Tadah!  Our new collection is born:  we are proud to introduce Welcome Home Noah, published by the wonderful folks at C.R. Gibson.  I just received my samples, and they are beautiful!  We want to celebrate with a giveaway of three brand new pieces to one lucky winner next Friday.  (See photos and learn more at end of the post.)  The photo above shows our samples piled around the studio.  The baby books and several other pieces are covered in soft fabric and embellished with silky embroidery thread, which matches the artwork perfectly.  This is my fifth Noah’s Ark themed baby book collection.  I think the reason I receive so many requests for Noah’s Ark designs for babies is that the giver can feel as though he or she is giving a little blessing to a precious new child.

We designed this group to work perfectly for both boys and girls.  And, if you think the covers are pretty, wait until you peek inside.  The interior pages are so inviting that you will want to fill in every page … but lucky for you, a few wonderful years will need to pass before you record the First Day of Kindergarten page.  The picture below shows one of my favorite pages, the Family Tree.  New parents can fill it in before the new baby even arrives, which is a very good idea, since very soon their time will not be their own … for about the next 20 years!

We created unique patterns for each bordered page and lots of illustrations to help you tell the new story that is about to unfold.

One of my favorite coordinating products is the One-Year Calendar with Stickers.  I loved this product when I had new babies and I was trying to juggle work and motherhood, because the important happenings of each day were limited to one little square.  I could handle one square of info a day and I actually had a fairly thorough record of all those important milestones.  My idea was that later I could refer to it when I had a bit more time to fill in the baby book … I’m still waiting for that bit more time, but, at least I know I have all the info ready to go, one little square at a time.  And until you get around to finalizing that baby book, the Calendar is an excellent story-telling venue … when Julianna was little, she used to ask me to read to her right out of her calendar.  It’s usually a pretty satisfying read, with passages like, “Today, you were amazing.” and “Wow, you said your first word.  You are brilliant.”  I recommend this for an excellent self-esteem builder. Hey, I wonder if there is a calendar about me?

We hope you enjoy our new baby collection with your new baby or a special little one you are about to know.  You can find Welcome Home Noah online at C.R. Gibson.

To celebrate the birth of our new baby collection, we are giving away three new Welcome Home Noah products this week.  The winner will receive a bound Baby Book signed by the artist (that would be me), a First-Year Calendar with Stickers and a Grandma’s Brag Book!  Just add your comment to the comment box below, and we will pick a random winner on Friday, March 12.

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Number 32!  Congratulations to Lisa R, we hope that your sister and her new baby boy will enjoy their friendly Noah’s Ark elephants.

And many thanks to all of you who entered the contest.  We will be having several more in the next few months to celebrate the arrival of Welcome Home Noah in stores, so please stay tuned for more chances to win.  Thanks also to the online random number generator which decided our winner – you saved us on paper and scissors and a hat.

Recently, one of our favorite babysitters from Margaret’s little years, came to town for a visit and brought her own precious little ones.  Here is her cute toddler christening her Little Pond melamine dish set.  It was good to see that it could be bonked, dropped and dinked, and still be ready for mac and cheese.  Also, Neville, our all-boy puppy would like to thank Charity’s adorable all-boy son, for taking him on an adventure trek in our backyard wilderness.  Neville had so much fun that he had to take a four-hour nap afterward!
We loved seeing Charity, our great babysitter-now-teacher and her adorable family.  Maybe one of our girls can babysit for her now!

Here’s a picture we found of Margaret, our now 16-year-old, when she was four, with her wonderful babysitter, Charity, mother of cute toddler above, who was a student at UT at the time.  You just have to love a babysitter who is willing to play dress-up, and hide in tents, and crawl into club houses, and whose name is Charity!

I just received this fun sample … don’t you just want to touch it!  This is a 12” x 12” Scrapbook made by Tapestry and just out in Michael’s. We illustrated the cover with our Noah’s Ark Two of A Kind design, which you have seen on fabrics made by Springs Creative, and combined it with some of the coordinating patterns in muted safari tones.  Several of the animal buddies are tipped-on for a wonderful 3D tactile experience.  I can’t wait to start filling up the scrapbook with photos two by two, four by four and … I better get to work!

On our way home, we stopped into the Jo-Ann store that is in walking distance from Ellen’s studio.  (Lucky!)  And, we were happy to see that our fun Zoophabet cross-stitching kits were there. Dimensions produces them and they include kits for making bibs, quilts, and birth records. Seeing that fresh collection of floss just makes my fingers itch for stitching.

This is what the Zoophabet needlework looks like when it is finished! P is for Pretty Darn Cute.

Our Little Princess patterns were also still at Jo-Ann’s, just in case you are needing to whip up a perfect present for your own little princess.  The birth record panel can even be finished as a decorative pillow fit for a queen.

Speaking of princesses, we recently sent this group of nursery art canvases from our studio in Texas to a little princess way up in Oregon!  We hope Mia is enjoying her fairy-tale room!

When we went to Fisherman’s Wharf to be tourists with about 5,000 other people with the same idea … we found a great carousel.  And our two sixteen-year-olds couldn’t wait to have a brush with childhood, followed by some cotton candy of course! (below: another carousel freshly painted in the studio a few years ago for a baby book collection)

It was such a treat to find this hand-quilted Noah’s Ark Two-of-a-Kind baby blanket on Etsy today at Nana McQuilts.  At the studio, we become so attached to Cathy’s actual illustrations – the two-dimensional art on paper – that it’s always a treat to find these same characters as toys, on ceramics, or in this case, in 100% cotton. While a ceramic seal will always look more slippery than his watercolored counterpart, there is nothing cozier than a cotton panda. That’s what I like most about this quilt: it’s so warm and cozy looking.  I feel like it should be spread out on the grass in summer and before a fireplace in winter…preferably with books strewn over it.

The pieces for making this quilt yourself can be found here, and at any of the Jo-Ann stores.

Looking for Cathy’s Products?

Little Pond

We have received so many calls and emails from folks who are looking for Little Pond products, and we are delighted that you are enjoying our Little Pond critters. You can buy Little Pond products, made by C.R. Gibson, at Babies-R-Us. And, you can also find Little Pond items at BabySakes.com. The melamine dish set turned out really cute, and here’s a fun review of the baby book:

“We ordered Little Pond Baby Memory Book because it matched the nursery decor my daughter chose for her baby boy. When we received the book we both cried. It is so perfect for recording the wonderful memories of his birth and his milestones. We were having a tough time finding just the ‘right’ book but when we found this on we knew it was exactly what we were looking for and we have not been disappointed.”

-Nanee (Franklin, NC)

Cross-Stitchers Alert

Several of Cathy’s designs have recently come out as cross-stitch kits from Dimensions – you can find them at Jo-Ann stores.

Fabric

Jo-Ann stores are also carrying the Little Forest collection for fabric, as well as soft book kits. Soft books are easy to make and fun to give.

Happy Shopping!

Welcome!

Because many of you have known and loved Cathy Heck’s work for over twenty years, we at the studio have decided that it is time to start a blog where we can celebrate the daily joys of creating art for you and your children. We are celebrating a new beginning!

This blog arrives just before the start of one of Cathy Heck Studio’s biggest projects yet: the launch of our entirely new Flash website, which allows you to create for your child – or with your child – a personalized work of art with choices from hundreds of Cathy Heck illustrated characters and patterns. You will also be able to buy coordinating nursery art, and limited edition signed prints of Cathy’s classic beautifully-illustrated scenes, such as Little Pond and Noah’s Colorful Ark.

We’ve been working on this website for over two years now – designing and testing to make sure everything is just right for its launch, which will be so soon! We can’t wait, because although we are technically still in the last stages of creation…

we’re pretty sure that we can see the rainbow at the end of the storm. :)