Farm Yard Family

I'm still slowly catching up on sharing all my most recent commissions. I feel like as soon as I finish one, three more come busting in! Which is great! I just end up falling behind on sharing them that much faster...

This sweet little book was another Christmas commission from last year. I made this one for Amanda, the founder of Old Yeller Ranch Rescue. The story follows her sweet little son and his adventures on his Grandmother's ranch with all her animals. You can see more photos of this sweet book on my website.

Papa's 75th Birthday Guestbook

Last weekend, my family descended upon Las Vegas to celebrate my grandfather's 75th birthday! It was a pretty bizarre weekend filled with nicknames, alpacas, drag queens and awkward family inside jokes. 

To commemorate the occasion, I made a little guest book for the whole family to sign. My grandpa lives in southern Utah so all the illustrations inside were reminders of Utah and his ranch. I particularly like how the cover turned out. It's a bit of a combo of my custom state watercolors and doodle cards. 

Here's a little peek at the book and there are more photos over on my website too! 

weekend of shopping mayhem

Happy belated Thanksgiving! I hope you are warm and cozy and still under the influence of a delicious turkey induced coma! If you haven't seen on Instagram, I'm currently over in Utah with family. More or less off the grid too. There's no cell service back in the canyon and wifi only works around the house. So when we go off on 4-wheeler rides up the little winding trails, we are completely disconnected. And it's lovely!

I'm taking a quick break from the incredible technology silence to share a couple quick reminders! As I'm sure you know, today is the dreaded Black Friday. I have mixed feelings about this shopping day but there are some great deals out there to snatch up. 

Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday! This day is one of my favorite excuses to shop! Shopping combined with supported small businesses, hard to say no! Then Monday is Cyber Monday for all those last minute deals you may have missed (or opted to miss in order to stay home in pajamas!). 

I have some sales happening in the Notional Notions Etsy shop and the Sketchy Notions shop as well! If you're on the mailing list, you already got a head start on the sales but now everyone can get in on it! Until midnight on Monday, you can use the coupon THANKFUL20 for 20% off in BOTH shops! (This excludes custom work in the Etsy shop, sorry!)

Also! If you order over $40 worth of goodies in either shop, I'll throw in a set of Holiday cards for free! Hooray! There's also some other coupons in the Sketchy Notions shop. PRINTLOVE gets you any TWO large prints for $32! PEARLYLOVE will get you THREE pairs of Pearl Snap Earrings for $30, a nice way to knock out some of those stocking stuffers. My special listing for a pair of earrings, a card and a hand-printed pouch is still one of my favorites too! 

Happy early Holiday shopping guys! I hope you are able to find some gifts (maybe even for yourself!)

Have you found any killer deals? Any Etsy shops having amazing sales out there? 

Kristine & Jean Claude's Guest Book

It's rare that I get to make something so special for a special friend. Even more rare that I get to deliver it in person and sign it myself! Last month I had the privilege of making a custom guest book for one of my dear friends Kristine, and her then fiance Jean Claude. 

Originally, I was making a guest book to be used at their engagement party since the two were planning to elope next year. Then after all the toasts, the two announced they had already eloped the week before because they couldn't wait another minute! And so the engagement party turned into a sort of wedding reception! So sweet! 

The party was held in a rose garden here in the Santa Ynez Valley, so we added lots of roses to the inside of the album. We kept the album simple, elegant and very lovey-dovey. I added some lace detail down the front and back covers and a little illustration of the two of them on the cover. It was such a sweet guest book! You can see more photos over on my website. 

hello again hustle & bustle

Hello again. I've been back for two weeks three weeks almost a month (I've been trying and failing to write this post for that long...whoops). Honestly, it doesn't even feel like this summer ever happened. It's like this chunk in my recent memory is just misplaced...something has been forgotten. I've been carrying Quarto around with me to show family and friends what I did this summer and this sadly seems the only way to remind myself it actually happened. Everything has returned to the normal groove so quickly, it's like I never left. Oofah. 

I started my lessons with Arts Outreach my second week back and everything else has just been a blur of adjusting, car shopping, catching up, cleaning up and working. I may have been silent here on the blog but it has been a flurry of activity in the Art Bubble ever since I landed! Here's a little peek at what I have been creating these past few weeks. Surprisingly it has been a lot of illustrations for wedding invitations! SO fun! I still have a few more projects to share as well. And the new Fall line (and Holiday line!) will be making an appearance soon! 

My friend Dhvani commissioned me to make some watercolors and a map for her wedding invitations. This was the first time I watercolored a map...I may be a little addicted. It was pretty fun. Any other takers for watercolor maps?

This series of three watercolors was for a sweet lady named Karens. She had such a pretty vision for her invitations! The large watercolor of the country garden will be the background behind a laser cut gate sleeve. I can't wait to see the final invitations for both of these sweet ladies! 

the Tale of Kat & Dan

Back in January I was contacted by the sweetest gal who wanted the sweetest children's book to surprise her husband with on their wedding day. I've had insanely sweet requests before (remember the surprise Wedding/Honeymoon album?) but nothing of this magnitude. The story of how Katarina and Daniel met (then met again) is epic, and I'm not using that word lightly...

Katarina shared the full story on her blog but here's a quick synopsis: Katarina and Daniel both grew up in Croatia. Their families were good friends so the two pretty much knew each other since birth. They even have a photo of Dan blowing out the candles on Kat's first birthday cake! When they were young, the war in former Yugoslavia broke out. It forced both families to flee from their homes in Croatia and take refuge in Austria. After some time there, Dan's family got Visas to move to Australia. Kat's family tried to follow but their Visas were denied so they went to Canada instead. 

Fast forward many years...both their mothers had stayed in touch with each other but Kat and Dan were essentially strangers. So when Dan calls to ask if he can stay with her family in Canada, Kat was less than pleased. But once they met again, they hit it off right away and their whirlwind romance began! 

Such a perfect story to turn into a children's book. I had so much fun collaborating with Katarina on this book. Definitely top 5 favorite projects of all time! Here's a peek inside but there are more photos on my website as well. 

Michele & Reneé's Tuscan Wedding Album

I think a lot of girls that study abroad in Italy have had a day dream once or twice (all the bloody time) of having a picturesque Tuscan wedding. In an old church tucked in an old town, celebrating in a villa surrounded by vineyards, with wedding photos complete with rolling green hills. Oh yes...that is a beautiful daydream...

It's a little crazy to actually know someone who has had that dream Tuscan wedding. Meet Reneé and Michele. Michele and I became friends a couple years ago during my internship at the study abroad center in Castiglion Fiorentino. Not long after, Reneé was studying abroad at the same center and met Michele. The rest is pretty romantic as you may guess. 

So when Reneé asked me to create a custom wedding album for their insanely gorgeous photos, I had to say yes. The photos were unreal! Their photographer Taylor Abeel did an amazing job at capturing the special day. This project was pretty unreal too, having piles of gorgeous photos to work with and the sweetest couple to collaborate with.  It may be the closest I get to a dreamy Tuscany wedding, but it was definitely the dream wedding album project to be a part of! Here's a peek and you can see more photos on my website.

A Surprise for Henry

I really love my clients! It's always fun to get a new email or message on Etsy with a truly unique request...every one seems more challenging and cuter than the last. I swear my clients always have the best ideas for books or albums, and this newest book is no exception. 

A good friend of ours wanted a custom children's book for her niece's little boy who is about to become a big brother. Through the entire pregnancy, he's been saying that there's not a baby in his mom's belly...he heard some stomach growls and was convinced there was a baby lion inside! Over time he has also thought there has been baby monkey or elephant too. Cute, right? Amazing prompt for a story? Most definitely! 

The lion page is my favorite from the whole book! There's a couple more photos of this sweet book on chelseawardart if you're curious.

new year, new rules

Last sunrise of 2013!

So New Years Eve came and went without much of a fuss at our house. To be honest, I was in the middle of taking a break from working to watch some Big Lebowski and work on a puzzle and didn't even realize we had passed into 2014 until 12:08 am! A calm beginning to a year that is going to be anything but calm...

There are a lot of changes coming to Sketchy Notions this year! I launched the first one on New Years Day: price changes! My Etsy shop is slowly but surely gaining traction and helping support my little Sketchy empire. It has been years since I changed my prices so the time has come. The changes aren't that large, a couple dollars here and there, but just enough. I think the quality of my work has improved greatly since I first started offering custom albums, books and watercolors and I want my prices to reflect the confidence that I have in my ability to create a unique and valuable product. I'm also rearranging products, shifting cards and such to the Sketchy Notions shop to leave Notional Notions just for custom goodies and artist books. 

Another biggie and quite awesome thing happened yesterday too! Back in September I applied for copyright of Sketchy Notions. I got a phone call from the Office of Patents and Trademarks yesterday to finalize a couple details, meaning in a matter of days or weeks Sketchy Notions will officially be trademarked! This doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things but it makes this little business of mine just a little more mine, legally speaking at least. Plus having the legal protection of that little © will give me a little more peace of mind spreading my work across the interwebs. 

The newest addition to my Etsy shop: custom watercolored cards! Perfect for weddings...

Other notable news to share, I won't be going to Japan this year after all. But I will be going back to Italy! It has been over a year since I was last among the cobblestone streets and Tuscan sun and I'm itching to hop on the plane! No dates yet but this also means another sketchbook like Terzo is in the works. What do you think of the name Quarto? Quarto Quadro? Q²? 

The last bit of news to share is that I won't be doing another list like 25 before 26 this year. With Sketchy gaining speed, I lost focus on my original list. I still accomplished a lot on that list and a significant number of things not even on the list! So this year I'm switching it up. I'm currently working on a new list: 12 goals for Sketchy, 12 goals for Chelsea. Still a daunting number of goals (24!) but by separating my business goals from my personal ones,  I think I will be more successful at accomplishing all 24. I'll share all of those soon once I can figure them all out! 

bits & pieces and Monday goodness

Is anyone else kinda freaking out that it's already December? Christmas will be here in no time, then the New Year, then my birthday and Etsy shop anniversary! It will be my golden birthday (turning 26 on the 26th) so expect some sweet sales and giveaways! And then Valentine's Day...if making Christmas stuff on Halloween felt strange, I'm sure making heartsy stuff on New Years will feel just as weird!

Speaking of sales, it's Cyber Monday! Today only, I upped the ante on the discounts! If you use the code MONDAY20 you can get 20% off in both the Sketchy Notions and Notional Notions Etsy shops! There's no minimum order today but the coupon won't work on custom orders. So stock up on some hand-printed wrapping paper, Pearl Snap earrings, travel postcards and Holiday card specials! 

Here's a peek at what's been happening this past month according to Instagram...

1. Last month I had my first Holiday market in Santa Barbara at Monte Vista! It was really fun decorating and trying out some new booth arrangements. It went surprisingly well too! I had an awesome booth slave helper who kept me going and on top of everything all day! I really have some awesome friends. 

2. I don't think I've shared a photo of these babies on here yet but I started making some little Holiday gift tags. Aren't they cute? I think they look great with my hand-printed wrapping paper but I might be a bit biased...

3. I've been getting ready for my next market, a Holiday Open House at Koehler Winery. It's such a pretty spot here in the valley! I've been cranking out vineyard watercolors like a fiend but it's no easy task.

4. Not sure why it took me so long to carve up a stamp just for me! But I finally did! It looks pretty snazzy stamped across packages.

5. My family and I had an early Thanksgiving down in San Diego with my sister. I haven't spent much time down in San Diego before but I'd like to!

6. Remember these little books? They both found new homes! I love when my little books find new homes, it always feels like I'm sending my baby off to college or something...

7. I even made some little pouches to keep them safe! Make me want to sew up some printed scarves...

8. I'm still in love with these Thank You cards. I wish I could send one to all of you sweet readers and clients and followers. You make the hard days and long to-do lists so much easier! 

cyber friday business weekend extravaganza!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the day and feasting upon mountains of stuffing and mashed potatoes! I have a little surprise for you all, so snap out of that turkey coma...

I'm sure you're already aware of the craziness that starts tomorrow...Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. All of which adds up to the potential for a lot of insanity out in the shopping world, but also the chance of some sweet deals! Including in my own shops! 

Starting at 12:00 am on Friday November 29th until 11:59 pm Monday December 2nd, if you use the code WEEKEND15 you can get 15% your order in the Sketchy Notions shop and the Notional Notions Etsy shop! Huzzah! You have to purchase at least $20 worth of goodies, and I'm sorry but it doesn't apply to custom orders. But you can still snag some sweet goods, including the newest items in my shops...

1. World Traveler Postcard Set

2. Marigolds Blank Card Set

3. Blushing Denim II Mini Artist Book

4. Dark Posey OOAK Notebook

Jaime's Custom Wedding Keepsake Album

This sweet album took me a while to finish but it also one of the most unique requests I have had so far! Jaime contacted me asking about making an album to hold her wedding invites, announcements, newspaper clippings and more...as well as actually attach them inside! Definitely a first, and a challenge!

Luckily Jaime had a gorgeous invitation suite that was the perfect inspiration for the rest of the album! We decided to use the little swirlies from their invites as background details on all the pages and under all the matted cards, invites, clippings and more. We even added some pages at the beginning that detailed Jaime and Russell's first meeting, their first date and the proposal! The result was a very elegant and one-of-a-kind album!