Certifcate heading to Rome

This is a certificate that I finished last week. I don't do many of these anymore, but I got a call from the Archdiocese and felt I should say yes.... They needed me to design and letter this certificate to be given from the Archbishop of St. Louis (Robert Carlson) to Cardinal Raymond Burke (who used to be our Archbishop). And the cool thing is that it is going to be presented in Rome this weekend. I was pretty nervous, and I knew it wouldn't be perfect, but I did pray each time I sat down to letter and I didn't totally mess it up, so that must count for something! They were actually very happy with it.

100 sales on etsy

I finally had my 100 th sale on my Sign Language Collection shop! It's taken almost 2 1/2 years! I guess I am a slow learner....I know that I should list multiple items everyday, and I have good intentions, but then life takes over. Like this morning we found that our bikes had been stolen out of our garage..so I called the police and then had to go to the bike shop to get a copy of the serial numbers for the report. (That was very helpful of them.) But it all takes time, along with working on orders and other jobs, here it is 4:00 and I only relisted one sold item and renewed an expired one!

Last Friday I did spend quite a bit of time trying to list things that had never been listed before, and the item in the picture is one of those new pieces. Well, it's new to etsy...truth be told I've had the photo sitting on my desktop for ages! See what I mean? Anyway, you can personalize this by ordering any name or word in a stand like this, because obviously you wouldn't want my name!

ACTS retreat

This is the logo I did for our parish's ACTS retreat. I am on the team again this year and am helping with the name tags and printed materials as well as playing guitar and singing for the masses. I really like being on team and it is a great bunch of women as usual. We are in the process of getting women to go on the retreat now, which can be challenging for our parish since so many people have already done it. Besides being a spiritual renewal, it is also a great way to meet other women of the parish who I've never met before--which is basically anyone who didn't have a child in one of my boys classes! You know how that is!

Beating the heat...

It's 100º outside today! Same as yesterday, when I had absolutely no energy. Today, I am trying to beat the heat by being focused on something.....and that is my etsy site. I have two now, and I am about as good at keeping them up to date as I am this blog! I have such good intentions! Today I listed 4 or 5 new pieces of art work on my new Build A book etsy shop and did some revisions and reorganizing. I'm excited about this project but not doing a very good job of getting the word out about it. So, I think I am going to try to add it to my facebook profile.

I thought this artwork was rather appropriate for this posting, but I guess only because I really want this season of the hottest summer ever to end, and for fall to begin!

Happy Birthday Erin

beverley24 asked that I post a birthday wish for Erin in graffiti letters....so here it is!

Alphabet poster

Okay, today is our school picnic and since my kids are too old to want to go, and it is way too hot out there, I am killing time listing another of my alphabet posters. I really like the girly colors in this one and hope that is something that will appeal to girls with "different" names. I never had that problem as a kid--there were always "Kathy" items when looking at "personalized" things, but my sister's name wasn't always there or wasn't spelled right. So this gives kids a chance to have their name up there with all of the other "usual" names--- like it's always been that way. Another cool thing about this poster is that I can change as many of the other names as you want--so if you want to include your friends and family names you can (but only one name per letter). Click on the photo to go right to that item or check out the rest of my work in my etsy shop. Thanks for looking!

Alphabet poster idea

I had a new idea this past spring to create alphabet posters using my Sign Language Collection letters! So this is the first poster: "Words to live by". I have a couple of alphabet posters for kids too, where their name is featured and titles the poster such as "Kathy's alphabet". It's been pretty fun to put together. I think that people will like that I included where all of the letters are from in tiny caps running up the left side of each letter. They are listed on my etsy site, I hope you will take a look!

St. Ignatius prayer

Just finished this for the SLUH auction. It is lettered on a piece of wood that we had cut to fit inside this frame that someone had donated--already gold and black. Then I painted the board black, added the gold around the edges, and then lettered "Saint Ignatius' prayer for generosity" in a shiny black in the background--can you see it? I felt like it was going to need a little more interest there. I didn't want the gold lettering too big, so this was my solution. This was the first time I ever really layered lettering on a piece of wood and it worked great. I'm really happy with the final product--hope it brings some money for the school. That prayer is usually our biggest seller.....

I love this 5 x 5 art

I just love doing these 5 x 5 inch pieces of art! They use a little calligraphy, some art paper that I've made in the past, and sometimes photography and it's just fun to put all the pieces together and make them look good. I hope they look good to others! It would be nice if I could eventually sell some....I'm trying to get enough done to offer in books on a new etsy site. I'm thinking of calling it Build-a-book. But I will also offer the 5 x 5 prints by themselves or in frames. I think a grouping of a bunch of these would look cool on a wall as well. Just need to keep creating.

new 5 x 5 art

I've finally got my office organized and started back to work on some art for my small book idea. I really enjoy doing these little pieces of art. I need to get enough done to start an etsy shop dedicated to my special order books.

Catholic Schools Week

I made a banner last week for our parish school to celebrate Catholic schools week. The theme was "Dividends for Life". At first I thought "what am I going to do with that?" Then I must have gotten divine inspiration because I came up with a great idea--make it a little like a dollar bill. I spent 4 hours making it and listening to the soundtracks to the TV show GLEE. I had a blast! I was really proud of how it turned out too. It was 24 feet long so very difficult to get a picture of, so I am posting the center piece only.

5 x 5 art

A couple more pieces of 5 x 5 art...I'm thinking of starting a new etsy shop to sell these---either in the books or as 5 x 5 prints. I found a cool black 5 x 5 frame at Michael's that would be great with any of these pieces.

build a book

I'm excited about a new idea I have to sell books like the one I made for Alex in November! The idea is to custom make that special occasion book for a family wedding, baby, graduation or possibly even a book to uplift someone who is sick. I will have a lot of sayings to choose from, and the customer can choose a cover and as many pages as they want from my stock. And even include a personalized title page and maybe that one special saying of theirs. The format is 5 x 5, and so I am posting some of the pieces of 5 x 5 art that I've been working on lately.