I know that label might be scary but I am discontinuing around 20 stickers and bookmarks cause frankly they don’t sell very well and I want to make room for items I’m really excited for! Some of the stickers will be seasonal like my Autumn Mushlings and winter season mushlings. I want to remake the Ski and Snowboard Bunny as those were some very early designs. I do want to remake the rose and sunflower sticker as well, I wasn’t really happy how they turned out.
I also discontinued four Prints that don’t sell that are also from 2022. I will not be making more Keychains till I find a better supplier or figure out how to make them myself.
You will be seeing more Magnets and Pins because I bought a pin maker during the summer and then a magnet one in the fall. I just need to come up with some square and circular designs to put in them but keep your eyes out for those!
All the single Colouring Pages are now free as its hard to justify $3 – $1 just for a piece of paper and I will be putting the rest of them onto my website shortly and you can still order them off of my website or perhaps I’ll add a few to some orders for funsies.
There are 3 discontinued bookmarks and they are also some earlier designs. Psychedelic, Northern Lights and a Whitewater Ski Resort bookmark. Now I’m pretty sure I am covered for Whitewater bookmarks for a while I have 4 designs that are currently being sold at their retail shop and once the season is done they will be added to my website. I also have some 420 themed bookmarks that can be found at Urban Legends on Baker st and in April I will also add those to my website and in person markets.
🌸Upcoming designs🌸 I am making 6 new bookmarks that are all different flowers and I am making 7 new stickers all but one will be the theme of mountains and 1 will be silly. I will make more announcements regarding the new items later on so keep an eye on my social media and my website for upcoming events and projects!
This year’s Lantern Fest’s theme was Swamp and months ago when we were first told I INSTANTLY had an idea and asked my friend Felicity if she wanted to join me! Then we didn’t build anything till probably 2 weeks before the festival because we are goobers!
We both got our hands on cardboard, paints, glue and of course lights. I went down to the costume shop and rented a jacket and some vests. Felicity made our glowing umbrellas (it was scheduled to rain and that it did). So via lots of tape , a few YouTube and Pinterest tutorials Frog and Toad came to be! Our label on the Pamphlet said we found fireflies and we were supposed to be ambient down at lakeside and technically we were for the matinee but then the rain started and did not stop so we took shelter under a overhang by the entrance to lakeside park and danced to the music!
We were also at the parade on February 6th and oh my goodness it was so cool to see so many peoples lanterns big and small! Herons, cranes, frogs, bugs, geese and their goslings, a moose and more! The Moving Mosaic Samba Band led us from Hall st all the way to the end of Baker st by the Art Therapy School! They also came and preformed down at Lakeside on February 7th.
Despite the weather on the 7th so many and I MANY people showed up! Hundreds I think and it was amazing to see. Thank you to everyone that came out to enjoy the Polka Dot Dragon Lantern Festival this year!
Art Throwdown is an event that constantly pushes me out of my comfort zones and honestly I didn’t expect that I’d keep getting accepted in as I believe I’ve now done it at least 5 times in total. Each year you can see my skills improve and I think it’s a great experience. This past January I participated in the Throwdown on the 2nd and my goal was to paint The Royal where the event is hosted but usually when I do buildings it takes me a few days and not an hour. I didn’t love how this one turned out and I think my saving grace was adding the sharpie to make it cartoony. The person who won it seemed to really like it though!
Doing events where loud crowds are is not my favourite thing in the world, I find it very overwhelming and anxiety filled. I barely remember painting the one above and the one I did last year I just kinda blacked out. I got a pair of loops for Christmas and that helped a LOT. Art Throwdown is a sold out event every time and I am glad that everyone likes to come and support the artists, The Royal and the DJ but holy crap its a lot 😅
During the last week of January an email went out to previous participants as there was some cancellations and they were looking for people to fill the spots. Now you may have just read above how I find these events very overwhelming and you’d think no she wouldn’t…. She did, I said yes I’ll do it again! On January 31st I was in the first round and this time I actually had some sense not to do something that would stress me out and just have fun with it so thats what I did. I did some good ol semi psychedelic zen tangles mixed with a few noticeable Nelson landmarks with my signature (only a signature for the throwdown) added in glow in the dark paint. A silly side note I had not realized even after looking at the poster a billion times and not until my friend pointed it out me ! My picture is on that weeks event poster!
Please check out https://www.instagram.com/art.throwdown?igsh=MWMwanVtMGg3Y2w4dA== either when your in town visiting or just looking for something to do on a night out! There’s so many amazing artists that come together to participate and you can buy raffle tickets to win one of the pieces thats made that night!
I recently was in a store and asked if they would sell my items and one of the ladies recognized me from the Art Throwdown and said she knows my art from there! Which is really really cool BUT the art pieces I do at the Throwdown and art I normally do is quite different so when you see these cool pieces I’ve done please check out the rest of the art I do. Come find me at a market or check out the store as I don’t want to mislead people.
August 20th – 25th my friend Jonah and I went to the Strathmore AB Renaissance Faire!! I made an amanita hat out of paper mache with another friends help then just gathered some clothes that gave the same vibe and Jonah bought a very nice velvet jacket and sword while we were there. We watched jousting , sword fights and I did a bunch of trinket trades / buying a few things at the market. I had a lot of fun and I highly suggest going its also really cheap to get in ($15).
There was soooooo many cool outfits! I saw fairies, knights, goblins, mushroom people, dragons, possibly krampus and many others! I participated in a costume contest and upon our arrival to our campsite I painted my little trinkets to trade cause I just ran out of time. On the drive home through the beautiful Kootenay Pass I realized we didn’t get any well placed photos of us so we stopped at the BC / AB crossing and took these beautiful photos in the wild flowers!
I am actually going back this year and I am beyond excited!! 😊
It’s that time again for a blog catch up! Follow along as I cover a lot of fun events!
End of August I was at the Pride market and shared my tables with Bella Cat! It was a super sunny and fun market and I hope it happens again this year!! 🌈
September 8th I got my book Roadtrips & Rainbow Trout back from Hallprinting. I decided to revise it and switch publishers, a few musicians got changed, a recipient of donations got changed and of course the biggest change is it is significantly smaller. A perfect size for traveling and can fit in certain peoples pockets!
September 14th I was out in Winlaw for an art show. It was deceptively sunny and that backfired on all of us near the end but for the most part it was a gorgeous day. I took a bunch of originals but also took my stickers, bookmarks and such. Lot’s of people came out to the park! I made two new originals for the art show, the Autumn Wreath and Bear in the Creek. You may notice that I decided to go right by the creek… that was not the right choice as near the end wind and rain picked up and no weights could save me. A few of my bookmarks ended up down the edge and in bushes and unfortunately the wind blew one of my tulip bookmarks into the middle of the creek and I was never able to recover it, I hope whoever found it enjoys it 😬
September 15th my book Roadtrips & Rainbow Trout was placed in the plaques for the Story Share put together by CBAL in Art Gibbons Park in Rosemont! If you refer back to https://arthermit.ca/markets-and-events-from-june-to-august/ you’ll see the language lesson / colouring the book pages with the Rosemont School grade 2/3 class. So on the 15th Jesse, Bryar and I put the pages, QR codes and info into the info plaques and they stayed there for a month! You could scan a QR code and get linked to https://www.firstvoices.com/ktunaxa and https://www.firstvoices.com/nsyilxcen so that when your walking around checking out the pages that the kids coloured in you could also look up the words on the page and hear how it is said in each respective language!!
September 20th I vended at the Harvest Market there was a pie eating contest, weird shaped veggie contest, guess the pumpkin weight and lots of other fun activities. It was sooooo hot out and I unfortunately didn’t get any photos as I was super busy… so yea BUT I look forward to this years Harvest Market!
November 18th I got to go to Opus Arts in Vancouver and my Mom bought me some new paints! I could’ve spent eons in the store but unfortunately we were in a rush.
November 21st I gathered up new cards, postcards and bookmarks to drop off at the Whitewater Office and all these items will exclusively be sold at their Retail shop until mid April when the season ends!
November 28th I started to make use of my button / pin maker and made a bunch of Christmas themed pins and started to play around with designs to use with the machine!
December 10th I participated in my first Christmas Market, put on by Bigby Place hosted at Silverking College and it was super successful I even started to sell out items! I made trade, made friends and ate baked goods!
December 20/21st I vended at the Out of the Ordinary Eagles Hall market! It was packed with vendors and the public alike! I sold out of lots more stickers and then my friend Felicity brought down some of her stickers which we filled the empty spots with. I got to vend beside my friends and met new vendors! I also did quite a few trades with fellow vendors!
Overall 2025 market season was amazing! I attended more festivals than usual, came out with lots of new products and made many connections! Thank you everyone that has supported me along the way! ❤️
To quote Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz: (sort of) Wow, if I had a nickel for every time I was commissioned by a musician, I’d have two nickels – which isn’t a lot, but it’s cool that it happened twice.
Mid February I finished a commission I did for a musician! I designed a singles cover for Lo & the High Road! I started by sending them different shades of green, tree designs and word placements and then it eventually came together! https://loandthehighroad.com/#
In June I was commissioned by local musician Bella Cat to create a singles cover for an upcoming song! Since she wanted people on the cover which is not my specialty I brought on my friend Felicity –https://www.instagram.com/novanight87?igsh=MTBxMHNwMGswZ3N4Mw== ! I started out by sending over different shades of orange, yellow, red, green, blue and purples then we started to work on placements of the Kid and Superhero. After a few drafts and consultations Felicity finished off the last details like word placement, our handles and glow via computer! It turned out so cool and this is the link to her website https://bellacatsoul.com/ .
On June 12th I got to do a really exciting activity with Rosemont Elementary School with my good friend Jesse Halton. We started out by talking about my book Roadtrips and Rainbow Trout and my experience with reconciliation. Then we handed out copies and original pages from the book for the kiddos to colour in. Afterwards Jesse did a language lesson with the translations in the book, both Sinixt and Ktunaxa. In September my book and the coloured in pages will be going into the story share up at the Nelson Skatepark! The turtle page was everyone’s favourite by far and one kid had my book at home!
Then on June 24th Jesse came over and we put the book back together … well almost. We took the original book pages that the kids coloured in and laminated them then rebound the book. Then did that three more times with the kids coloured in pages as photo copies. A copy for Rosemont School, The Public Library, The Storyshare Project and the organization we are working with.
June 13th I did some VERY late night prepping as I forgot that I signed up for the Game of Shrooms the global mushroom art and seek scavenger hunt! Because I forgot about the event I seriously lacked in the advertising department and I was also unable to hide them over town and just at Cottonwood Falls as I had a market the day of. I ended up making 3 small prints and 5 magnets and hid them around the park, I posted hints on my instagram story and occasionally took a noodle to see if any had been found. By the end of the market they were all gone! https://yumfactory.com/projects/gameofshrooms/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAabD0wBauj-Xgk7bIc-G4z9RW35NOypIP4ZcNPZ9HMO4fh917GwUwh3xZh0_aem_u1Sud7H1O8FNOAFk-eJWkw#artist-map
Mid July I finally finished some really cool bookmark designs I had been working on! They are the different Basic land cards for a card game I play called Magic the Gathering. I am pretty sure if I put the actual symbols on them I could get in trouble so I tried to do work arounds! In order there is the Mountain, Swamp, Plains, Island and Forest Land cards.
August 9th and 10th I joined https://abbywilson.ca/ at her studio as she very kindly shared her space with me for the Columbia Basin Cultural Tour! It was very warm, she helped me gather names for a mailing list and gave me art tips… she also gave me lunch! Overall a very fun experience. I also did a raffle for an original watercolour piece and the couple in the bottom right hand corner photo won it!
August 11th I stayed up to watch a meteor shower and painted my friend’s cat for their birthday!
Blog Catch up time has come once again so come along as I cover a lot of excitement!
January 24th I participated in my 3rd Art Throwdown at The Royal in Nelson! I decided to paint the mountains up at Whitewater Ski Resort this time. I absolutely love how it turned out and by the time the raffle winners were picking out which one they wanted to take home the glow in the dark paint I used started to glow!
February 9th I vended at the Sweet Soirée Market put on at the Legion in Nelson! Along with my stickers, prints and cards I also had with me a collaboration project my friends and I have been continuing over many months with 3D hand painted fidgets and my other friends hand made night lights!
March 5th I took a noodle up to Whitewater Ski Resort sadly not to ski but instead I got to check out the retail shop where my art was being sold! I have tried for years for my art to be sold in the shop up at the ski hill so this was REALLY exciting for me! They had two print designs and two bookmark designs and by the time I got everything back I only had a couple bookmarks returned to me I believe as everything else sold!
March 15th I did a big bottle run with many friends assistance! Quite a few people gave me bags of returnables and my friend with a big van drove us to the bottle returns. I think it took us about an hour and a half. I am using bottle returns to pay for my vendor fees all market season!
