A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Julie of Sew It’s For You telling me she borrowed my illustration and turned it into a towel for her friend.

Isn’t it cute? I think she really did them justice!

Cowcow and Chicken are my own original characters. They’re actually me (Chicken) and my boyfriend (Cowcow). As mushy (or weird?) as it sounds and as hesitant as I am to put this little tidbit on such a public space, Cowcow and Chicken are our pet names for each other. Never mind why.

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I am in the process of photographing and writing up item descriptions for the stuff to be listed on my Etsy shop some time within this week. This is just a sneak peek at what’s coming, except this particular item isn’t going to be included as I messed it up when I sprayed it with protective acrylic glaze and forgot to weigh down the newspaper it was lying on. A gust of wind blew it face down on the newspaper, causing the newsprint to stick to the wet image. Sigh. Oh well. Lesson learned!

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The super sweet and talented Lori of Fresh Picked Whimsy gave me a blogging award and it’s my first, too! I put it next to my illustration of a little girl for better presentation :P

Thank you, Lori! I’ll have to sleep on this first before deciding whom to pass it on to; I have a lot of favorite bloggers and it’s hard to pick just a few!

Sometimes I’m weirded out by what my mind produces. This is one of those times. I just came across my friend’s photo of a grassy lawn with people blurred in the background (from our photorun last weekend) and thought that would be a good background canvas for an illustration. It looked like an ideal spot for a bunch of monsters to practice their interpretative dance routine.

Background photo by Dhes Handumon, with permission.

Here are some of my favorites from my camera.

Ink, watercolor, and Photoshop. This is extremely different from the cutesy illustration stuff I tend to gravitate towards– I think it’s nice to try out different styles every once in a while!

I think it’s ironic how, as a graphic designer, I take on work where I’m asked to design business cards for other people when I don’t even have a card of my own.

I think it was because I landed my first job even before I finished college so there really wasn’t any need for me to have a business card– there was no one to hand it out to. Until now. I am currently freelancing and just a few weeks ago during a meeting, a magazine publisher asked for my contact details. Not having a business card on hand, I borrowed some paper torn out from a notebook and wrote my name and e-mail address on it.

Needless to say, she lost the scrap of paper a few days later. She had to ask someone to ask me what my e-mail address is. My business cards, which I ordered a few weeks ago from overnightprints.com, was still on their way here to the Philippines then.

The website is Overnight Prints but it took more than a month for my cards to get here because I was cheap and used 5-day ground shipping to save on shipping costs. It didn’t get to my aunt in San Diego on time who was supposed to hand-carry them over here when she went for a visit last August.

Nevertheless, I’m really happy with the outcome and I highly recommend Overnight Prints for the quality. This probably sounds like a paid advertisement or a paid post but it’s not– just a thumbs up from a happy customer!

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My business card design was included in Part 4 of All Graphic Design’s post: The Coolest Business Cards - Beautiful & Unique Business Card Designs Part 4 a few days before my cards arrived. Thanks, All Graphic Design!

Watercolor pencils, pigment ink, and acrylic glaze on cardboard.

Naive-style line drawing illustrations for a button pin design. Available soon on my Etsy shop.

Self-promotional double-sided, matte-finish business cards highlighting my website URL and my contact details.