I won!

Short story shorter I take a hula hooping class, and my hoop instructor posted a Facebook contest. "Whoever can draw me my best hula hoop castle with rainbows, dragons, turrets, and hoops wins a free hula hoop!"

Um, duh! Of course I got in on that! 

I've been listening to piano Christmas music all day today, but that's beside the point..

Anyhoo, I drew a castle and had a blast! I entered my drawing and found out today that I won! I get to pick up my spanky new hoop tonight! I feel electric. 

I also finished my wedding invites, which will be printed tonight and sent out shortly after. One more step towards tying the knot! My 2nd bridal shower was this past Saturday, so thankfully I'm officially done awkwardly opening presents while everyone stares and takes pictures. *whew* 

Cleaning Dust Bunnies

The fact that I haven't posted in months really takes me by surprise, but this Summer has been going by so fast it's no wonder. I'm clearing out the cob webs of this blog and will try to be a little more consistent...

Wedding plans are in full motion with the big day just short of 3 months away. I have so much to do and so little time.

I wanted to design my own invites for the event, so I'm currently working on the actual invites but I'll add the shower invites below:

The wedding will feature the these two characters, Oxford the owl and Perry? Patrick? Percy? I still haven't decided on the pigeon's name yet. 

I'm looking forward to the wedding stuff being done so I can focus on my illustrating again. It's hard to go to work all day and sit in front of a computer as it is, and the last thing I want to do when I get home is fire up the computer again. 

Something's gotta give.

House Hunting for Beginners

And the beginners would be us. Justin and I have been working with a Realtor to invest in an income property multi-family home. We'd live in one half and rent out the other, and flip it as we go (thank God my dad is a carpenter). We looked at one yesterday that's got some potential...I'll just be happy to no longer be renting.

Don't get me wrong, I love Grand Island and the breeze that I can get there through my windows (not found in Kenmore). However, I'm paying every month to my landlord which is equivalent to flushing that money down the toilet. Not only will I never see it again, but it won't be helping my overall net worth!

Enough house talk. Justin and I have been wondering how we can incorporate drawings into our wedding, because we are both creative peoples. The hard part was incorporating it without it looking tacky, but I think I've come to a resolution: Owl, and Pigeon.

"concept drawings"

No, they don't have names yet. The owl will probably lose his attitude as well. What I'd like to do is have these two as "guests" at the wedding. You'll be introduced to them on the save-the-dates, then watch their story throughout the invitations, program, cake, placeholders, card box, etc., eventually ending on the thank-you cards. We're playing around with ideas, and one that we have is that the pigeon and owl don't get along but the owl invites the pigeon to come because he wasn't invited. The pigeon's jealous of the owl because owls are always considered a "cool" animal found on pillows, phone cases, the works, whereas pigeons...not so much. 

They bicker throughout the entire wedding, and greet guests to their seat with cheesy pickup lines ("Is that a new hairstyle Deb? It looks nice." --- you get the idea.)  and eventually in the end on the thank-you cards you see them hugging and crying over how beautiful the wedding was and you see that in the end they really are friends. 

They'll be simple, sketchy, and in coordinating wedding colors. I'm pretty excited, and I hope the guests find it entertaining at the very least. 

More finalized designs will be posted in the future when the colors are chosen, with proper names for each bird included. Any ideas for names? I considered Leonard for the pigeon for some reason...

How Computers Feel

Ever thought about how we treat our computers? I had to draw a comic about it because one day I was thinking about how we give our computers a lot of crap for running slow. Usually when they're running slow, we're clicking a thousand things and trying to do too many things too fast.

Lets hate a little less on the poor machines with today's Toonsday comic:

On a side note, Justin and I are engaged! We're also looking into investing in an income property and we'll be looking at two places this Thursday.

It feels good to be moving forward in life. Last year's big step was graduating college and starting a career. Looks like this upcoming year promises big things as well, and I can't wait!