Happy Birthday Johan!

In honor of my boyfriend's birthday today I created an extra special What's in My Mountain Bike Bag illustration since he's a huge mountain bike nerd. I think this is the manliest illustration I've created to date!

Happy Birthday Johan!

p.s. On a side note the countdown until moving is now down to only 1 day! So please excuse my absence for a week or so to move house and set up my new studio space. Eeeek! So excited!

Blogger WIMB: Christin with a CH

Hello Wednesday!

Today I have the pleasure of showing off this cream colored beauty featuring the bag favorites of blogger Christin of With A CH. This girly's got style, humor and is even clever in the kitchen... plus she's got great taste in bags. (Love that camel color!)

Can I add that I'm really pleased with myself for the gradient shading job on the Stella bottle too, haha.

Make sure to check out the entire Blogger What's in My Bag series here on Pinterest and you can always get one for yourself too here on Etsy. :)

How Do You Take Criticism?

I'm pretty good at taking criticism. I believe it must be thanks to my 20+ years of dancing ballet in front of floor to ceiling mirrors with dance teachers nit picking on my body and every move; so I've built up a pretty thick skin and great confidence in myself. I've also learnt to see criticism or any sort of feedback as positive. I noticed in ballet that the dance teachers only corrected you if they cared about you getting better. (It's true! They didn't bother wasting their time on students who don't try or don't have the right attitude.) It's difficult hearing someone comment on your skinny wimpy "puppy dog arms" or your slightly not so flat stomach ("Kristina, you look like you just ate Thanksgiving Dinner.") but I learnt to take criticism in a positive way rather than letting it eat away at my confidence or cause fits of crazy dieting etc. I thought constructively, "How can I do this better...?" and then do it. (Sounds silly but it's easier than you may think.) Professionally it's hard to take criticism, because it's so personal. The lines were drawn by my hands, the colors and motivs were chosen by me, and my business is run just my me. But I'm aware that everyone doesn't have the same taste; which is fine by me and I don't let it get me down.

In the internet world, negative comments seem to come from a different darker place (they don't care about making you better like my dance teachers did) and this is really unfortunate. Thankfully since my brand is still rather small I don't receive many hateful comments and have been lucky to only get really positive, happy, and appreciative comments/feedback/emails/blog features which I am so thankful for. I actually can't believe all the kind words I receive each month from customers and admirers of my girly illustrations. I have pages and pages of amazingly positive comments to read if I'm ever in a bad mood and they instantly make me happy about my work again.

A few ways I deal with criticism:

• Straight up nasty mean comments with no point such as "Your works sucks!" etc should be ignored completely especially when anonymous. How lame is that?! People who take the time to leave unconstructive negative comments have their own problems. Let's let them sort that out for themselves.

• Constructive criticism such as "You should use black inked lines instead of gray lines. Your work is unclear." may actually help you figure out what your clients like and may even be fun to hear or help you develop your style. This may have been a stylistic choice so feel free back up your choice or to comment a thank you for their input.

Week 20

This week I strangely haven't had any custom projects to work on (or rather I was really quick and finished them all on Monday already) so I've had extra time to start preparing for the big move next week. What have I been doing? This...

• I've been purging my closet of all old, worn out, unloved clothes and accessories. (Oh my Gosh, I have way too much clothes!)
• Been throwing away (recycling) old magazines and papers I don't need as well as lots of junky sketches and drawings that are taking up too much space.
• Purging my medicine cabinet of dead/ugly/unloved makeup and skincare products. (This one was actually fun, and I've even stocked up on a few new much needed things.)
• Only just packed 1 box, but we're crazy and plan on packing everything and moving in the same day. (We worry, we don't have that much stuff.)
• Been writing lists and planning all the items we'll be needing to purchase for the apartment and my new workspace. (Been calculating how much everything will cost too, ahhhh!) Even gone to a few stores to check out a few items to have them in mind while planning the new space.
• Plus I've been twiddling my thumbs hoping that time will go by quicker and it will be next week already. So excited!!!

Have a great weekend!

The Great Gatsby

The second illustration in a new collaborative What's in my Makeup Bag series with the great great great beauty blog The Beauty Gypsy is now live. Woo hoo! And this one is featuring the iconic Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gastby... and I love it!

You must must must go to the blog and read how to get the Daisy look right away... here!

I'm pretty excited to see the film as well. Haven't been to the movies in forever, and I think this film will be a good pick. Glamour and Glitter!

Printshop

How did you go about finding great printshops?

This one is actually rather simple. To find a printshop to create my prints in my area I just googled it. I choose the printshop that was near to me, easy to order from, and the cheapest. I've only ever just tried this one printshop and I'm really really pleased, so I don't think I'll switch shop any time soon. They are cheap, they don't require a minimum order, the quality is great, their turn around time is rather quick and it's only a few stops from my apartment. Perfect!

When it came to finding a printshop when I started dreaming about producing silk scarves was a little more complicated. It was absolutely impossible to just google this. I tried though of course, and was in contact with a few companies in other European countries and China. The communication was either really difficult or the amount of scarves I would have to order was just too much.

So I gave in and asked some one. What!? That's crazy, no way I would actually dare ask someone for their contact... but I did, and the nice illustrator girly who also makes scarves actually gave me the contact information for her custom silk printing shop in England. The prices were nice and there weren't any minimum orders, the quality was also really really nice. (As you would know if you're one of my silk scarf's lucky owners.)

I have a few other products to produce in mind and for those I have either asked other illustrators producing those items for their contacts or sometimes the products state where they are made on the packaging.

So my simple advice is just to search your local area for a printshop that suits your needs or just ask someone. I think people are much more open to share than what you'd might think.

Marinara

For our fancy Saturday night dinner this weekend we made a simple though very very delicious and elegant Pasta Marinara; oversized pasta shells with a fragrant fishy tomato sauce and a mix of shrimp, mussels, clams, and squid. Paired with a crisp and very cold Italian white wine. Marinara sauce is quickly becoming my personal favorite, much more exciting and delicious than the regular plain tomato sauce variation.

Recipe: Pasta Marinara

Ingredients:

• Mixed Seafood (I chose a frozen ready mix at my local grocery store, though one could of course use a mix of fresh/canned or frozen.)
• 1 can crushed tomatoes
• 1 glass or so white wine (either what you're drinking or purchase an extra small bottle like we did.)
• Fish stock (one stock cube or equivalent)
• pad of butter
• 1 small onion diced
• 1 carrot diced
• 2 garlic cloves minced or crushed
• 1/2 fresh red chili de-seeded and minced
• pinch sugar
• fresh parsley for garnish

Start by heating a frying pan and melting the butter. Add the seafood for a few seconds to flavor the butter. Remove the seafood and set a side. Add more butter if needed and slowly sweat the onions and the carrots. Once soft begin to add the garlic, chili and sugar. Stir for a few minutes until fragrant. Then add the crushed tomatoes, fish stock and the wine. Allow to simmer for at least 15 minutes on medium low heat, better for 30 minutes. If the sauce reduces too much and becomes too thick add more wine.

In the mean time cook your choice of pasta, we choose Lumaconi. Once the pasta is al dente and drained. Add the seafood to the sauce to warm through (not too long though or it will get chewy) also add the fresh parsley at this time. Then combine the sauce with the pasta and serve right away.

We added a bit of parmesan (sometimes seen as a no no with Italians) but it's yummy, so go for it!

Enjoy!

Studio!

Hello Monday!

Time to share with you what I've been dreaming, designing and planning for the past few months... my new studio space that I'll have when we move in just 11 days to our new apartment! This is just a sketch of course (though I did photoshop it rather to scale) and it most likely will change once I move in and see how all the furniture looks together etc. But this is how I've kind of decided I'd like my new space to be set up. Let's take a look... (pardon my goofy wonky scribbles, still not quite used to writing on my tablet.)

I feel insanely dorky showing you this, but I'm going to anyway. So the majority of the furniture I've inherited from family including the two desks and the mini red velvet armchair which is nice since they are the big ticket items. I'll only have to purchase a few additions such as lamps, a few storage items from Ikea, and other prettifying bits and bobs.

Pretty excited to have a larger work space with two desks, and hope that the L set up will work out nicely. Right now every time I'm going to start a drawing I have to clear my desk. I'm also really excited to lift up my scanner/printer and store it on the Alex drawers which I now store on the floor under my desk. (Not exactly comfortable every time I have to scan something.) The Alex is going to be great too since it's the perfect size to store all my drawings which I don't really have a good solution for currently.

Also excited I can make the space as girly as I want because it's my space, no boys allowed, hehe.

Week 19!

• For the majority of this week the boyfriend was in Scotland with a few guy friends mountain biking and enjoying the idyllic green sheep covered scenery, leaving me alone at home in a very quiet apartment. I forgot how boring and quiet it is to live on one's own, especially sad cooking and eating dinners for one. :( Other than lonely dinners I thought it was kind of nice to be able to set up my days as I pleased and made sure to do lots of girly things (ie. go shopping for lipstick), and watch lots of girly movies Johan would never watch with me in a million years (ie. don't even want to fess up what I watched, haha.)

• One very exciting thing that did occur this week, Spring or rather Summer arrived in Sweden. Yes! On Tuesday the temperatures finally managed to reach the 70s, and all bushes and trees burst into bloom. I gave my fall/winter boots a last polish and packed them up (won't see those until September yippie) and have gone sock-less and jacket-less for the first time this year. Yes! Double yay for ballerina shoe season and no need for a million layers. Not quite ready to show off the legs just yet though (shockingly paste-y white alert!) Thinking I'm going to have to invest in a little self tanner or a few minutes on the balcony before starting to wear all my dresses, skirts and shorts.

• In other news, the count down until moving to the new apartment is now down to under 2 weeks!!!! eeeek! I'm overly exciting and just can not wait to pack up all of our things and move into the new place and get everything organised in it's new home. I'm going into planning overdrive. There is just so much to be done to get this new apartment ready (and I want it fixed/perfect/and liveable as soon as possible... no unpacked boxes that we'll take care of "later".) We have to get painters to come a paint a few of the rooms, there is furniture to be found and purchased, and all sorts of organising to be done, especially closet wise... not to mention a billion pictures to be hung.

Hope you're having a great weekend and will have a great next week!

p.s. Happy Mother's Day to all you Mothers today, especially my Mother who I'm really sad I live so many thousands of miles away from. Love you!

Blogger WIMB: Chanel Files

Hello Wednesday! (and hello neglected blog, oopsie.)

I've got another great Blogger What's in my Bag collaboration to share with you today. Featuring the super stylish Chanel of Chanelfiles (I mean if you're named Chanel you're destined for style, right?) I adore the girl's love for pops of color too. Pretty jealous of that gorgeous neon green satchel (though I think I'd go for neon pink)!

If you're not familiar with her style you must check out her blog right now here...
and if you'd like to see the entire Blogger What's in my Bag series you can view it here...

Have a great rest of the week!