Before we leave our Atlanta Trade Show news, we want to give a shout out to our neighbors from the License and Design showroom … or at least the new friends who we were able to catch with the camera when they were weren’t in the middle of cutting big new licensing deals. As you can see, we were surrounded by artists from all over the U.S. and it was so much fun to share tips and tricks of the trade, as well as after-show restaurant suggestions.


First, hello to Amanda Murphy in North Carolina, from whom we learned all kinds of quilting tricks. She is definitely an expert as you can see from the beautiful piece hanging behind her, created from her collection, Veranda, produced by Robert Kaufman Fabrics. Amanda’s artistic skills are exceeded only by her enormous amount of energy and excitement for the business of licensing art.


Across the aisle, we loved getting to know the team from Jewel Branding. Julie Newman and Tiffany Cullinan represent a group of talented artists, many of whom we met as they came by between meetings. Since Jewel is based in Atlanta, we also procured guidance for restaurants to try. We were looking forward to real southern fried chicken from South City Kitchen to top off our stay in the South … but, sadly, our booth took too long to dismantle. We’re still dreaming about it, though.


As you can see in the artwork behind Michael Rhoda, it’s just fun to be standing near his booth. As both writer and illustrator for his funny images, Michael’s work can be found on greeting cards and gift products and Michael can be found in beautiful Colorado. Greetings to the Rocky Mountains from the Texas Hill Country, where we have learned that our mountain is really only a hill.




Connie Hayley’s studio is only a hop, skip and a jump from ours … well, in Texas miles. Connie, who was joined by Ashley Winn, works from East Texas. It was so much fun to find fellow artists from our neck of the woods. Connie is known for her eclectic arrangements of textures and patterns often combined with words of comfort and inspiration. So if you are needing to spread a little love, you can buy some of her products here and here.






Lucinda Wei, a graphic designer by training, has experience in branding and logo design, which is evident in the simple, clean and elegant artwork that she creates for licensing. Lucinda, now working from New York, is as lovely as the artwork she displayed in Atlanta.





And the winner for ‘neighbor who traveled the most miles to reach the Atlanta show” is Karen Bumgarner of Creative K Designs from Kailua Kona, Hawaii. Karen creates unique hand-made sculpture of horses and dogs, and sells them throughout the United States. Karen is an animal lover and it is evident by the care she puts into each individual piece. (However, we might need to travel to her studio in Hawaii to fully understand her process!)


We hope you have enjoyed meeting a few of the many creative groups that participated in the License and Design section of AmericasMart. Although we enjoyed reconnecting with our clients and meeting new ones, the moments we spent sharing stories with our artist neighbors were highlights of our trade show fun. So until next time, happy drawing from sea to shining sea.

We’re back from Atlanta, where we had a booth in the License and Design section of the International Gift and Home Furnishings Market at AmericasMart. Imagine every thing you ever wanted to find under your Christmas tree … it’s there. Somewhere. You might not find it right away in the 7,700,000 square feet of stuff, but it’s there! And, happily for us, much of it needs to be adorned with clever and trendy art and we were there with a boothful.

Before we began with our booth-setting-up task, we had to deal with an important issue at hand: HUNGER. Normally, being the foodie that I am, I like to try the hippest new restaurant in town, but starvation had set in, so we went to the restaurant across from our hotel, Bricktops. Happily, we were able to start our week with tasty southern fare to boost our energy: a plate of Deviled Eggs and Sugar Bacon. Sugar Bacon! … as if bacon is not perfect enough. Just add sugar and it’s even better. (My earlier ode to bacon here.)

I was instantly transported to my tween years living in a small West Texas town, when a birthday Kidnap Breakfast meant the possibility of Sugar Bacon. Perhaps it is because I live in a big town now, or maybe it is the fact that the Weight Watchers point values for sugar bacon are a tad high, but I rarely see this famous southern comfort food served in Austin. However, if you find yourself in Atlanta, I highly recommend this delicacy for a boost in trade show get-up-and-go. I think we were on a sugar-bacon high, when we completed our booth set-up by lunchtime!

Our booth was light and airy like you might imagine a new baby’s room first thing in the morning. We filled it with our baby collections and a Look Book full of art for grown-up products, too. We were required to have our booth set up in a matter of hours due to the 5:00 arrival of cocktail party guests, and as you can see by Julianna’s proud smile, we made it!

After set-up, we zipped up to the C.R. Gibson showroom for a Meet The Artists party and ribbon-cutting for their exciting new showroom. Then, back to another Meet the Artists party in our own showroom. (A lot of meeting and greeting goes on at a trade show.)

After our first day of noting trends in giftware, we decided that we needed to note trends in our dinner fare, as well. We popped over to Flip Burger Boutique, a hip restaurant by chef, Richard Blais. Since Jules is an avid follower of BRAVO’s Top Chef, and Chef Blais won Season 8, she was a little star-struck just being inside his restaurant. He’s known for innovative blends of flavor, so we were ready to be daring. We even began with dessert, by choosing one of the Liquid N2 milkshakes. We weren’t brave enough to order the foie gras milkshake, but rather chose the Nutella and Burned Marshmallow offering. It was Italian Picnic meets American Summer Camp. Pure heaven.

Back to work, here are a few pictures of our sugar-induced perky booth activity from left clockwise: (1) Julianna studying the show directory. (2) Our flowers, created by TLC Florist, looked good, smelled good. (3) Cathy and Ellen ready to seize the day. (4) Okay, well, our dear friend and talented artist, Ronnie Walter, told us (actually taught us) about Cash and Carry. Although I was a bit afraid I might lose Jules to the miles of showrooms willing to allow cash and carry, even I fell prey to a couple of value-minded purchases. These are my new chartreuse gloves, because you can never have too many warm gloves in Austin, Texas.

Because it was a bit uncomfortable to take photos of ourselves showing work to clients, our not-so-shy neighbors posed as clients in the photo below: Connie Haley (far left), Ronnie Walter of Two Town Studios, and Michael Rhoda. As you can see, trade shows are an excellent venue for friend making.

All in all, we had a great show and even finished taking our booth down in time for dinner, where we topped off our time in Atlanta with one more plate of, you guessed it, Deviled Eggs and Sugar Bacon. Next posts: New trends and new friends from Atlanta.

I think one of my illustrated characters must have whispered into Julianna’s ear, “I want to be real,” because, I left Julianna sculpting fish, and when I returned to the project area, she was holding Baby Bot’s big sister in the palm of her hand.

Above are the drawings from the Visitors page in the Baby Bot baby book we created for C.R. Gibson. Once Jules created BabyBot’s big sister 3D, she decided to keep on going, because you can’t bring a gal into the world without some friends.

Photos above from top clockwise: (1) Julianna starts sculpting head-first. (2) Jules painting Baby Bot. (3) One of Baby Bot’s buddies tucked into a box across from his 2D-self. (4) Bot Buddies® sunning on a paper plate to make sure they are completely dry before packing them up for their first trade show.

Above, Bot Buddies® are all packed and ready to fly to Atlanta where they are hoping to meet some new friends and enjoy some southern cyber-cuisine.

For those of you who will be in Atlanta for the big gift show, come see us. We will be at AmericasMart, Building 2, West Wing, in the License and Design Showroom, #774. And for those of you who will not be there, we’ll be sure to report back so you will be in the know for gift-giving 2012.

As we prepared for Atlanta last week, you could have literally put a sign on the studio door, “Gone Fishin.’” The MicroFish pattern, (which is one of our favorite designs from the Bot Buddies® fabric collection) was just begging to show up on a variety of product categories. We pulled out our Sculpey box again. All three girls spent some of their home-for-the-holidays time producing fish bodies. Some fish were too fat, some were too flat, (we even had to throw a few back into the sea) … but 10 little fishes were just right to fill our Fishmas Tree.

Above is our inspiration, the Bot Buddies® Big Border panel, which you can buy here.

The Food Network was playing on the television in the background while we worked, which was an odd juxtoposition, because periodically, a tasty fish dish would be featured, and we felt a little uneasy, because, well, our new fish creations were smiling at us … we had bonded.

Photos above from top clockwise: (1) After years of Sculpey play, Margaret makes fish for market. (2) Julianna pulled out the box of CelVinyls (which used to be our medium of choice before Photoshop entered our lives) and starts mixing pots of paint the old-fashioned way.
(3) Jules painting a base-coat on a fine fat fish. (4) A closeup of one of our smiling fishbots.
(5) After painting the fish, we hung them in the trees to dry … if birds could swim and fish could fly …

Just to imagine these busy MicroFish with yet another medium, here they are, below, in thread. We made these mockups to help buyers to visualize these little guys in a powder room at the beach or in a child’s bath upstairs at home. And you can make these, too! (They would be a great “thank you for inviting me to your beach house gift.”) We’ll post the how-to when we return from Atlanta.

And, while all this sculpting and sewing was going on, Margaret had the duty of cutting, and cutting … and cutting our newly received Bot Buddies® flannels for a variety of needs. We now have fat-quarter sets for Atlanta, as well as yardage to go to the members of the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild to cut and sew some fun projects. And although we provided Margaret with a fancy new rotary cutter, Margaret plans on not cutting anything for at least a month.

This week, we will be heading to Atlanta for the International Gift Show at AmericasMart. It has been a busy workshop around here. Thankfully, with lots of Hecklettes home from college for the holiday, we had some extra elf-help for 3-D-ifying our designs.

When we show work to companies, we like to show a few designs in formats that help the art directors imagine the possibilities for their specific items. We thought you might enjoy seeing the way a 2-dimensional painting can be transformed into 3-dimensional critters. First, we started with one of our best-selling collections, Little Pond. We pulled out our beloved Sculpey box, (which has been our go-to-clay for making lots of class projects through the years). This very same box had been pulled out of the craft cabinets many-a-holiday when little on-vacation hands were needing to be busy. And those same hands (now college-sized) jumped right in without missing a beat. Below, Margaret started with the giraffe and then moved right on to the elephants. We discovered that Margaret, who is an animal science major, seems to have a gift for visualizing all sides of an animal, which comes in very handy when one has to imagine what is on the other side of that painting.

Photos above from upper left clockwise: (1) Margaret smooths the giraffe mane with a dentist tool. (Why do we own a dentist’s tool? Don’t ask me, but it really works for sculpey sculpting.) (2) Here is Margaret creating the baby elephant so that he fits on the mama’s back, or it might be a daddy’s back … we didn’t really go into that kind of detail. (3) The white stage … ready for painting. (4) Julianna creates pots of paint for finishing the pond pals.

And, voila! Below is a little group of critters to help one imagine these pond friends as ornaments, or baby banks, or bookends, or bath toys, or game pieces, or, or, or …

Before we head to Atlanta, we’ll send you a couple of other how-to posts, just in case you are having a hankering to start making things pop to life in your house. And, this winter, if you hear some moaning pleas like “mommy, I don’t have anything to do,” I highly recommend Sculpey time. (Or Pluffy™ time, Sculpey’s new clay for little ones.) Who knows, you might have a sculptor in the making … or perhaps, an animal science major!

We hope you have a happy food-eating, game-playing, friend-visiting, family-hugging holiday from Cathy and Ellen

Visit the Jolly Jabber blog at Fat Quarter Shop for a fun star sighting of our new Bot Buddies collection, plus a few peeks at studio life, (including a visit to Neville’s crooning video). AND, since it just happens to be Cyber Monday, and Fat Quarter Shop celebrates this special day with 25% off all the way to Thursday, you can buy enough fabric for all of your 2012 projects. I’m headed over there right now for a little cyber-shopping.

Thank you Kimberly and Stephanie from Cathy, Ellen, and Baby Bot, too.

Here is some background music for today’s post … so that you can sing in the rain, like we are! It rained today in Austin, Texas and it was a real, no-kidding soaker rain. I was in the grocery store when the skies finally opened after months of water rationing and 100+degree days. Everyone came out of the store just to stare at it, as if to collectively say, “what is that?” When I returned home, this is what was waiting for me: our beloved, but possibly dumb, dog standing in the rain … either he loves to be wet, or he just doesn’t have much common sense, as he could have easily waited under the eve. Since I love him so, I’ll vote for “loves to be wet,” but deep down, I think it might be that he is stu_ _ d … hey, look, when you leave the up out of stupid, it spells stud! (Can you tell I love this fella even when he smells like a wet dog!)

And below are pictures of what it looks like outside the studio window, along with two new colorways to emerge from today’s heavenly weather. The first one is called “It’s Rainin’ Rain, Hallelujah,” and the second one is called “Flower Shower.” We hope you are enjoying your weather as much as we are!

After reading Ellen’s post about perfume-making, I was wafted back to a happy scented memory from childhood. I had the chicken pox or the measles … something that itched. I scratched and I whined. I had even tired of my favorite “when-sick-at-home” tv program, Leave It To Beaver. I languished on the sofa, pitiful. In an attempt to keep my hands busy and not scratching, my parents presented me with the most perfect get-well-present-ever … my very own official no-kidding “Make Your Own Perfume Kit.” At that moment, through my eyes, mom and dad suddenly became even more wonderful than Ward and June Cleaver.

The box seemed huge. (Although today I’m guessing that it was about the same size as a Candyland box.) Inside were thousands (okay, probably tens) of bottles and dobbers and all things needed to make your very own perfume. It was like a floral candy factory and I was Cathy Wonka!

And, to my parents’ delight, it kept me busy for days. I became a mad scientist of perfumery. I created every blend imaginable, and then some. Labels were provided, so I could design the packaging and name my inventive aroma blends: Geranium Girl, Smell The Daisies, Cathy’s Love Potion. To this day, when I smell certain sweet smells, I am transported to the short time in my life when I was a prolific and successful perfume manufacturer.

When my chicken pox (or measles) finally went away, it was perfect timing. The oils, bottles, cottons and labels provided were all gone. I was ready to share my discoveries with the world. Off I went to third grade … smelling like a garden!

Do you have a memory of a favorite game or present you received as a child? If so, please share it with us. And, you might want to share the link with the person who gave it to you … perhaps he or she will be surprised and delighted that a little something given has remained a part of the fabric of your life all this time.

And, if you need a distraction for a sick little gal, you can buy a kit full of scented surprises here or here. (Caution: You may have to put your little inventor in the backyard to “air out” from time to time.)

Lately, when I run into friends, they ask me (with a bit of caution), “So, how is the empty nesting going?” I thought my answer would be, “It’s so very sad. I sob every time I hear Miley Cirus singing Butterfly Fly Away.” I had imagined that our lives without our precious children all around might look something like this:

Since we began our new empty nesting phase, these are the new sentences we have actually found popping into our conversations:

Earlier this week, our last little gal, who is now in college, (the one who made the nest officially empty) sent us a link to this video in an email that read, “Here are you and Dad as empty nesters.” Well, most of you have probably seen this video, as I read that it has been viewed by 7.3 million viewers, so far. But I just have to share it again, because this adorable couple will bring a smile to your day. If this is where empty nesting takes you, then we are very excited to be on our way!