Friday is my day: On Holiday

Friday is my day is on holiday until August some day.
Happy and creative summer days to all Friday freaks! :)
See you soon!

P.s If you want to show your Friday, please contact me through etsy (helis.etsy.com) or email me artherapia(at)hotmail.com

Friday is my day: Penguin & Fish

Let's pack our bags and take a flight to United States and meet Alyssa from penguinandfish.etsy.com
She creates the most cute and quirky animal plush and hand embroideries.
Good Friday! meowww

Kitty no.129 Dark plum with a lavender spot

penguinandfish

I start my day with my iphone alarm going off at around 7:00am, then it's Snooze, Snooze, Snooze until I get to the point where I'm awake enough to check my emails. I'd love if I could get started a little earlier but it never seems like I can get to bed early enough the night before to pull it off.


8:45. Time for coffee. While that's brewing, I make lunch for the hubs. Salad with blueberries, edemame and some leftover salmon from dinner last night. Also a banana and cereal for breakfast, and a few snacks.

By around 9:45am I've taken a shower and put non-pajama clothes on. Then it's off to my studio (a room on the main level of our house). I check my email again, then open up my big "to do" list for what needs to get done per/week till the end of the year. It's a little crazy but so good for getting longer term projects done. Right now it centers around getting ready for Fall Quilt Market, new surface pattern designs, a couple of plush shows, and the holiday sales season. I also open up Twitter (via TweetDeck), and do my blog post for the day.

By 10:30am I've started the real job of the day...emailing stores about my products and wholesale info. A whole day at the computer doing emails, gah! Not all that fun, and sort of stressful, but it's a good feeling putting myself out there.

Time for a much needed break around 1:00pm for more coffee and some lunch (a turkey wrap), then it's back to the emails.

I get away from the desk around 3:00pm to find packages at my door. Woo hoo! It's a rubber bucket that I got to pour the water from the dehumidifier into, and then water the plants. And a sail to put up for some shade outside.

3:30pm. I can't stand to be at the computer anymore so I go outside to the backyard and brainstorm ideas for the plush shows I have coming up. Oh yeah, and more coffee. This is more than usual today, but it's nummy. The second pic is our garage where I want to put the sail up for some shade. We just bought the house in April so anything growing was already there. Next year I want to plant a big garden behind the garage.
4:30pm. A quick snack and back at the computer

At 5:30pm the hubs comes home and we decide to go for a jog around the neighborhood. It's so hot and humid out that I can't believe I stuck with it today. When we get back I have to take a second shower for the day just to cool off.
7:00pm. Artisans Collective team meeting in the Etsy virtual labs.

At 8:30pm I start to relax for the day a little with some pizza and So You Think You Can Dance episodes on hulu.com. I had the best intentions to make some pesto and pasta for dinner with the basil from our herb pot, but the hubs was having a meeting in his office with the sound guy for his short film, and we decided to all just order a pizza instead. So much for the run, ah well. It's pesto and pasta tomorrow.
Around 10:00pm I'm finishing up my emails for the day. I want to make a few more bunny plushes later in the week, so I start picking out some fabric from my shelf. The shelf has all my wool fabric, felted, cut and ready to go.

At 12:00am the hubs asks me to watch his short film with him. It's all done except for the final sound mix, and we need to test the dvd burn before he sends it to festivals. It turned out awesome, and I'm super proud of him! He does some tweaks on the dvd and I test a few more to see if they worked.


1:00am. I sit in my husband's office (across the hall from mine) and knit. I'm working on a new pair of slippers for him, while he works a little longer on his computer.

By around 2:00am I'm completely spent for the day and I head off for bed.

Friday is my day: Lineanongrata

This Friday we will meet Julia from lineanongrata.etsy.com And the city is Berlin. We are invited to follow one of her creative days. Enjoy your journey!

Princess

lineanongrata

Hello, my name is Julia Freund. I'm a Berlin based illustrator and if you are looking for me in the internet, you will see that my virtual home is called Lineanongrata.
My day starts at 8 am. Well, at least it should. Sometimes I just turn off the alarm, turn around and go to sleep again. I guess it's one of the advantages (or disadvantages, depends on how you look at it) of living alone and working as a freelance illustrator.
Usually I have a hard time waking up, so I spend the first disoriented hour of my day bumbling around the apartment drinking tea, cleaning the kitchen, washing or ironing the fabric I want to use in my next quilt or doing some other manual task.
At around nine I usually pick up my pencils for the first time of the day. I have found that it's best for me to do something precise and non-experimental first thing in the morning. It'll usually be some kind of study or still life. Those are illustrations that ask for a lot concentration and focus, which helps me settle into my work.
After an hour or two of painstaking still life work, I move on to more experimental and interesting work. In the past I have tried to start with this kind of illustration first thing in the morning, but I have a tendency to feel discouraged when an experiment doesn't turn out well, and to have that kind of feeling early in the morning didn't ever help me get through the day in high spirits.
Noon usually sees me eating in front of the Computer. My mother will have a heart attact when she sees this, but I give myself an hour or so, working through facebook news, twitter updates, looking at favorite blogs and going wherever my fancy takes me on the Internet.
Around one I'll get back to it. Illustrating some more, scanning whatever I want to put in the shop or on the blog, or maybe, if it was a good morning, on my portfolio website. If one of you have more efficient system to flatten crinkly illustration onto the scanner than piling heavy books on it, I would love to know. As it is, I have a stack of photo books right beside the scanner because all my illustrations seem to turn out crinkly.
Music and audio books are my steady companions. I have tried 'a history of the middle ages' but it makes me go to sleep. Instead, I listen to the most gruesome thrillers all day long. They keep me awake, especially during such boring work as scanning, picture editing or, the worst, washing the dishes.
At around four pm I'm ready to go crazy if I don't see another human being so this is the time when I'll take the trip to the post office to mail orders, or to the grocery store. Even I don't have nothing particular to do outside, this is still a moment where I need to do something else than work. From experience I know that I wouldn't be productive anyway, so a walk through Berlin is always a good idea.

This city is one of the most interesting places in the world for me. It's a mixture of art, poverty, inspiration, common good sense and the typical berlin snotty-ness that makes me love the place.

Usually I get back from my walk at around five or six in the evening. Sometimes I'm able to work some more, this is also a good time for blogging or answering email.
At around sever or eight I'll go to either kickboxing practice, or I'll go for a run. It's important for me to go out and do sports, on some days it's only real contact I have with other human beings. It also keeps me sane to exercise, both physically and mentally.
I know: all this fancy fitness food looks ridiculous, but I'm heavily hypoglycemic (too much insulin and constant low blood sugar), so i need to pay very close attention to what and how much I eat, and these energy bars work well for me.
On days when I go boxing I'll be back around midnight, when I go for a run a bit earlier, but on both occasions I'm now very very tired and ready for a shower and bed.

Sometimes I wake up at three or four, switch off the lamp and close the book I have fallen asleep over.

...Thank you all for staying with me throughout this day.

My day is friday: Joutomaa

Jey! There is beautiful midnight sun in the nothern Finland this time of the year, so come on, let's fly there and meet Reetta from joutomaa.etsy.com who is an illustrator and artist and have the most lovely art shop(s).
Have a sunny and lovely Friday :)

Expedition -print

joutomaa

Hi there! My name is Reetta :) I live in Turku, Finland with my husband and two daughters (6 and 9 years old) We live in a little pink house near the city center.

This is my day:

8 am.I’m up and so is my hair :) I eat yoghurt with berries and muesli, and a sandwich with coffee, while reading the news paper.


10 am.Walking to my shop/studio. This is Kellonsoittajankatu (church bell ringer‘s street) where my shop is. Near the other end of the street there is
Turku Cathedral which is the national shrine . Good land mark if you are ever looking for my shop! ;) I opened the shop/studio in October last year after working at home for three years, and I still have to pinch myself from time to time to believe it! I feel so lucky!

Inside my shop! I sell my own cards and prints and other colourful, fun and whimsical art and crafts by Finnish and foreign artists and crafters. I do some dusting and vacuuming and open the shop at 11 am

Behind me “the inspiration wall” Here’s "the studio" where I do the cluing and clipping part :)

On my working table now are some gnomes with animal friends and vintage papers. I do my collage/mixed media works on wood panels. The new Christmas cards are coming together. During the working day I serve customers, paint, cut and clue, answer to phone calls and emails, pack wholesale and Etsy orders and so on. I close the shop at 5 pm.

I spend the evening with my family and with my laptop ;)

I take a walk in my poor little garden. Well..it’s just a yard at the moment but I have great plans for it J Then we spend the rest of the evening with my husband on the sofa with gardening books and TV. Good night! I hope you are having a good day too!