michelle my belle

My Girls!

I haven't had much time to blog or create while traveling from gift show to gift show so I'm going to have to show pics of my precious ones! I took this shot right before I left for NY, Alexis wearing the coat that I ACTUALLY bought for myself and for some ODD reason thought it fit me. It fits her perfectly so I totally don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I had tried on a different one! She does look awfullly cute though!

What can I say about this one! I love how expressive she is, well... most of the time. Looking at this picture makes me laugh.

I was going to post my newest set of neighbors here at the NY Gift Show but I forgot their bizness cards in my booth to link to their sites.... tomorrow!

Check out these "cookie pop valentines" from the Catching Fireflys blog. Super cute!

Shawn McDonald

Shawn McDonald (click here to see his too cool site)

If you've never heard of this guy... you're missing out! He is amazingly talented. Come to find out he's even related to Brad who works in the Allen Designs studio!

This is what Christianity Today's site says about him "McDonald's tender is his honest lyrics. Neither inexplicit generalities nor simple saccharine praise are found on the album. Rather, Ripen exhibits poetic pop ("Free," "Pour Out"), soulful howling ("Perfectly Done," "Salvation"), and vulnerability (the autobiographical "Lovely"), à la Damien Rice, Cat Stevens and Ben Harper. The artist's gravelly voice, wrapped in atmospheres of cello, violin, acoustic guitar and sophisticated noise, provides several snapshots of a journey in progress."

Some New Friends!

Here is the view from inside my booth at the Atlanta Gift Show. I know... a bit late. I just got home this morning from L.A. (CA Gift Show)and I leave on Friday to NY(gift show). Hopefully the weather holds out and doesn't scare too many buyers away. This is Lee Strayer and his wife from Goods Path Global out of Indiana.

Linda from Koch Originals out of Indiana.

This is David and his company Import Enterprises from Canada.

And Terri from Copper Worx.
There were a few others but they were missing from their booths at the time of picture taking. This is the largest gift show in the US, it's made up of 3 building that are linked together by sky bridges. Many get lost! It's suprising how much "STUFF" that we don't need that we continue to purchase. Only in America...

Atlanta Gift Show

Hours and Hours of set up and this is what you get. Today is the last day of the show, it'll take us about 3-4 hours to break it down. The show has been pretty good. I wrote several new accounts, had sample requests from several catalog companies and potentially found a distributor in Canada. In the morning my mom goes home (if there's not too much snow in Portland, OR) and lucky me, (NOT) heads off to the California Gift Show in L.A. for a week.

I did meet this guy and his wife that are here at the gift show for the first time that have an UNBELIEVABLE product and they are the nicest! Check them out here at Landmark Pictures.

Presents

Check out this cute wrapping that Sweet Petunia did. Don't you just want to tear into this gift. I'm so bad with wrapping that more times than not I simply present it in the original plastic/paper bag it came in. Maybe this will be a New Year's goal!

"Ski Ya Later"

Hello from Atlanta. I'm here at the Atlanta Gift Show selling my wares. I'll post some pics of my booth before I leave here. My wonderful mother came with me and I'm actually sitting in her friend Audrey Jeanne's hotel room (she has free internet and my hotel wants to charge me $15 per day!) to post this. We had about a 10 hour set up without food! Uhgg! I retired several designs and added a bunch of new ones so we had to totally reorganize. This guy pictured was created thinking of my LONG time customer Bruce at Zing. He has only been asking me for a skier for about 7 years! I should see him in NY, I can't wait to surprise him.

Anna Maria Horner is a blog that Audrey turned us onto that is pretty great with some good ideas.

A Day of Painting...

A day and a LATE night! My wonderful friend Jean came over tonight and knitted her little fingers to the bone while I painted. She gave lots of opinions on color combos! Thank you! I'll show you these designs finished into clocks later. Oh, Jean also reminded me of the give away ornament... I think I'm going to change that to a clock (one of the new designs)!

One of "those" days!

This was one of "those" days. Do you ever have something in your head so clear and great and then you try to put it down on paper and nothing goes right? I worked and worked and worked on this piece. At one point I got so depressed that I had wasted half the day and still didn't like it that I attempted to lay down and take a nap! I just couldn't let it go and just move on to the next piece. Finally, after almost the entire day, I think I have it to the point that I can live with it. This piece was inspired by some of the funky plush lines (like Moopy & me) that I've seen around that I love.

Stepping Back a Few Days

Christmas was great this year. We didn't go crazy on gifts. We made time for family and friends. I got my presents wrapped the day before Christmas! We celebrated the birth of Jesus. We joined a group from our church and went downtown Portland and handed out food and clothing items to the homeless and needy (this was probably the highlight for our entire family, something that will be a tradition through out the year). We went night skiing at Mt.Hood Meadows (first time for the girls night skiing).

My friend Tammy and her family were the ones to encourage us to come serve downtown Portland. I'm so glad she did. It's funny the things that intimidate us!

I made ornaments with my kids, something that I've wanted to do for years.

Sold the painting off my living room wall. I better get busy, it looks so bare after taking all of Christmas down : (

Spent a great New Years with the Hurts, Hooks and the Millers. Thank you!

Last but not least, took down a very DEAD Christmas tree! All in all I would say this had to be one of the best holiday seasons that I've had. I'm excited about the New Year and setting some New Year's resolutions (which I usually do on the airplane to my first gift show in Atlanta, I leave on Wednesday so I'll let you know what I come up for after that!)

Thank you to all of you for celebrating with me and for putting up with me and all my quirkiness! I love you!