Ahem...Ahem...I have an announcement

It's HERE!  I started my own Etsy Shop to sell my creations.  For the last 3 months I have been studying and learning about how Etsy works and preparing my first 10 items for sell.  I was pushing to get things up and running quickly so I am beginning with digital downloads first but I hope to expand to selling printed items and mailing them out.  Here is a link to my shop:
Creative Cache Shop

I also hope to get requests for more designs.  And I have an email just for my business:  michellecreativecache@gmail.com

My husband helped me get some things to streamline my work.  Check out my fancy work station with a glass tabletop desk.  When I get a pencil sketch close to the way I like it, I find it much more efficient to trace with the ink.

The chair was an amazing find at the local thrift shop.  Totally a blessing from the Lord.  I just felt like going on a particular afternoon and was led to check the furniture section and there it was for $15.  It curves well to support my back and it is a major bonus that it matches the wood tones in my bedroom so well!

My husband I had just painted the kids rooms and built new bunk beds for our growing boys.  The old beds were both toddlers and on their last legs.  Rather than throw them away he made a quick shelf to go above my desk so I could have my art supplies easily accessible.  He offered to trim it down more but I decided to go with it for now and decide later if we want to make any changes.  For now it fills my needs just fine.

Also I wanted to get better scans and be able to scan full sizes for the larger work.  So we shopped around and found a brand new laser printer/scanner/copier that can scan up to 1200 dpi and size 11X17.  It can even print size 11X17.  So I am now looking for quality ledger paper so I can print the Believe in God and Trust in the Lord pieces in all their beautiful glory at full size.

I found that 1200 DPI is a huge file size for the artwork I am doing so it makes more sense to follow the standard of most Etsy shop sellers and use 600 DPI.  I saw a big difference in the quality of the scans compared to my old printer.  So I started with making COLOR versions of some of the pieces from my free printables page.  These are all posted in my CreativeCacheShop on Etsy.  And I would love to take requests for new work so please email me with your desires for new designs.  I have some ideas that I have been working on so I will be updating frequently with new work.  And I also will be making a black and white bundle of some of the new art work and the old artwork with my better quality scanner in case people want to print and color it themselves.  Thank you for reading and please share my post!

PS.  Here is the link again since my friend suggested I add it to the end of the post:  Creative Cache Shop

My Resume

So you may be wondering about my qualifications. What have I done before and what are my plans for the future? I have taken a couple pictures of examples of my work.

1998-1999 During my Senior year at Rancho Bernardo Highschool I was in Advanced Women's Ensemble, Advanced Art and Advance Placement English. To be honest, I did not realize my full potential in any of these subjects in High School, but my professors succeeded in stirring my desire to do so.

(The Sunflowers and the Girl are scratchboards that I made in Highschool--I was lucky to get them back!)

1999-2001 While attending Palomar College and focusing on my GED I enjoyed taking Critical writing classes and a Chambersingers course. I also started working on my first big quilting project for my brother and his new wife for a Christmas present. It took me a while to finish since I was a novice. I learned most of my sewing skills from my mother and my friend, but I never took a formal class so it was all by trial and error.

2001-2006 I sang and took a turn directing in my local church choir. Under the guidance of my former roommate and close friend who has a degree in sewing design, I created renaissance costumes for my husband and I to wear to the festivals and for halloween. I also created a quilt of my own design for my first child. The curtains inspired the design. I made the pillows this year to match. I even got the courage to alter a dress pattern for a pregnant friend who would be in a wedding party. (I wish I had a picture of that one she looked gorgeous!) I also got daring enough to design a dress using another dress as my pattern. (Not as easy as using a paper pattern, but possible.)

At this time in my life I was working full time from home as an Apartment Manager. So I did all these things in my spare time (to take my mind off of work since I lived there). My writing skills were used to create newsletters for the apartments and doing a lot of paperwork. I did finish my AA degree in Language Arts by the time my son was 3.

(I will not take credit for the child costume since we bought that at DisneyLand)

2007-2009 We bought a house and started working on it. I have some pictures of what I did--finishing furniture and redesigning a kitchen. Also, since I quit working when I moved I got pregnant (again) and worked on living on a single income. Saving money is definitely more challenging than earning it. My motivation to create rather than spend has increased tenfold, hence this blog. In upcoming posts I plan to show some of the things I have created in the past couple years and then I will be more thoughtful about photo documenting future creations for blogging. Expect to see some clothes I have made for myself, some furniture, and maybe I will even learn how to upload music for your listening pleasure. An ultimate goal of mine for this blog is to create traffic through prize drawings. Since the scratchboards are a more unique talent that I have developed I plan to create some for giving away. I may even take suggestions for subjects to turn into a scratchboard.