Brooklit Bride Grand Opening!

Today I'm excited to announce the launch of my new Etsy shop, Brooklit Bride! Almost three years ago I launched Brooklit, an Etsy shop of my fashion illustration prints and products. The most popular listing and custom request has been bridal illustrations, where I create custom fashion illustrations inspired by brides actual photos (as shown below.)

So I've decided to expand on this idea, and open a "spin-off" shop that offers my custom designs as well as new original bride fashion illustration prints.

Brooklit Bride currently includes prints, cards, bookmarks, gift tags, and custom bridal sketches. I hope you like the new shop and make sure to check out the custom listings. (They all have different photo-to-sketch examples!)

I have more products I'm excited about in the works, so check back with Brooklit Bride soon. And after you take a peek at the new shop, I'd love to hear your feedback, so comments are welcome!

Fashionable Gifts

Over the past few weeks I've been hard at work illustrating and designing new products. I've been stocking up for the gift fairs I'm participating in, in addition to building up my shop inventory.

New to my collection are sets of flat note cards (shown above Carrie and Vogue). I love flat note cards, and have been using them for years. (Ever since Oprah and Bill Clinton discussed on air how important it is to write a thank you or correspondence note on one-single side of a card, just in case its ever framed. Who knows, maybe one day a note from me will be frame worthy!?!) In addition to the Oprah and Bill seal of approval I do feel its a very chic and sophisticated way to send a note.

I've also made new holiday cards, gift tags in different shapes and themes, as well as new magnets (shown below) featuring five of my most popular fashion illustrations. I hope you like them as much as I enjoyed making them. If you follow my work and are a Fabulous Doodles reader, but a custom illustration is out of your budget why not purchase some of these new little items from my shop, Brooklit.

If you're in the NY/NJ area come visit me at the two gift fairs I'm participating in (info here), both of which are free admission. There are more new items I'll be selling I just haven't had time to photograph them and put them online yet. Cheers!

Holiday Gift Sales

This holiday season I'm participating in two charitable gift sales with my fashion illustrations! What's even more exciting is that both are free and open to the public.

To kick off Chanukah, on thursday Dec 2nd I will be at the Jewish Enrichment Center's holiday gift sale. Its an after work event, right here in Manhattan on West 13th Street. A percent of the proceeds of each item sold will go to the Birthright Israel Alumni Community. I've been working on new products and I plan to offer a wide selection of prints, cards, gift tags, bookmarks and pocket mirrors from my shop. (Just in case you need more incentive to stop by, there will be Chanukah latkes and wine!)

In addition to participating in the sale as a vendor, I was asked to design a few graphics for the website and newsletters. I went with a stack of gifts (shown above) and this couple shopping for the invite and website. (I tend to avoid drawing men but it was necessary here, so it didn't look like a girls night out event.)

The second sale I'm participating in is just across the Hudson. Holiday Expressions: An Evening of Art will be out in Rutherford New Jersey on December 9th. A portion of the proceeds from all the artwork sold will help support the Rutherford Food Bank and the Good Shepherd Church.

For details on the Dec. 2nd sale click here for the Jewish Enrichment Center, and for the Dec. 9th sale click here for the Holiday Expressions facebook page. Hope to see you there!

Yellow Wedding

I thought I'd share a few pictures from the wedding I was just in this past weekend. I know this isn't exactly a wedding blog, but so much of my custom work is bridal illustrations and wedding websites, so it is semi-related! You may remember my hunt for a yellow bridesmaid dress (which I previously blogged about here), well I finally found one, as did my friends and fellow bridesmaids:

(Andrea, Jamie, Brooke (me), and Keiko)

All of us were close high school friends, so it was nice to get together for a few days and have some "bonding time." The wedding was out in Pennsylvania where the groom grew up. A few of us bridesmaids drove out there from NYC early to help the bride with pre-wedding details. We arranged flowers for the centerpieces, tied tags on the guest gifts, strung place cards, made welcome gifts for hotel guests, painted signs, created a dessert buffet, made sangria, and baked the cake. (<-I kid you not!)

It was a tall order, but in the end the wedding was truly beautiful. My favorite element actually ended up being the all the different yellow dresses! Next up were the driftwood signs I painted (which I'm thinking could be fabulous in my Manhattan kitchen), the programs I designed were detailed with a Martha Stewart eyelet hole punch and came out super cute, and the beautiful table-scapes which consisted of chopped wood bases, mason jars of rustic flowers, pillar candles, damask table runners from Etsy, and napkin rings handmade of vintage fabrics.

(Ines, Brooke (me), Tina, Andrea, and Jamie)

If you're wondering where the bride is, you're just going to have to wait. My wedding gift is a custom fashion illustration, so I'll share photo's of her once I've completed my illustration. I work from actual wedding pictures which is why it wasn't done beforehand. If you like you can click here to see examples of other custom bridal illustrations I've worked on.

Mood Board

I’m currently taking an online class given by Holly Becker author of Décor 8 and Leslie of Creative Mint. This week’s homework assignment was to create a personal mood board. I’m pretty happy with it, so I thought I’d share it here with you. The photo above is the whole board and below are some close ups I wanted to highlight.

As you’ve probably noticed if your one of my regular readers, I’m currently loving black, white and pink, so those are the colors I decided to work with when developing my board. I thought it was important to have layers of textures so I included: foil printed wallpaper, textured handmade papers, studded black leather, pink tulle, patent leather alligator paper, stingray textured paper, pompom trims, silver metal rimmed tags, and spiral sketchbooks. I really love the juxtaposition of textures like the biker studs and ballerina pink tulle mixed with fashion illustrations and super glam silhouettes!

I also love this black and white photo! In real life I’m a curly girl, the default photo I have on this blog is just the result of a great blow out, my hair doesn't really look like that on a daily basis! So I’ve always gravitated towards images and art with curls, especially when they’re this bold.

Being an artist, and that a big part of this blog is about my artwork I chose to include some of my illustrations. Most are from my etsy shop, but there’s also this sketch I did of my friends little sister that I’ve always really liked and her casual cool vibe just seemed to fit.

In addition to imagery that I liked I also chose key words that resonate with me, and what I want for this blog and for my life really; fashionable and chic, create and inspire, and fabulous doodles.

New to my shop: Holiday Cards & Tags

I'm a little late on this one, being that we're into December already, but I've finally sketched some new holiday illustrations, put them on cards and tags, and added them to my shop. The ladies are each toting wrapped presents and gift bags in varying patterns. (I love illustrating wild prints and patterns! I'm always amazed how authentic patterns like zebra, leopard, and plaid come out when you take the time to render them properly. I usually steer clear loud prints and patterns when it comes to clothing, so it's great to add them on gifts, bags, and accessories.) When choosing colors I made them holiday neutral so they could be used for Chanukah, Christmas, birthdays, or any gift giving occasion.

Holiday Sale!

For the first time since I've had my etsy shop I've decided to have a store wide sale. I'm offering free shipping for the long weekend. Starting today, black friday all the way through cyber monday. Weather your a neighbor in New York or on the opposite side of the globe in Australia, shipping is free on all items including; illustration prints, tags, cards, mini prints, notebooks and bookmarks.

I've also added more prints to the sale section of my shop, available for only $14 a print. That's 30% off the regular price. Happy shopping!

All photo's are items available in my shop.

New to my shop: Lined Ladies Tags

As promised I turned my "Lined Ladies" into gift tags and have added them here, in my shop. Just in time for holiday shopping (and gift wrapping)! I love these little doodle illustrations, and think the tags came out super cute. I just may have to use these on all my gifts this year. I'm kind of obsessed with them at the moment.

New to the shop: Bridal Gift Tags

This weekend while everyone was out of town for the long holiday weekend (Columbus Day; who knew it was such travel weekend! My friends went everywhere from DC and Pennsylvania to Long Island and Miami!) I however was home, busy finishing orders and adding items to the shop.

A while back I sold all of my bridal gift tags so I thought it was time to make some more. This time I've made them in sets of 8, featuring more of my favorite bridal illustrations.