Here comes Peter Cottontail … Hopping down the bunny trail … Hippity, Hoppity, Easter’s on its way ...
I love everything Easter, from the celebration of the resurrection to the joyous return of daylight savings time with all of its radiant days of summer.
In Photoshop, I placed a digital image of Peter Cottontail in the middle of my pansies, which look glorious in April. I thought you might like a copy of Mr. Cottontail for your scrapping and journal projects. Click on the image(s) to save a copy (.png) of the front and back sides of the toy.This wind-up toy from 1953, played “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” and was produced by Mattel.

My design sense is whimsical, with a touch of froufrou. My Boho Chic collection was born out of a love for the art of antiques. When I read that a Bohemian design style reflects decades of globetrotting and a lifetime of creative scavenging, I realized that Bohemian aptly describes my treasured collection of stuff, spanning the ages; from around the globe.

Recently, my daughter look around my favorite room and gasped, “You like Shabby Chic!” I couldn’t tell whether she was pleased or horrified, but I was delighted that the word “chic” described anything I did and thus the birth of my style, Boho Chic, the best of both worlds – Bohemian and Chic.

Next, I attempted a preppy style with three initials constrained in a circle, but had mild success. Also, I set my initials in JFRingmaster and warped the text in Illustrator.

For a frilly version of a monogram, I used the Illustrator Glyphs in the type menu for that look of aristocracy.
In striving for a monogram I could love, it sharpened my eye for typefaces and gave me a greater respect for those geniuses who design them. My latest typeface love is Koorkin by Terrance Weinzierl at font.com. I’m crazy about it.

Finally, years ago my hubby had a calligraphy artist pen my name. I scanned the art and outlined it in Illustrator.

My generous husband gifted me with a Jessica Sprague Digital Design course for my birthday. The course was filled with tutorials and information by Jessica Sprague and Carina Gardner. The class goal was to complete a themed scrapbook kit of papers and elements for digital design projects.

At last, three-months after the course began I uploaded my finished design kit. I feel like Michael Phelps when he touched the side of the pool at the London 2012 Games to win his 18^th Gold Medal.

The course was challenging, but well worth the mental calisthenics it took. I would recommend any course by Jessica Sprague and Carina Gardner.

I titled my kit for the class Zany as it’s filled with wild colors, buttons, brushes, and elements. I had a zany time as well completing the course. It covered a gamut of digital design know-how from Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials to paper design, journal entries, typefaces, brushes, buttons, stickers, tags, copyrights, marketing, etc. Here’s a preview of my kit, which includes 16 Papers, 20 Elements, and 2 Brushes.

The Lipsmack brush is one of the brushes in my kit. I thought you might enjoy making your own Lipsmack image brush in Photoshop.

Lipsmack Brush Tutorial

• Smear on some bright lipstick and kiss a piece of paper.
• Scan the Lipsmack into your computer as a jpeg.
• Next, create a black and white copy of the Lipsmack. (Optional: I cleaned up the image and removed the white background from the scan so that I had a transparent background for a .png file.)
• Select the Elliptical or Rectangular Marquee Tool and drag to create a selection around the Lipsmack.
• With the Lipsmack selected, go to Edit>Define Brush Preset>Name your brush>Click OK. A visual image of the Lipsmack brush will appear at the bottom off your brushes palette. Deselect your Lipsmack image.
• Now the brush is in your brushes palette whenever you want to seal something with a kiss!

Before you close your image, save the Lipsmack as a .png file, so you have a handy copy of the Lipsmack with a transparent background in your image folder, ready to put a personal stamp on your projects.

I thought my husband knew me better than to think I would put a frog in the toilet, but one was mysteriously there, nevertheless. After rescuing it, Darrell, being a true photographer, rushed Mr. Frog upstairs to his studio and took a photo of it. As you can see from the photo, Mr. Frog was an unwilling subject.

It’s a little chorus frog or cricket frog. He can sail through the air with each hop and he has suction cup-type feet, perfect for toilet bowl entry.

The mystery remains, how did the frog get into our toilet. My husband reasons that the tiny, one-inch frog came up through the drain hole in the shower and hopped into the toilet. Sure.

Another theory, Mr. Frog came in through vent pipes underneath the kitchen sink and was on a pile of plastic bags I keep stashed under the sink so that when Darrell carried a bag into the bathroom to reline the waste basket, he had this stow-away frog, who hung out in the bathroom until discovered.

We know that Mr. Frog didn’t ring the doorbell and come through the front door. And he hadn’t been hopping around our house earlier because we would have noticed him, however diminutive.

Mr. Frog’s now back in the great outdoors. We believe in catch and release!

I didn’t get to see Mr. Frog in the toilet, which would have been funny! Almost as funny as my husband asking me if I had put a frog in the toilet…
My theory: Mr. Frog did not have a secret entrance into our house but rather came in with the groceries. Darrell likes to grocery shop in the wee hours of the night when Wal-Mart is deserted. When he carried the groceries in, no doubt, Mr. Frog saw an opportunity and followed the light. The way I know this? It happened a second time!

My blog is about the art of life. I’ve begun to incorporate the photos of my antiques into my digital design work. I feel fortunate to have a zillion antiques setting on my shelves and packed in boxes as willing subjects for inspiration.

And for further artistic inspiration, I need only to open my back door. Our wooded yard is a favorite hangout for juncos, crows, humming birds, blue jays, blue birds, grosbeaks, cardinals, titmouse, shrieks, mocking birds, chickadees, woodpeckers, wrens, robins, song sparrows (they love our lilac bush), house sparrows hanging out in the martin house … and squirrels who love to lounge on my deck railing and nibble on the vines in my pots.

For the most part, photos on my blog will be the work of my husband, Darrell Wiskur. Darrell is a designer, photographer, and a wildlife illustrator and photographer.

My monogram, PAW, is the logo for my digital designs and prints, Paw Prints and Papers.

The pages are illustrated with pen and ink and some are splashed with color. The book is rabbit eared, the binding is taped in places, and a child has scrawled on a page or two with a crayon in a spot or two, perfectly normal for a “loved” book that probably dates from the 40s.

Today, I shipped a pair of silver Kokeshi dolls to Canada, and it reminded me of my long-standing feud with Canada that began innocently with two Canadian tourists I met in Cabo San Lucas. It was a simple thing that brought my ire, but who could blame me.
Darrell and I had signed up for an eco-tour with the promise of seeing fossils on the Baja Peninsula. The promo material had in big letters to wear hiking boots or other well structured footwear.
Well, when the bus stopped to pick up the two prom queens from Canada, they were wearing strapless dress sandals. The tour guide looked down at their feet when they boarded challenging their foot wear, but their comeback was, “It’s all we have.”
The consequence for me and the other fossil hunters was that we could only hike so high before it became “too dangerous” for the ballet shoes they were wearing and so we had to turn back. The tour was altered, and I could not fathom their lack of conscience to not buy a pair of suitable shoes for the eco-tour. Why didn’t they just explore the mall. Certainly Canada has tennis shoes, I thought.

Our eco-tour guide referred to his rig as a Mexican limousine.

Of course, Alvin had to conduct the fossil test himself.

A note regarding the Kokeshis: They have been long boxed up, and were part of an estate from a lady who had an antique shop in the 80s. They are Japanese in origin. The taller one is a lipstick tube and the shorter one a perfumer that still holds a rich perfume scent. The outer canisters have remarkable craftsmanship, which makes them mini sculptures of art from a country of artisans.