Hi friends!

Since February life has been a busy jumble of traveling, family time and weddings! There's been some great time of self-reflection, inspiring scenery and lots of hugs from the people I care about most :) But I am thrilled to now have some quiet time to write down my experiences and figure out how it's affected my work. I'm not a great writer and I don't plan on sharing much of those stories here, but it's been amazing to feel my experiences change me. I feel challenged, I feel excited, I feel closer to myself.

Here is one of the first pieces to kick off these next few months of experimenting. Surfing has been a new, life changing experience for me this last year. I love the ocean more than I ever realized! and I look forward to creating more work centered around that love.

A gift for my Daddyo

new custom portrait listing:

up in the shop today :)

A simple gift for a simply sweet friend. I love you so much! and am so excited for the season of life you're in :)

Alex Woo-hoo!

I'm trying to do better at making gifts, quickly and without over thinking so my lovely friend's birthday this week presented a great opportunity for just that.

I love singing, dancing and eating whenever I'm around Alex :) He has such an amazing "host" heart, he cares so much for people, has big dreams and loves being absolutely silly. This image is about a particular night when Lana Del Rey rocked our world as we laid around pondering life and enjoying the cold hard wood floor in his new empty apartment.

Happy birthday Alex!! Here's to another year of board games and dance parties :D

fashion cat

Petty

A little illustration I did of a friend's sponsor child.

Alexis + Brian

Gosh I love love. And I love weddings. And I love drawing wedding dresses!

I wanted to give a little shout out to Alexis and Brian on their six month anniversary today, woot woot!!  Happy anniversary you lovebirds!! I hope you have a lovely celebration and that today just gets you more excited about all the adventures to come. Cheers!

oh little Emery :)

This week it dawned on me that I haven't posted any pages from Twirling Skirts of Magic! An indication that my "to do" list has been building up for quite awhile, but I am happy to finally get this one crossed off (plus I love crossing things off lists, why is it so fun?!).

Looking through the TSOM pages made me realize how much I miss spending time with Emery and her skirts. She's such a fun character with such a real heart. The author, Esther, has great plans to keep Emery's message alive. Most recently I've been hearing that she's working on releasing a clothing line of twirling skirts :) I can't wait to see them!!  

If you haven't ordered your own Twirling Skirts of Magic just yet you can now get it on Amazon! Esther has stayed true to her heart and her vision for the book by giving 50% of the profit to Pearl Alliance, an organization that is currently reaching out to help girls in Cambodia.

So as promised, here are a few of my favorite Emery moments :)

Kelly + Clint

 

Lately I have been working on getting things ready for my etsy shop, happy little heart. One of the items I've been most excited about offering is custom portraits of couples. 

These two lovebirds, Kelly and Clint, just tied the knot in July! Kelly was a friend of mine in high school that I've been able to reconnect with and I must say our rekindled friendship has revealed the true beauty of social media. Kelly has a beautiful heart and an attitude of honesty that you can see in her blog where she shares the awkward and awesome bits of everyday life :)

I hope everyone's enjoying the change of seasons! I'll be announcing the opening of happy little heart soon soon so keep your eye peeledddd

<3

Jesus Art Show

 

This is my submission for this years Jesus Art Show at Ringling College of Art + Design.

So many abstract things come to mind with the prompt simply being 'Jesus'. When I think of Jesus I think of this huge limitless love. I think of divine purpose, of creation with intention. But when I got very quiet and asked myself what have I been learning about recently… freedom was the first word that came to mind. Freedom is something the Lord has brought up to me quite a few times before. You see I've lived life with a lot of worry. I have worried about what people thought of me, about how I looked, about the possibility of being sick, about the idea of death. It's ranged from tiny things to huge things. I grew up believing I was a worry wart and there was no changing. While in college I began to realize when I live with all this worry I am only half alive. I'm partially present. Then the Lord began to show me that I wasn't made to hold onto all this worry. I am not created to sit around and be fearful, I was created to seek after the Lord and put my trust in Him. To live everyday in freedom. It was a life changing discovery and something I still strive to live out each day. So through my piece I wanted to depict things that Jesus always brings with him. These three things have changed my life and helped me become the person I know I am made to be.

The beginning of another school year

Recent freelance done for the children's ministry at Words of Life Fellowship Church. It's hard to think everyone's heading back to school already. Where did the summer go?!

new series!

Hello hello! Hope everyone's been having a great and glorious summer :)

It's been awhile since I've posted so I wanted to give you a quick late night update:
Twirling Skirts of Magic finished up mid July right before my beautiful sister-in-love's wedding + my birthday + family vacations. The first dummy book has been printed and Esther and I couldn't be more excited!! A big big thanks to everyone who helped make this book a reality. This wouldn't have been possible without you. Keep an eye out, I'll be posting some of the work from the book on here soon! For now here's a sneak peek of my new series "my love for you is..."

Kickstarter: Twirling Skirts of Magic!

A few months ago Esther Marie contacted me with her vision for a children's book. She had met several little girls that had been rescued from lives of sex trafficking while on a trip to Cambodia. The experience stirred Esther's heart to reach out to girls and women around the world. Her bright smile and never ending enthusiasm really moved me. Reaching out to girls had been on my heart for awhile and this beautiful opportunity had been placed right before me!

After months of talking + doodling with Esther I am excited to share Twirling Skirts of Magic with you :) The story of Emery was created to inspire and educate. To help girls come into a better understanding of their true worth and to show them they have the ability to make a difference in the world. Another part of Esther's vision was to create an opportunity for her readers to change lives. To do so she is sending a percentage of the proceeds to Cambodia and Thailand to support their orphanages and safe houses.

Esther Marie is one of the most ambitious women I know, whose dreams and expectations climb beyond the sky. I am so blessed to be able to be apart of this vision.

If you would like join us in making Twirling Skirts of Magic a reality (or just learn more about the project) please check out TSOM's Kickstarter page.

Little Cupcake

 

the brides 

ahh the last project of my college career!

I started the semester knowing I wanted to create a children's book but wanted to visit a local school for inspiration. The classes I was able to work with were a lot of fun! I brought found objects into the class and had the student draw characters from them. It was really interesting seeing how each first grader created such different things from the same object. From that experience I decided I wanted my thesis to focus on cupcakes. I decided to make a twenty-four page book, and from those I chose three to take to final using felt and thread.

Now how did the brides come about?

Wellllll the brides were created when I could no longer stand baked goods :) They were a wonderful relaxing sub-thesis.

Ringling has been a great season full of learning, discovering, and amazing individuals. I couldn't have found a more beautiful group of friends anywhere in the world.

I know the future holds great adventures for us all

<3

a series of ms. little-red-hood

hmm super poopy colors on my laptop. 

go invest in a nice mac, then see the beautiful colors :)