It has been months in the making and I am so happy to be launching my new blog! I will be sharing all that inspires me, new work and news.

The new year means new beginnings and I have exciting goals for 2013. I am looking forward to growing my design and art business and welcoming new career opportunities. This month I will be a first-time attendee of both the Craft and Hobby Show in Anaheim, CA and the Altitude Summit Conference for bloggers in Salt Lake City. There will be upcoming posts on both shows and all the good stuff I will take away from them. I will bringing in collaborators in the upcoming months too so you will definitely see some new faces and columns popping up. More than thrilled…here we go! You can see the new blog here or go to www.jeanettagonzales.com. 

I am currently revamping my website and will move over to a Wordpress platform (thus why I am super sporadic with posting - sorry!). I have been working on a new identity for my company, designing a new logo and really tapping into what my brand image should be. It is really hard to design for yourself. I think I am a difficult client…even for myself cause I can’t pin down just ONE look - I like so many different styles. To help me in structuring a great blog that I am super proud of and to get me in the mindset of blogging regularly and I am currently taking Holly Becker’s online blogging course “Blogging your Way”. Our second assignment was to create a mood board that reflects your blog or your own personal style. I have made one in the past and it sits in my office area. I realized that it doesn’t represent me anymore and I have moved on from some of the trends that were on the board.

While cruising though my Pinterest boards and seeing what I gravitate to, I noticed that I have two main styles that I prefer, one being pastoral/rustic/french but can be global/comfortably worn/sometimes beachy and natural and the other style being vibrant, graphic and textural with pops of color and energy. I think it has to do with growing up on the east coast where I was surrounded by nature, trees, the beach, farms and marinas in a seaside community and being an artist with a love of color, texture and a passion for art and design.

My pastoral/rustic/french but can be global/comfortably worn/sometimes beachy and natural side looks something like this:

My vibrant, graphic and textural with pops of color and energy side looks like this:

I made this board from items in my office, inspiration pics from the net and even included a photo of me as a child and a fabric swatch of a pattern I made to make it even more personal.

Now looking at this I feel that this is how I would like to represent myself. I love the poppy red color with black and white, the organic, hand-drawn patterns and its boldness overall. Now I have a direction I will need to apply this to my site. To be continued…

That’s a good question. I have several things. Here are a few:

I was CRAVING Rice Krispie Treats this past weekend. I have a gluten allergy and am so happy to see the Gluten Free version of the cereal available. I have now satisfied and full of sugar :). Here’s an illustration of the very simple and fun recipe.

Spring is here! I saw these fun wedge sandals and thought they would make a cute drawing. I interpreted it two ways.

While walking down the sidewalk on a rainy afternoon I was distracted by the patterns of the painted lines in the street. I stopped to shoot them while trying not to get run over. It was definitely worth it. I wanted to paint one day and decided to use these images as inspiration. Here are some paint “doodles” inspired by the street lines.

I AM ON PINTEREST! Before Pinterest I would print out sheets of images I loved from the internet and keep them in a book. I still use the book sometimes because - who doesn’t love a scrapbook? Pinterest has for sure simplified that process and keeps all my beloved images in neat categories. There’s so much inspiration online to capture. Follow me here.

Recently my friend, Sara and I went to a fabric dyeing workshop at the Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica. It was my first time there and taking a fabric dyeing class. We learned the Shibori Fabric Dyeing technique which involves folding and/or binding fabric with thread, clips, rubber bands - pretty much anything you can think of and soaking the fabric in bleach to remove parts of the dye to create patterns. Here’s some photos of our workshop experience.

DJ Spinna and J Rocc spun 90’s hip hop and R ‘n B all night at the Echoplex. We love going to the old-school dance parties. Here are some photos from the night. We stopped to take a photo for the event photographer and caught our mugs in some of his shots from the night.

Photos by me and afropics.net

WEST ELM Store Opening Party!

West Elm had a great store opening party. They opened a beautiful store on Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles and invited bloggers and HGTV celebs to host. I follow Emily Henderson’s blog - she was one of the hosts. She posted a public invitation and I RSVP’d. I grabbed my designer friend, partner-in-crime, Sara who is a big Emily fan. Smilebooth was there taking photobooth pics and everything in the store was 20% off, open bar and appetizers. Lots of beautiful people, amazing decor and good music. It was a fun night.