Holli has started a meme asking people to share a day in their life.
When all the planets are aligned and no one is sick and there aren't tons of errands to do, this is what a typical day looks like for me...
5:45am
Our day starts early for school.
6:45 – 7:45 am
School bus picks up Kevvy and I drive Emily and Jesse to school.
8:00am – 9am
My staple breakfast: Shredded Wheat
I love it warmed in the microwave for 1 minute. YUM.
Usually I catch up on one tivo recorded show (ie: Tudors, Top Chef, Last Restaurant Standing)
Write emails, read or write blog posts.
10:00 – 11:00 exercise
Usually mon, wed, Friday I go for a 3 to 4 mile jog.
Otherwise I’m tidying and catching up on dishes/laundry.
If I'm on a tight deadline, the chores wait and I get straight to illo work and fit it in later.
11:00am – 2:00 pm
WORK
check email
WORK
Check email
WORK
I really enjoy listening to music while I work so I usually have Itunes playing on the computer most days.
If the workload is quiet, I like to take myself to a movie once a week.
2:15pm – 4:00pm
Kids start arriving home. Jesse babysits Kevvy while I pick up Emily. We head over to the grocery store to pick up dinner ingredients and afternoon snack.
Snack: Starbucks
We have a starbucks in our Albertsons. NICE!
My "regular" is a tall , peppermint white choc mocha.
4:00pm – 6:00 pm
Multi- task
work, email, spend time with kids
6:00pm – 7:00pm
Feed the doggies
Emily and I cook dinner listening to Ipod set up in kitchen. We've been eating a lot of take out while "daddy's" been away,though. (He's on military duty away for 2 months)
Jesse’s playing on his xbox.
Kevvy’s watching tv.
We eat dinner together.
Clean up dishes
7:00pm- 8:00pm
My cuddle time on couch with Kevvy . He’s been in his wheelchair all day so time on the couch reading books is his favorite. (For new readers, Kev is 13yrs with severe cerebral palsy)
HIs all time favorite book is still…
Kipper ABC’s
Bath for Kevvy
8:00 pm
Bedtime for Kevvy.
Jess and Em stay up later with me.
8:00 to 10:00pm
TV time with kids.. Our favorite night is Tuesday and Thursday. Hell’s Kitchen, American Idol, The Office.
I take a bath and read for 15-20 minutes.
Reading "LIfe of Pi" right now.
10:00 pm
Yawn yawn, hug hug, say our “I love’s you’s”
….Snore.
If you're still reading, I'll tag...
Here is the frayed letter I finally settled with. To see how I used it, visit my post over at the pbj's blog site.
Happy Friday to all, hope you had a productive week.
We found out a couple of weeks ago that we will be moving in October. The military is sending us to New Mexico. Can you believe we will be living minutes away from my parents?? This is wonderful! Of all the places that we could have been sent...
I'm nervous and excited. The client I'm working for right now really likes the digital felt style and wants me to use it for this current project. Yes! I will be buying an external hard drive this weekend for extra back up.
Spongebob is still my fave-rave but Amy Poehler's, Mighty B is running a close second.
I want David Cook to win. Jason, honey, you need to step it up.
Thank you Kathy for the honor of the pico award. You are so sweet! My turn to pay it forward.
Alicia Padron
Deb Melmon
Kathleen Rietz
Anette Heiberg
Jannie Ho
Rules:
1) Pick 5 blogs that you feel are deserving of this award based on their creativity, design, interesting material and their contribution to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2) For each award giver, include the name and the link to the blogger so they can be visited.
3) Include the names of the recipients and a link to their blogs so they can be visited.
4) For both giver and receiver, show the link http://studiololo.blogspot.com/ (Studio Lolo)
5) Publish these rules
See you next week. xo
Happy Friday everyone! Here is my newest digital experiment.
I want to send a warm thank you to Pattie Knox, digital scrapbook designer, for her generosity and help with some questions I had this week. She creates the cutest felt like critters!
Now, it's time to switch gears and start snipping real felt. I have an assignment where I'll be illustrating bees and flowers. I received the assignment a day after I completed the sketch for this piece. Serendipity!
Hope everyone has a great weekend! I'm ready to sleep in.
Here is the latest digital experiment. When I started this morning, it was intended to be an hour long playtime. I don't dare admit to the family that this little guy took me all day. =O)
BUT...
I did learn some very cool things...
5 things on friday...
1. All play and no work makes Roz a sulky girl! I am going through a dry spell with assignments and I am regretting my theme word for the year, "TRUST". I think I'm being tested. =o)
2. I do however have a publisher interested in reviewing one of my dummy books. Please cross your fingers for me.
3. I recently took on the role of Illustrator Coordinator for Nevada. I'm really excited about it and have been helping with the planning of our October Super Workshop. I asked Sherry Rogers if she would fly out and conduct a marketing boot camp for us and she said yes. I think our illustrators will find her very inspiring!
4. I can't wait to see this movie. I hope it is as cute as it looks!
5. The doggies are doing great. Lily tolerates all the "dressing up" like Val does. Believe it or not, she enjoys being pushed around in this stroller.
Happy weekend to all!
Happy Easter
Click on the below link. You will get a black page. Click your mouse
anywhere (& everywhere) on the
page & see what happens! Better yet, click & drag your mouse over the
black page... Enjoy!!
http://www.procreo.jp/labo/flower_garden.swf
For the March 08 issue of Highlights Magazine, I was asked to illustrate a "picture puzzler".This was probably the most challenging assignment and the most rewarding.
Before tackling the 3-D elements, I had several go rounds before I got the sketch right.
Sketch # 1
Not busy enough and too young.
Sketch # 2
Better but the bugs look too generic. They need to be more recognizable and anatomically correct.
Ants climbing leaf are not proportional to the rest of the design.
Sketch # 3

Ladybugs still don't look enough like ladybugs and composition needs to be busier in the background. Remove the wing-like arms from catepillar.
Sketch # 4
ACCEPTED! The only change was to remove the spider hanging off the fishing pole and add more flies.
Here is the finished art. I ended up using a lot of fabric to help incorporate all the details.
I hope I get to do another one!
* I have had a heck of a time with typepad lately. All of my images come out disproportioned and when you click on the thumbnail the enlarged version is blurry. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.
Thank you so much, Deb, Anette and Holly for the "you make my day award." I'm very flattered.
To pass it on, here are the details:
1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make me think and/or make my day.
2. Acknowledge the post of the award giver.
3. Display the “You Make my Day Award” logo
4. Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs with the news.
How hard to pick only 5. There are so many wonderful blogs out there now.
Many have been "hit" already so I'll try my best to share the wealth....
1. Liz Dubois of Chat Rabbit.
2. Karma Wilson of Good Karma
3. Carol Baicker-Mckee of Doodles and Noodles
4. Shawn of Doodle thoughts
5. Tara Chang Silver Apples of the Moon
Here is the finished piece from the sketch I shared last week. It also works well for this weeks I.F. theme, "Tales and Legends".
Here's more on the legend of the mermaid.
Hi everyone, hope you all had a productive week. I'm a bit under the weather so it has been a slow one here.
1. Did you catch the ALA book awards this week? 
I read Caldecott winner " The Invention of Hugo Cabret" on the plane ride home after seeing Brian Selznick's presentation in New York. Great guy and a terrific book.
One of his quotes that I still remember is "Struggling and fear are part of the process."

I'm anxious to read,"Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village,” which won this years Newberry Award.
2. Speaking of awards, I was thrilled to see my favorite movie win best picture at the Golden Globes. I'm too embarrassed to tell you how many times I went to see this at Christmas with my mum. =O) They won best musical score too and so well deserving.
I'm reading the book right now because I've heard your privy to the love letters they send to each other in the movie. Hot dog!
3. I received a rejection this week that stung. Dangit...so close, but no cigar. sigh.
4. Over at the PBJ's we talked about looking back/forward. Here is the collage of my favorite assignments from last year.
5. I also shared that I plan to do a new illustration every month for my portfolio. Here is the sketch I'm working on for January.
Have a great weekend everyone! Enjoy the football playoffs!
I couldn't resist participating this week. This is a commissioned piece I did for a wonderful little girl's bedroom.
1. This week has been all about doing stuff like this...
The Quality Street tin holds only floss now. My thighs are holding what was in it.
2. Speaking of which, here is my new best friend, Buddy, who is going to help me shed 20 pounds this year.
There, I've said it. Now lets see next year if blogging about it helped me stay accountable enough!
Actually, it has been amazing how much longer I can run and walk listening to music now. I'm addicted to Itunes and buying songs. Especially songs I heard over the holidays in commercials and just had to find. For example:
Feist - 1234 (ipod commercial)
Ben's Brother- Stuttering (Dentyne Ice commercial)
Ingrid Michaelson- The Way I Am (Old Navy Sweater commercial)
3. Speaking of losing weight, does anyone else enjoy ,"Biggest Loser"?.
Did you all see Ali's (host) crocheted scarf she was wearing this week? I have to make one! It reminded me of licorice allsorts.
I got so excited, I took a picture of the tv screen so that I wouldn't forget it.
If anyone knows of a pattern for this type of scarf, please let me know. Otherwise I guess I'll start by searching granny squares.
4. Lily is 6 1/2 months! Time flies. Let me just say that training a puppy to jingle a bell when they want to go outside really works! I'm so glad we persisted with that because we can be anywhere in the house and know when she wants to go out.
These were taken this week and yes...the tree is still up. I have a hard time letting go of the lovely glow of the lights. I'll give in over the weekend.
5. One thing I love so much about blogging is connecting with others and sharing in their good news. Being able to read behind the scene's of other authors and illustrators makes my dreams feel more attainable.
I have been a fan of Lisa Schroeder's blog ever since I found her bedtime picture book, Baby Can't Sleep.
This week her first YA novel in verse, I Heart You, You Haunt Me, hit stores
and I can't wait to read it. Congrats, Lisa!
Be sure and check out the new blog she's involved with, author2author, a collaborative blog of YA writers in different stages of their careers. Fun read!
P.S If you haven't entered for Kathy's giveaway of her new book, " The Months", there is still time. She'll be drawing the winning name around 7pm Eastern Time tonight.
Come join the fun over at the PBJ's and win yourself an autographed copy of Kathy's new book, THE MONTHS!
Here we are again, another year has passed and it's time to reflect. And I have been doing a lot of that I can tell you.
Last year, my theme was EXPLORE . I felt strongly that I needed to push myself and experiment more. I did and I learned that I can and want to include more fabrics, papers and embellishments in my illustrations. It gives me a freedom that I didn't have before so for that I'm grateful.
Also, I went to New York for the first time ever..and I flew alone!
That was definitely a form of exploration for me.
But what about this year? I have had such a hard time pinpointing a theme. I thought I had finally decided that it would be, DREAMS COME TRUE, but there's more to it than that for me this year.
I'm a firm believer that dreams do come true but it takes a lot more backbone than wishbone. Dreams don't come true just because we want them to, we have to work at it. And they certainly don't always come true when we want them to. I have accomplished way more than I could ever have imagined when I first started pursuing illustration in 2000. But my journey has been slow and although I had some fun assignments this past year, I didn't advance as much as I had hoped.
Roz "2000" would really be giving Roz "2008" a good kick in the arse if she read this because she'd see her as being ungrateful. But I'm not.
Doors really didn't start opening for me until I started working in felt in 2006. So much happened that first year that I felt like I had finally nailed it! The felt was unique enough to open the doors but because of its uniqueness, the need for it is less. And therein lies the rub.
But lets get to the core of how DREAMS COME TRUE.
TRUST
It's very proactive. When you trust, you're not blocking yourself with self doubt and frustration. I did too much of that last year and I lost my peace. This year I'm going to practice "letting go". If I know that I'm doing everything I can towards making my dreams a reality, then I need to relax. That alone can be very empowering. I drove myself crazy with the wishing, striving and wanting last year. So much wasted mental energy and I'm tired. I want to enjoy the process and trust that I will get there eventually and most importantly believe that I'm where I'm supposed to be right now. Life's too short.
TRUST. That's my theme.
Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!.
My parents are here and the kids don't go back to school until the 7th of January so I'm still caught up in the cocoon of family time.
But I did want to make time and wish you all a very happy new year. I hope this year brings us all good health, prosperity and great experiences with our loved ones and friends.
Cheers!
Have fun making your own cyber snowflake HERE.
If you are planning on giving gift cards for Christmas, pop on over to MY LITTLE MOCHI.
Myra has created the most darling little reindeer pouches . And better yet, she has posted a pattern.
I am definitely going to give this a try, thanks Myra!
The kids keep saying how they can't wait for Christmas and wish it was "today". Well, poor things, if it were, there would be nothing to open. That's right...I haven't even started shopping! Time is just blurring past at record speed. How can it nearly be Christmas?
Needless to say, I'm tad bit stressed. But it will get done, it always does and it always turns out great. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.
So, what's been going on here?
1. Thanksgiving was wonderful. My parents came to visit and stayed for a week. While they were here, we got the tree up, decorated and started our annual puzzling! I love having a puzzle going during the winter.
Here's Val keeping guard.
2. I collect coffee & tea beakers so I was thrilled when I found this at Michaels last week. They have several designs, it was hard to choose just one.
3. Last year I made "Arther's" for the family as my winter 'crochet' fix. This year I think I'm going to try to make this.
Actually, I'll be using a pattern my mum made that is similar but prettier IMHO. If I manage to get it done, I'll post it.
4. Work wise, it has been steady but not overwhelming so that is good and I'm thankful for the work that has come in. Here is a little snippet from an educational piece I'm working on. This will be in felt when finished.
5. Lily is doing great. She has gained weight at record speed. She is a whopping 7.5 pounds now and is 5 1/2 months old. Here she is taking a snooze in her favorite place with her favorite toy.
Auction 3 starts Monday, Dec 3rd.
This is the final week to win a snowflake so hop on over and find your favorite.
Happy Friday to all!
1. Today is my husband's Thanksgiving work luncheon. This morning I am in the process of baking 150 sausage rolls (pigs in blankets).
2. Here is a puzzle page that will be in the Dec. issue of High 5 magazine. This is a most /least puzzle. I'm anxious to see how it published with the text. My complementary copy hasn't arrived yet.
If you live in the Pittsburgh area, drop by the Barnes & Noble at South Hills Village Mall. Illustrator, Carol Baicker-Mckee and author Julie Stiegemeyer will be there signing their newest "cheep" book. Oh boy, I wish I lived there, I just love these books and Carol's adorable 3-D creations!
(Nov. 17th, 11 to noon)
4.Here's a teeny weeny sneak peek at a puzzle I'm doing for Highlights Magazine. It will be in their May issue.
5. And finally, Lily is coming up on her 5 month birthday. Here she is taking a little snooze with our sweet Valentine.
Robert's Snow is an online auction that benefits Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Over 200 children's book illustrators have created art on individual snowflake-shaped wooden templates.
Please visit these links to see the snowflakes being featured daily this final week:
Monday, November 12
Tuesday, November 13
Wednesday, November 14
Thursday, November 15
Friday, November 16
Saturday, November 17
Sunday, November 18
Credit goes to Jen Robinson for creating this linked schedule and to Jules and Eisha (Seven Imp) for organizing this great preview to promote the Robert’s Snow Online Auction for Cancer’s Cure.
Robert's Snow is an online auction that benefits Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Over 200 children's book illustrators have created art on individual snowflake-shaped wooden templates.
Please visit these links to see the snowflakes being featured daily this week:
Monday, November 5
Anna Alter at The Longstockings
Laura Huliska Beith at Just One More Book!!
Cece Bell at Jo's Journal
Denise Ortakales at cynthialord’s Journal
Tuesday, November 6
Carol Heyer at The Shady Glade
Joe Kulka at ChatRabbit
Steven James Petruccio at Blog From the Windowsill
Carol Schwartz at Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup
Wednesday, November 7
Jeff Ebbeler at Sam Riddleburger's blog
Scott Magoon at Just One More Book!!
Connie McLennan at The Shady Glade
Julie Paschkis at the excelsior file
Thursday, November 8
Genevieve Cote at a wrung sponge
Linda Graves at Your Neighborhood Librarian
James Gurney at Charlotte's Library
Matt Tavares at Please Come Flying
Friday, November 9
Susan Kathleen Hartung at Wild Rose Reader
Mary Peterson at Brooklyn Arden
Annette Simon at Check It Out and Deo Writer
Melanie Watt at Whimsy Books
Saturday, November 10
Sunday, November 11
Credit goes to Jen Robinson for creating this linked schedule and to Jules and Eisha (Seven Imp) for organizing this great preview to promote the Robert’s Snow Online Auction for Cancer’s Cure.
Robert's Snow is an online auction that benefits Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Over 200 children's book illustrators have created art on individual snowflake-shaped wooden templates. Please visit these links to see the snowflakes being featured daily this week:
Monday, October 29
Tuesday, October 30
Wednesday, October 31
Thursday, November 1
Friday, November 2
Saturday, November 3
Sunday, November 4
Here are my five things this week...
1. I want to send a thank you to Sheri for her feature of my Robert's Snow Snowflake on her blog this past Sunday. She went above and beyond the call of duty and also created a cool youtube video.
Speaking of youtube videos...check out the youtube she created that features all the snowflakes that are up for auction. (It's 8 minutes long so grab a nice cup of tea/coffee and enjoy!)
2. Textile artist, Pam of Pamdora tagged me with a meme this week to list 7 odd things about myself. I did a "weird" meme this year that is pretty much the same thing so here is the link. To make it 7 things I'll share my new 'odd' food concoction. Rice pudding and lowfat strawberry yogurt. I love the textures together! You wanted odd, Pam, well there you go!
3.
I hope you made it over to the Cyber Launch Party we hosted at the PBJ's this week. It was a lot of fun and Janee will be announcing the winners of the autographed book drawing today!
We plan on doing this again soon so I'll keep you posted.
4. Work wise...I'm revisiting some story ideas and I'm determined to get BIC and follow through on a new dummybook. I have a couple circulating thanks to my rep but I need to heed the advice I'm always given and forget about them and work on another!
5. And you know I can't go a week without sharing a puppy picture. Lily finds some of the oddest places to nap!
Happy Friday to all!
As kid lit bloggers continue to help raise awareness of the Robert's Snow fundraiser, I am thrilled to introduce you to the ever so talented Elisa Kleven.
This year's snowflake is entitled,"The Paper Princess And Her Friends". (This is Elisa’s third year participating in the Robert’s Snow Fundraiser.)
click to enlarge snowflake
Elisa’s snowflake will be available for bidding Dec. 3rd thru Dec. 7th. Don’t miss out on being the winning bidder for this treasure and supporting such a wonderful cause!
As an illustrator who works in a collage style, I was over the moon when I found out that I was highlighting Elisa Kleven's snowflake here. Elisa has successfully illustrated over 27 enchanting books with 10 of those being books that she has also written.
A small sampling of Elisa's books
And there are more to come with no surprise why. As soon as you open one of Elisa’s books, you are immediately drawn into a magical world filled with vibrant mixed media collage illustrations that complement her poetic style of writing perfectly.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Elisa about her work and snowflake contribution…
Can you share with us the inspiration behind the design for this ye