91cm beside myself...

Hello, friends. :) How is everyone? Did I really not blog for a week? Oh my...
I've had this draft blog going for a while, so here it is:

I have to share a short film we saw on Thursday called "Skhizen" by Jeremy Clapin. Basically, its about this guy who's 91 cm beside himself - literally, an asteroid messes him up a little. But he was never hit....hmm. Anyhoo - it was funny and clever and witty and beautiful, and has a crazy profound and somewhat sad message at the end, too. Brilliant! If you have a chance to see it ever, or if you find it on the internets (I searched to no avail!) watch it and enjoy! I have a feeling it'll only be at fab animation festivals..... We've also seen "Married Life" recently (loved the paper-cut-out-ish opening credits!!), and then we watched "The Happening" by M.Night Shyamalan. I'm kind of iffy about him, cuz frankly his last movie, "Lady in the Water" sucked (I thought...) and he kind of spends more time on the hype of his name then the hype of his movies....but, it was pretty fab. Plus, I love Zooey Duschanel (she's my fave!) so I was there. It was creepy and scary and good.

Last time I updated, we were about to go go-carting with the show crew as our wrap-up-party and that was pretty rad! It was a 3-hour riding marathon!! Literally, we had a group of 6 people racing, and you switch in and out of the car in the pits while racing laps with your teammates for 3 hours straight! lol...intense, cool. I only went for 2 rounds of about 10 laps (I was feeling totally motion-sick after the first round!! lol), but what a rush, dude! Such an adrenaline rush! It was fun! :)

And, oh! Z's mom found Kid Vs. Kat in the US on ABC, check out the synopsis right here, and down at the bottom where it says "Also Showing on ABC", those are the upcoming episode times. Yay! (Thanks, Volia!)

And have you seen this fabulous stop-motion Handmade Nation opening title sequence? It totally rocks and I can't wait to see the documentary, dude. Yay for DIY!

We went to see Richard Williams, nothing short of an animation god, at a free screening/lecture/promotional event for the Animators Survival Kit Animated dvds in a local theatre. We waited in line for a looong time to get in and listen to him talk about animation - so cool! And then there was a surprise screening of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (pon 35 mm film!!) after that, which was also sooo rad! :)

So other than a crazy ton of film and animation goings-on, busy busy work week, freelance meetings, and everything else...I have been busy scrapping with some lovely new lines from Pink Paislee and my Dozens' kit, but my mojo seems to have gone away temporarily (I've been embroidering a super-special-something all week and I just can't put it down, either, which doesn't help...). And there's some exciting news to reveal on Friday, so stay tuned! Happy day!

Cartoonage

Dudes! First and foremost..super exciting news!! The show we've been working on at the studio - "Kid Vs. Kat" is making its debut (okay, it's a 'sneak peek'...but its the first time it's being seen on tv) this Saturday! Yay! You can bet we'll be watching it..he he. It's on YTV at 9 am E/P and then again at 1 pm...you can read more here! And a lil screenshot of our favorite Coop & Kat:
For my American friends, I'm not even sure if you guys even get YTV down there...hmm. But, I'll let ya know when its on there when I find out! Yay! So exciting....that's one of the first episodes I worked on when I started back in...May? There's lots of zombie cats and hijinx abounds in this one...All the little tv glows and lines and static..all that subconcious effect-stuff you shouldn't really conciously notice was my days and days of work on that one. :) he he...

More from me soon! We saw some amazing films last night at the "Animation Show of Shows" screening in celebration of animation day...and today at work things are almost wrapping up so we get to watch an episode and then go Go-Carting - Dude! So excited...More from me soon, and happy weekend! :)

A Little Bubbly Shnooks

I am listening to soulful Azure Ray this morning as I work on some scenes here in the studio. :) I'm also enjoying this artsy-job post on Elsie's Blog during renders - so insightful. Feeling a tad stifled juggling the 9-5 job and the fun stuff, in general right now, though the job is fun stuff, too! I loves my job! I also loves staying home in pj's drawing all day, though...he he. It always gets tedious near the end of a contract, for me...I struggle to stay focused on the show I'm on, and not on all the side projects that have been pushed to the back-burner for the 6-months I've been working on the show. Struggle with general scatter-brain-ness. Struggle with worry and relief - happy to have some days off, but scary to have no steady money coming in, etc. etc. You know what I mean, if you work an unsteady artsy job...lol.

Elsie's post made me happy and feel in good company. :) Its fun and exhilarating and still a little frightening because I've only been doing this animation-world + freelance design thing for about...just under 2 years now. Eeep! Not long enough to have settled into the inconsistency of it all, yet. That said, I'm so thankful for artsy jobs, also, and for the choice it will bring me in the new year that's coming soon. Soon? Yikes! When did that creep up on us? Anyhoo - enough of that serious career mumbo-jumbo, I know I'll feel centered soon.... :) On to my current spare-time fun stuff: Bubbly Shnooks!

First off, a little peek at the colorful goodness the shop has become as of late:

This colorful mosaic makes me so happy! :) And I think this will make you happy - a chance to win some free paper goodies! The lovely Vancouver-based (and one of my fave Etsy shops!) Tiny Fig is hosting a Bubbly Shnooks giveaway over on her blog, Sweet Figments. Just head on over there, peek around in the Bubbly Shnooks shop and pick one of your favorite things, and leave a comment about the goodie you love on the blog post. You have until October 28th to enter - at which time a random number generator will pick a winner and somebody will win their favorite thing! :) Yay! Hop on over there right now!

Hmm. What else? Oh! A big "Thank-you" to Studio71 for featuring the Anxious Woodsman on her blog here. :) (That woodsman just loves all the attention! he he).

I just sent a new shop newsletter out, as well. Starting November first, there will be deals and special offers being sent out via that newsletter, so if you want to get in on the action, sign up for it here (on the side of the blog) or e-mail me to be added. You can also e-mail me if you'd like to be forwarded a copy of the newsletter if you missed it: michelle.a.clement@gmail.com.

Some fun new paper tags I had fun making that are now up in the shop:And you may have also noticed that my super-talented hubby has guest-designed some pen and bristol board prints for the shop (...you can bet they'll be made into paper tags very soon, too! :) I'm dying to scrapbook with these tough guys!). Love em! they're currently available only as 8 x 10 prints - of which the detail is amazing (thank you, new Epson) - but will be 5 x 7's very. very soon.

And what's next? Christmas!! Dude...it's sneaking up on me! Watch for earrings, more paper tags, embroidery patterns, christmas card packs, stickers...tons more! And a Christmas deal or two, too! :) Thanks for popping in, today! :)

A few little bits...

Boo on colds! I was stuck at home sick yesterday and banished to the couch! :( My head was pounding non-stop and my throat was ginormous and like sandpaper. I am now officially sick of chicken noodle soup and ginger and lemon and tea. Blech! (Totally off-topic, but for some reason, "Blech!" reminds me of Archie comics...subconciously the word must've stuck itself in there when I was 7 or so, reading...lol.) Anyhoo - I did take pictures of some new goodies for the shop (that will be posted as soon as I figure out shipping costs) from my place on the cushions. I'll share some Bubbly Shnooks' goings-on in tomorrow's blog post! Yay!

For today, I made a card for my "Technique Tuesday" Pink Paislee blog today - an updated look at paper-piecing. Something I, for sooo long, associated with out-dated images and thought was not-so-cool, until I got Holly's cool stamps from Pink.Sugar.Pop which are now stamps for Pink Paislee - these sweet little "Vintage Pop" guys. Yum! Anyhoo - I was inspired to piece together some costume-themed little dudes for a Halloween card, seeing as the holiday is creeping up on us! Here it is, and you can read my whole Pink Paislee blog post here:

And the lovely Dana did a cute lil blog post about thet mini I shared last blog right here. She is so awesome! Dude, I'm excited to see about the other project kit she mentioned! And I'm mucho excited about getting my Red Velvet Kit and Dozens' kit in the mail - silly Canadian mail, making me wait for torturous time-slots. lol...

Also, finally got the Galiano Island trip pictures posted up in flickr this weekend. Here's the album of all our happenings there, and some of my fave shots:

Z's seat on the plane - Eeek!The little cabin that was all ours for the weekend...
Up at "Lovers' Leap" super-crazy-high lookout point.

Z, the speed racer...(okay, the kickstand is down..but it looks like he's racing!)

Us, the moped-ers...
Sitting at the Sandstone Caves at Retreat Cove.
Hiking in the back of someone's truck to find the beach...
Purple starfish everywhere!

...Chilling in Sandstone Caves
...and, yeah! that's what we did! Enjoyed the rocky Pacific beaches (okay, we searched for a whole day for the sand beach and then gave up and realized we should have looked into this before we embarked here on our weekend away. ha ha...Our cabin was close to the end of the small Galiano Islands' one road, so our only mode oftransportation, including our only way back into town, was hitch-hiking...lol. We picked blackberries, we walked and climbed and walked and climbed some more. We napped on the 'rocks', eer, beaches. On our last day we rented to moped and roamed around seeing all the sights we couldn't see from our secluded cabin, and, as it turns out, were pointed toward none other than a sand beach...lol. It was lovely and nature-full. We had fires and roasted hot dogs and watched sunsets and movies. (sigh)...the last days of summer...but wow! Turning out to be a long post, here...so back to work I go. Happy day!

Oh, Goodness...

Yay! I have some scrappy goodness to share! I made a mini album with the new Oct./November Dozens' Kit that just debuted - "OktoberZest" (Wow! I just saw that its already sold out!! You can see the monthly kit right here, though...). Talk about rad - the kit comes with yummy vintage beer coasters, vintage German maps, buttons, clips galore, and lovely "Mr. Campy" paper. Sooo fun! Anyhoo - the goodies were perfect to scrap a mini photo album of a moped trip we took around Galiano island on our last day there, so here's what I made (please scuse the pictures, they're a little dark! I took them in the wee hours by kitchen-light...lol):

There are more photos of it in my Dozens' Flickr album, right here. :) It's the most fun, loveliest, chunkiest mini I've made in a loong time! And I finally had a second to edit the Galiano photos on Monday (dig through them, more like...) and will be uploading them soon (I haven't had a chance all week! lol) But here's one of me and Z looking all excited in our lil helmets with the moped right before we took off. Whee!Speaking of scrapping, I took a peruse through all my old scrappy stuff yesterday while compiling a portfolio of the good pages, and oh...man....lol. Have you peeked at your old stuff lately, if you scrap? I mean...I'm talking not 10 years ago, even, but merely at this time last year. I was flabbergasted at the change in my pages...lol. Its funny to notice things like the fact that I didn't know Photoshop as well....and what freaks me out the most is that next year at this time I'll be looking back at what I scrapped now and thinking the same thing! lol..too funny. But alas, we grow, no?

Anyhoo - I am sick, it was inevitable that I would get hubby's cold - boo! Its really not that bad yet, though, I've been warding it off with Cold FX, but its catching up to me today. Therefore, I am behind on a lot of things...if you've asked me a question or anything in the comments here recently and have yet to be answered, please feel free to e-mail! I'm behind on those, too, (hah) but I will get to them eventually! michelle.a.clement@gmail.com.

Off I go..drinking ginger tea, slowly making new goodies for the shop, taking a walk in the sunshine with hubby, la la la....happy weekend! :)

La, la la...

I was drawing polar bears and scrapping with a new dozens' mini kit last night...finally edited pictures from Galiano for that! Whee! I left them at home, though...thus, not posted. That means Dozens' goodies will be blogged very soon! I am recently obsessed with Life cereal and "Madness" by Alanis. Canadian election yesterday, and the bad guy won...duuuude. Z is home sick today, and after staying up til 1 in a house full of his germy-germ-germs my throat is a little achy, too...boo! Ooh! Thanks for the very warm welcome to the Anxious Moustache + Fall tags! As soon as I get a moment (which is not looking like its very soon, here...) there will be more 80's inspired word tags and elvis monkey tags, too! (hubby lent me some illustrations for some goodies...) Yay! :)

I (heart) my Epson. Have I mentioned I (heart) my Epson? lol...I want to print something everyday, seriously! Work is insanely quiet today and as I refresh my page, I'm wishing I had a pencil and paper here cuz I finally have a really good idea for the new blog design. Obsessed with hand-type, I am. I have my last Physio appointment tonight, my shoes are pitiful and I need new ones supa-bad. I need to go the craft store and get a haircut and buy pants and a hoodie and warm boots for when the rain starts here, soon....but, really, do you want to know my to-do list?? lol...I feel I will be busy non-stop like this until December 31, and I'm very sure I will be...but only 3 weeks of work left, so at least soon I will have all day to accomplish the things I need to do, instead of squashing it all in between the hours of 8pm and 2 am. A blessing in disguise, I think....lol. A little scary, too, but that's what keeps it interesting, no?

Anyhoo - no pictures to share today...(sigh).

Buuut, a new Dozens' kit peek here (stay tuned for lots of yummy Dozens' things coming soon for the birthday party, including the mentioned-in-the-blog-post clearance sale)! And new projects from Jen and Marie up over at Red Velvet - still hoping my kit will arrive any day now so I can dig in! :)

Okay, I change my mind! Here's a photo - I ran across this lovely Website the other day - Helen Dardik's portfolio:Dude - she rocks all-around. Inspirational, super-fun, and so lovely! Her patterns are amazing! :) Happy Wesnesday, all! Off I go for a coffee refill and a hunt for some pencils...

Hello, hello!

Ahhh....holiday Mondays :) Love em, love em! I managed to get a few new goodies up in the shoppe that have been in the works forever.....Ta-da:(And this one's my fave!!)
And I had a blast making the cute packaging, too....
Eeek!! I hope you guys like! :) The moustache dude is my fave; loving the mix of woodgrain, plaid, houndstooth, and, of course, bright colors! They come in sets of 8 and you can find em right here at the Bubbly Shnooks Shop. I'm working out wholesale prices and all that good stuff right now, too, but the day is just not long enough to get it all done! Contact me if you're interested, though! :) More designs in the works - have I mentioned I love my new printer?? - he he. Also, earrings will be starting to debut this week, too, silly me just forgot to buy the backs of them...lol.

Anyhoo - its been a few days since I updated. What have we been up to, you ask? Weeell...we went to the VIFF (Vancouver International Film Festival) a few days ago and saw "Filth and Wisdom", directed by Madonna.....
And starring this guy:
...Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello. The movie was super-cool, and he's a pretty cool guy (love his gypsy punk style, man...). It was way better than we thought for a Madonna indie! :) Loved it! And then on Saturday night, Gogol Bordello was in town (yup, these guys...)
And we bought tickets months and months ago to go see em live - whee! Haven't been to a live concert in waaay too long, so it was awesome! Albeit, after we got out of the impromptu moshpit we found ourselves in when the first song started...Ack! I don't know about you, but I just can't enjoy a concert when I am jumping around worried that multiple giant guys will elbow me in the head/face/insert-any-other-body-part-here. Uh, no. And it was literally, like, if you don't jump you get mushed, so I got the hell outta there a teensy bit further to the back where Z could jump like a maniac, still, and I could jump whenever I wanted to in a safer place without feeling like I will kill the next person who mashes into me...lol. Argh! After that little blip, it was fab and sweaty and there was an encore that lasted longer than the show! Duude...yay for Gypsy Punk!

And yesterday we had a low-key roasted chicken dinner a la' Thanksgiving (its our second Thanksgiving together, whee!) And it was fab - hubby made the yummiest chicken and we had garlic mashed potatoes and carrots and apple pie, too! :) Anyhoo - I have to skip back to making stuff...drawing deadlines and scrappy deadlines are approaching, too...eek! Happy day off, everyone! :) Thanks for peeking in!

Oh, Thursday...

Some little random stuffs this lovely uneventful thursday...

-Yay! No longer does the epson printer blink at me incessantly while I draw right next to it! And we got a free ink cartridge from them - hubby rocks, he totally called them at 7 in the morning just for me. :)

- I always fall asleep on my tummy. Always.

- I am fond of e.e cummings solely for the fact of all-lowercase, not to mention them spiffy poems. i am banning capital letters in this post in honor. Eh, okay...it'll drive me nuts, I just can't do it!

-Did you know Madonna directs movies, too? Yeah..I'm not a fan of Madonna, but we're going to check her film out tonight at the VIFF - thats the Vancouver international Film Festival. My right hand is thanking me cuz its been busy creating stuff all week!

- Work is d e a d today, so I get to look into wholesaling info as I refresh my page waiting for new scenes and am also playing with the giant website ideas spinning around in my head - no longer will I ever look twice at a cool website, knowing how tough they are to piece together!

- Yes, I am moving to Typepad very soon. I'm currently building and modifying 50 pages of html. Hah. There will be a homepage. a blog. a shop. You name it - all under one roof! Right now I'm all over the place with my internet self and it feels so scattered - totally not good right before searching-for-a-job, here's-my-professional-looking-portfolio time! Not to mention, this blog is driving me crazy with its need-an-update sidebars and such. Oy - soon! (Stay tuned, cuz of course I'll link you guys up! It may be yet a few weeks/months down the road)

- Physio is magical, the wrist is almost good as new!

- I *heart* the Brokeback mountain instrumental score. (sigh)

Dude, I've literally been up til 2 am every night happily making stuff...I am crazy behind on everything, despite: Summer vacation photos need posting, yes...e-mails need responding...shop needs putting-together-for-Christmas-ing....its never-ending. This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, though, so maybe my list will have things checked off of it very soon over our three days off! lol..it better!

For now, a Pink Paislee page to share:

Annnd...I'm outtie! :) Happy day, everyone!

A Little Dozens...

Oh, yes....this Dozens' kit rocked. :) But it always does...(sigh).
Be still, my heart.

Here's what I made with the September yummies:

...I am a tad bit late posting them here, but they're on Flickr and SIS tv already, so you may have seen them! You can check out what the other fab girls' did with their DT kits right here - the gallery is up! :) Its the Dozens' first birthday soon, too, (yay!) so stay tuned for some awesome sales and other lovely goodness!

And its just dawning on me that somehow my October got busy, too - I'm convinced my brain thinks its not working a full-time job and is thus compensating....lol. I'm up til the wee hours designing stuff this week for the shop and other fun secret-right-now-projects. It turns out my lovely new Epson printer is being difficult - it doesn't like the Cyan cartridge and has been blinking confusedly at us for a day, now. Argh. Time to call Epson, yippee. Things are starting to pile up around me in terms of paperwork and unfinished drawings...lol.

Last night I played with super-glue and shrink plastic and my heat gun and watched the Hills and then drew. There is a chill in the air that's too nippy to deny, now, and I still need to go shopping for those fall (winter, now?) clothes. Making holiday plans..oh my! Its busy and I'm looking forward to the last month of work flying by! :) I mean, I am and I'm not. I'm working on blogging more often, but I still have this silly brace on my arm - Argh. lol...Hope everyone is well! Thanks for popping in, too!

Yay, cards!

Hey guys! I'm a day late, but Happy World Card-making day! (I totally forgot to post yesterday...Geesh!) It turns out I have sprained my left wrist from over-working it and/or punching the keyboard buttons too hard...lol. Silly, I know...so I have to wear this wrist brace that makes typing a pain (its annoying, it doesn't hurt anymore), therefore I've been avoiding the blogging thing. It's feeling a lot better, its just an odd thing..I'm not even left handed. lol...

Anyhoo - Yay, cards! Here's my Pink Paislee card + instructions to make one just like it (we're having a mini-blog hop + prize pack fun over there to honor the day):
"Grateful For You" Card Instructions

Step One: To make the base of the card, cut a piece of patterned paper to about 8.5 x 10 inches. Fold in half, round the bottom corners with a corner punch, and ink the edges.

Step Two: Cut a strip of yellow dotted patterned paper (about 3.5 inches wide), ink the edges, adhere on the base of the card and trim the top edge off. Ink that last edge, too.

Step Three: Cover a Topsider chipboard piece with its' coordinated sticker, ink the edges. Adhere the topsider to the card. Ink the edges of a paper tag (mines from Every Jot and Tittle - love em!) and adhere over the topsider for a place to 'journal'. Lightly stamp ledger lines on top.

Step Four: Cover a piece of tree-shaped chipboard (My tree is from Maya Road) with a vintage book page - I put adhesive on the top ond smooth the paper over it, flip the chipbard piece over and then trim the access paper off with an Xacto knife. Sand and ink the edges. Do the same for the base of the tree, but I used woodgrain patterned paper instead.

Step Five: Stamp "Grateful" on the top left side of the paper tag. Adhere the chipboard tree on the right hand side of the card - overlapping the paper tag and Topsider chipboard. Use letter stickers to spell out the rest of the card title - "for you". Add a chipboard button and some splashes off walnut ink to finish off the card, and voila!

Some of the DT girls over at Pink Paislee also made cards and instructions, so we have a little mini blog-hop going on (some girls have giveaways going on, too)! You can see peeks of their projects and links to the instructions here. Go check them out, too! Also, if you make a card using the instructions from one of the team members, you'll will be entered to win a Pink Paislee prize pack!! All you have to do is leave a comment here on the Pink Paislee blog (not here!!) with a link to your creation by 5 pm CST Sunday (today!!) and you will be entered to win the fun Paislee Prize Pack!

Okay, that's it for me! I'm concentrating on the shop today! New fall items will be up soon! :) I drew them all day yesterday (well, almost..there was movie lounging and a walk, too), and I just bought a printer (an Epson Stylus 1400...a big sucker!) that I'm super-excited to use but its sort-of huge for my desk. Hah...I got some new packaging for these new products in the mail, too, and signed Bubbly Shnooks up for its' first Christmas Craft fair, too! Yay! Should be fun - Off I go! More scrappies will be posted soon, I owe you Dozens' eye candy and I have another Paislee project to share, too. :) Happy Sunday, everyone! Thanks for the sweet words, as always!