My latest Spoonflower entry.  It may not be the best fabric design in the world but I am very happy with the way my cartooning and illustrating skills are going.  The theme was “desert” this week.  The contest does not officially start until tomorrow so feel free to go and vote then!

Please vote for my Monster Baybeez quilt in the Spoonflower Cheater Quilt contest this week! Bleorg really deserves this win… he’s worked extra hard. Okay… so really he’s done nothing but sit around and declare how fabulous he looks (though he bemoans the fact that he was not given a crown), but still. Bleorg is awesome. Vote for him. You don’t really want to make Bleorg angry do you?

Here’s the contest page link: http://www.spoonflower.com/contests

Bleorg loves the environment and kisses the babies.

This is just a little sneak peek of my “Dolleez” who will be making their debut as soon as they have clothes to wear. There are currently four with a fifth on the way… and a sixth, seventh and eighth not far behind.

Serena the ballerina.

Martina... no occupation.

So another plug for Spoonflower… here are a couple of pictures of my Good Twin/Bad Twin puppets that I made for a weekly contest (Puppet theme). Unfortunately, my silly twins came in disappointingly low but I am still very happy with them and the finished product.

So, as I seem to be incapable of getting Lulakiti.com to be what I had originally intended, I think I am going to steer it in a slightly different direction.  I have become absolutely obsessed with the design-your-own-fabric site Spoonflower.com.  And through this site I have managed to learn quite a bit from the other artists (most of them women in my general demographic) both artistically and web-pagedly (my new word).  Scanning another would-be artist stay-at-home mama’s blog, I realized that I can use my blog in a completely different way and still get the same general effect.  Therefore, shortly I will be linking to my Etsy.com shop as well as the other various places where I hawk my wares and using this blog as a place to alert y’all of what new and exciting things I am up to.  Like my most recent entry into the Spoonflower.com weekly fabric design contest:

This week’s theme is robots and this is actually not my favorite design I have entered.  In fact, I’m a little embarrassed by how it turned out.  But I have gotten such positive feedback on it that I decided to go ahead and enter it instead of the replacement design which I personally like better (see below):

I have never come in any higher than 20th place in this contest (out of 80 or so entries) but I keep trying.  And I am totally obsessed with it now to the point that last night I could not fall asleep for thinking of different design possibilities.  It’s driving me mad!!!  Bonkers!  But I love it.  So vote for me.  Please.

P.S. My designs don’t actually have “Mona Gracen” written all over them… that is via Spoonflower’s site… not sure how to link to a version that doesn’t do that… I’m still learning.

Cat and Pig: Kitteez and Snortz

Omigod… I really hate blogging.  Am I the only person left in the world who does?  What I really wanted here was a store.  Of course that requires me to take pictures and write descriptions of all my stuff and I have yet to do that because I’m too busy creating new stuff.  But my husband, the internet marketing guru, insists that “blogs are better”.  My website will “score higher in the search engines”.  I get it.  But I don’t like it.  I find blogs a complete mystery to work with.

Once upon a time, I was a total web design whiz kid.  In the early days of personal web pages, I taught a class at the request of one of my college professors because I knew more than anyone else did.  I was written up in one of my University’s papers.  My web pages were legend.  Somewhere between 5 and 10 years into it, I stopped finding it fascinating.  I think it was the job I held at the time which killed nearly every creative design impulse I had for the five years I worked there as their “web designer”.  I stopped learning the most current web design trends.  I fell hopelessly behind.  I was too bored to care.

Then I got pregnant and had a baby and left that world behind.  I dove head first into my art again – deliriously happy with the end results.  All skills I had once possessed were now so dated, I had become obsolete.  I could never get another job in my previously field again, but I didn’t care.  Motherhood and art suited me just fine.

So that brings me to this point… I need a website.  That in itself would be a difficult task for me as I have forgotten much of what I used to know.  But I could manage it, except that now blogs are the thing.  Blogs have taken over.  The website of the past is so archaic now that I might be laughed off the internet if I were to attempt to do what I once knew back when I was considered “cutting edge”.

So what is the point of this rant?  Nothing really.  It mostly serves as an apology for the fact that I have yet to do anything with this site.  It is an apology to myself, my husband, my family and friends and all of my future fans out there.  I will get this going eventually.  And it will be spectacular.  But for now, I remain hopelessly lost and unfinished.  Sorry.  Please keep on checking back.  I promise that one day, it will be worth it.

Bear with me, people.  I have so many plans for this space and the last time I set up a web page was many years ago… and it was sure not a “blog”.  I have very little clue how to get what I want to appear on the screen at this point (would you believe that once upon a time I was actually a web designer?!).  Soon, however, Lulakiti.com will be filled with stuffed animals and dolls, clothing and artwork, books and cards all designed by yours truly (Mona Gracen to those not in the know). 

Until then, you can purchase a variety of quality Lulakiti clothing and paper products at our Cafepress site at:
www.cafepress.com/lulakiti

I am very excited to share all this stuff with you for the first time and can not wait until I actually get there!  Thanks for your patience!

Much love,

Mona