Appeal Magazine

Back in the middle of August, I got asked by a fellow local blogger if I'd be interested in illustrating for her column in our local magazine Appeal. I was unsure at first because I had not seen the magazine and I am not too keen on the local magazines I see around town. So I picked up a copy and was pleasantly surprised by the printed quality and the quality of the content. Yes, it's still a Texarkana local magazine, but it is by far the most well executed one in town. You can read it online here.

Robot Dance Party

My friend Sarah contacted me in July asking me to design a birthday party invitation for her son who was turning three. At that point I was pretty excited because my favorite kind of invitations to design are for birthday parties. But then she proceeded to tell me that she wants to throw him a robot dance party and wanted to have "emo-bots" drawn on the invitation. Haha! This was one of the coolest birthday party ideas, I'd ever heard. And I was loving the idea of giving robots some emo flare. I wanted to pull from some of the design elements of classic vintage robots from the 1950's and 60's. So below is how the invitation turned out, along with some pictures she took from the party. I was blown away to find out she had the cake designed from the invitation with the little emo-bot sporting the mustache. She did a great job making the party come to live.

Home Improvements

So, Kelly has become obsessive about re-lining (re as in we have done this before) the kitchen drawers and shelves. He went and bought scrapbook paper from Michael's. He measured, cut and taped the paper in our drawers and spent a little too much money in the process. But it is actually a really good idea since it is nearly impossible to find contact paper with a good design on it. Here's an example of one drawer he completed. The other's are in progress.

After a 10 days, my Kombucha is carbonated and ready to drink. The picture below is what my bottles look like after the second fermentation that lasted 3 days. I added chopped cherries in two bottles, fresh crushed blueberries in another and lime juice and ginger to my fourth bottle. But you don't have to add any fruit at all and it is just as good. It's amazing how this started off as sugar, black and green tea and now it is a fully carbonated healthy drink.

vegan, vegetarian, and cruelty free adventures.

As of recent my husband feels very passionately about only eating meat and dairy from local farmers or from farms with a cruelty free environment. I support his convictions and have semi-vowed to go along on this adventure with him. We both understand where we live it is going to be extremely hard to live by these standards, so we are going to do the best we can. The key to success so far has been the planning and thinking ahead. The biggest challenge so far is to resist cheese, butter and eggs! Luckily we've been able to purchase farm fresh eggs and raw milk cheese from vendors at the farmer's market in Little Rock. But that supply will only last for so long. I personally don't have as strong a conviction about eating dairy. And the vegetarian recipes are way more tastier than the vegan recipes I've tried. Ali told me about Sunshine for Dinner a local farmer who delivers batches of her harvest at a low cost. This might be our way of attaining eggs along with some veggies and herbs.

I'm also going to start making Kombucha Tea. I've been hearing about it from a couple of my friends. It is a fermented tea that brings many health benefits: increased energy, improved immune system, and better digestion. I won't go into the details of making the tea or how it works because it doesn't sounds very appetizing at all! But if you want to read into it go here.

source

School starts this week! It hasn't hit me yet, but I'm sure it will when my alarm is going off 5:30 and my head hitting the pillow 14 hours later. My feet will be sore from standing and I probably will have a cracked voice from not using my teacher volume in 2 months. Pray for me!

august update!

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. I guess July was more jam packed that I thought it was. July was filled with celebrating Kelly's 28th birthday, and our 3rd wedding anniversary. I also taught private art lessons in my home for two weeks, as well as, getting an early start back to school with some inservice and classroom preparation.

For the next three months I won't be taking any mint&honey custom orders. I want to focus on helping my husband finish our updates on our house so we can get everything in place and actually relax and have normal evening at home. So I will be welcoming orders again starting in November, just in time for those custom designed christmas cards.

Here's a recent prayer card I created for a lady that's going to be spending the next year in the Congo teaching. It has a watercolor background with hand drawn designs.

Grocery List & Recipe Cards

In case you didn't know I'm a little obsessed with maps. I decorate with them and like using them whenever I can with my art. I've used a vintage map of the Swiss Alps in the design of this grocery list. It's 4.25"x5.5" 50 sheet pad.

These double sided recipe cards have a hand painted damask design. They are 4"x6" cards, sold in sets of 12 for $10.

These all would make great gifts!

Recipe: Strawberry Basil Lemonade

I just came across the most wonderful summer drink on Tastespotting. You have to make this instantly! I knew without a doubt that this drink would be delicious because of the strawberry mozzarella salad I make regularly. It would be perfect at any party, shower or for lounging by the pool.

Strawberry Basil Lemonade from What's Gaby Cooking

Ingredients:

10 Lemons juiced

3/4 cup of sugar

4 cups of water

8-10 strawberries, hulled

1/3 cup of fresh basil

Directions:

Juice the lemons and transfer the juice to a large pitcher. Add the sugar and the water, stir to combine. Add the strawberries and the fresh basil. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture for about 20 seconds until everything becomes pink and the basil is finely chopped. Serve with lots of crushed ice and enjoy!

*If you do not have an immersion blender, add all the ingredients to a regular blender and it turns out just fine.