short one.




Today I will only mention a few things, one being that I am "self portrait" number 82 on The Self Portrait Gallery which you can view here.

Secondly I have had the opportunity in the past few weeks to be on the front page, which has made me please to say the least. The Wonderful Peach Tree snapped this image for me and the second one I was able to see with my own eyes. The Peach Tree is quite the treasury queen herself, as is Michelle Maule, who curated the second front page treasury I was in.










That is it for now. Teaching is going well, I had my students do an Artist Trading Card assignment, which was really successful (I want to keep them all!) and now one class is working on a comic book and the other is doing linoleum cuts. Fun fun.

Worky work

I started my summer job as a high school art teacher last week, and this is my reason for being so absent. It has its ups and definitely its downs, but it keeps me busy. If I get permission I will post some of their art later. I have some talented ones. In the mean time this weekend I went to the Summer Craftacular here in Madison for a bit and checked out some awesome artists, including some from Etsy! Here are some examples of the talent:


This cute kitten coaster is from the Glitter Workshop, the person who put the Craftacular together


This is one of the crisply designed and beautiful bags by Pravina



Pretty Little letterpress cards by Lucky Bee Press

Don't we have some wonderful talent in Madison? And this was just a small handful of what I saw. I was seriously drooling.

Thankful

Diana, at A Muted Palette is just about the coolest ever. So I knew that Strathmore was going to use my ACEO in an ad campaign, but I had not seen anything about it yet, until I was contacted by Diana with a surprise on her blog. And there it was, my self portrait in her local art supply store! I have been having a little bit of my 15 minutes lately. Not only am I in Strathmore's ads, but I am also in this issue of Venus Zine magazine. I was contacted by Amy, the founder, telling me that she liked my art, asking me if I would like to be their "Reader of the Ish" so right now I am in two magazines, Venus Zine, and The Artist's Magazine, on their Strathmore Ad. Pretty cool.

"Delve"

Also, I am not the only fan in my family of Diana's beautiful and haunting artwork, my dad really likes her work too, and just bought a copy of Delve (my favorite, I am so jealous!).

On another note, I finally had time to make a few books for my shop. I have been a bit bogged down with custom orders and making books for shops outside of Etsy, that I haven't had the time to give Etsy much time. Now if I could get some time to paint I would be a very happy girl.


Aspen Journal


Plum Blossom Guest Book


Blue and Brown Guest Book


Silver Flowers Guest Book

Till next time, thank you for all your support!