Well, I’ve been off maternity leave, freelancing part-time for the last three months, only to go back on it again… am delighted to be expecting my third baby in August. So, I will be continuing my casual approach to blogging for a while longer!

If you were thinking of contacting me for illustrations while I’m on maternity leave, I am referring my clients to Jason MacKay… he’s a talented digital illustrator with published children’s books under his belt, has a great style and work ethic… and he’s my brother, so I know him personally and recommend to anyone looking for illustrations!

I’ve wanted to do this for years, and having a 3-year-old to do it with gave me the perfect excuse to have a go at making potato stamp holiday paper. Was an easy, quick craft… all you need is a small potato and knife to cut the pattern out of it, a little paint and a flat container to put it in, and large paper. We reused Hera’s old drawings, which added a quirky flare with creepy stick figures peeking through the trees! Hank was too busy practicing crawling up and down off the ottoman to join us ;)

I was saying to my husband recently I wish I had more time to draw… and he suggested just setting up next to Hera on the kitchen table and drawing together, even if it’s only a few minutes. I’ve been really enjoying it, and Hera especially enjoyed drawing the same thing… I took one of her drawings of our car, made copies, and she and I both coloured it in. (Similar to what I did with Ugly Mermaids.) Was fun, looking forward to doing it again!

BTW, a few have asked how Hank’s doing… really great :) At nine months old, he’s just under 7kg now, a smiley happy little guy, and sitting up (with a few pillows propped up around!) He has started crying “Mmmmmuuum!!!” when he’s upset.

Here’s a little doodle I did in my sketchbook of Hank’s preemie clothes (close to actual size.) I just loved how little they were so wanted to capture that! I’m not planning on doing a series as I’ve done with my diary of Hera’s stuff, but couldn’t resist doing this one at least :) This one is just ink on paper, and I’ve scanned it and applied colour on my iPad with Sketchbook Pro using a Dagi stylus.

Am happy to officially be off on maternity leave now that our son, Hank, has come home from hospital after being born three months early. He is strong and healthy and growing chubbier by the day (though still small, he is wearing teddy bear doll clothing in this picture!) Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers along the way, they meant so much to us. So I will be taking a big break from blogging, I’m too busy enjoying being a mum of two :)

Hey! Just wanted to put up a post to say I’ll be not blogging for the foreseeable future, as I’ve just had my second baby. Hank decided to arrive 14 weeks early, weighing in 1lb 11oz, so he’s still in hospital in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He’s doing very well, is a week old now, and is “ticking all the boxes” as they say here when things are going well. We just love him to bits, yesterday was one of the best days of my life as I was able to cuddle him for the first time… he opened his eyes up right away and gave me one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen. Needless to say our lives have changed quite a bit with visiting the hospital daily, but it’s a good change as we now are a family of four. Hera loves her little brother, and asks about him and enjoys holding his kicking foot in the incubator.

There are a couple post-dated blog posts trickling in I wrote before all of this, and I may have time to post the occasional thing here and there. But I likely wont have time to respond to questions as I used to do for quite a while. All the best in your creative endeavors!