Surfing for Treasure on Etsy

So I've been invited to a few teams on Etsy and since I've recently finished a deluge of deadlines, I decided to take a crack at learning how to do some of this stuff. Behold my first treasury! Apparently making a treasury is all about spreading the love. You're not allowed to include your own art. I think this is pretty cool actually - it's quite freeing to only focus on giving snaps to someone else without thinking about how your own work stacks up. I might try to do one of these each week.... ideas for themes anyone?

'Fabulous Fall Flavor' by merimages

I created this treasury for the PPT Treasury Team Challenge. Fall means colors, food, Halloween, spooky stuff, and more food! It's my favorite time of the year. It's also my first treasury ever! What fun to surf amongst shops looking at cool artwo

Primitive Halloween Postcard... HarvestMoonEmp... $4.50	Vintage Halloween Postcards ... ThePaperFracto... $3.25	Halloween in July. Yes, it&... postquilts $5.00
Snow White (print) SentimentalIma... $25.00	Tawny Owl PrintsByMaggie... $30.00	Sugar Tattoo Skulls Day of t... FantasyGraphic... $2.25
1904 Seed Catalog page, Hug... KeepingCards $8.95	Blank photo greeting cards, ... OverTheRainbow... $15.00	Pumpkin Fall Autumn Harvest ... CasualCards $4.25
Golden Mums flower autumn fa... PetalPix $3.25	solid oak leaf hand-carved r... sugarskull7 $5.00	Pumpkin Halloween Birthday P... AKissOfThis $10.00
Set of 4, Hand Painted Greet... jenniferwklein $10.00	Fall Leaves, Scrapbook Sheet... Cottagegarden $2.00	Digital Scrapbook Papers - H... silkescraps $1.79
Funny Vegetables Greeting Ca... elizasteindesi... $4.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

The Lost Olympics

Last week to coincide with the closing ceremony of the Olympics, Small Fry's class did an Olympic readathon. He came home from school replete with a gold medal and a shiny drawing of his favorite Olympic sport. This culminated with an extended surfing session through NBC's online video catalog of all the Olympic sports we don't get to see in prime time. We all stayed up way to late. Finally, before shutting off the computer, Fry asked "why don't we see these on the TV? are they lost?"

No sweetie they just don't sell the same commercials that Michael Phelps can.

So this past week, as I sat in the pick up line, I sketched some scenes from the Lost Olympics - the sports we have to cable packages to see.. but are cool nonetheless:

Of course I have to begin with my own favorite - the equestrian sports

Sprout's favorite: archery. We were sure to point out to her that girls could do this just as well as the guys.

Fry's favorite: White water canoeing. He declared he wanted to do this for his birthday because "it looks fun"

Finally Jim Dear's favorite: Fishing apparently is not an olympic sport so Jim dear picked the next closest water thing - sailing.

Illustration Friday - Freeze

It's all how you define it

At first I wasn't going to do a cartoon about the whole Chick-fil-A broo ha ha... I mean there were a LOT of funny scenes that jumped in my mind, but frankly I had to do a bit of eye rolling also because:

1) 59 year old Christian dudes that keep their restaurants closed on Sundays have a right to their opinions.

2) Folks who disagree with him have a right to holler for his business to also close on the remaining six days.

3) All the people who disagree with them have a right show up and cause rush hour like conditions in the drive-thru line.

4) All the people annoyed about the two hour wait for a chicken sandwich have the right to make their own sizzle a few days later thus clearing the drive-thru line of the more squeamish souls.

5) Politicians seeking 15 minutes of fame have the right to blow hard about putting the brakes on more chikin flippin' opinions in their towns.

6) Every one else has the right a) vote them out of office b) vote them into office and/or c) castigate/praise them on national television.

All of this is brought to you courtesy of the free country we live in!

Notice how everyone got to say or do what they wanted in the above scenario? Well, everyone except for the individuals who wanted to register for linens together and wear long white dresses on their wedding day..... and the chicken, of course:

Colossal Coaster Kite Flying Sketchbook Sunday

Kite flying pink monster!!!!

The first finished piece of the book I posted about here and here.

Besides little balls of monster fluff, the biggest news this week is that after 20 years I finally got a new chair for my drawing table! wohoo... before you gasp at my horrifically exciting life, just think about the fact that old chair had been loaded onto no less than twelve U-Haul moving trucks, traveled a total of 4000 miles up and down the Eastern seaboard, and enduring a total of 100 lbs gained and lost during two pregnancies. I'd had that chair since high school art class of junior year. Poor thing, it was time for it to have a rest. The new chair almost freaks me out because it does NOT creak and grown every 15 seconds.... but it does make working feel like this:

I've also been working on sketches for a couple of new projects... these are two different books but I thought I'd post them together because...well....they are cats and dogs so they seem like they go together:

Then I have this sketch I've been tossing around for a few weeks. One of my nieces is quite taken with dragons. Over the 4th of July holiday, she clamored for a book about dragons which shall remain nameless because, frankly, I thought it was pretty awful. But she loved it because it has dragons in it. After the umpteenth bedtime reading of this book I decided I would try my own take on one of the spreads, where the hero jumps on his trusty dragon from the castle wall:

Finally here's one of my covers from the new Lifeway VBS series for next year, Colossal Coaster World!

I'm all about winning an iPad, check it out:

And the video is pretty funny too.


Win a new iPad! Repost this status and video on YOUR FB, Twitter, blog. Then post your link at facebook.com/sleuthgear to enter and win! http://youtu.be/exSmxgB3lwo

A Real Danger on the Road

During this summer of multi-camping, the Fry has learned many new things: "Recycle, stop making garbage," says Go Green Camp Vandy. "Help the animals, protect their habitat," says the Nashville Zoo. "Share with your friends," says Vacation Bible School.

But my personal favorite is what the Fry learned from Safety Week at Bounce U.

"Don't be distracted while driving."

Apparently the police officer who visited admonished the kids to never text or talk and drive.... all very good and worthwhile advice. But I'd like to know why the good officer didn't talk to the kids about correcting a REAL distraction while driving, something even more dangerous than sending the occasional grocery list item to your husband before you forget for the 5th day in a row.

I'm talking about a situation like this: