Aurora Faye

Our sleeping beauty!!!  Born Feb 9, 3 weeks early but very healthy and beautiful!

New (Early) Arrival

So this past Tuesday we got a little surprise - I went into labor 3 weeks early!!! After a long day we welcomed our new baby girl, Aurora Faye, into the world! She is beautiful, healthy and the best surprise we have ever gotten.
We are all home and adjusting to our new life. I will of course be a little busy to post regularly but will try to catch up with everyone soon!
Hope to get pictures up soon too!
Happy Valentine's Day!!

Book Review Sunday: The Nature of Art

This week's book review features a brilliant artist who happens to live down the road from me!
The Nature of Art by John Driscoll features a gorgeous collection of artwork by Don Nice.
Don lives in the Hudson River Valley of New York and gets tons of inspiration from the area, as do I, and creates these beautiful pieces that are very unique. He is not just creating a nice painting of a landscape scene but also incorporates symbols that are associated with that area, either personal or widely recognized.

This painting is called Hudson Highland Valley and features the Hudson River as seen from West Point Military Academy, the academy is a very important feature of our area. The painting also features a brown bear along with items associated with West Point, as well as Don's own camera and hiking boot taken along with him when he painted the river scene. The colorful border around the scene is his representation of earth, wind, water and fire and can be seen in a lot of his work.

Just a fantastic book featuring a fantastic artist, definitely check it out.

And I get to say I know him! I've got to get him to sign this book at some point!

I bought some tulips ....

... cause I am ready for Spring.  We keep hearing about this HUGE snow storm that we MIGHT get this weekend. Whatever! Can't it just be Spring already? Plus, my baby will be here by then! :)

 

Here are those tulips, took this with my new Lensbaby. Still experimenting with it, I'll post more when I get some good ones. 

Oh, and if you don't know what a Lensbaby is, check this out.

I made it to CraftGawker.com!

So I submitted a photo to Craftgawker.com a few days and decided to check it out today. And to my surprise my photo had made it to the front page!! WOO HOO!!

 

Here's a shot of my image, the heart ornament in the center, along with some other lovely Valentine inspired items. If you don't know about CraftGawker, go check them out, it's a treasury of all kinds of beautiful items. It is a juried site where you can submit photos of any kind of handmade item. They are notoriously picky about the photos they select so it's pretty exciting to get picked. And if they don't pick your photo they usually give you reasons why, so it becomes a nice way to get good critiques of your photos. 

Who knows how long it will be there but still exciting nonetheless!! I think I'll try another.

Here's the link to the photo in my etsy shop (also available as a folding card)

Introducing Aglaea Graphics!!

So I have to do a little self promotion today - after a lot of thought I have finally opened another etsy shop. I work full time as a graphic designer and I figured why not bring that art over to etsy as well!
I've been working for a while on creating designs for cards and started listing them yesterday. I've started with birth announcements (I guess the VERY close birth of my first child has inspired me!), Save the Dates and Bridal/Baby showers but I will soon be adding birthdays and thank yous as well.
My goal for the future is to also expand into logo design and etsy banner & avatar design for all those wonderful etsy sellers who may not be able to create ones for themself.
Take a look here, and keep checking back because new designs will be going up all the time!!
And don't forget my other shop Aglaea Designs, for photography and all things pretty!