My New Banner & Buttons!

I got a new banner!! I'm so excited! I have new buttons too! I've been wanted to have a banner done, but I really couldn't find anything I liked. I wanted something kiddie - something whimsical! It had to match my blog name and keep in mind that most of the stuff I put on here is kid-orientated.

The other night, I was checking how (once again) to make blog buttons, when I came across Musings of a Housewife. She owns DCR Desgin too - she designs all those pretty blog banners and buttons that I've been eying for a while now!
On her post, How to Design a Blog Button, was a link to Steven Novak's website novakillustion.com. She said Steven was affordable and would create something no one else had - something totally unique! Well I certainly wanted to check him out!

Steven specializes in children's illustrations and they are so cool - I love his artwork! He captures childhood wonderfully.

Check out his Bio - he's written three novels, a graphic novel and a picture book too! Wow! This guy is talented!!

I contacted Steven and told him my idea for a banner.
He was willing to draw one up along with two button-size illustrations for a very affordable price.
He did everything he could to make sure I was totally happy with my illustrations too!

Steven started off with a pencil sketch of what I had in mind.

Then he moved on to the color composition.

Before the final illustration, Steven added special touches to the artwork too, like Serenity's lavender muumuu (the blankie that she drags everywhere), her Blabla mermaid she named Lily, a flower in cartoon Serenity's hand, and I even sewed the top and tutu she's wearing!

I'm more than satisfied to be able to get a wonderful banner that is so personal, just totally cute and a beautiful piece of art!
Serenity loves it too - she got so excited when she saw her cartoon self - and her Lily doll, her muumuu, the dinosaur and all the rest of the toys!
She kept pointing everything out - "that's MY flower, that's MY shoes, that's MY Lily", and on and on!!
She such a character!

If you're looking around for something very unique and fun for your banner and buttons - go check out Steven Novak's awesome illustrations!! You'll be very happy you did!

Now that I had my awesome button-sized illustrations, I headed over to A Heart For Home and grabbed the HTML button code I needed to created my buttons so I could share with y'all!
Allyson has done all the hard work of creating the HTML button code for you - all you have to do is copy and paste!!
How easy!

Don't forget to grab one of my buttons before you leave!


Have fun!

kil.sook Art Illustrations

I can't remember on whose blog I first spied this darling artwork (sorry!), but I instantly wanted it! What attracted me the in the beginning was the dress the little girl (Zari) is wearing... do you recognize it? It was inspired from the dresses by courtneycourtney! How neat! And doesn't Zari look like Serenity?! Utterly adorable art! Well of course I had to order a print!

The artist, Kim Haller, drew this adorable little girl using a "micron pen, and colorized through combinations of prisma color pencil, gelly roll pens, color markers, watercolor pencils, and computer graphics".

I love the rest of her whimsical work too. Probably one of my favorites is her BFF print series set, but it's so hard to pick an absolute favorite since all of her work is so beautiful!

Go have a look at Kim's sweet and imaginative art illustrations over at kil.sook on Etsy today! I'm sure you'll have an equally hard time trying to pick a favorite!

Have fun!