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I'm lovin' Bloglovin! It sends you email updates when a blog you follow has a new post. This is great since I read soooo many blogs; I can sign up for updates for the few must-reads that I don't want to miss! I use Google Reader also, but I can see how Bloglovin will be useful to me in keeping certain blogs from getting "buried."

I just signed up Crafty Mishmash, so you can receive my updates via Bloglovin if you like. Just click the pic to the left here (an illustration by Danny Roberts).

Outdoor Oasis: Finished Brick Patio

Our patio extension has been finished since early November, but I'm just now getting around to posting about it. My super-handy husband, Patrick, did all of the hard work himself, and I think he did a fabulous job! He used unwanted antique Chicago bricks from a local contractor, found via Craig's List. In this photo, he hadn't yet filled in all the gaps around the patio's edge, but that's done now.

Here's how this area looked when we first bought the house, just over a year ago:

We've made quite a few changes in addition to the new patio:

• replaced the windows (as well as those on the rest of the house)
• sledge-hammered away those humongous rocks around the pond so that it's more integrated into the landscape & less Flintstones-y
• painted the inside of the pond black so that it almost disappears & looks more like a real pond & less like a teeny-tiny swimming pool
• removed those mind-bogglingly random pavers from around the pond & re-purposed them in other parts of the yard: the small square ones are now flower bed edging, placed on end & buried deep so that only a few inches of each are visible (it looks really good!), and the others were used to build a retaining wall for our compost piles
• created the little rock bed with cacti cuttings from my parents' yard & our suspended flower pots (which are now empty save for one - some replanting is definitely in order!)
  
• covered the ground with weed-blocking cloth & crushed granite gravel to create garden paths between our flower beds
  

We designed the patio together (of course I helped out with that - that's the fun part!), but Patrick did most of the work. I did help with the loading & unloading of all of those bricks when we got them from the contractor's site - 700 bricks! That's a lot of bricks. I didn't help much after that, though.

Patrick poured a foundation of gravel and sand and tamped it down, then laid each brick by hand (which ended up being even more than 700; he had to order more).

The last step was the coolest: sweeping sand across the bricks to fill in the gaps. It was mesmerizing to watch. I even swept a section myself; it was oddly satisfying. You start with a pile of sand, then sweep it across the bricks and it falls in between them, neatly filling in all of the spaces and leaving the tops of the bricks clean. I loved that step!

Of course I mostly love that our patio is all finished now. It looks amazing, especially with the shiny new grill we got as a Christmas gift! We've been using it a lot already, and can't wait for it to warm up so we can have friends over & enjoy being out there.

Next step in creating our Outdoor Oasis: converting that boring covered slab into a relaxing and beautiful outdoor living room! Stay tuned...

Digi-Doodle: Earthy & His Tiny Kite

How can an earthworm fly a kite, you ask? Well obviously, as the illustration shows, he just wraps it around his body in lieu of holding it in a hand (which he would if he could, but alas, he has none). Considering the scale of an earthworm, this kite must be pretty dang tiny, and therefore will probably not catch enough wind to blow away or lift Earthy off the ground.

But maybe because he is so light, being an earthworm, this tiny kite could in fact lift him? I don't know; physics is not my strong suit. Feel free to muse about the likelihood of an earth worm flying a kite in the comments below. ; )

Care to join me in my "A Design A Day" challenge? Do your own doodle, post it on your blog or Flickr account, then leave a link to it in the comments below. It can be in any medium - photography, digital illustration, collage or traditional illustration that you simply scan in - anything you like. I'd love to see what creative things you're doing!

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!

Digi-Doodle: Patterned Elephant

I'm a bit obsessed with applying patterns & textures to things using Illustrator tools right now. There's a pattern called "elephant," so of course I had to try that out! It's the one I used for the elephant's skin, plus I applied a transparent green overlay to it.

This illustration was inspired by a dot-to-dot version of Elsa the Elephant that I'm working on right now for my kids' activity book. Stay tuned for more on that new item!

Care to join me in my "A Design A Day" challenge? Do your own doodle, post it on your blog or Flickr account, then leave a link to it in the comments below. It can be in any medium - photography, digital illustration, collage or traditional illustration that you simply scan in - anything you like. I'd love to see what creative things you're doing!

Digi-Doodle: Crazy Canna

Inspired by sites such as Illustration Friday & iHanna's Creative Space, I've decided to challenge myself to do a little digital illustration each day. Just a quick, purely for fun, no-pressure little doodle; a way to feed my brain & stimulate my creativity. Sometimes these little doodle-y designs may lead to a bigger project, but often they will not (although subconsciously they may start some synapses a-firing in my brain that lead to other ideas that lead to a project down the road). In any case, I just want to have fun with it, not over-think it & just do it!

For this first design, I started by scanning in an old sketch of one of my all-time favorite flowers, a canna. I then used Adobe Illustrator to turn the drawing into a vector image & add colors & patterns. Boldly polka-dotted leaves - sure, why not?!

Care to join me in my "A Design A Day" challenge? Do your own doodle, post it on your blog, then leave a link to it in the comments below. It can be in any medium - photography, digital illustration, collage or traditional illustration that you simply scan in - anything you like. I'd love to see what creative things you're doing!

Pretty Pics: Ice Sculptures After a Storm

I'm soooooo not a winter person; I'm already longing for the warm days & bursting flowers of spring! and apparently, an "arctic blast" is supposed to hit Austin Thursday morning. So I decided to find some photos that might help me appreciate the beauty of winter (Flickr to the rescue).








Thanks, Vilseskogen, for sharing these beautiful photos from New Jersey - they really are lovely.

What's your favorite thing about winter? Maybe y'all can persuade me that it's a nice season after all. ; )

A New Year, A New Look for Crafty Mishmash

've made some changes here on the ol' blog, in the interest of making it a truer reflection of me and my work, creating a more unified focus & delivering a more enjoyable experience to all of you. I have a new tag line that I think sums it all up rather well: Living creatively at the intersection of art, craft & design!

Read on for more about my goals and vision for the blog and my personal work. If you're new to my blog, welcome! Hope you'll have a look around. If you're an old friend just checking in, thank you. You are the reason why I keep posting & I appreciate your readership. Please leave a comment so that I'll know you've been here. It truly makes my day!

Crafty Mishmash is an online journal for chronicling my creative pursuits in the world of designing and making things, from products for my small crafty business, The Snuggle Herd, to renovating & styling my home & garden. I have a love of things handmade, the quirky and the one-of-a-kind, curiosities, antiques and ephemera of days gone by (with a particular penchant for the 1920s), and objects of design that simplify our lives in beautiful ways. I seek to incorporate my passions for art, design & handcrafts into my daily life and piece together a creative career for myself, like a beautiful patchwork quilt of my interests, skills and past experiences in the fields of graphic design and teaching.

My work for The Snuggle Herd is about savoring the simple joys in life, like listening to the soft tinkling of wind chimes, watching butterflies flitting around on a spring day or wrapping pretty little gifts for loved ones. I have always been inspired and awe-struck by animals of all kinds and find them an endlessly fascinating source for artistic imagery. I enjoy creating whimsical animals and giving each one his own personality and quirks. I hope that the items I create with these silly characters will comfort, delight & inspire! My products are durable & unique articles with character and charm, meant to be loved and enjoyed for many years to come. Additionally, I strive to use as many earth-friendly practices as I can in their creation, incorporating reused, repurposed and recycled materials and reducing unneccesary waste, to help keep our earth a place of beauty and magnificent abundance.

Additionally, I'm the founder of EtsyAustin, a wonderful team of Austinites who sell their handmade goods on Etsy.com, and a partner in The WonderCraft, a business I helped create with 3 friends to bring Austin fabulous craft classes, parties & events. You can read more about me on my WonderCraft profile.

Along my creative journey, I gather inspiration from a myriad of sources, both online and in my daily life, which I'll share here on this blog. I hope you will enjoy it!

{awesome pink drop cap courtesy of Daily Drop Cap}

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.

Outdoor Oasis: Ideas I Love

We'll be continuing with our backyard landscaping this spring & transforming our little covered patio into an outdoor living room. These are just a few lovely design ideas I'd like to steal! Read all about our back garden as it unfolds in my What's Growin' On posts.

Photo sources:
1 & 2: beautiful landscaping & vertical gardens from Flora Grubb, via Design*Sponge
3: fun alternating pavers & plantings at the home of artist Dixie Friend Gay
4: adorable succulent teacups by Rebecca Marshall via Apartment Therapy