Oh the joys...

...of a fresh new website!!
You might have thought I was lazying around the past few days? Well, maybe you didn't think that...but if you know me you'd realize I was probably up to something :o)

This morning I replaced old with new...www.devonindustry.com is fully updated (well, there's a wee bit of content still missing - but I'll get there!). It may be less picture heavy but definitely more clean and navigable - and super cute I might add! I amazed myself by whipping it out yesterday...till about 1am last night - yep, now I'm pretty tired, but a good tired like an 'accomplished tired'. And I have to give credit to some lovely, fabulous, and oh so helpful folks on the Etsy forums who helped me figure out how to add my Etsy shop to my website. It's there now - you can see it! It's a really cool feature.

So now I can get back on my feet...or back to my sewing machine rather! I've got to scramble and pull together a bunch of goodies for Kaleid gallery drop off this week. I'll be joining up with the gallery again after a little break and will be doing the big holiday event in December. I also have a mural project tomorrow - a darling little nursery for a baby girl soon to arrive.

If you have a moment, would you please let me know what you think of the new site? Any ideas for making it better - or thoughts on what you'd like to see? I'm totally open to suggestions! :o)

Have a really lovely day! xo, Devon


ps: check out my little shop update...with more to come soon :o)

Shop update Friday

Hello! I'll be having a little shop update this Friday about 2pm PST!
Owling babies and penguins and more wooly goodies - hope to see you then :o)

Kitty games

Sanguine's making me smile today :o) She must have had a great nap as she's got tons of kitty energy. Today she found my felting 'inbox' was empty - oh my, how fun! I looked over and saw a little black and white head popping out and wanting to play. Alas, not such a comfy place for a nap so off to her reclaimed kitty bed after exhausting herself.


I've got SO many new little owlings coming together!! Check back for more yummy pics, and check my shop soon too!

Have a great Tuesday! xo, devon

Where's the sun??

Maybe we tricked ourselves into losing the morning sun by getting up so early all those days last week. But wow, it is REALLY dark at 6:30! I thought for sure the glow would be out by then and we'd start having some 'wake up light' (I love a natural alarm clock), but nope, super dark and not very inspiring I have to say. It's terrible how tied to light I am - I really need to get over it. Actually in Germany it was dark till around 7:30am while we were there. Oh, and I suppose with daylight savings on the way (4th of Nov) things should lighten up a bit.

I actually am better suited now for the darkening of the days toward winter. Jared helped me change out the overhead light in my office/studio and it's TONS better now. I had a pretty half globe paper shade (ikea!) up on the ceiling that really glowed more than illuminated. Now I have a little spotlight track (more ikea! - 'as is' dept. $10!) that has 5 halogen lights that cheerfully light up all the important spots...computer/sewing desk, paper cutting/mail center, painting/sewing prep area. It's funny how I could go so long without fixing the lighting situation in here. I've probably had the track light for a year! So that along with my desk lamps and some accents, it feels really cozy in here :o)


I've got a new penguin boy in my shop today! His name is Mango and his fabrics/colors are really sweet. I was trying to finish him up on Friday but my mural sketches took the whole afternoon! I'll try to remember to post those as well - I'm happy with how they came out, and just need to hear back from my client. Oh, I also mentioned wanting so badly to get little plants for my 'plants on the brain' planters from clayflower at Etsy...I finally did on Saturday - yea!! They are too cute...I will be getting more little plant heads, if not for me then for some of my friends who love to garden too.

Benbo & Penny

Cute picture eh? This is Penny the cat who belongs to my friends Mona & David :o) Sitting next to Penny is Benbo the owling who they adopted from me at the last Bazaar Bizarre in San Mateo. I hope they're pals...sometimes Penny has jealousy issues - like with their Roomba vacuum.

Still haven't finished my mural sketches...spent a lot of yesterday trying to understand the nature of the Serengeti plains through photos of animals and landscapes. It's sometimes the pits trying to put together sketches to be honest. I'm just not the type to jump in and start drawing - it really takes me a TON of time! Until I'm convinced that what I'm drawing has some legitimacy to it, it just ain't happening. So...here's me crossing my fingers that the most gorgeous African landscape for a teeny powder room setting will come to life today. Fingers and toes...oh, and when it's completed I'll probably post it on my other journal site, Mural Studio blog for anyone to check out.

I just finished a fantastic new penguin this morning too! He's quite nice and has a boyish look to him, though would be appreciated by many I think :o) I sure like him...he just needs a name, and photos, and then I'll post him in the shop - maybe later today.

And if I finish all these things...I can run over to the nursery at Orchard and buy teeny plants for my 'plants on the brain' planter heads! It'll be a sweet reward.

Another early post...

Well, earlier than usual. We can't seem to wake up later than 5:30am these days...this morning it was 4:30 - ugh! But it's been fun to have the mornings together. I made biscuits and honey butter and we enjoyed them with strawberries and coffee. Sanguine our cat is has decided she prefers Phylo's mat in my office more than hers and the poor guy isn't brave enough to reclaim it so he's retreated to his big bed where he sleeps at night. I put his little mat up against the wall and now Sanguine is sulking around and meowing at me. Such drama with the animals today!

In less dramatic - but just as fuzzy and cute - shop news, I have 2 new little plushes up! Abby is a polka dotted mini owl with a corduroy back, and Lillian is a lap dog with a gorgeous Japanese fabric and my own handmade felt eye details. I'm going to try and get finished up with more plushes as soon as possible, but have to finish some mural sketches first. I'm finding it hard to focus - is it possible I had TOO much coffee this morning??

Off to collect research on the Serengeti plains, then draw my best lions, giraffes, hippos, wildebeasts, zebras, birds,...

Oh, and here are a couple more shots from Paris...the first one is in the Louvre Museum in the section of Napoleon's apartments - gaudy goodness!! The second is from a window in the Louvre looking out at the glass pyramids, right before the sun burst through and we got lovely blue skies.

Mmmm, did someone say chocolate?

I had to share some of these pics from the trip...this was the "Chocolate Company" - a chocolate shop in Aachen, Germany. A fabulous place!! We ate and drank and bought more chocolate than I could imagine - it was irresistible. We brought home tons of dark chocolate stirring sticks for making hot chocolate. At the shop I drank the raspberry, and can't wait to try the lemongrass and the cinnamon (both dark chocolate, of course...). Jared had an espresso and they brought us a little plate of treats - they were eaten very quickly!

Wish we had bottomless stomaches and could try EVERYTHING!

Dark chocolate with raspberry mixed into hot milk makes the most delicious hot chocolate!

And in shop news...I'm working on some new little guys and have will them up later today. A little lapdog and an owling - they look so cute together. I slipped the little gocco owl cards above into the packages I just shipped out. Hopefully they'll be a sweet surprise :o)

Tuesday morning...or is it Wednesday?

Hello!

It's about 11am PST here...and 9 hours later in Germany and France where we had just gotten used to the time difference. Needless to say, we are in slightly rare form. We had an amazing trip and just got back yesterday afternoon. Too many photos to share of course! But I'll keep posting them on my flickr (there are some there already that I had the chance to post during the week). Hope you enjoy...


Germany really is a neat place, and we loved Paris...the sites, the food, the wine, the people. It was so much to take in, and my French is a mix of maybe 9 words, but we enjoyed it immensely and can't wait to go back. We had our share of aggravations...but survived. We weren't fully prepared for every aspect of travel - had it been too long? More on those things later....I have SO much to catch up on. Packages of cozy plushes to mail, sketches to complete for mural projects, a pile of sewing and a shop update, and tons of domesticities that are calling my name:

...do the laundry...sweep the porch...clean the garden beds...clean everything, really :o) A fall clean up I suppose - time to accept that fall is here, summer is past. At least there's Halloween to look forward to!

See ya tomorrow...