Keep the Kids Busy on Thanksgiving

 

Check out this fantastic site  www.papertoys.com.   It’s a free site where you can download and print great paper patterns to cut out and color that turn into 3D toys for kids as well as adults who grew up loving building dioramas for school projects like I did. 

 

The Thanksgiving selection is good for a full day of occupying the kids while the Turkey is in the oven and the result will be a great table centerpiece that they made themselves. 

  

This is a site that really makes me love the internet for its ability to share creativity and good will which is in such short supply in this world. 

 

Many of the patterns can be downloaded in black and white so each piece can be customized in color by the builder.  I personally would have spent endless hours as a kid coloring and building these great models. 

 

Check out the completed Castle.

The US Capital

 

Shakespeare Old Globe Theatre.

 

And of course lady liberty. 

 

Let the kids go wild.  It’s free to download and only cost you the price of a sheet of paper and a box of colored pencils. 

I think this would make the perfect gift for your kids friends -  print out a selection of these, throw in a box of pencils, a bottle of glue and you have a present that will give them hours of joy and entertainment.    Enjoy!

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Making My Way Back

 

You may have noticed my absence from the online world these past few months.  I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff, much of it I am legally prohibited from talking about right now. 

 

It seems that in this highly competitive world  once you have earned some measure of success others may want what they perceive to be their portion of it.  Over the last few months I’ve gotten a look into the not so pretty side of corporate litigation.  The realization of what can happen to you in this world almost made me hang up my colored pencils and call it a day but my husband told me to not let what I am going through kill my creative spirit and I am taking his good advice to heart. 

 

It will be many hard months of work and waiting ahead for what I am going through but I am in a better place now to deal with it now.   In the meantime I am back and I will be forging ahead doing what I love – writing and illustrating my books that hopefully will help those in my industry do their jobs a little easier. I never got into writing to create some kind of empire or make a ton of money.  Publishing; unless you are a celebrity or fiction guru, is certainly not a money maker.  My goal was and still is to create a comprehensive set of reference books for the trade that will stand the test of time and provide a go to source for design inspiration.  A staggering amount of work goes into creating my books and every drawing is a labor of love for me.  I do this work out of a passion for design and my desire to share this passion with others like myself. 

 

 

To those of you who have known about my situation and have supported me and given me such great and reassuring advice I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I’m sure I will need more of that before this is over.  For now I am hard at work on my next two books.  The Design Directory of Soft Furnishings Volumes I & II.  I’ve been drawing slipcovers for a few months now and loving it.  They are still in the black and white stage but soon they will get a pretty new coat of color. 

I am going to try to get back into blogging regularly now.  For some reason I was afraid to blog for awhile.  I guess I really was in shock and didn’t know what to say.  I was afraid of saying anything that could inflame my already tenuous situation and I was also spending 24 hour days researching my case.  I have missed my blogging friends so much and the great interaction that we have and I hope that I haven’t let it go too long so that no one will read me anymore.

 

I hope we can reconnect and I’m looking forward to getting back into the blogging swing.

 

XOXO  Jackie

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