New Puns Intended Christmas cards

I designed some new Christmas cards for Puns Intended! Let's just pretend that I'm 11 months early instead of one month late, shall we? These are all available in packs of five in my etsy shop, here. My favorite is mistletoe and Dali... it's embarrassing how much giggling ensued when I came up with that one.

Christmas freebies

Let's say it's December 24th and the post office still hasn't delivered that perfect gift that you ordered two weeks ago. No need to fret! This card has you covered. Simply print it out and put it in a standard greeting card envelope, or wrap it up so your recipient has an extra gift to open, and you're all set!

At Christmastime let's keep in mind that it's always the thought that counts. If your present arrives after Christmas, it's no big deal. If anything it just extends the gift-giving season a little longer, and having holiday cheer last past the 25th is a gift in and of itself! :)

This download comes as a 5" x 7" PDF as well as a page that prints two foldable cards per sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper. Files are 300 DPI and suitable for printing or framing! For personal use only.

Download the 5" x 7" PDF
Download the 8.5" x 11" card set PDF

Extra, extra, read all about it!

It's been ages (ages!) since I sent out an update to my Flapper Doodle mailing list, so I've decided to just start a new one instead. I'm pretty sure that anyone who signed up in 2009 would, at this point, scratch their head and wonder where the heck the email came from.

If I *had* sent out a newsletter today, it would have said that I'm offering 30% off at Flapper Doodle with the code "MISTLETOE." Additionally, you'd get (infrequent, I promise!) updates on new products, behind-the-scenes peeks into my studio and work process, exclusive discounts and subscriber-only free downloads. If you're interested in any of that, then you can sign up right HERE.

Printable Christmas countdown

It's almost time to start counting the days until Christmas! Yay! I've had this on my to-do list for months, but didn't get around to starting it until this week. I should really pay more attention to calendars myself, I always seem to release my seasonal products on Thanksgiving or Black Friday when common wisdom says they should be out in July or August. oops!

If you could use some help keeping track of the passing days, and/or if you're as excited about Christmas as I am and can't wait 'til the big day arrives, my advent calendar is available in my shop here. It's a printable PDF so the file will be available to download immediately after checkout.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Time Machine to the 90's -- the Christmas edition

Just in time for the holidays, a Christmas edition of the Time Machine to the 90's! This includes everything that comes in the standard time machine kit, PLUS:

Your time machine box will be wrapped in 90's smiley face wrapping paper with a Barbie To/From sticker. Each Christmas kit will also include 90's holiday magazine clippings, a candy cane and an exclusive 90's Christmas playlist. And if you're sending the gift directly to the recipient, they'll know that they just received something special when they see the Lisa Frank "Merry Mail" snowman sticker adorning the outside of the box!

I kind of wish that I wasn't the one making these kits so that I could experience the excitement of opening one myself. But, at the same time, I feel a bit like Santa Claus each time I assemble one. It's so fun to imagine the recipient opening up the time machine and remembering all kinds of things from their childhood that they'd long forgotten.

If you're interested in snatching up a Christmas 90's kit (or a regular 90's kit) they're available at Sweet and Lovely, here.

Behind the scenes

Behind the scenes --waiting for the glue to finish drying on a big batch of fan club pins. Clothespins are my new BFF, they hold the pin back on firmly while the glue is drying. This is my favorite part of the pin-making process. I love when the glue has cured and I can pop them off the clothespins. It's their last step before getting packed up and sent off to their new homes!

Your Fan Club shop update & improved design

As promised, a giant fan club shop update! I included a few seasonal pins in this batch (pie! scrooge! santa!) that are perfect accessories for all of the holiday festivities coming up soon. All of the new pins are available in my fan club shop here.

Please note: my cut-off for *custom* pin & patch orders is going to be the first week in December, so if you want to buy a custom design as a gift, hurry hurry hurry! :)

I also made a small but wonderful change to the pin design -- they have new pin backs now. I've been using tie tacks (kind of like the backs on Disney pins, if you're familiar with those) but I've found that when I wear them they have a tendency to spin, so the design can be upside down sometimes. And, like other tie-tack pins (cough, Disney pins, cough) sometimes you can lose the backs while you're wearing them. With these new brooch backs your pin will be better secured to your clothing and it'll stay upright the whole day long. Nothing else has changed -- they're the same price, the same size, they come on the same cards and they weigh the same. They're just better at staying wherever you choose to put them :)

Christmas ornaments

I can't believe this is Flapper Doodle's sixth Christmas season (time flies!) and that it took me this long to finally make ornaments. I chose to make a few ornaments from my favorite Christmas card designs, as well as a custom one for couples spending their first holiday season together! I may even live up to my cat-lady-ness and offer a First Christmas ornament for a girl and her kitty... hmm..

The Flapper Doodle ornaments are all available in my etsy shop, here. My hand-painted Dwight Christmas ornament is available at Sweet and Lovely, here.

ps. Stay tuned, I just finished over 30 new Your Fan Club pins and they'll be up for sale later this week!

Your Fan Club shop update

It's been a while, but I finally have a mini fan club shop update! A couple of these were requests and a couple (like Walternate and Fauxlivia from Fringe) were on my own fan club wishlist :)

All of the new pins are available here. And, as always, if you don't see what you're looking for I have custom pins here.

New business cards

Some items have been on my to-do list for so long it seems like the list would have been better named
never-do. One of those things was a business card for me to include in all of my orders that lets customers know about my (many, many) other stores, my website and my blog. As you can guess from the photo above, I did finally cross this item off of my list, and I'm pretty smitten with how they turned out.

I decided to tie them in with the branding of this blog and my portfolio. I think it's cute enough for sweet & lovely and the kindness shop, but simple/stark enough to also look like it fits in with my flapper doodle, your fan club and puns intended orders as well. I wanted them to be smaller than usual, kind of like moo cards without the cost, so I designed my file to print two little cards per business card, and then cut them down myself. I might end up doing this more often, I love how they turned out! These little petite cards could be used for so many different things! Earring cards, little extra prints in my orders, etc.

Flapper Doodle holiday gift guide

It's almost time to start Christmas shopping and picking out holiday cards, so I thought I'd help things along with this Flapper Doodle Gift Guide! All of the items link back to their respective etsy listings, which makes browsing my shop for holiday goodies a lot easier than sifting through 10+ pages. And everything is broken down into categories -- gifts for your BFF, gifts for cat lovers, even gifts for yourself (I mean, why not?)

You can take a peek at the gift guide right here, and be sure to bookmark it for Black Friday so you can come back and use the 30% off code on the site! :)

New Flapper Doodle jewelry

My swing necklace is now available as a brooch, and my cat lady collar clips are now available as earrings, too! They're in my flapper doodle shop, here.

Puns Intended 2015 calendar

Puns Intended has been my longest-running art series. I started it back in 2005 when I used to do outdoor art shows full-time. I've been meaning to make a calendar out of the paintings for pretty much this entire time -- almost 10 years! And I finally put one together for 2015. I'm thinking of it as a 10 year anniversary celebration.

The calendar includes 12 different punny paintings, printed on vibrant halftone pattern backgrounds. The halftone is a sort of dotted pixel pattern that's only visible when viewed closely, but adds an extra dimension instead of flat color. The pages are 11" x 17" with a small white border around the edge, and they come bound with white plastic comb binding at the top. The calendar is available at Puns Intended right here.

The Kindness Shop

This year I decided to make it my goal to spread kindness as much as humanly possible. I honestly believe that the world would be a much better place if we all just treated each other with kindness and respect. My hope with this new shop is that people will use the products to pass along the message. My personal favorites are the compliment brooches. I love the idea that whoever reads your brooch will get a little pick-me-up. I find that most modern clothing & jewelry with messages emblazoned on them tend to be mean or self-centered. Rather than proudly proclaiming that "you can't sit at our table" (I know it's a Mean Girls reference, but come on -- the movie was not glorifying that kind of thing. Didn't anyone get it?) be the person with the brooch that invites someone to join you instead. Not to sound cult-like (although having my own cult might be totally cool) but we need to foster a sense of inclusiveness, not cliquishness.

Right now the shop is stocked with a limited number of magnet & brooch designs, but I hope to be adding more in the near future -- like inexpensive PDF downloads that you can share or post around town and note cards with simple, kind greetings to send to friends just-because.

$1 from every sale is donated to Random Acts, a charity that funds and helps promote random acts of kindness. And every order comes with two cards with suggestions for daily random acts of kindness -- one to keep and one to give away!

You can take a peek at the new shop right here.

Flapper Doodle best friend pendants

Speaking of giving old products new facelifts, my BFF pendants have received a small update as well. In 2012 I stocked up a little too much and ended up with enough pendant supplies to last me for two years. When it came time to (finally!) reorder I decided to switch to these trays instead. They're sturdier than the ones I had been using, and feel much more substantial. The new pendants are available in my Flapper Doodle shop here.

Changing pendant trays also meant taking new photos, and it was about time. I'm slowly starting to re-photograph a lot of my products with this new warm grey textured background. I think it really makes the items stand out much better than a plain white background, or the brown floral one I had been using before.

Here is a timeline of the BFF pendants, starting with my first set that was made by gluing my prints to scrabble tiles. I'd say they've definitely improved since then!

Rainbow collar clips

I recently gave my Sweet and Lovely rainbow collar clips a little facelift. The clouds are now made from white laser cut acrylic. I love coming up with brand new designs, but revamping and giving new life to an old idea is pretty fun, too!

The new clips are available at sweet and lovely here.

Flapper Doodle Christmas brooches

Three new brooch designs in the shop, all perfect for the upcoming holiday season! They're available at Flapper Doodle, here.

New Flapper Doodle jewelry

Four new Flapper Doodle jewelry designs, available here.

I am never cutting my hair again

I cut my hair last winter and I've been regretting it deeply ever since. I drew this as a little reminder to myself whenever the scissors start calling my name, maybe it'll come in handy for someone else with a similar love/hate relationship (love before the cut, hate for months -- possibly years -- afterwards) with haircuts. Prints are available in my flapper doodle etsy shop here.

Mini Time Machines to the 90's

My Time Machine to the 90's is now available in a miniature size! These nostalgia kits come in a plastic cassette tape box. They're packed with stickers, trading cards, buttons, candy and more -- plus they come with the same 90's playlist that you get with the larger kits.

So what's the difference between the two sizes? For starters, this one is half the cost and you pay over 50% less postage. They're light enough that they can be shipped by first class mail so I can pass on that savings to you! They're pretty small, so they are perfect stocking stuffers! And if you're been on the fence about buying the larger kit, this is a great way to get a little taste of what you'd be getting.

That being said - the larger kits are definitely more "time machine", whereas these are a bit more "flashback" -- if that makes sense. I can fit larger items (like beanie babies and boy band posters!) in the pencil boxes and, in general, just more fun stuff! The original time machine definitely packs more of a punch. Either way, both kits are great gifts for 90's-loving girls, or a fun indulgence for your own 90's-loving heart.

They're available at Sweet and Lovely here.

Custom blog design for Vixen Vintage

I recently had the honor of doing a custom blog design for Solanah, from Vixen Vintage.  I wanted to come up with something that would reflect her vintage aesthetic while still looking modern and timeless. I drew most of my inspiration for the colors and design from 1940's packaging for hair accessories! They're so simple and elegant and often have a really pretty color combination.



If you'd like to see more of my process, I did a post a few days ago that dissected the evolution of the Vixen Vintage blog header from my initial design through 13 revisions.

Birthday editions of the 90's Time Machine kits

My Time Machines to the 90's are perfect birthday presents for 90's kids (or just anyone obsessed with the decade!) so I thought it would be a nice idea to offer ready-made birthday versions of the kits.

This version comes already wrapped in 90's wrapping paper, with a Lisa Frank gift tag. Inside your recipient will find all of the normal accoutrements found in my regular time machines, with the added bonus of a birthday pop-a-point pencil and bookmark, too! They're available at Sweet and Lovely (which just got an ever-so-tiny facelift, by the way!) right here.

Evolution of a blog header

I recently completed a new blog design for Solanah at Vixen Vintage (more on that later!) When I was cleaning up my folder afterwards, I realized I had created 13 different images before finally landing on the header used in the final design. I thought it would be fun to share that process here, and a few more of my blog headers from the last year or so!



The design for The Soubrette Brunette started out as a pencil sketch and, remarkably, ended up almost exactly the same once it was finished. Just a few tweaks here and there, like adding the tulle skirt and switching up the way I drew the nose. And adding color, of course. I love fiddling with a design and adding a touch here or there to make it perfect, but there's something to be said for a design coming out the way I wanted it to right from the get-go!


Last year my brother and I took a road trip and documented it on a private blog to share with our parents. Naturally I decided it needed a custom header (and background.. and layout..) and I was so happy with how it turned out. Tilting the text and adding a drop shadow was such a simple touch but I love the effect so much.



My header design for Hello Cat Lady was, like The Soubrette Brunette, another one where my first draft & final copy were pretty similar. I still love looking at the evolution from the pencil sketch to the finished digital image.

Turn any fan club pin into a patch

I've had a lot of requests for fan club patches, so I'm happy to announce that I am now offering sew-on embroidered patches at Your Fan Club! You can turn any pin design into a patch, and I'm also offering 4 for the price of 3, as well! You can check out the listing here.

Your Fan Club shop update

I just added sixteen new designs to Your Fan Club. Most of these were requests, but I have to admit, the potato and garlic pins were mostly for me. I'm attending a garlic festival this weekend and I simply had to make a pin for the occasion.

In honor of Robin Williams, all of the profits from the sale of his fan club pins will be donated to one of his favorite charities, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

The pins are available at Your Fan Club here.

New flapper doodle collar clips

Brand new collar clips at Flapper Doodle. I love the idea of the chain being an important part of the collar clip design (like my telephone clips) and I'm working on more products like this, too.