Illustration Friday - Trick or Treat

A quick (well not so quick due to my constant indecisiveness!) illustration for this week's topic - Trick or Treat.

A ghost and his pals doing their rounds.

Happy Halloween everyone! Enjoy some candy, I know I will. :) Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Spooky Tree

I have been trying to find some dark, spooky trees to photo and submit to Salix's Windywillow for November's Festival of Trees. Chris reminded me last night of this photo. It was taken while hiking Spencer's Butte near the top - we basically climbed inside a cloud. We loved it! Anyways, it turned out to be a nice shot.
I am going to get this printed and framed. I need some artwork on my walls - for a designer I have minimal home decor going on - shame on me! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Great Fabric + Stuffings = Fat Pillow!

I made a big fat pillow a couple weekends ago. I didn't feel like it was cool enough to post about, but the fabric is amazing and I absolutely love using it. I'm still learning techniques for sewing (really love the craft), so I think I can do something a bit more difficult next time. I'm thinking some patchwork on the front would be nice. It is a great pillow to use when I'm drawing on the couch or bed. So I decided it was worthy of a post. And the fabric just makes me smile. Love the aqua blue and orange! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Illustration Friday - Grow

With a little boost Bella the Bear grew!

Have a great weekend! :) Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Favorite Time of the Year - Take 2

Okay, so I was completely unsatisfied with the pictures I took yesterday after work. So I took my camera with me to work. I went for a walk during lunch and took a few photos that were more what I wanted to share.


This color is just fabulous and warms me deeply.


Beautiful lemon-lime tree - what a great trunk!


I love the variety of trees in this shot. The crooked tree limbs on the front right are soo nice!

Alright, that fixation is done (at least for blogging about), now time to get illustrating! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Favorite Time of the Year

Fall is my favorite season, with Spring as a close second. I have been enjoying baking, daydreaming, watching movies, reading wonderful blogs, sketching holiday ideas, and feeling a little overwhelmed with all the BIG ideas I have. Today my dog reminded me that getting out for walks is a good thing. I tend to push that aside sometimes because I think I have more important things I SHOULD be doing. But truthfully, some fresh air and chat time with Chris is one heck of a way to rejuvenate the juices - creatively and personally.

Today was unbelievably gorgeous here all day. After a week of raining, it was a perfect Fall day - blue skies, brisk air, fantastic coloring in the trees - don't get me wrong, I love the rain, otherwise I couldn't stand living in the Northwest, but these types of days are rare and I was bummed I had to be trapped in an office most of it. I rushed home after work so that I could get out before the bright blue sky faded and the sun disappeared. I live amongst trees, so we had to walk a bit to get above the tree line and catch the sun spotlighting the amazing tree leaves as they are at their prime right now. I didn't capture what I wanted to - the sun was already leaving - but I took a few photos. They don't come anywhere close in capturing the beauty of the day - maybe tomorrow!

These dangling pine cones caught my eye and got me inspired for the coming holidays.

I was hoping to post my Illustration Friday idea tonight, but just barely got the sketch done and started getting it drawn digitally now. So tomorrow is my hope.

I wanted to say hello to all the new folks visiting my blog. I am so excited to see posts and love checking out everyone's blogs. It is very inspiring. Thanks to all of you for your wonderful comments - they mean a lot! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Hiker Girl Card Pack

I was very flattered when another designer where I work asked if I would make her some cards of the hiker girl I drew for Illustration Fridays topic "Extremes" to give out to her fellow Girl Scout leaders. I did a pack of 10. I included 100% recycled envelopes. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Re-used Paper Notepads

I have accumulated sooo much used paper from work over the years that I finally decided I better get to producing the notepads I have been wanting to make. Usually I just keep it in a drawer next to my desk and print on the backside or use it for sketching out roughs. But I am on a mission to post more about my passion for recycling, reusing and reducing. These are a couple examples. I am going to do a few other designs as well. I think they turned out nice and just perfect for a list writer like myself. You should make some too!


Some of the papers have a lot more printed on them than this example, so it keeps it interesting. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Pumpkin + Chocolate Chips

Remember how I told you all that I really like to bake during the fall season, well this week was no different! I saw Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bar recipe on Martha Stewart's site and knew I wanted to make them. I had all the ingredients and looked up how to make pumpkin pie spice, which was way easy. I altered the recipe and used whole wheat flour and egg substitute - it came out great and I can feel a bit better about eating one (or two) since I made it all healthy. Ha! Well not quite, but definitely healthier. It's worth a try and great for this time of year. We are going to avoid over eating, so I will share some at work tomorrow.


Yum!

I have been working on other projects (doodling mostly) I should have something soon to share. Much to do for the holiday season! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

My First Card Swap

Yippy! I received my first creative bloggin' exchange today.

I love looking at Flora's blog and when I saw she had a couple printed cards she wanted to swap I jumped right in. It was the cutest card and I was excited we were going to do an exchange. She wrote to me and said she sent it Saturday, and I got it today..Monday! Talk about speedy "snail mail"! From Kansas to Oregon in two days? So I was very happy to see it already got here. I mailed her card out today. I hope she likes it.


Here is a picture of the great card (love this illustration and colors) and a couple sheets of stickers! They are so cute. Very happy, thanks Flora! This was a lot of fun. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Illustration Friday - Extremes

Here is my comparative of two extremes. I have to say I am a bit more hiker girl than shopper - but they were both fun to create!


I also had doodled this bonus illustration, that I thought I would put up as well. Hmm, wonder which took a bit more time to create!? :)

Thanks for taking a look. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Silverware Packaging Reused!

I've been digging through my "container" container (ha!) and having time to actually label them with their new function. Here is my new color pencil container, made from packaging that I got new spoons in several years back. I have hung on to it for a while because I knew it had another purpose.


I hope this inspires people to re-use packaging or containers and give them another use. It really makes me feel good to know I am doing something to help the earth and organize my stuff! :) Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Illustration Friday - Open

Nothing more exciting then a big present to open on your birthday!

I've been playing around with new techniques. Here is one that I like and will play around with further.

Thanks for peeking in. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Dog Bone Label

So being that I am a huge fan of the 3 R's - recycle, reduce, reuse - I decided to use this plastic Parmesan container I had been hanging on to for the dog bones. I threw on a label with my dog illustration and even did one for the lid! The whole time I was shooting this photo my dog was a mess wondering what I was doing with all the dog bones. (She got one since she waited so patiently for me to finish the shots)

This weekend is planned to be a busy one for me. I will have photos to share soon. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Illustration Friday - The Blues

The Blues, I enjoyed creating these two. The imagination goes wild with what they would do once set in motion. Now lets hope they break out in dance or maybe their wild Interpretive Beat Box Dance. It's quite the sight to see, I'm sure!

Oh, and leg warmers aren't JUST for ballet dancers, ya know. Some folks that grew up in the 80's might even have an old pair lurking about and can relate to The Blues' love of them. :)

Thanks for looking and enjoy the weekend! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Things I like

A quick post for this wonderful Wednesday. I recently got my dining table completely cleared off and have started playing with centerpieces to have in the middle. I bought these two little vases, 6 or so months ago and they haven't been getting the center of the stage treatment I had envisioned. Now they are. I really love them and I love the placemat as well. So simple and just so pleasing to look at. I'm not sure if they will stay there, but till I have a better place they are the stars! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Deliciousness

I absolutely love to bake and this love really kicks in once the Fall season starts. Something about baking brings me such peace and happiness (not just because the end product is amazing either!). I prefer it over cooking, and I like cooking. So last night I made Glazed Lemon Pound Cake with poppyseeds (2 tablespoons). It turned out sooo good. We added fresh strawberries and some whipped cream to complete our dessert - it was amazing! The recipe makes two loaves, so I took the other to work and it was giving rave reviews. Give it a try. Sorry no pictures of the whipped cream and berries, we were already eating before I could think of it :)


Chris made some Raspberry Jam today. I think the color is so beautiful that I had to take a picture. He makes such great jam! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

I'm no Philatelist

But I do adore collecting postage stamps. In the last 10 years I have become a pretty avid stamp collector. Before that I would keep cool stamps I found or letters that had unique stamps, but just sort of tossed them in my keepsake boxes or amongst other random items. But now I am officially calling my self a collector of stamps. I believe it is a part of my addiction for cute things that are sticky - stickers, bandaids, post-its - you get the point.

Today I received my latest fulfillment of postage stamps. I end up spending a lot because I have to buy 2 of every kind that I want. I got these online for the first time and was very happy to have them delivered - I hate waiting at the post office. When I ever - so rarely - walk into a post office and I don't have to wait I almost feel like I have hit the lottery. Man, those lines can be baaaad. Okay, so back to stamp talk, I got a good fix of them today and thought I might as well come out and admit I collect stamps and show them off.


This is my favorite out of the bunch. It's amazing what great stamps they have, ranging from simply beautiful, unique, funny, nostalgic, meaningful, and colorful.


Great color and design. Perfect for any celebration card you send!


It's Star Wars, gotta have 'em!


These were just so pretty and colorful, I couldn't pass them up.

I heart stamps! :)

(Side note: I'm not sure how often I will use the online service. There is a bit of excessive packaging. Which is nice if you are keeping them in the individual wrapping, but if you aren't saving them for any reason it does seem a bit excessive.) Tweet Follow @kellymedina