Melvin's Magic Act - The Finished Product

Well after a year long process, Melvin's Magic Act is finished.

I thought you might be interested to see how it turned out. Here are some photos of the finished book and some of the processes I use in making the book. Hope you all enjoy!

Here is a pencil sketch of Melvin and then topped off with water color. There is actually a few other steps in between these two photos. (I do an old school pen and ink outline, the kind of ink that requires a nib and the user to dip the nib in the ink bottle.) After the ink is dry I erase any pencil marks and dust off any eraser shavings. Then it is off to work on the water color step.

After the art work is all finished I scan the images onto my computer and do some cleaning and adjusting. Then I place my text and images on a page to get them ready for print. The pages actually don't print out how you see them in a finished book. Often the pages are all mixed around so when they are folded they line up with the right back page and right front page. This photo below shows one of my print pages along with some of my crop marks. Putting books together is a long process!

Here is the really fun part... the actual printed book. I will have to tell you all about printing the book and binding it all together another time. For now just enjoy the final product.

Melvin's Magic Act

COMING SOOON!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who may not know...

I have been working on a new book. Updates to come shortly.

Bakerella Continued

Okay everyone here we go... I asked for your help in deciding what to send to Bakerella. So I sat down and got to work. I decided to make her 3 hand painted cards. I figured she could keep 2 and give one away or she could keep one and give 2 away. But then I thought ... this really should be made into a book. So I added two new design pages to the mix and came up with a little pop-out book that tells the story of cupcakes!! (So she also got a cute little book to go along with the cards!!) I had a blast making it and I really hope that she loves it.

Hope you enjoy this little process.

The original pop-up images I made... 12 in all

The first card

Second card


Third card... I just want to eat it!!
This is the cover of the book ... 
 I just love picture books, don't you?




Well now it is off to go make my own pop-up cupcake book. ( I haven't gotten mine put together yet) 

Let me know what you guys think!!!

- Cupcake Crazy-

For those of you who don't know who Bakerella is... well shame on you. She is one of the most amazing people to ever grace the blogging world. (Can you tell I am a big fan?)

Why do I love Bakerella, well lets just say she takes 3 of my very favorite things and brings them together to a whole new light.

First, she is super creative, loves, loves, loves, to create cute things.
Second, she makes and bakes these super cute creative things.
Third, she takes pictures while doing the first and second things, and they are awesome photos.

check out her work at bakerella.com

Well Bakerella just happens to love cupcakes and so I got to thinking, why not make Bakerella a few pop up watercolor cupcake cards? So I went to work. I planned on making just one and sending it to her, but who can stop with just one cupcake? Not me!!!
One turned into two and quickly became twelve. Opps :)

So now I have to chose what one to send her? Any suggestions, maybe I will just make a whole book of pop-up cupcakes.

Any way I thought you guys would enjoy this little "Project."

(if you are wondering why a funny line runs down the middle of each cupcake, that is the crease where the card folds in half. :)

Water Color

Pen & Ink

Books