Fun Freebie: My Birdy Valentines

Some little birds for all the lovelies in your life. You can download a sheet of them from my Fun Freebies Flickr set & print your own. How sweet!

Fun Freebie: Patterns for Colouring

Check out the awesome Patterns for Colouring blog to download tons of cool, free patterns! Perfect for coloring as relaxation, making some art to spruce up your work area or giving to the kiddos as free & creative entertainment. This site is really well-organized & searchable by tags such as organic or symmetry. Fun stuff!

Fun Freebie: A Snuggle Herd Dot-to-Dot

I've been hard at work on an activity book that I hope to have ready this spring. It will have coloring pages, dot-to-dots, complete-the-picture pages & more! I wanted to share my first completed page with you, and would love to hear what you think. If you have any kiddos at your disposal, please print this out for them & let me know how they like it.

How to print: Use the "Download the Original size" link on this Flickr photo download page. The "original size" file is sized to fit on an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. Enjoy!

Fun Freebie: E-Postcards by Eric Carle

Who doesn't love Eric Carle? His illustrations are so joyful & adorable! Four designs from the book, Eric Carle Decorative Prints are available as e-cards from Chronicle Books. By the way, Chronicle Books has tons more e-cards in case The Very Hungry Caterpillar isn't quite your style!

Fun Freebie: Lovely wallpapers from Ecojot

Spiff up your desktop to start off the new year in style! Ecojot, a Canadian paper line with pretty illustrations by Carolyn Gavin, is a fun site to peruse. Download one of her lovely wallpapers here.

New Fun Freebie: Monkey Hangers

Yesterday I finished a new Fun Freebie for May (which I do realize is practically half-over - sorry for the delay!). Fun Freebies are a new monthly thing I'm doing to promote my line and try to build a following on my blog & website. They're also a fun diversion from sewing for me - I really enjoy drawing & it's a nice change of pace. I also plan on doing kids' activity books & craft kits in the future, so most of these Fun Freebie illustrations will find their way into those as well. And of course, I can use them for my ready-to-color stationery line, too.

{Editor's Note, 1/29/10: I'm no longer creating new Snuggle Herd Fun Freebies monthly, but will continue to add new ones periodically. You can see them all in my Fun Freebies Flickr set.}

I'm really happy with how these little monkeys turned out. They're based on my newest almost-finished toy designs, Max & Molly. I'm really close to having the stuffed toy versions ready to go, but I've run into a bit of a snag with the design of Max's hat. Hopefully I'll be able to work that out & get them listed soon. I'm hoping to have a few ready to take to the Green Market Festival at Austin Children's Academy this Sunday (gee, isn't that what I said before the LAST craft show I did?!).

Anyhoo... I will have some of these monkey hangers cut out to use as giveaways, in any case! I think I'll put them out with crayons as a little craft activity for the kiddos. I sure had fun coloring some of my own, as you can see. I'm partial to drinking coffee while I color and drawing wonky stripes & polka-dots in the background.

After I colored & cut them, I went around the house finding places to hang them. They're cute hanging just about anywhere! on a lamp or bookshelf...

on a wardrobe...

or in the kitchen as a reminder to buy more bananas!