Stephanie Fizer Illustration

I Was Working In The Lab Late One Night. . .

I know I normally don't share a ton of commissioned work here, but I do want to share something I just finished because it's a bit different and turned out just swell. It's a custom printable calendar sheet for the lovely Keryn who works in a lab--thus the cute little mad scientist monster guy:  

But yeah, isn't he cute?  So now she can just print out a new list for each week instead of dragging a planner all over the place :)  

Awesomeness Achieved

So yeah I've finally got pictures of the elusive bookcases I've been working on.  Here's the before-ish picture:  

I say before-ish because I started painting that back panel and then realized that I still hadn't taken a picture.  Oops!  Anyways, this is what it looked like after a bit of sanding.  Notice how I didn't tape off the shelves before painting that back panel?  Well, that wasn't the greatest idea, but lucky for me it worked out.  

Here's the finished bookcase complete with large movie collection:  

It's a lovely cherry red and since we didn't add a layer of primer, you can still see the pretty woodgrain too.  And that peep or Caribbean blue is just perfect!  

Here is the china cabinet turned bookcase:  

This one didn't require much work, just a lot of scrubbing and polishing and then a tiny attack with a paint marker on a couple of chipped corners.  There is much geekier on that bookcase indeed, it is now the home of many books that were floating willy nilly about the house.  And it provides a temporary resting place for Seth's zombie-sculpture-in-progress.  

With all of the cleaning and rearranging today, the animals actually behaved really well.  I even experienced this moment of piece between Miso and Yuki:  

This is really unusual and much appreciated, I assure you :)  

MFT Paper Packs

Just a quicky this morning :)  

I can't believe I forgot to announce this but for those who don't know yet, two of my digital paper packs with MFT Stamps have been released as actual printed papers.  So if you aren't into printing your own papers yet, you can buy sets of 25 sheets of the Spring and Summer packs here for just $5.95 each!  Enjoy :)  

Baked Veg

Oh the bookcase painting is coming along so well!  I had hoped to have it finished up and photographed for today's post but unfortunately the paint is taking quite a bit longer to dry than I anticipated so I'm hoping it will be ready for tomorrow!  

So today I'm just going to share a quick and favorite vegetarian recipe that I eat about once a week--last night in this case :)  It's just a simple assortment of baked veggies. 

You start by laying a couple of pieces of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet--one for each person.  Then you cut up an assortment of veggies--I used broccoli, cauliflower, green pepper, zucchini, onion and carrots--and place them on the foil:  

 

Drizzle about a 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the veggies then season with just a pinch of garlic salt, pepper and parsley.  

Now wrap up the veggies in their individual foil packets and pop them in the your oven which should be preheated to 400 degrees.  Bake them for about 30 minutes to get this:  

Bake them for a bit longer if you don't like your veggies to be slightly crunchy.  Then just dump the whole concoction, including the delicious juices that form on the bottom of the foil packet and voila! a delicous vegetarian meal that took almost no effort to make :)  

So tasty.  

Oh and if you want to know what I'm currently working on, here's a tiny peek at today's sketchbook page:  

Spring Cleaning

As happens every year, the end of February begins the time period when I feel like I will absolutely lose my shi*t if Spring doesn't hurry up and get here.  Autumn is one of my favorite times of year and I take much joy in digging out my fantastic scarf collection and my favorite hoodies.  Then Winter arrives quietly and I love it!  

For a couple of months.  

But now, I'm just sick of being cold every day no matter how many layers of clothing I don, of scraping ice off my windshielf and snow off the front steps.  I ache for sunshine, fresh foliage and fresh spring breezes.  

Alas March is always mean to me and I'm sure we'll get at least one more silly snow storm to ruin my parade.  So I'm waiting.  

And will I'm waiting, I'm keeping myself busy by spring cleaning because what else does a crazy OCD person do when she can't get her way? :)  Last week I bought a new laptop and busied myself with that transition and with cleaning off both my old laptop and my external hard drive.  

This week I've been working on two pieces of furniture salvaged from a house my parents just bought.  First, a lovely mid century china cabinet that just needed to be scrubbed and polished.  We removed the sliding glass panels from the front and are now using it for an bookcase--I'll post pictures next week when the second furniture project is finished.  It's a handmade bookcase that I have thus far sanded down.  Tomorrow it's going to be painted--red with an orange back panel and peppermint stripes on the fronts of the shelves!  

Next week I also plan on doing a bit of spring cleaning in the shop.  There are a few things that just don't fit with my current vision, so they will be taken down and replaced with new products.  That said, if something disappears that you had your heart set on or if you need to re-up on something already purchased, I will still have the ability to make new prints, notecards, etc with the old work.  No worries :)  

When I haven't been cleaning and reorganzing, I've been browsing through spring catalogs and fashion collections and although there is much black, I'm beyond thrilled to see a return of almost ridiculous bright colors.  Some of these colors inspired some new additions to the shop:  

Another incarnation of the Lil Monsters, this time it's Spring Mini Cards which are printable.  These are a small 2.5 x 4 inches so they are appropriate for writing tiny Easter or spring notes or you can use them as large gift tags.  I'm smitten with the little yellow one with bunny ears--she has pink houndstooth arms and legs!  

And:  

Do These Ears Make Me Look Fat?  Part of a modern portrait series I am slowly working on for fun.  She is available as a regular print, an aceo print, or a set of flat notecards with lovely scallopped edges.  Sort of a modern twist on Easter I guess :)  

Enjoy!  

Books Galore

So I've finished working on the Lil Book Monster illustration and have three fun new items for the shop to share with you:  

A Stack of Books Print which can be picked up here.  I've been working a lot more with words and quotes recently so expect more prints along these lines.  And this print will coordinate with the free downloadable print to be offered on Indie Fixx next month--no worries, I will announce when it is up and ready for printing! 

 

Lil Book Monster Bookplates which are available in small sets of 5 for $4 in the shop.  

And finally for those we need another cute printable to do list or book list, here are the Lil Book Monster Printable lists.  You can purchase them for $5 here and then print as many of them as you need :) 

Now I'm off to tackle a few non-artsy home improvement projects for this weekend.  I hope you enjoy the new work!   

Printable Recipe Cards

So what did you think of the new Chilly Friends painting?  I have to say that I love the painting but am so far over winter at this point.  As far as drawing is concerned I'm definitely back into Spring/Summer mode already, I just with the weather would catch up with me!  

We've been lucky enough to have a lovely couple of weeks but of course more cold weather and possible snow looms on the horizon.  Why can't spring just hurry up and get here?  

Naturally with all the weather wackiness, I've managed to snag myself a bit of a cold so although I'm not feeling up to par today a fair amount has gotten done in my little studio.  

First, there are new printable recipe cards in the shop right now:  

These match the printable Lil Monster Grocery Lists.  Both are available for $5 each and you can print as many of them as you need :)  

This is the sketch stage of the next little thing I'm working on:  

He will be used on printable Books I Heart lists for those who like to keep a running list of books to read ;)  And he will also be used on small packs of bookplates.  I hope to have both of those things up in the shop by the end of the week. . .we'll see if that really happens :)  

And finally, here are the last four days of my sketchbook project:  

I'm definitely on a robot kick!  As you can see, the markers bleed through the pages but I find it challenging to create different drawings using the bleed through.  See that blue robot on Feb 14?  The blue is from a cupcake drawing on the other page!  

Enjoy!  

I know we probably all wish that Spring would just arrive already, but I couldn't resist one last sweet wintery painting: 

A Chilly Friend can be purchased here.  

Enjoy!

Post Valentine Goodness

Free shipping on everything in the little shop from now until February 20th.  I hope everyone had the loveliest Valentine's Day!

  

Sketches and Bunnies

So this is my first three entries in a little sketchbook project I decided to start for myself.  

Most would never imagine it, but the funny thing about working for yourself is that there is always work to be done.  There is regular business stuff like filing and accounting and many visits to the post office every week.  And then there are the artsy tasks like working on sketches for clients, painting pretty new things and thinking up new designs and products for the shop.  And then there are the every day household tasks to keep the apartment up to my usual slightly OCD standards.  

But it's the best job I've ever had for sure :)  I have noticed recently though that I stopped sketching and doodling "just because."  Now when I sketch, it has a purpose and a destination.  

And I've found that I miss the freedom of just sketching for fun to see what comes out of it.  

So I got a smarty pants idea and ran out to buy a $5 daily planner with dated pages divided in half with the idea that I would sketch just a tiny bit each day to warm up and get some creative energies out.  

I just started Wednesday, but I've had great fun starting my day off with 20 or 30 minutes of rough sketching--my long owned but never used Prismacolor markers even got a little break in!  So yeah, I'm really enjoying it and hope I manage to keep up with the habit :)  

Thoughts?  

Oh yeah and I just posted a new mounted print in the shop:  

Goodnight Bunnies can be picked up here.  

Enjoy!