Many of you know that many years ago I used an online web builder called logotournament.com to create a logo for my art business. Don't get me wrong, I love the final design. But wasn't cheap as it cost me about $200. 

The logo I had designed is pictured here. 
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​Recently I discovered a new favorite website and it's called Creative Market. Creative Market is a place where graphic designers can sell their designs such as custom fonts, templates, layouts and even logo designs. 

The product shown above is called Lady Boss Branding Pack and it showed up in my inbox this morning. It is logo template designs that easily allow you to create your own logo. I love it! I am so excited because I am going to create some more logos for my business that are clean, simple and will cost hardly anything. In fact, this collection only costs $19.00 and it includes 258+ designs. (And just so you know, there are a lot more logo templates to choose from too.)

The only catch is that you need to use photoshop to create your design with the template. It's time I became a little more skilled at photoshop so I am taking the plunge. I played around with one of the templates I purchased and here is what I created. What do you think?

My husband asked me the other day what I wanted for Christmas. I don't have a list I honestly couldn't think of anything I want or need. So I put a post on Facebook asking my fellow artists to list any items they thought would be a good gift for artists. I was hoping for a few suggestions of fun things an artist might want to recieve this holiday.

The response was incredible. Nearly a hundred artists listed their favorite art tools and gifts they had received or hoped to recieve. I was so inspired I stayed up really late last night and created a webpage with all of the items including photos and links to where they can be purchased.

​You can find this list in the heading on my website and it's called HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE. Take a look at the list and see if there is anything you might like. Then I suggest you pass the link on to your loved ones to make it really easy to shop. That's what I just didi!

​I spent some time wrapping gifts (while I am waiting for a few oil paintings to dry) and unfortunatley my dog ate one of my favorites! Looks like I will be shopping on the Magnolia Market website tomorrow. Darn dog. 

With the holidays coming up I thought would be a good idea to share with you two of my favorite websites. The first is saveoncrafts.com and it's a great site to find inexpensive items for the holidays. They sell craft items but also decorating items such as beautiful glass apothecary jars. They have really wonderful different styles of chalkboards including the really cute one that was on the kitchen counter at the Magnolia house in Waco. They have all kinds of holiday items and I think it's a great place if you're looking for holiday items at a great price. Their prices are really low!

If you're looking for ribbon or wrapping paper I really like papermart.com It’s the least expensive wrapping paper I have found online and the quality is great.  Some of the wrapping paper comes in huge roles but they do have a pretty good selection that's more like the 25 yards (instead of 250 yards of paper!). I bought wrapping paper in my business theme colors and I use it all of the time. I know you will be surprised but it's aqua on one side and a bright green on the other. (I also bought the wrapping paper holder for easy storage.) 

I think if you visit either one of these websites for the holidays you can save a lot of money and find some very cool stuff!

I thought it might be fun to share this great photo I took today at Marina Park in Ventura. I know it's hard to find good photos to paint so this one is available to anyone who wants to use it as an inspiration for a painting! I would love to see any finished paintings created from this. So let me know if you use it!

​Happy painting.

For those artists who paint outside, en plein air, it's important to have a great umbrella. I have seen hundreds of them in my workshops and I think this one is by far the best umbrella and value. It's called the Sport-Brella Versa Brella All Position Umbrella and it's awesome. 

First off, it's great for protecting you from the sun. It's got a UPF 50+ lining for maximum sun protection. It swivels four ways and has a great clamp. But the best part? It's only $19.99. Seriously I  am not kidding. And it comes in red too.

As you all know, I am pretty cheap and love a good bargain. One of my students had this umbrella in Cape Cod and I absolutely fell in love with it. Of course when she told me the price I had to order one!

Follow the link below to see more about the sport-brella!

I can't believe it. My webinARTs course has officially launched. I don't dare try to count the hours I spent creating this course. WebinARTs is an online class that shows you how to build a website and blog for your art business. If you are wondering why it launched four days late ... well ... I have a good reason. The amazing web builder I use for the class is called weebly and ten days ago they launched a new platform weebly4. Needless to say I quickly figured out that I had to redo the entire class and re-film hundreds of hours of video. Yep. That really sucked.

But ... the class is now based on the new platform (that is only two weeks old) and thus it will be current for a very long time! If you don't have a website or you have a website you can't manage on your own or you have an old weebly website then you really need this class. I am not kidding! Check it out.