and the winner is....

(Drum roll please)....

Did you forget? I was holding a contest to get help for my banner.

Anyway....and the winner is...dun dun dun!

Miss Mashed!

I will get your prize out to you right away. Thank you to everyone for all your helpful comments and suggestions. I think the consensus is that it needs to be a bit more playful so I'm back to the drawing board...stay tuned.

Happy Birthday to Brenda and mi Mamacita!

January 28th is an interesting day in our family. Not only was it my Grandma Betty's birthday but it's also my Mom's. I know how weird is it that my Dad married a woman with the same birthday as his mother....crazy. And yet, in junior high I met and befriended this crazy little hispanic girl, Brenda, in gym class whose birthday was also on 1/28. Years later (sixteen to be exact - damn! are we old!), I'm still friends with Brenda and still find it amazing that I am surrounded by this goofy birth date, LOL. Anyway, it's always tough trying to figure out when we're getting together with mom or for me, with Brenda to say Happy Birthday and give them their gifts. This year was no different but it all worked out. Brenda is the big 3-0 this year, so it was kind of a big one....and her lovely sister in law, Chrystal, threw her a surprise party. Being the artsy girl that I am I had to do something special to mark the occasion and since Brenda doesn't have a lot of things on her apartment walls I figured a little bit of framed artsy-goodness would be appropriate. I looked on line for quotes about friendship and finally stumbled across one I thought was perfect. Here was her birthday surprise:

And for my Mom, I made three little cartoon portraits with painted frames. Her whole house is basically country quilts, sewing garb or my Dad's baseball and vintage car knick-knacks. So it's safe to say RED is everywhere. Not to mention it's only like her most favorite color in the whole wide world, LOL. So here they are...me and my two younger sisters...as kids (you know when we were still cute and adorable).

a work in progress...

May I Get Some Opinions...??

I must admit, I am at a bit of a stand still with my website redesign. While I like the banner design I've come up with I seem to be getting mixed messages from the people I've shown it to. While I have no problem taking criticism in regards to my art...the response I'm getting seems to be that it's not really my style. I'm thinking, "I drew it, how is it not me," LOL?? But then what do I know I'm just the artist? hee hee hee. The majority of responses has been something along the lines of, "I love it, but it's not really your style," so I'm curious what the blogging world thinks.

I've seen a bunch of blogs do give-aways and hold contests so I thought...hey maybe I can do that too. Get a little feedback and also give away a little thank you at the same time. So I propose this...for the next few weeks I will keep this open and ask for feedback. At the end of that time, I will put all the names of those who have left comments into a bag and draw a name. The winner will get a freebie from me. It may be a Valentine or an an ATC, it might even be an original piece of art...who knows? It will definitely be a surprise. Thank you for your help and here's my banner design:

I'd love comments, feedback, suggestions, whatever you can give me in the way of constructive criticism. Should I keep it, should I redesign it from scratch with something cutesy...hey if you have a completely new suggestion for me I am all ears :) Can't wait to hear your thoughts and thank you in advance.