I am not dead!

Only nearly.

The pneumonia is still hanging out, I have been in and out of the hospital.

As a result, my shop closed for awhile, and when it re-opens (momentarily) it will be at:
www.cremetangerinedesign.etsy.com

Mr. Tangerine has moved on to greener pastures. He's not dead either. Just in Frisco.

I've moved a few blocks down the street from our old place with a certain Mr. James Trevino. Those of you who have known me awhile may remember him from my high school days.

I am glad to have you back, internet!

Thank you to my customers . . .

Thank you so very much to everyone who's purchased from me during this hard time . . . the stars are aligning just right so that with the etsy stores I think we are going to make it.

In other news, I think I popped a bubble in my lung this morning in the shower . . . it doesn't hurt anymore, at least, and it made a weird noise.

My first ever ACEO is up at http://www.theglasses.etsy.com/: It's a bit of a study for a larger painting I'm working on.




And Chris is doing some tribal paintings, like this:




And Chris doesn't have to leave for Kansas just yet, and I'm super glad.

Sorry for the long absence!

I've had pneumonia (Still have, really), and it's quite expensive when you don't have insurance and don't have paid sick time from your job yet. Cross your fingers that when I come in Monday I'm not dismissed. I still work for a temp agency, so they can do that if they feel like it.

Therefore, there is a PNEUMONIA SALE going on in the store at http://www.cremetangerine.etsy.com/- I've lowered the prices on almost everything, and added a bunch of new items (mainly flower pins, since I can make them sick in bed) and those have free shipping.



Christopher and I have also opened a shop together, for our art, at http://www.theglasses.etsy.com/. I hope you'll come by and find something you like:




In other, (but related) news, Christopher and I will be moving out of our little house we love so much. With all the expenses from the pneumonia and missed work we just can't afford it anymore. So May 1 we are moving to a different city, just outside Dallas, and will be renting . . . the house across the street from my parents! It's actually bigger and I'm sure we'll settle in to life there. One awesome thing about it is that since our lawnmower is broken, and the ordinances in Mesquite are different than in Dallas, I can get a GOAT! I want a small goat and I want to name it Nanny.

Christopher may be going away to Kansas for awhile to do some work to try and get some money together so we will make rent. We've never even been apart for a day. I will miss him enormously but I will try to use the time to start the paintings I have in my head- illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.

We have prints!

Thanks so much to the speedy answering of questions from http://www.theblackapple.etsy.com/, and http://www.berkleyillustration.etsy.com/, we were able to get prints made and in the shop posthaste! Here they are:









8x10 prints are in the shop at www.cremetangerine.etsy.com for just $10, and some originals that we will not be making prints of are in shop as well. Many thanks to the aforementioned who helped us! All but the first image are part of a series to (hopefully) replace cheesy posters in music teachers' classrooms with real, music-related art. The first one I just had to paint because I love it.

It's nice to be working on this together with Mr. Tangerine- our styles are just a little different- I did the first, the little boy with the bass guitar, and the boy with the headphones, and he did the others. It's good to be painting again!

TMEA, music video, and flower pins.

Whew! TMEA is over! I couldn't have done it without the help of my wonderful Mr. Tangerine. Here are some pictures of our booth:










See the paintings? Those are coming very, very soon to creme-tangerine. Maybe even today. There may be a split in my shop's future, one for my goodies and one for paintings.

But for now, check out the new items in my shop at http://www.cremetangerine.etsy.com/:





And, for your viewing pleasure, a music video Mr. Tangerine and I made on the way home from San Antonio. The song is our own. (www.myspace.com/planetariums)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6QneJLU-9A

Etsy Spotlight: dizzyspinnery and sarahjanestudios

While the holiday rush (and job-hunting, boooo), has us in a frenzy around here, I thought I'd do an etsy spotlight since it's been awhile.

First up is dizzyspinnery. (http://www.dizzyspinnery.etsy.com/)
I knit the scarflette in my last entry out of some of her yarn and boy howdy, I love it. Her prices are awesome, and the yarn is well cleaned. Sometimes handspun yarn has bits of twigs and grass in it, which is totally understandable, but miss dizzyspinnery must go to painstaking care to clean hers because I've never found a bit. And the yarn I've bought from her is always so vibrant and soft!





The other feature for the day is the lovely art nouveau work of sarahjanestudios (http://www.sarahjanestudios.etsy.com/). It's so vintage and whimsical. If I had a little girl I would happily wallpaper her room in these prints, and I may very well do mine once I land the sweet job I interview for tomorrow.





That's all for now. I'm working hard on Christmas gifts and gearing up for TMEA (Hello, 23,000 shoppers!) in February. See you soon!

Some silly things and a serious thing.

Scarflettes:



That's the first one available in the shop (http://www.cremetangerine.etsy.com/).

Ikea:

We bought FOUR sets of shelving for 30 dollars! This for the fabric:



And three of these for CDs and DVDs:


Ikea is nuts. They actually hand you a map when you go in. It was a little overwhelming, but worth it to get some things organized on the cheap around here.

In other news, my friend just called and asked Chris and I to play a few songs at an acoustic show tonight. I am totally unprepared. Spur-of-the-moment shows are always the most fun.

Now for the serious thing. In all the backlash against Jennifer Love Hewitt being called fat, there's a lot of skinny hatred going on. Read these comments and imagine that either a) you are naturally thin, or b) you have an eating disorder and are thin as a result:

"Real women have curves".
"Men don't like skinny women".
"She looks better than those anorexic supermodels."

Can we get control of ourselves, women? Instead of declaring one body type to be "real" or attractive, acceptance that beauty comes in different sizes, colors, etc. would be much more productive. And much less hurtful.

I'm tired of hearing eating disorder diagnoses hurled as an insult- it's like 'anorexic' has become equivalent to 'materialistic bitch'. It's a disease, not an insult. I know that before I became very familiar with eating disorders, I thought that there must be a great deal of satisfaction in being thinner than everyone else. The only satisfaction in an eating disorder is effectively killing yourself. Please leave these miserable women (and men!) alone to recover.

Why are we talking about one another's bodies at all? Why is that okay? Whether your body is what you are born with, what you have sculpted, or a symptom of a disease, it's pretty well your business and no one else's.

That's all I'll say on that for now. Until something upsets me again.