Merry Christmas! :)

Hello world!

Its almost Christmas time! I feel extra blessed this year because, despite having a retail position for a job... I still got time to off to go home during Christmas! I was a little worried that I would be spending Christmas Eve at work, so I'm very excited to be able to get almost a week off. :)

Short post tonight, cuz I'm tired. Haha. But here are some Christmas bears, just to keep things in the season.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/117554977/christmas-bear-with-tree

Christmas bear holding a Christmas tree. This one's not decorated yet though. ;P I kinda debated whether or not to first make the bear ears, and then put a hat over it... or just put a hat there and not have an ear under. I guess it wouldn't really make a difference except... if someone ever dropped it or if it ever broke, it would be an anatomically accurate representation of a bear. Haha. XD

https://www.etsy.com/listing/117555306/christmas-bear-with-snowman?ref=v1_other_1

Winter and Christmas always make me think of playing in the snow and making snowmen. I would love to be able to have a mini snowman to carry around with me, providing that it wouldn't melt on me and turn into a puddle of water.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/117555612/christmas-bear-with-candy-cane?ref=v1_other_1

Candy cane! :D Striped items are always fun to make because its rather easy and yet somehow very satisfying and fun to make. If that makes any sense at all. Haha. XD

This bear was my favorite. This picture is also my favorite. Unfortunately, in the process of taking the picture, I dropped it on the floor and it broke into 3 pieces. BUT, that meant that I could glue it back together and keep it for myself! :D Its hanging from my bag right now. Haha.

All of the backgrounds for these bears are courtesy of my friend's Christmas tree. I looooved the fact that I could take pictures from the tree. I had actually been wanting to take pictures of these keychains from a tree for a while, just cuz I thought it might look snazzy and cool. Haha.

Okay everyone, stay warm for Christmas, regardless of where you are. Remember to bundle up! :)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. May this Christmas season be filled with joy and laughter as we celebrate and rejoice over the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. :)

Blessings,
Joy

Going Once... Going Twice... Sold!

This is just a short post just to say, I sold stuff!! :D :D

Haha. Not much to post about, but it's something that excites me. :)

These sales actually happened a few weeks ago:

Originally I received a message from someone asking whether or not I could custom make two bears for her. I, of course, happily obliged because well, let's face it, my profits were not shooting through the roof. I was also very excited just to have someone, anyone, interested in my products. My bears were not a total flop after all!

While this exciting exchange took place, an order was placed!! I was so happy I could have screamed and jumped up and down (if that sort of response were in my nature).

This happened over Thanksgiving, which made things slightly hectic. For one thing, I was supposed to be preparing for my Japanese Language Proficiency Test. :( Second of all, this item had not yet been made. And, lastly, I was going home over the weekend, and a little more, so I would need to ship it from home in order to be on time with my shipping policy. But, everything worked out in the end and, according to the USPS tracking number, the package arrived safely and on time. :)

The custom made items were completed at the same time as the robot (pictured above), but it took a lot longer for my customer to actually purchase the item. I got a little bit worried and wondered whether or not I had made the items in vain, but thankfully they were purchased in the end.

So yay! Yay for people actually looking at my Etsy, and for people actually buying stuff. Its definitely a learning process. Purchases are made very rarely and slowly, but I believe it's good training for my patience and, in one sense, trust in God. I know I'm not out to make a living with this website, and so whether or not I make money off of this habit, is all up to God... and I'm learning to be okay with it. I'm learning that its okay not to be super successful in everything in life, because, well, that's just the way life is. God never created life to be smooth sailing and successful all the time. Instead, God wishes for us to be patient and allow Him to bring blessings into our life in His time.

:)

Finding Time to Make Art

Hello world!

Again... It's been a while. Now, I would say... "I've been very busy. So busy, that I haven't had time to update this blog!" And... despite that being very true... I still feel like it will just end up sounding like an excuse for not blogging. 

Excuse or no excuse... I wanted to share a little art project I did a while back. My friend from church had a baby shower (the baby has already been born, healthy and happy, praise the Lord!!) a month or so ago, and one of the activities that we did included decorating a onesie.

That day I arrived late to the event because I had work earlier during the day. And so, when I had arrived, the event was pretty much winding down. I looked at some of my friend's onesies--and they were amazing! So. I resolved. I wanted to do something amazing too! Haha.

Well, in all honestly, I was kinda wondering if mine would look sorta lame compared to my friend's. But, luckily, I had one thing to my advantage: Totoro. :)

I don't know if you guys all know the Japanese movie, My Neighbor Totoro, but the character from the movie looks like this: 

Well, the character looks like the big grey and white one, sometime wearing a leaf on his (or it's?? ) head. Here's another picture of some of the characters from the movie (these pictures are totally unnecessary... but I really like this one cuz its super cute. :D )

Now, why did I have an advantage, you ask? Well. This couple happens to LOVE Totoro. So, I was pretty sure as long as I drew a giant Totoro somewhere on the shirt... it would be well accepted.

In any case, knowing myself and my perfectionist attitude when it comes to art, I didn't want to just slap on Totoro and call it a night. I wanted something that had a big impact, and something that looked... I dunno... AWESOME? Haha.

So, after looking through many, many pictures... I finally sat down and drew my first onesie:

I wanted the Totoro to be super bold... but with the markers I was using... the color wasn't super solid. Which made me rather unhappy. Close up, you could see all the areas where I shaded multiple times, and there were these bags underneath and around Totoro's eyes. Very not cool. :(

So, I tried another one. This time, featuring a little girl in a Totoro costume trying her best to fool Totoro:

I liked this one better, just because it kinda was more original and had a little "story" to it. I was getting more and more comfortable with using the markers on the shirt, so I think the coloring turned out a little bit better on this one as well. Up to this point, all my Totoro's were blue. One reason was because that was my personal favorite color. Haha. The other reason was because I didn't have grey to work with. And I felt like blue was more suited to replace grey, more than any other color.

I still had one more onesie left to decorate. I had completely ran out of ideas by now, and so I kinda left this one blank for a while. Then, when I was talking to my parents and showing them the other designs, my dad said: why don't you make a baby Totoro?

It made sense: the onesie was for a baby, soo... why not? This time I finally used another color for Totoro because I thought that I really needed to stop using blue. Haha. I chose red cuz... well... it looks more girly? Haha. Here's what I came up with:

Totoro with a pacifier, a milk bottle, and his very own blankie. :) I was actually quite pleased with this

one in terms of the color overall image. Plus, by this time, I was able to get a nice solid color with the markers I was using (I tried to go over the first Totoro with blue marker, using the same technique, but it just made things worse. Haha. XD ).

Anywhoo. Long post this time. Cuz I had lots to share. Haha. More coming soon! Eh well, maybe I shouldn't promise too much. :P But I'll try! I don't have anymore hardcore studying to do anymore, so hopefully I'll have more time to post. :)

If anyone's reading this, and is truly bored, comment and let me know which one you guys liked best! :)

<3