Our Blogs Got Married

My brand new husband and I have combined our two electronic-newsletters into one handy brand new "blog." Please reset your bookmarks at www.themincingmeerkat.blogspot.com. See you on the other side!

Mincy & Frantic at the LA Street Food Fest!

This Saturday, Feb. 13th, Mincy and I will be selling our magnets & cards at LA's first Street Food Fest from 11-5 at the LA Center Studios downtown (500 S. Beaudry Ave.). Admission is only $5 and you get to sample from some of the best food trucks in the city.

Luckily they'll be offering sample sizes at sample prices ($1-$5) so you can try a lot of different foods. I'm starting to make a list of ones I want to try, and I finally told Mincy we had to have a budget of how much we could spend apiece otherwise we'd end up spending all the profits (plus gain around 37 lbs.)! Some of the trucks that will be there include the Grilled Cheese Truck, the Buttermilk Truck, the Sweets Truck and the Komodo Truck.

But that's not all! There will also be 33 artists & designers selling their wares, so if you haven't gotten your Valentine shopping done - now's your chance! Designers include The Quilting Mama, Mr. Toast, Plastique and Three Apparel.

For a full list of food trucks and designers click here.

So take your Valentine downtown for some great food and buy him or her something special from a local designer. Celebrate the institution of food trucks in LA and the fact that it will be 70 degrees and sunny, instead of 20 degrees and snowy like much of the rest of the country.

It's National Stationery Show Time Again?!

Okay, so it's not until May, but planning is in full gear. Mincing Mockingbird and I paid for the booth this week, so I guess we're officially going. Oh yeah, and I bought the plane tickets yesterday and the hotel is reserved. I've got some new cards already designed, though they have to be printed yet. The list just keeps expanding every day. We're hoping that we've learned something from last year's show and the most important thing would be is to not wait til the last minute because everything seems to take longer to get done than you think it will.

Here's a partial list of things to be done:
- order carpet squares
- redesign catalog
- make press kits
- design booth layout
- choose booth colors
- choose booth furniture
- decide how to display magnets
- get cards printed
- write press releases
- decide on lighting
- figure out when to ship everything

Whew! Okay, I'm tired now and must go take a nap. I'll update more as we actually complete it.

I Love You Despite the Warning Signs

As a lot of you already know, Mincing Mockingbird and I got married last weekend in a surprisingly tasteful wedding at the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. Well, what does that have to do with this new Valentine's Day card, you ask? This card is the first of hopefully many marriages of our creativity. After much whining about how I needed to add a new V-day card to my shop, Mincy graciously allowed me to use his writing to accompany my artwork for this card. He's ghost-written quite a few cards for me -- I often come up with a crazy image, but then have no copy for it. This is the first one, though, where we took existing wording from one of his magnets and I came up with an illustration for it. Keep your eye out for more MM/FM hybrids in 2010.

She Was Afraid of Clowns

Even though I'm on a "break" from etsy, since it's been a bit slow at work, I decided to start the new year out with a new magnet.

The Frantic Meerkat is Bizarre this Weekend!

This weekend the Mincing Mockingbird and Frantic Meerkat will be in San Francisco for the San Francisco Center for the Book's Holiday Fair on Friday night, 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. For more info click here.

We're also having a booth at Bazaar Bizarre Saturday and Sunday, from 12-6 p.m. For more info click here. Stop by and check out Mincy's panel prints and my new pocket mirrors and comic book!

The Mincing Mockingbird & Frantic Meerkat Visit the Windy City

So--after staying up til 1 a.m. every night this week, making 50 lbs. of magnets and printing hundreds of cards & prints, we're finally ready to hop a flight tomorrow afternoon from Bob Hope Airport in beautiful Burbank, CA (current temp 67°) bound for Chicago Midway Airport (current temp 34° with a wind chill of 24°). Tonight we're going to have a leisurely dinner and then relax by the Christmas tree reading classic literature and listening to Christmas carols, while our bags sit perfectly packed by the front door for our departure tomorrow.

Oh, who am I kidding. There are half-packed suitcases in every room of the house, unfolded cards on the love seat as well as scattered about the studio, and a stack of prints that need to be inventoried to see how many more need to be printed. We have a rain barrel that needs to be hooked up to the gutters before it starts raining all next week. Plus, I think there are containers in the fridge that may be moving.

And it's not due to poor planning, though I admit that both Mincy and I tend to be great procrastinators, but we're also great optimists and tend to think we can get so much more done in an allotted time slot than is actually humanly possible. We also had a bunch of retail stores contact us at the beginning of the week wanting cards & magnets for the holiday shopping season. I'm not blaming them...I'm just sayin'.

So despite our best intentions to not run ourselves ragged before Chicago Renegade Craft Fair, we apparently know no other way to operate. But please stop by booth #125 upstairs at the Pulaski Fieldhouse, Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 5 & 6. We've added new magnets, cards and prints to our already huge inventory (hence all the work). Plus I'll have my new pocket mirrors and holiday cards! And if that isn't enough incentive to stop by, we'll be wearing Santa hats, and it's not every day you get to see a meerkat and a mockingbird in Santa hats.

Frantic Meerkat in the UK!

Just got a list of shops in the UK who carry my cards. Thought I'd pass it along to all my friends across the pond.

Athena in Yeovil
Custard in Brighton
Athena in Bristol
Athena in Exeter
Athena in Plymouth
Quernstone in Stromness in the Orkney Islands ( Scotland )
Tidings in Monmouth
North Star Delicatessen in Chorlton nr Manchester
CATS in Leeds Uni
Pen To Paper in Summertown, Oxford
Token House in Nottingham
Give The Dog A Bone in York
Flux in Leith , near Edinburgh
Chain Reaction in London (NW1)
Zig Zag in Knaresborough

George Jr. has a Great Adventure!

My son is working on his senior thesis in film production and borrowed one of my paintings, George Jr., for set design. It makes me want to break out the oils again....sigh...if only I had more hours in the day.

A new magnet conceived by Mincing Mockingbird and executed by me.

Why the Top Hat?

It's after 6 -- what am I? A farmer?

A brand new magnet which will be available in my etsy shop next week (if the magnet maker arrives back from repairs as scheduled on Monday).

Patchwork in Santa Ana this Weekend!

This weekend Mincing Mockingbird and I will be at Patchwork Indie Arts & Crafts Festival Sunday, Nov. 15 from 11-5. Stop in and see us - I'll have lots of new cards and hopefully some new magnets (if the magnet maker arrives from the repair shop this week). I'll probably end up making magnets at midnight the night before, but that's the fun thing about craft shows - you can be creating up until you pack the car. Plus I'll have my new comic book available for your Christmas shopping - I'm sure everyone has someone on their list who needs a comic book of animals with relationship problems. So stop out and say hi!

Introducing: Book of Comics

I've put together a 24-page book of my animal comics just in time for gift-giving season. Not sure if there's a huge demand for it, but personally I think it would be a great addition to your coffee table, book shelf or bathroom.

He had a pedigree of violence.

New magnet.

A Little Bit of Heaven...

A new card.

Dogs & Cats or Men & Women?

My new magnet - one of the designs I came up with during my exile in jury duty land.

Santa's Meerkat Helper

Here's my newest Christmas card. I had some people (okay, A LOT of people) stop by my booth at craft shows or email me and ask if I had anything with a meerkat on it. I tried to pass off a lemur as one, but they were wise to me. So to make everyone happy, I made a Christmas meerkat card. Of course, once the holiday's over, I'll be meerkat-less again, but until then...enjoy.

Handmade Bridage of Orange County Indie Holiday Craft Show

Mincing Mockingbird and I have a busy schedule of craft shows this holiday season. The upcoming one is the Handmade Brigade of Orange County Holiday Indie Craft Show on Sunday, Nov. 1 from 11 - 5. We're pretty excited because it'll be the first time we get to break out the pink feathered Christmas tree to hold ornaments. Now I just need to get busy as I only have six ornaments done and it's going to look a little bare. Stop by and say hi!

Isn't Every Creative Type the Black Sheep of their Family?

Just finished this card to add to my comic collection. Hopefully this holiday season I'll get a small booklet of them together.

In other news - we just put our deposit in for our National Stationery Show booth. Yes - after swearing we'd never do it again because it almost killed us, like a mother after the birth of her first child, we forget all the work and just remember the afterglow of sales. At least this year we've already worked out a lot of the kinks and just have to improve upon our booth and product. And, since that was our first trip to NY, we're a little more savvy about the location and logistics of the Javits Center. Stay tuned, and I'll try to keep this blog a little more up-to-date on the trials and tribulations of a small art and design studio.

Meerkat & Mockingbird at the Rose Bowl!

It's so sad how I've neglected my blog. So I thought I'd at least better post that Mincing Mockingbird and I are going to have a booth at the Rose Bowl Arts & Craft Show which takes place in conjunction with the Rose Bowl Flea Market this Sunday, Oct. 11 from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. in Pasadena. There will be some new cards and larger prints (11 x 14). Come on out and look for something old or new that you never knew you needed, but now can't live without. For more info click here.