As usual....I have been a little quiet lately and thought I would put a little update out here for anyone who is interested.
I do have a bit of commission status news at the bottom so if you wanna skip the personal stuff and get to the business just look for the divider

As the title of this journal suggests, something major is going on in my life that has me standing on the brink of sheer joy and relentless worry. It is like nearing the end of reaching a long sought after goal, with the uncertainty of whether or not outside forces will intervene to send you spiraling back to square one looming ominously over your head. You want to let the joy and excitement engulf you, but you have to keep your head until you are guaranteed to win the prize. Luckily, I am not in this journey alone. While my head is so far up in the clouds dreaming most of the time, my husband has been the rock that keeps me tethered to reality. Sometimes it can be a real bummer, but its a good thing. Without at least one person being realistic here...we could be in some serious trouble/heartbreak should things take a sour turn.

The dream? Is finally having our own home <3
No more apartment living.
No more inconsiderate/noisy neighbors arguing through the walls, taking our parking space.
No more being cramped up in a shoe box.
No more closet studio!!!!

Not only does owning our own home offer the chance for me and my husband to finally really ground ourselves somewhere, it also gives us the option to expand our family when/if we feel we are ready. I am still very much on the fence about that one...which only goes to serve that we are not quite there yet. But...its a choice we can seriously take on one day and be as prepared as one cane be. For now, silly as it sounds, I am just excited my furry children will finally have windows to sun bathe in and room to romp around <3

But the even bigger dream than finally owning a house is....my own, PROPER, studio!! <3
It has been nearly 10 years since I had my own space for art. As an only child, I didn't have to share a room growing up. Going from having the entire upstairs/loft to myself to sharing an apartment with my husband was certainly different. I never realized how much I missed my old room until we moved where we are now, where my work area is literally a closet! ([link])

My biggest hopes with this new space is ultimately....to be more organized. I am kinda...not really a neat freak, but...I like everything to have its own home I hate having trouble finding things, I like systems that work and make sense. Better organization means I can keep track and finish my projects faster which means....HOPEFULLY....more commissions Not only is the organization factor exciting but the ability to create a room that is solely dedicated to creating art is just....how can you not lose your head over something like that if you are an artist?!?!?!?!? Just typing this makes me want to make tons of silly, goofy noises

I can't wait to be able to properly display artwork that I have been given by friends over the years, commissions I have purchased, and just....fill that space with every bit of inspiration I can. I already have a nice Arphalia set started and can't wait to find the perfect frame to fill them up with!! As far as the actual walls go, its funny that out of all the rooms in the house, this is the only room neither my husband or I like the color of which is awesome because I probably would want to repaint it anyway Its currently a very bright yellow-green which stands out considerably from the rest of the house which is made up of very neutral blues/grays/slates. I am still playing with a color in my head...but I did see a neat idea of how to do cherry blossoms easily and entertained the idea of make a very large cherry blossom tree on one of the walls We will see!

We are still waiting to hear back if we are even accepted to get this special first time home buyers grant which the bank told us could take up to 3 weeks. Closing is officially May 17th, and we are already on week 2 of the wait......I won't go into details but I will just say we have been given a lot of positive reinforcement that we won't be denied, but that sliver of a chance that we could is not something either of us can ignore. So until we are certain everything is going to work out in our favor, the fingers will remained crossed and the boxes will remained unpacked.

_______________________________________________________

Enough with the personal stuff, here's the commission report:

Due to buying a house, I am officially putting all commissions on HOLD until the move is over with and I have things situated again. I would continue to take some on but I just don't want to take on more at this delicate time as I am awaiting the word to start packing any day.

In the meantime, I am filling my days off with work on the few remaining commissions I have that are on a much larger scale than the wooden badges. Maybe some of you have noticed the pet portraits I have been uploading, I have one more portrait in the works and then of course the very large Fairy Tale Wedding burning I posted a snippet of recently.

With the possibility of having a new studio, I hope to become even more organized and better equipped to take one even more commissions as well as introduce the option to commission larger pieces. I have limited myself to smaller things because pricing is something that is very difficult for me, it is a little easier with the small stuff and they are not as time consuming as these larger pieces. Another upside is more storage! I will have a garage and my husband has promised to help me come up with some kind of storage for my wood so I can horde even more!! Kidding or course.....or am I? LOL

Anyways, that's all I have. If you really, really want a commission from me and are willing to wait I will start a pending list so that when the craziness subsides I can pick up as soon as possible. Otherwise...I just ask for your patience and good ju ju vibes
Thanks so much guys!!!! Hopefully the next time I post something it will be even happier news <3