I’ve been working on the new 2012 calendar lately– so many great quotes, so little time. One of my favorite parts of getting ready to do a new calendar is looking for the quotes. Of course, the internet makes this much easier, but I still like finding obscure quotation books and finding things that are so old yet still so perfect. And there are lots of new people saying and writing wonderful things, thank goodness. I’ve even illustrated quotes from people like comedian Steven Wright and, in this calendar, actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Here are a couple of the drawings I’ve been working on for this calendar, entitled “Wit and Whimsy” (Now THAT title is all-encompassing and makes it easy to find great quotes!).

If you’re interested, you can get my 2011 wall calendar at your local Barnes & Noble or by clicking here. Here’s the cover:

Do me a favor and post any great quotes that you’d like to share in the comments section. OR you could let us know what you think of the 2012 calendar. OR just say whatever you want, because hey– whatever! We love to hear from you.

~Mary

long time ago, I used to embroider all the time. It was such a great thing to take on car trips or to pick up when I didn’t have enough time to start a drawing but felt like doing something creative. I used to embroider work shirts and jeans for me and boys I was dating (remember, this was back during the hippie scare of the late 60’s and early 70’s, when boys wore their hair long and weren’t afraid of a peace sign or a flower or two on the pocket of their shirt). When Phil and I were dating AND taking long car trips to visit friends all over the country, I embroidered a little red VW camper, his dog Jigsy, and of course, tiny versions of the two of us all across the back of his denim shirt.

Then when the boys came along, I embroidered and appliquéd my way through blankets, onesies, overalls, jackets, and pillows until they got old enough to say the word “stop”.

And then I got busy with the business, and the embroidery took a back seat to drawing until I finally stopped altogether. I started again when Mikayla came along and have even taught her some stitches, but as I’ve said before, if it doesn’t involve a horse or a ball, she’s really just being polite.

Now we have a new book out called “Stitched So Cute” from the ever-fabulous Leisure Arts, and it is SO cute (and thus, appropriately titled) that I might have to take up all this stitching stuff again! Take a look at these darling owl and mushroom pincushions. So many wonderful projects and none of them will take you years to complete—which works for me! Because if there’s one thing I love as much as I love making things, it’s instant gratification. If you decide to get this book, let us see your finished projects– I’d love to show them on the website.

Oh, and one final note– we made almost $6000.00 for Doctors Without Borders with our Haiti print. Thanks so much for all of you who supported this worthy cause by buying a print. Although they’re off our radar now, with new disasters cropping up all the time, Haiti still desperately needs our help, especially with hurricane season in full swing. Anything you can do to help will certainly still be appreciated.

~Mary

It’s been a busy summer so far. We celebrated my birthday here at the studio with a fantastic chocolate cake that was so good we all had to leave early so we could go home and lie down for a while.

Jan had decorated the table with little paper crown confetti and she had cherry jellybeans in little crown cups for everyone. VERY cute, of course, because as you know– Cute-R-Us.

Just last weekend I had a mini-book signing at Tony’s newsstand outside of our studio. Some of you may have seen it when you toured the studio during the Workshop. There was a local food festival (CWE Art Fair & Taste) going on, so we thought it would be a good idea to sign my new cookbook, Fan Fare: 120 Family Favorite Recipes. It was a good idea and we had a lot of fun, but it was hotter than the hinges of Hades, as my mother would say, and at times I seriously wondered if I would live through it.

You can buy the cookbook under much cooler circumstances by ordering it from my website. The first 10 people ordering STARTING TODAY will receive a signed edition!

I’m off for a brief vacation–YAY!– but will be back soon with more news. Don’t forget to go to Michaels and pick up the new tins– they’re really (altogether now) cute!

~Mary

Here’s a little something you might be interested in. I’m doing a bunch of new Easter/spring cards for Papyrus-Recycled Greetings, which will be available this coming spring. I had the idea for one of them during one of our staff meetings in which we were discussing how many cards we needed to provide QUICKLY to PRG– the operative word here being QUICKLY. Here’s the doodle I did on our agenda:

I thought at first I would do it in flat colors with just markers on colored paper…

But I decided it looked too washed out (although it might be good for a fabric design). So I redid it one more time in the old-fashioned way— pen and ink, markers, and colored pencils.  I like this one the best… 

What do you think?

~Mary

We have lots of good news here at the ol’ studio.  First of all, we hired the wonderful and completely charming Amy Medhurst as our new Director of Licensing and Marketing.  The first time we all met her we felt like she had been here forever.  She fit right in, and since she seemed not at all offended or confused by our comments and jokes and the general mayhem that goes on here on a daily basis, we hired her on the spot. A good thing we did, too, as she has already brought several good things to the table (more on that as soon as we sign on the dotted lines) and she has also raised our visibility in the marketplace.  This is VERY good, since we had actually been asked in the past couple of years if I had died.

The other good news is we have just signed a contract with Papyrus-Recycled Greetings for greeting cards.  I had a wonderful run for many years with Sunrise Greetings, but I felt like it was time to shake things up.   I want to make sure the cards are available absolutely everywhere, and we’ll have that with Papyrus-Recycled starting in spring 2011. In the meantime you’ll still be able to get my cards at Barnes and Noble, Office Max, and at many of your local post offices and stationery stores.

And the rest of the good news is that we just have a lot of great new products coming out– a ton of fun things at Michaels (you have to hurry- this stuff sells out really fast!), the world’s cutest, if I do say so myself, figurines from Bethany Lowe and Katherine’s Collection, and of course the new Fairy Tale book, all coming out this Fall.  Stay tuned for more exciting new developments!  I LOVE new developments!

~Mary

I just finished inking in all the drawings for “The Nutcracker.” I had so much fun doing these illustrations, which is strange because I absolutely did not want to do this story. I had seen the ballet and had taken Mikayla to see it when she was younger and we both had the same reaction– we thought it would never end. Mikayla kept asking ”When are they going to start talking??” And for some reason, several things just creeped me out– the evil-looking toymaker, the 7-headed rat king– good grief, who dreamed this stuff up?? (It was E.T.A. Hoffmann, whom I’m sure was a lovely man) I found out I was not alone in my thinking: every time I would tell someone I was going to illustrate the Nutcracker, every single person, save one ballet-o-phile, said “Oh, good– can you make it so it’s not so creepy?” Harper Collins was nice enough to give me complete free-reign on the illustrations and I had so much fun– I don’t think I’ve ever finished the drawings for a book so quickly! I made the toymaker charming and friendly, the Rat King only has one head and of course everyone lives happily ever after (Although Marie’s little brother Fritz is still kind of a jerk).

I’m sure there will be some purists out there who like The Nutcracker just the way it is. For them I put in all the other elements of the story in the illustrations somewhere– a little Nutcracker Where’s Waldo, if you will. Plus they can go sit through that ballet if they want the whole effect. I’ll be home with Mikayla reading my cute, cozy, warm and fuzzy version and I hope you will be, too! But it won’t be out until Fall 2011. This year you’ll be able to get my new Fairy Tale book, and I’ll show you some illustrations from that as we get closer to its’ release. But for now, here’s a little sneak peek at “The Nutcracker.” Leave a comment and let me know if you like it.

Click to Enlarge

~Mary

As promised, here are a BUNCH of more photos of some great people and projects from the MEHC Workshop this past weekend. I especially love all the cool nametags that everyone came up with! I want to thank all of our wonderful panelists, instructors, sponsors and everyone who came. It was a lot of fun. Enjoy!

~Mary

Well, the Workshop was fantastic! Everything went very well, with very few glitches, and everyone seemed to be having a great time! Even Barbara and I had fun, which speaks volumes about Barbara’s organizational skills!

One of the amazing things that happens at workshops all over is all the incredibly different ways the projects turn out, even though everyone is working with one set of instructions. Scroll down for some photos of just a small sampling of our fabulous event. Check the Engelblog again tomorrow for more photos– including some of the finished projects that came out of our wonderful classes.

The panel discussion with me, Dena Fishbein, Marcia Ceppos, and Amy Butler, with Margo Tantau moderating, turned out to be my favorite part of the whole event. Unfortunately we didn’t have the foresight to video tape it, but it was perhaps on account of that very fact that we  were able to be so relaxed and comfortable up there! I learned a few new things from it and I hope others did too.

We’re absolutely going to do it again next year and this time you have JUST GOT TO COME! Sign up for our newsletter here so you’ll be the first to know about the next MEHC Workshop. If you did come to this one and want to let everyone know what a good time it was, please leave a comment— we’d love to hear from you.  We miss you already!!

Registration and Reception

ME greeting folks

The spread

The view of the city from the Chase Park Plaza Hotel

The view of the park from the Chase Park Plaza Hotel

For Keep Sakes' vendor table

The official ME vendor table

Stoneledge Antiques' vendor table

Tinsel Trading's vendor table

The make-your-own nametag table, courtesy of For Keeps Sake

Barbara Martin, Charlotte Lyons and the wonderful Nancy, from For Keeps Sake

This is one of the signs outside of classrooms

One of Kathy Curatto's classes

Many more great pictures coming tomorrow! So stay tuned.

~Mary

Ah, blogging; yet another source of guilt. I have been so busy since I got back from vacation I haven’t written a thing– every day I have the best intentions to get it done and every day I remember it as I’m falling into bed. And now, of course, Barbara and I are frantically getting everything ready for the Workshop this weekend. This weekend!! I can’t believe it’s here! I really think it’s going to be great. We’ll post lots of photos so as to entice those of you who couldn’t make it this year to make sure you come next time! So tune in Monday– I’ll REALLY have a lot to blog about then and I promise I won’t fall asleep before I do it this time.

~Mary

We just got back from our annual spring break trip to Sarasota, FL. As some of you may know, we used to have a house there but sold it when Mikayla had to be in school all winter for some stupid reason. Now we stay with our good friends, Joe and Kristen, who are kind enough to lend us their beyond fabulous beach house. Unfortunately they were away– skiing, of all things– for their spring break, so we only got to visit them for the one day that we crossed paths. We were worried that Mikayla would be bored and lonesome without her friends Tess and Jack, but it turned out to be one of our best trips ever!  (Although, let’s face it– how bad could it be?? All our trips there are wonderful.)

The first day or two always seem to be spent running to our favorite restaurants and stores and picking up things we forgot to bring at Target and the drugstore and so on. But then we realize that we’re here:

  looking out at this:

and we finally start to relax and remember we don’t have to be anywhere or do anything except swim, take walks, and look for shells and revolting dead sea creatures that wash up on shore. Mikayla records all such finds with her trusty camera.

One afternoon we went to the Mote Marine, Sarasota’s amazing aquarium and marine research center.

We went on a Sea Life Encounter Cruise, where a marine biologist is on board explaining everything you see. The boat takes you to an island in the middle of Sarasota Bay where you get to take a little trail walk past mangrove trees and couples who thought they had found the most remote spot ever to have a romantic beach picnic. Then back on board, our guides throw a net overboard and bring up all kinds of amazing things that they pass around to all the children– sea urchins, starfish, regular old fish, and even a seahorse on this trip!

Of course Mikayla caught it all on film and made me promise to show it on my blog.

I always bring a few art supplies with me on trips, just in case, but I very rarely use them. The ideas usually start coming to me on the drive home and I know they’ll eventually make it into a drawing someday. I think the first one I’m going to do when I get back to work is of a blissful little girl with a seahorse, much like her parents, wrapped around her little finger.

~Mary

Editor’s Note: All photos used in this blog were taken by Mikayla!