If you want to color it yourself, you can download the black and white version over at the GeekMom.com blog HERE.

(In fact check out the GeekMom.com blog for lots of geeky valentine stuff! Including last years geek valentine cards.)

The cool thing about this Pop-Up is that the heart face comes with accessories. So you get to customize the look of the heart face however you wish!

At this point there is hardly any eloquence present anywhere. I've given myself permission to just tell myself the story now, just to get it down. So far this results in lots of pages that sound like me, talking to myself. Rather clinical really. I wouldn't say that anything really sings off the page yet. Although in a fit of self indulgence I did manage to shed a tear while channeling a little dialogue from one of the more beloved characters. So that was nice.

Here's that bit. Which probably won't make you cry. Not even a little. ;)

"I’m not a painter, I don’t have an economy of fluid brushstrokes with which to paint for you a portrait of the events of this evening. I cannot give you a framed synopsis of what’s transpired. I only have a thousand words - a thousand clumsy, imperfect, woefully unsatisfying words. Words that hang about my head like boulders. There is so much to tell you. There is so much that is important. So much that you MUST know, and all of it at once."

The grounds of the school are shared by an old church, built in 1817. It's a beautiful church, gilded and charming and musty with history. The church's graveyard is the final resting place of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his beloved muse Zelda. It's says something, I think, of the atmosphere of the school and the myopic education I received there, that this fact was never once a topic of trivia, let alone discussion.

I didn't find out about the cemetery's famous resident until I went to high school and read Fitzgerald's most famous work, The Great Gatsby, for the first time. This being a public school they weren't as concerned with nitpicky details like Fitzgerald's non-practicing Catholic status when he died, and thus must have determined it less risky to our immortal souls to know that he'd been buried in Catholic ground after all.

From the ages of 17 to 24 myself and a few friends became unofficial grave side fanbois of F & Z's graves. Hey, Baltimore has Poe, Rockville has the Fitzgeralds.

We thought ourselves rebel poets, full of courage won of wine coolers and Funyuns, we'd boldly trespass amongst the dead, bearing roses from 7-11 as homage to our heroes. One of my friends liked to play music for the couple as we sat at gravesend. He'd engage us in debate over which bands the Fitzgerald's might have liked best were they our peers in the 90s. He seemed convinced that Fitzy (as we called him), would have loved Grunge. This was an assertion that despite his claims to the contrary, confirmed my suspicion that he'd never read any of Fitzgerald's books. Personally I've always thought Bryan Ferry and Ziggy Stardust might have been more up F's alley. But what do I know?

The epitaph on F. Scott Fitzgerald's grave is the last line from Gatsby. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

It's part of a larger passage: 

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning ——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

It means that we are ever moving forward, yearning for and fighting towards our goals. Yet our pasts are in our way, simultaneously informing our dream, and obstructing it.

I can relate to this sentiment. I've been a little nostalgic of late. It's been nostalgia born of duress really. See, I've been saddled with a new endeavor this year. I'm writing a novel. I don't know if it will be published. I don't know if I'll even pursue that outcome. That's not the point. What I do know is that after two years of trying to smoke out the muse of writing where she hides in ratholes in my studio walls, I've failed to locate or kill her. She's won, and so I'm writing this blasted thing. Against all my protestations she's made it clear I have no choice.

She's a brutal mistress this wordy bitch. In the two years she's been pursuing my soul she's repeatedly accosted me with writing assignments just to drive her point home. Again and again I've protested, insisting I'm an artist not a writer. "I've never written!  I've never even had ambition to write!" has come out of my mouth more then once.

As it turns out I'm a dirty liar. Moving across the country tends to cause the carefully stacked debris of a creative life to come tumbling down from shelves. Actual documents obtained from the archives of Ghost-Of-Brigid-Past confirm that in fact, I have indeed always written. There's boxes full of evidence. A lot of what's in those boxes sucks eggs. But there's also a reminder from a teacher that I won a national writing award in High School. Apparently I also blogged for a couple of websites back in the day (97 & 2000 respectively, before it was called blogging), and even had some poetry published.

Huh, who knew?

The muse has won. I've got Scrivener installed on my Mac.....

So...from the ages of 38 to ?  I'll be writing a book. I'm terrified.  Scared and sniffly, I'm slowly getting type on the pages. I don't promise that it's good, I don't know if it's interesting, I guarantee it's a grammatical nightmare. But there it is, emerging from the blank white of the page, not unlike a painting.

Can I paint with words? We'll see....

I've got...well I think you get the point.

but.

guess what?

FIRST. I've got !@#$%!! JURY DUTY.

I THINK I'LL CONTINUE USING ALL CAPS IN THIS SENTENCE JUST SO I CAN DRIVE HOME HOW ANNOYING THIS IS.

JURY DUTY. <---- see. It's annoying, it deserves all caps.

So yeah, the morning of January 3rd I get to get up at an hour that even roosters blow off, and drive up to somewhere-that-I-don't-know-where-it-is-because-I-don't-make-a-hobby-of-mapquesting-courthouses, and sit around all day being a "good person" and doing my "civic duty". Two things I'm not innately good at. Wish me luck. (Just so we are on the same page here, the kind of luck I'm hoping for is the "we don't need you, thanks for coming, you can go home now" luck. Capice? I don't need any rogue wishes, stay on message.)

You can thank JURY DUTY for the fact that I can't share with you yet exactly what these upcoming projects are. That blog will have to wait. Right now I have a courthouse to mapquest. And I have to dig out my Sex Pistols shirt out of the dirty laundry bin. The JURY DUTY paperwork said to dress nice, and that's the nicest shirt I have.

In the meantime I'll leave you with this totally non-sequiter teaser that is completely uninformative. You are welcome.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE COLOR VERSIONCLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE B&W VERSION

IT'S HERE! It's finally here! Every year I try to do a freebie holiday download.

Other Holiday Freebies have included Holiday Cards, Geeky Gift Tags and Printable Nutcrackers.

I'm so happy to say that this year, I went with a Zombie theme.

Click the cover images to DOWNLOAD. There is a BLACK & WHITE version for people who want to color it themselves, and a COLOR version for lazy people like me who just want to throw a little glitter on it and call it a day.

 PREVIEWS :

ASSEMBLED PIECES PHOTOS:

PLEASE NOTE: This is free, it was a labor of love and I put a lot of work into it. All I ask in return is that if you like this free printable craft, and you download it that you please share the link across your social networks. Thanks!

Thanks to some lovely feedback yesterday (and the glaringly obvious nature of the initial prototype flaws), I'm happy to say I've improved upon the Fairy Bookmark. Here is version 2.0

In fact here are two versions of version 2.0 :)

One in black and white for you to color yourself, and one in color, for the lazy people, like me.

Please feel free to share this with your friends. Of course this is personal used only, no commercial use. Also please share pics of your creations!

DOWNLOAD BLACK AND WHITE VERSION HERE

DOWNLOAD FULL COLOR VERSION HERE

So I had this idea the other day....

A fairy bookmark where the fairy wings poke out the top of the book, and look at first, like a butterfly that is sitting on the edge of the book.

This afternoon I cranked out a prototype, and I'm going to share it here with you now. For Free!!! ;) I love you guys!

DOWNLOAD THE PDF BY CLICKING HERE

Color and assemble the piece and share your pictures with me!

I love your feedback! 

Here's what it looks like assembled. 

I thought it might be fun to share the process of how I created these designs with you. The response to the images has been wonderful and I've received a lot of questions about the images. Some people thought the images were vintage clipart designs. They are not - the are original paintings. BUT they are indeed inspired by classic Victorian clip art (some more heavily then others) I'm so glad that I achieved the "look" I was going for! Thanks for the compliments!

Many people have assumed the paintings are digital. They are not. While I do paint digitally often, I also remain an active "traditional" artist. Honestly these days it seems like the minute you dabble with digital painting at all, everyone suddenly casts you as solely a "digital artist"! It's strange! Rest assured my first loves as mediums continue to be graphite, silverpoint and alkyd oils. That said I am forever grateful to the assistance that my graphic experience affords me as an artist. Every piece I create still has a computer involved at some point. Whether I use it simply to sketch out ideas, research reference, or to tweak a final scan, the computer is an essential part of my creation process!

Here's a bit of a peek into the workflow that went into creating these "traditional" paintings. ;)

This image shows the original thumbnail idea sketch in the upper left, and the concept sketch based off of it. The thumbnail sketch was graphite, while the digital sketch was drawn in Corel Painter. I used an oval template to help with the composition of the design because I knew these images main purpose was for my Perfume Locket line. I wanted to be sure that the design flowed well within the oval. Additionally I made sure I worked small. About 3"x4". The reason for this small format is because the final product (Perfume Lockets), is only 1"x1.5". It would be silly to paint this piece overlarge - only to shrink it down so drastically. There is no point wasting time painting minute details if they won't be seen in the finished product!

The next step in the process was to draw the image in graphite on paper. I chose a toned paper with a slight texture and used a light box to transfer my concept to the paper. Then I completed the piece as a finely shaded graphite drawing. I scanned this image into the computer. This scanned image served two purposes. One, it gave me a simple drawing from which to create a vintage style sepia toned print.  And two, it served as the basis for the full color acrylic painting....

To create the acrylic painting I printed a copy of the graphite scan. I mounted the grayscale print of the Bee to illustration board. I then sealed the print with clear acrylic matte medium. I painted the piece in acrylics (Golden Fluid Acrylics) and then it was complete! Er....not quite....

I decided to change the background color of the piece at the last minute. I've been on a "Robin's Egg Blue" kick lately and I just couldn't resist. I felt the new background color really made the Bee pop, and finally the piece was finished. Time for the final scan!

This technique, painting over a print of an original graphite drawing, rather then the drawing itself, has the advantage of leaving me with TWO originals. I love that!

I used the scans of both the graphite drawing and the full color painting to create the images for the perfume lockets. Thanks to the techniques I employed, the result is a bright image with a tight composition that looks tailored to the products it graces. Which it was! ;) Yay!

Sepia Toned ImageFull Color ImageIf you like these images they are available as Prints, Perfume Lockets and coming soon NoteCards!

In fact this week only you can enter a giveaway for a chance to win a Secret Scents™ Perfume Locket of your choice. The giveway is on Facebook & you'll have to "like" our fanpage to enter. So I apologize if - like me - you hate Facebook. But hey, maybe you'll win a free locket! ;) CLICK HERE to enter.

Until next time...

Cheers!

>>--Brigid-->