Saturday, March 28, 2009

Lovely lovely...


Its been kind of hard financially around here for the past few weeks. Freelance projects seemed to have shriveled up for me. I don't know if its the economy or what, but I'll need to find a "real job" at some point. It kind of sucks because I really liked just hanging around all day doing whatever I wanted. :P Its a shame. 

I got an email today from webs.com saying that my naranjapanda.webs.com website is the top#1 site created this past week. That's nice to know. I did update it this past Thursday. I'm gonna try to update it every Thursday with a new webcomic. Let's see if that works out. XD 

Besides moping around, I did get to work on more etsy projects. I finally got my camera back today. Here are a few things that are about to go into my etsy shop in the next few days.  

Dandelions Printable Digital Card and Envelope Set (includes a designs for general use, "Happy Birthday" and "Thank You."

Paisley Girl Printable Digital Card and Envelope Set (includes designs for general use, "Happy Birthday", and "Thank You".

"Orange you glad to see me" 5 x 7 embroidered art print. 


Friday, March 27, 2009

Let's get crafty, ya'll





I decided to do things a little differently with my collage sets. My illustration style keeps morphing depending on my mood and what inspires me. I've also been doing alot of pattern designs as well and wanted to incorporate that more into the collage sets for my etsy shop. I've decided to create separate PNG files for each graphic as well, which should allow the user to use them for a wider array of things besides just cutting them out of one sheet of paper and gluing them. That means they can use them to make their own cards and stationery. Wouldn't that be nice? 

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Webcomic Website

So I decided to move my webcomic and its archives to its own separate website. Take a look!

http://naranjapanda.webs.com

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Life's hard when you're a glum plum.

I totally remembered that I have a webcam! Its not perfect, but at least I can still take pictures! Here's what I've concocted the other day! Its a glum plum. HAHAHA. XD I know. I'm so poetic. :P These are also hand-embroidered art prints. Signed and limited edition of 50. As soon as I get my Nikon back, I'll list them on etsy. :D


Don't mind my dorky self in the background. 

Apples to apples

What a slow week its been. Feels like its been dragging on! I've finished a few more art and stationery projects but alas, I will not have my trusty Nikon for the next week and a half so I can't upload pics of them yet. I'm itching to though. I'm really excited about them. :D

In the mean time though, this was the last project I photographed. They're apple shaped hair barrettes I sewed out of felt. :D Again, I've come to that fork in the road of indecision where I can't decide whether I just want to keep them and use them or sell them. Why must I always come to this conclusion? 



In other news, despite having gone through four years of design school and learned the pitfalls of printing, it seems that no matter what I try to do to print my art prints on my home computer, things go terribly wrong and I end up with a bunch of un-useable prints in the trash. On one round, the paper gets jammed. The next round, I accidently place the finished print on something wet and it gets ruined. Next round I realize that my printer scaled the image down so it was not at the correct dimensions! OH MY GOD.... somebody SHOOT me in the face! The paper I'm using is not cheap either. And neither is the ink for my printer. *Sigh* Its like I'm in college again... crying over my project that can't seem to print right and it happens to be due in three hours.  

Monday, March 16, 2009

Typography Tuesday... even though its actually Monday.

I thought today I'd have some fun and search for random images that just have cool typography. This has been something I've done since I took typography in college and it always amazes me how flexible type can really be. You can stretch it, manipulate it, twist it, texturize it, shake it up and throw it against the wall, and it still spells something. No matter what you do to those simple strokes that make up the structure of a letter, you will still be able to "read" it as a letter. I am particularly in love with hand-drawn type though. 

Here is just a snapshot of some creative possibilities with type. 










Friday, March 13, 2009

Paper and thread: Hand embroidery!

The other day I thought I'd try my hand at embroidery work. I must say that it gets quite addicting for some reason. :P I sort of figured it out on my own but you can find tutorials online on how to do embroidery work on paper. That's what I did here. 

Apple Embroidered Card

Apple Embroidered Card

This is just a basic hand-embroidered greeting card. Not so bad for my first time, I must say! I had some great little brass brads to attach the embroidery to the actual folded card. Made my life alot easier, and it looks pretty classy! I can't wait to try this on textured watercolor paper!

Its okay to be geeky.

It's okay to be geeky.

I also did the embroidery work on this art print I was working on for the etsy shop. It looked boring before I added the embroidery work. All of a sudden, it perked it right up! Fun stuff! I don't know why it took me this long to actually doing embroidery work. :P Paper and thread were meant for each other.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Panda better hold on to that kite! Its gonna blow away!

Panda loves to fly kites. Especially his bamboo-themed one. :P I've decided to introduce art prints to my etsy shop this week. Very exciting. I have one more to unveil that uses embroidery techniques but I'm still working on it. :P These will be limited edition prints. Only 50 will be made. They are signed, numbered and dated. :D

Go where the wind takes you

"Go where the wind takes you"
5" x 7"
Digital Illustration on Heavyweight Matte Paper


Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The sun hurts my eyes but I keep staring anyway...

Leafy Bunny Printable Card

Some new items for the shop today. The printable greeting card will have two messages on the file that you download from me. One that says Thank You" and another that says "Happy Birthday" (not pictured). I figured people always need those two types of cards on hand at any given moment. :P



Leafy Bunny Printable Card

Panda and Friends Collage Pendant Set

These were also fun to make as well. These little guys are a new shop item and they are typically used for collage or scrabble tile pendants for necklaces. Apparently they are the rage on Etsy so I thought I'd throw in my two cents. I gathered all of Panda's little friends! :D These are also printable, but of course, you can request anything in my shop to be printed and shipped to you under a custom listing. Just convo me to let me know.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

I have a love affair with folded paper.

New card designs this week! I haven't listed these yet as I am still working out the kinks in the PDF files, but I just couldn't resist posting them right away. :D These are shaped cards. A little more intricate to cut out but still pretty fun to make. Hope people will like these. :) 

Happy Panda! Printable Card


Happy Panda! printable Card


2 - Watermelon


4 - Watermelon