Purple Pony Art Blog

Well, here's one thing crossed off the to-do list for 2021! After years (and almost 200 sales) of my tea cup cutting file package, you can now licence them for commercial use instead of just personal use. Creative Market does all the legwork.

I never knew that this would be a bestseller. I photographed a tea cup from my collection and then the photos sat unedited for some time until...2015? 2016? Whenever Etsy enabled automatic digital downloads anyway. Then it took me forever to list it on CM because preview images had to be designed. No cookie cutter clip art here, anyway.

I know most people, like me, loathe the thought of anything Christmassy before Halloween. However, when you're a crafter, there's no leaving inventory until too late in the season. Lately I have been adding Christmas to my sales table. They're fun to design and make and so far they seem to be selling well. I have been going to some sales for so long that customers want a little something new every year.

Since ornaments are time intensive, they are extremely limited edition. Once I make a batch, that's it unless I decide to make another. I will keep two of these as samples and the rest will be for sale.

I sell mostly cards at Christmas craft sales (and hardly any Christmas cards, in case you were wondering!). Over the summer I brainstormed making Christmas ornaments. Actually, I brainstorm about this every year, but usually at Christmas time, and then I forget by next Christmas :-D

In August I sat down and prototyped a cardinal Christmas ornament. It required a lot of steps, but I made 50 of them to give out to co-workers, where they were warmly received. A lot of us take for granted the amount of thought and design that goes into product development. The end result looks effortless, but I can sure you the road to that effortless look is a lot of wadded up paper balls, torn in half prototypes and sighs. However, making the cardinal ornament led the way to a lot of success for the chickadee ornament. I made 12, sold 9, kept one for myself and two as gifts. Here's what they look like:

Each one is handmade, although I had a little technological help! Here's a rundown:

• I drew and coloured the chickadee, then scanned and reduced it on the computer


• I designed a blue circle fill in CorelDraw and the greeting on the back


• I die cut the circles and affixed them together


• Then I die cut and hand brushed the pine branches with embossing paste, white paint and a glitter brush. I really need to figure out how to make this step better!


• I printed out the cardinals on a laser printer and cut one out by hand. For the cardinals, I printed them on cardstock and made a mask so that my Pazzles could do the job - but the glossy paper would not have worked well in the Pazzles


• I ended up making the ribbons by hand because I could not find small ribbons the right size


• Then I assembled the whole deal and strung it on a gold thread

Whew! I plan on making more next year, along with the cardinals and maybe a third winter bird - we'll see how productive I am!

Today I have a very exciting blog post. It's the story of how I ordered my own die from Ellison, probably better known to crafters as Sizzix, makers of the Big Shot die cutting machine. Some of you know I used to make a lot of artists trading cards. But I always got hung up on being precise about the measurements and cutting all the cards from different materials. Thought was killing action! So, I thought, I'll just find a die and crank out tons of cards.

Well, it turns out that it's very hard to find a die with the right dimensions. If it exists, my Google-fu is severely broken. I could find rectangle dies for sure, but none were the same dimensions as an artist trading card. The closest I came up with was 2.25 x 3.25". The size of rectangles seemed pretty arbitrary. So I just happened to be on the Sizzix website and saw a Thanksgiving sale on custom dies. I sent off an email and found out that they only made custom block style and not wafer thin dies. Not a problem though! I put the order through, approved a proof and a few weeks later, my die arrived through FedEx.


I couldn't wait to try it out and got a piece of scrap paper. It cut a perfect crisp Artist Trading Card. Look at all the cards I cut from old brochures, paper scraps and maps. It made dozens of dies in minutes.

It's true that I have a digital die cutter, but it uses sticky mats, and delicate materials like thin paper and fabric wouldn't work very well. I really enjoyed the friendly and prompt service from the Ellison rep, and yes, they ship to Canada. It was wrapped in a bubble mailer inside another bubble mailer. I promised the rep that my next order would be far more exciting than a plain rectangle. Probably something with a horse or a bird, you know me!

Now I just have to get into action and make some completed ATCs and ACEOs :-) Stay tuned!

"Pick up tonight?" my husband texted me.

"Nope! No class tonight."

We celebrated the end of classes by going out to a fashionable Indian restaurant called Tamarind in the northwest. The dishes are really unique and delicious.

Time for another "That's a wrap!" post. Six more credits in the bucket for my BFA. And thank goodness! My house is such a mess. The cleanest place to be is the birdcage :D I thought without studio classes that the house would be neater, but nope. Since every place seemed equally messy, I started with the coffee table where loot from British scrapbook magazines that I get from Billy's News downtown. Let's take a look...



That's a lot of loot from the past four months! Sometimes I buy two or three magazines at a time, depending on how good they are.


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What do you give someone that has everything? What do you give someone that has asked for no gift? The simple answer is the gift of love :-)

My parents came over on Boxing Day and Mom had a large frame with her. What could it be? I found out in an instant and I LOVE IT! Years ago the only craft I practiced was cross-stitch and I only completed three large scale pieces (others remain unfinished as of this writing!). Maybe this piece, Country Alphabet, had a better chance of being finished because it simply was an alphabet.


The frame is 18x24" and I was pleased to see that Mom had made a buffer so that stitches would not get crushed. I can't tell you how long it took me to finish this. I probably started it in 1995. I had to improvise on the U because it featured a portrait of Uncle Sam, and being Canadian, well...

I moved a few times since finishing it and and I always wondered where my alphabet went. When I was cleaning out the basement this past summer, I was sure I would find it. Turns out I had the wrong basement!

I still love cross-stitch, but it's so hard for me to complete for some reason. I have a horse pattern on my website that you might enjoy! I got halfway through stitching the model and then I gave up. Sigh! It's a wonder anything gets done with me!

This week's Illustration Friday is a reminder to do something I've been meaning to do. At my old job, I had craploads of free time. I also thought I would become a cross-stitch designer. I love cross-stitch heart and soul, but darn if I can complete anything. So here I have all these patterns that I made but I didn't get around to making models of, and was too paranoid to put on the web (I'm looking at you, pattern piggies!). Here is an actual pattern that you can stitch if you care too - I did get halfway through making the model, but wasn't able to complete it. Why? What's wrong with me? Am I doomed to be like my Great-Aunt Jo and leave half-finished projects behind? :-)






I will be adding this pattern to the patterns section of my website. If you like it, please consider a little tip :-) You can also email me if you would like the symbol version of this pattern or a larger copy.

Some of you have seen these before, but I'm going to include them here to show off my other hobbies! I love textiles so much - the feel, the colours, the patterns - and with the Knifty Knitter loom I can finally act on all my secret textile fantasies! Being left-handed, learning to knit was always a chore...but no more!

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