It’s been a bit quiet around here. I’ve been working on a new website for Calobee Doodles and that’s taken up much of my limited free time and concentration. Before Ellie, I could sit down and crank out a layout like this in a day, but now I have to do everything in 15-minute spurts. Ellie has much more important business to attend to, like singing infinite rounds of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and ensuring that every square inch of our living room floor is covered with Duplos at all times.

There had been little progress on the photography front until Saturday, when I met up with an interested modeling volunteer. The hardest part is finding people to pose for me, especially this time of year when the university has cleared out. But now we have a shoot tentatively scheduled for next Sunday, so I’m poring over my notes and trying to decide where to begin.

I think I’m going to try to go back to doing one shoot per month. When I originally set that goal a couple years ago, I produced a lot of work and felt really good about it, and it gave me plenty of time to prep for each shoot and still keep up with the rest of my crazy life.

And on that note, it’s back to the Duplo minefield!

I collect links the way some people collect magazine clippings for an inspiration board, and Google Reader allows me to star and share interesting tidbits I find as I’m reading. Here are some of my recent favorites:

• How did Modish know this is just what I needed today? – Things are looking appropriately bleak around here–it must be February. This colorful post cuts into the gray nicely.
• These illustrations at The Shiny Squirrel make me vaguely uncomfortable – But as one of my favorite authors once said, “Art is not comfortable.”
• I wish I’d grown up in this house, via Design Sponge – It’s like a cross between a funhouse and a thrift store. I especially like the birdhouses in the kids’ bedroom.
• Artwork by Kate Pugsley at Celebrate Odd Etsy – You never know what eclectic Etsy goods you’ll find at Celebrate Odd Etsy. This particular illustrator’s work caught my eye because of the teeth drawing.

Find these and more at my shared favorites on Google Reader!

I collect links the way some people collect magazine clippings for an inspiration board, and Google Reader allows me to star and share interesting tidbits I find as I’m reading. Here are some of my recent favorites:

• I’m all about font friday at PoppyTalk – Look at the pretty Christmas fonts! And I adore “Helvetidoodle.”
• What to read next? Ask the Book Seer! – I’d actually been searching for a Web site like this… something simple and elegant that recommends books based on your previous favorites. According to this, I should really read The Lovely Bones. Via Shelterrific
• It’s a controversial site for some Etsians, but I love this “LOLcat” on Regretsy – not to be mean, of course, just because I love LOLcats. You should check out the rest of the seller’s work, too–it’s cute.
• The cheerful cake Christmas ornaments in this series at Cake Wrecks caught my attention – and the little fawn made me go “awwww.”
• Sweet Juniper’s writing and photos make me feel like I’m there – I was oddly touched by this story (photo essay?) about a local market in Detroit. It made me wish I could visit.

Find these and more at my shared favorites on Google Reader!

I’m having so much fun making snowflakes in Adobe Illustrator, I thought I’d create a quick tutorial to show how I do it!

1. Create a new document in Illustrator. If you want your snowflakes to be white, it’s helpful to set a background color so you can see what you’re doing. I usually drag a quick rectangle shape to fit the document, set the fill to my color of choice, and lock it by selecting the rectangle and going to Object -> Lock -> Selection.

2. Draw the first “leg” of your snowflake by creating an elongated shape or pattern of some kind.  I do this mostly using the line and circle tools, but you could experiment with any shape. This is the shape that will be repeated in a circle to make the snowflake.

3. Once you’re satisfied with your shape, click on the Rotate tool.  Hold down the Option key on your keyboard and click on the bottom center of your snowflake’s first leg. This will bring up the Rotate dialog.

4. The angle of rotation should be set to a number that, when repeated, adds up to 360 degrees.  I usually go with 30, 40, or 60. The lower the number, the more legs your snowflake will have.

5. Once you’ve set the degrees to rotate, hit the Copy button. You’ll see one repetition of your initial pattern appear… if you don’t like what you see, hit Ctrl+Z to undo and repeat steps 3 and 4 to try a different angle. In this case, I initially set it to 40 degrees but decided 60 would look better.

6. To finish off your snowflake, simply hit Ctrl+D to repeat the pattern until you complete a full circle.  Voila, you have a snowflake!

7. You can play around with different angles and shapes to get the look you want. For smaller or more detailed snowflakes, you’ll probably want thinner lines.  For larger snowflakes, thicker lines look best. It helps if you group your final snowflake (select all the pieces, right-click or Ctrl-click, and hit Group) so you don’t lose bits and pieces as you create more and move them around the page.

I collect links the way some people collect magazine clippings for an inspiration board, and Google Reader allows me to star and share interesting tidbits I find as I’m reading. Here are some of my recent favorites:

• Eeep! My First Fail is always good for a laugh, but this makes me feel slightly uncomfortable – And they said my doll photos were creepy!
• Heidi Kenney’s cupcake designs are splendid – I also adore these real-life “TV dinner” cupcakes she made. The talent is blinding.
• Speaking of cake… the two pans in this post at Not Martha?  Major want – A big cookie and a winter village. Now if only I could bake worth a darn.
• Caryn’s been posting about her crafty Christmas projects – There are some great ideas here. If I were slightly less lazy I’d probably try them.
• Jesus, Karaoke, and Serial Killers: Funny Venn Diagrams – I LOL’ed! Courtesy of the Huffington Post.

Find these and more at my shared favorites on Google Reader!

And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look the very same.

Check out Calobee Doodles’ new design! It’s appropriately titled “Little Boxes” in honor of the many hours of Weeds I watched while I worked on it. It’s not a particularly complicated site, but I spent several evenings revisiting, tweaking, revisiting because I’m picky. I think I’m satisfied for now.

I had so much fun making all the teeny tiny doodles and icons for this site that I decided to challenge myself to make a whole page of them. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the results yet, but I’m thinking a print of some kind.

This evening marks the start of a five-day weekend–hurrah! I plan to spend plenty of time with the family, doodle a bit, and eat an unhealthy amount of stuffing.

I collect links the way some people collect magazine clippings for an inspiration board, and Google Reader allows me to star and share interesting tidbits I find as I’m reading. Here are some of my recent favorites:

• Bear Duck Designs has some awesomely tech-geeky stuff in her Etsy shop – If I can’t have an iPhone, at least I can have iPhone magnets! via Indie Fixx
• Christine Berrie’s pop culture illustrations are so colorful and fun – I’m partial to the vintage cameras and the VW Bus. via Poppytalk Handmade
• XKCD’s Academia vs. Business – Sometimes I think this is my life in a cartoon strip.
• The suitcase sofa via shelteriffic – Gotta love design that is both clever and functional.
• Loving this home design at Design Milk – The natural wood tones, the bright, open rooms, clean lines and big windows… *sigh* Where do I find one of these in rural Maine, hmm?

Find these and more at my shared favorites on Google Reader!

I collect links the way some people collect magazine clippings for an inspiration board, and Google Reader allows me to star and share interesting tidbits I find as I’m reading. Here are some of my recent favorites:

• An adorable collection of modern alphabet posters at Design*Sponge
  I especially love the first one.
• I have seen this look in my own child’s eyes before
  Intense! MyFirstFail.com is always good for a laugh.
• Happy 40th, Sesame Street! Cake Wrecks celebrates with Sunday Sweets
  If I had any baking talent at all, I’d attempt one of these for Ellie’s first birthday. The poor kid will be lucky if she gets a cupcake that’s not burnt to a crisp.
• The perfect mid-century modern calendar at Jenn Ski
  Want! Want! Want! Jenn’s handmade and vintage finds are superb.
• Environmentally-friendly dollhouses at Cool Mom Picks
  You realize the only reason we had a kid was so I’d have an excuse to buy all the cool stuff I wanted to play with when I was little… right?
• Tech Support Cheat Sheet courtesy XKCD
  As someone who does a fair amount of tech support at her job… this is brilliant.

Find these and more at my shared favorites on Google Reader!

If you’re a designer (and even if you’re not) there are probably certain fonts you absolutely cannot live without. My favorite Web site for new font discoveries these days is MyFont.com–tons of fonts, freeware and otherwise–in a sleek Web interface that is as attractive as the fonts themselves.

Here are some of my favorites:

Sexsmith. It’s playful. It’s fun. If a font could be sexy, this one would be sexy. I use Sexsmith over at Calobee Doodles and it’s one of those I keep coming back to… I have to force myself not to over-use it!

Rosewood Std Fill. This font was designed to be used as a (you guessed it) fill for its fancy cousin, Rosewood Std, but I think it stands quite well on its own.

Didot. One of my regular design practices involves combining a simple serif with a simple sans-serif, and this is my simple serif font of choice.

Little Days. Another of my Calobee Doodles favorites. Whimsical and a little loopy, just like me!

Respect the font, people. What are your favorites?

I had fun designing this one, if you couldn’t tell. It gave me a chance to flex my (rapidly deteriorating) Photoshop muscles and better familiarize myself with the WordPress Theme structure. A huge part of this redesign is not only design, but a re-branding of sorts. I decided to treat Sixhours.net less like a photography portfolio and more like a personal Web site… and so the design is a little more me and a little less Serious Business ™. Speaking of which, it’s been eight years (!) since I first bought this little nook of the Web. I think this is the domain-equivalent of a birthday at the spa.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been in a rut, and I know it’s because I’ve defined my creative life by my photography, but photography isn’t doing it for me lately (there’s also that pesky new-baby-itis problem, but I’m recovering).  When I allowed myself to apply my creative energy to other tasks, I found I had a lot of ideas and more motivation to work on them.

So now I have a list of projects that should keep me busy for a while. I’m already working on a new look for Calobee Doodles which will hopefully be up soon. Another thing I’ve been meaning to do for a few months is doodle a desktop calendar/wallpaper for each month… and now is the perfect time to start those for the new year. In the same vein, I may open a new “downloads” section on Calobee Doodles. The problem is I’m always working on someone else’s projects and I don’t make enough time for my own (tsk tsk!)

I’m also working on a “bucket list,” a la Mighty Girl, and that has me thinking about the big picture–the things I’d like to do that might seem too big or too scary to accomplish at first glance.  One thing I’d love to do is write and illustrate (and maybe publish?) a children’s book. I’ve been thinking about that since Elspeth was born.  Even if no one else ever read it, I’d love to make something for her to enjoy when she’s older.