Gardens and Auctions

   Sorry I have been away for a week, I was asked to work with a wonderful animal rescue group creating a piece for their online auction. That's about all I can say about it now, but I will keep you posted.

    I have also been getting ready to start our garden. We have had a garden every year, but this year I really want to reassess what we plant. We love to entertain with BBQ parties over the summer and I would love to grow all of the veggies we usually grill.

   This year we also made serious commitments to our fitness and overall health and have been following work out and meal plans very diligently (I'll be doing a review of my process at the end). My husband and I have cut our grocery bill in half following our meal plans! Crazy I know. However, we are eating a lot of vegetables every day and that's about 1/2 of our remaining grocery bill.

   I would love to grow all of the veggies we eat daily not only to know that our fruits and veggies are organic with no pesticides, but also it would be really great to cut our grocery bill down to about $50 a week. Who wouldn't want that?

   We have a fairly large yard, but with no kids of our own yet we have decided to cut 1/2 of our yard and turn it into garden. When our nieces an nephews come over there is still room for them to run around and play, but having access to plentiful fruits and vegetables has been invaluable. By making the space larger we not only have more room for planting, but we also have larger paths in-between the rows so that my father can get through with a walker and use the garden as well.

   I am so excited to get started and be able to give you guys some good reviews soon on our work out programs and our garden/grocery budget. Let me know what else you would like reviews on.

Until next week,
-Mary  

Cats and comicon! My super nerdy adventure!

I'm sorry that I am posting so late today. As you all know we opened shop last week and I have to say thank you all so much for the level of traffic we have been getting. It's awesome to see where everyone is logging in from and to see just how far the reach of our art goes.  We've been doing a lot of promotional posts lately getting the shop running so today I wanted to post something totally off topic: Comicon!

I love being as open with you guys as possible (and appropriate) so I must say how stoked I am to have gone to my first Comicon this weekend.

Whattttt???? The quiet girl who paints flowers is a comic book nerd? Yes! Yes, I am. 

We have a comic book store in our small town and ever since I can remember my father's been taking me to go get comics. I read all the classics, Marvel, Dc, and read a lot of indie comics as well (Hipster alert!).
It was always so inspiring to me to see other artists enjoying their craft and sharing their love of story telling. That being said, Comicon was an incredible experience.  I loved meeting the artists, checking out all the artwork at the booths, and hanging out with all the cosplayers. 

I geeked out so hard when I met an awesome Retro Batman Cosplayer. Batman and Bat girl were definitely my favorite main stream comics as a kid. 

One of the other highlights was meeting "The real life Peter Griffin."  If you all don't know who he is check out this quick clip here (it does have some profanities in it just as a warning if there are children in the room). 

If you do know who he is than you know he sounds just like the character and embodies Peter Griffin for comicon, mannerisms and all. We went on the last day of the East Coast Comicon so there were less people and we could really hang out with everyone for a stretch. 

I know, I know the post says "cats and comicon." Where are the cats? Well I figured if I was going to make a post about comicon I just need to embrace the whole nerdy aspect and share with you a little about the crazy cats that help run Picket Fence Prints.

I know I've used that line before, but I mean it. They're actually cats.

Picket Fence Prints is run by me: Mary, my insanely supportive husband, and our two cats. 

You can read more about us and our process on our about page on the shop.

 ***Last promo I promise, but I really wanted to clear that cat thing up. I had a lot of people asking about it. 

These are just some of the antics my cats get into. They love stealing my supplies, knocking over paint and water cups and generally trying to help. I will be posting more of their antics on our Instagram @picketfenceprints 

**Before I have people asking: No she didn't drink the water, I stopped her, and no she didn't get ink on her paws. I was taking the photo as she was laying down next to it and she got up just as I snapped the picture. 

So there it is, my super nerdy secret. I hope you guys enjoyed reading about my crazy comic adventure and that you'll give comicon a try. If you're into comics it's the place to be. 

Until next week!
-Mary