CHOCOLATE Soaper HERO!

I finally recovered from my Easter HANGOVER when suddenly I smelled a smell! What's that luxurious aroma? It's filling my senses with a delectable deliciousness! It's chocolate alright, but not the edible kind. Behold The Awesome Power Of Chocolate Soap.

Technically a Soaper Heroine, Chocolate Truffle is smooth, rich, creamy and soapy. She joins Oatmeal Milk & Honey in the team of Dot & Lil bubbly Soaper Heroes. Her super-power? She can fly, duh! 

And btw, Dot & Lil only make this soap at Christmas time, so you won't find it on her website. *pouty face* When I did this drawing though, Anne said she could do special orders if you ask her really nicely.

Inspired by my friend @DotandLil's fabulous blog post. featuring @WhyisDaddyCryin and @missrogue. GO AND READ IT NOW - it's hilarious and informative. This is NOT a product review. I don't rilly do those. I only did this cuz it was funny. I did NOT receive any free soap for drawing this. Okay, okay... she did promise me a plate of homemade mini-cupcakes. But no soap what so ever.


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My Easter HANGOVER.

You know when the Easter Bunny brings your kids waaaaaay too much chocolate? You try to be a good mom and help them out.

I'm not hollow inside, I swear! Is it possible to eat too much chocolate...?

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Catching The Easter FUNNY.

WARNING: Don't share this post with your kids as it contains a huge spoiler.

One day, when our children were a little smaller, the eldest daughter asked "Mama, how does the Easter Bunny get in our house?" Logical question. I mean, everyone knows how Santa gets in via the chimney, but the Easter Bunny...we didn't know.

We decided to set a little "trap" to find out. If you want to try this out, this is what you'll need:

The first thing was set out a couple of trays of Baby Powder; we decided to put one tray by the front door and one tray by the fireplace.

That way, when the Easter Bunny came in to our house, he'd step in the tray of powder and leave a tell tale trail of footprints.

After the kids went to bed, I cut out the Bunny feet shapes from a piece of cardboard and made a stencil. Then I sprinkled the Baby Powder through the stencil to make footprints. It was really fun to make them start at one tray, wander around the room (a clue as to where chocolate was hidden) and then suddenly stop at a wall: as if he'd just walked right through it!

If you have a Newfoundland dog, do not, I repeat, DO NOT use flour instead of Baby Powder. It's a very bad idea.

The next morning, our kids went BANANAS!! It was extremely fun to video them too - I mean, as far as they're concerned this is like finding a half-eaten carrot times a million. PROOF that the Easter Bunny exists. Plus, hello? CHOCOLATE RUSH!

Then I'd hoover up the baby powder.

We all know who the real Bunny is anyways.

Do you think your kids will enjoy this...?  Lemmeeno how it goes!

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What do you really need EVERY day?

There's only one earth people; and there's no place else to go. Everything you buy comes from the earth - from your iPhone, to your Starbucks latte in the disposable cup, to the t-shirt collection in the back of your closet. When you go to buy something new, ask yourself if you really need it. Buy less stuff and buy second-hand.



I challenge you to live without one thing that you don't really need, over the next week. I wonder how many of you will comment here....

Happy Earth Day.

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YOU. @bigdaddyautism

Yeah....uh, this one's just gonna take too long to explain. Suffice to say that @bigdaddyautism is a wonderful warm person, who blogs a humorous take on life with his autistic 13 year old son at Big Daddy Autism. Worth checking out his new book too!

He can usually be found eating, napping or making like a chicken when challenged to a drawing duel. Hands up who wants to see Big Daddy Austism draw me?!

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GREENTOONZ Debut!

I'm super excited about this post!! Remember the Twin Earth HUGGERS? Their mom @Tiffanystoybox connected with me on Twitter and this gorgeous little film is the result.

Presenting....the animation debut of NYC twins Tristin & Tyler in their very own cartoon "The Kite"



The GREENTOONZ concept is created by Tiffany herself; she's an amazing woman. Once I'd got the story figured out, it took me about four full days to complete the animation. My husband helped out with the music and our son did the voices.

Tristin & Tyler are green vloggers with style and charisma - be sure to check out their site - Tristin and Tyler's Tales from the City!

TOMORROW IS EARTH DAY!

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Think About YOUR Footprint.

YIKES. Earth DAY is just two days away!

Here's a little something from my kids site. Whether you have kids or not, you should play this game. It's pretty simple and fairly humorous.



It scratches lightly at the surface of many eco-footprint issues...not least of which is "how much stuff do I really need?"

How did you score on the Earth-O-meter - Happy or UNhappy?

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YOU. @gypsy_momma.

"Please!!! Please help me!! You gotta save my marriage!" cried @BigBadBooDaddy. "PLEASE DRAW MY WIFE!!!"

ME: Uh...you and @gypsy_momma are married...?

Okaaaaay, maybe Brian didn't use those words exactly, but the way he was goin' on in his tweets, I imagined him all tearful, dribbling and snotty. For whatever reason this poor dude believed I had the power to restore his matrimonial harmony. Okay.

And then Stephi herself posted a fabulous description on my I Draw YOU page:

"I had mentioned that I thought it'd be cool to be drawn by you, but was having a hard time trying to figure out how you'd manage incorporating giraffe-type legs under my bountiful body and flaming red hair with sparkly blue eyes, laced in crazy, all supported by big feet to keep me grounded."

Cha-ching!! Inspiration!

I handled everything except the big feet; call it ...artistic license. Stephi blogs at Perceptions of My Reality, where she tells "mom's side of the story". But on Twitter she's known as @gypsy_momma and she's easy to spot on account of the flaming red hair going so nicely with the #BlueTICK on her avatar.

Has this post saved their marriage? Did the marriage even need saving? Is this naught but an extravagant ploy to get an unsuspecting artist to draw someone and thereby win a bet?

Who cares! It was fun!

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My First TatTOON.

This is a story of mommy-love.

It all started back in September with this contest. The winner was Angela AKA @mommyamc and her prize was to be featured in my cartoon along with the LumberJACK. If you watch the animation, you'll hear the LumberJACK song (well, a version of it, anyway). Angela's five year old son Aaron could not get enough of the song and prolly drove his mom nuts singing it.

Aaron became my Number 1 Fan. Meaning I had to draw him as a LumberJACK! Wearing LumberJACK pyjamas to be precise.

Angela said her son loved the drawing and that it looked just like him. She decided she wanted to get the Aaron drawing done as a tattoo. She's as lovely a person as you're ever likely to find on twitter and she respectfully asked my permission first. To which I replied, "Really? WOW. Cool!"

The tat was done by her cousin Brian who does them for fun and family.

Aaron's elder brother Austin took pics of the entire event and now that it's healed a bit, his aunt took this fantastic photo.

I teared up when I saw it. Yep....mommy-love.

Apparently Aaron is super proud to be drawn on his mom's shoulder; he tells everyone about it and Angela's getting lots of compliments on this TatTOON.

What's the funnest tattoo you've ever seen? I do have one myself, but you will never guess where, so don't even try.

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My Kids COOK.

I was beginning to get worried about my 16 year old daughter. She'd had her wisdom teeth out five days ago and had a very bad recovery, extreme swelling, bruising and pain. She had Chipmunk CHEEKS. Her morale was at an all time low.

Yesterday, I took her off the codeine and she suddenly perked up! Around 5 pm last night, the girl suddenly announced she was going to cook dinner for everyone. An extremely good sign, n'est ce pas?

Our children have always been in the kitchen with their daddy. The Apron Man involved them in preparing most meals, and facilitated creating their every edible whim. Consequently, they picked up a few tricks.

Still sporting slight Chipmunk Cheeks, my eldest prepared a delicious Chicken Parmigiana. And she got her 14 year old sister to help out with a Chocolate Soufflé. It was a pleasure to hear them laughing together...my heart soared.

We ate dinner and cleared up before dessert. The soufflé was rising in the oven, filling the house with a mouth-watering chocolatey aroma. I actually drooled as I did the dinner dishes.

Suddenly there was a scream from the pantry:

"MUM! There's soy sauce in the soufflé! There's SOY SAUCE IN THE SOUFFLÉ!!!! WAAAAAAH!!!!" The 16 year old came running to the sink and spat. "Ptui! Ptui - ptui!!"

I'm like WTF?

It seems that long ago ( I can't even remember how long ago), someone had sushi and poured the left over soy sauce into the smallest container they could find : the empty vanilla bottle. And then forgot about it. And a generous teaspoonful was whizzed into yon rising Chocolate Soy-fflé. My eldest discovered this as she was screwing the lid back on the bottle and got some on her finger. She licked it off and got a nasty surprise.

The guilty party? Place your bets!

For the record, the Chocolate Soy-fflé didn't taste one bit like soy sauce. It was nom-a-licious. Do your kids cook?


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More SPIDEY Sketches.

Last we saw, Spidey was just hanging around hoping my son would draw him.

The 11 year old boy has been at it again, drawing a lot of different Spidermans and even some made-up ones. 

We got Green Lantern in the mix too, which he did specially for @TLanceB who commented last time. This kid knows all the pledges by heart! These superheroes are lining up to be drawn by him!

That's his own Spiderman with Web Wings on the far right. I love when he shows me his sketch book and he likes it when I show him mine. This is his favourite.

This kid will tell you all about every superhero, how they got their powers, whether they're Marvel or DC, which artists he prefers, and even who "draws girls the best", hee hee.

Do you have a budding comic book geek uh, connoisseur in your house?

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Chipmunk CHEEKS.

The sixteen year old daughter has had her wisdom teeth extracted. She was actually born with a very small mouth...and very big teeth. All in all, this kid has had EIGHT adult teeth removed just to make room. That's a quarter of her teeth!! The mind boggles.

She's been very brave. Normally she looks like a manga character; huge eyes, small mouth (like I said), heart shaped face. But today, she looks like a ChipMUNK. I drew this to make her smile, cuz I'm her mom.

Will the kind and generous ToothFAIRY leave her some money? Yes.

Will it be enough to pay for all these extractions and braces and retainers?  Uh....no.

Oh WACOM....can you hear me?

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YOU. @LearnGrow.

What's that smell...?

Oh it's @JosephGier AKA Joseph Gier. He's got a head of garlic, no wonder!! And look - it's sprouting...!

He's still wearing his Man Stripper boots from the last time I drew him. 

This is prolly very silly but I do not care a whit.  Also it was his idea. Goes to show you what hanging around in the #Usguys Twitter stream will do to you.

Vampires beware!

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Why @WACOM Should SPONSOR This BLOG.

So there I was, minding my own business when suddenly, someone sent me a 'mention' on Twitter! It was @dadgineer asking what I use to draw my comics. Believe it or not, I get asked this question at least once a day. Of course, I answered that I use a WACOM! I could go on and on about how great it is, and how I like the tablet even more than my Cintiq, too. But I won't.

Instead I'll tell you what happened next. I started thinking.

And then, out of the blue, an idea hit me! WACOM should totally sponsor my blog, right?
What a great idea!

But how do get WACOM to notice me...? I decided to shoutout to @wacom on Twitter.

Gotta tellya, @wacom were on the ball and they responded two hours later, with this:

Very complimentary, but not exactly throwing money at me, are they?
Plus, they spelled "huge" wrong.

So then I get a another Twitter 'mention' and this time it's from @dotandlil. Some of you may know Anne from her fantastic Dot & Lil luxury soap blog and shop, and some of you may know her from the SOAPER Hero. I know her in real life and she's sweet, loving, clever, beautiful ...and a real hardass businesswoman!! Yeesh.

She's always telling me I hafta get on the blower and phone people up and sell my wares. But I'm scared. I'm scared of the phone! Just the thought of calling WACOM turns me into a babbling three year old.

I start talking like Principle Krupp from Captain Underpants* when he unwittingly proposed marriage to one of the teachers.
*If you don't know Captain Underpants, you should immediately genuflect before the great Dav Pilkey and beg for forgiveness. Then click here and get your credit card out.Trust me, you'll want the whole set.

I decided to draw instead of phoning. Let's make a list of all the reasons why WACOM should sponsor my blog.

• I can make my own ad. And it would fit perfectly into my website. See?
• I draw with the WACOM every day, posting drawings AND animation several times a week to this humour blog.
• Product placement! The WACOM has already been featured on this blog several times! I often draw myself drawing with one; it could happen more often, right? 
• My stats prove that I have a loyal and growing fan base.  
• The folks who visit my blog are regular family people, some of whom may consider buying a WACOM for themselves or their aspiring artistic offspring instead of, say, a puppy.
• Some of my blog appreciators want to know how I do what I do; having an ad on the blog would save me the trouble of explaining!
• OK, so I'm not a digital artist like Bert Monroy who uses a million layers in his jawdropping work and draws with a WACOM. But that's precisely why I'm so sponsorable. I'm accessible. 
• I could use the money. I mean, I'm not starving or anything but, you know, three kids, braces, college fees, dog food, wine. The ZOMBIE Fridge. It all adds up.

• The WACOM I draw with is very affordable and super easy!
  
• Imagine if they donated a WACOM for one of my contest prizes - my followers would go bananas!
• If WACOM doesn't sponsor me, I can do this ---->

Perhaps Anne is right.
I should prolly bite the bullet and phone WACOM up. What's the worst that could happen...?

PLEEZE comment below so I can show this to WACOM, giving them yet another reason to sponsor my blog. You could also tweet @wacom with the link to this post. And then go and tell @dotandlil to make the phone call for me.

UPDATE: July 1st 2011.
In case you're wondering, I did finally call WACOM. I sent them a proposal and I guess they'll respond at some point. But yesterday @wacom tweeted me this:

Will anything come of it? Who knows! The Quest for Sponsorship is almost as much fun as the drawing series in my proposal. I love drawing with my WACOM and I'm not about to stop. I'm like the Ultimate Brand Advocate. Woo!

What happened next?

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Twin Earth HUGGERS!

An Earth HUGGER is someone who respects and cares for the Earth. So I'm gonna give you a sneak peek into something fun, animated and totally Earth HUGGY!
Two things actually - Tristin and Tyler!

These 7 year old twin brothers are New York City's dynamic duo of green vlogging - Tristin and Tyler's Tales from the City! In their videos they go on adventures in NYC and learn about interesting people, doing interesting eco-friendly things.Tristin and Tyler are real charmers and these videos are fun, funny and full of information! The whole thing is put together by their parents, so it's a real family operation, just like Little Animation.

Here they are chillin' with the Planet Earth - star of the Little Earth Charter and tons of other stuff, like....well, everything in the whole wide world, actually.

Tristin and Tyler's mom @Tiffanystoybox connected with me on Twitter recently and now I'm creating their very first animated GREENTOONZ. It's due to premier April 21st on the twins' site in celebration of upcoming Earth Day and it's all about an escaped thi - you'll just have to wait and see...!

GREENTOONZ are COMING SOON to a laptop near you.

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How YOUR KID Can Be AWESOME On April 22nd.

Here's a story that starts with drawings and ends with animation.

This is me a few years ago. Pretty bad, huh? I was down cuz I had a fantastic animation idea for kids but no matter how many grants I wrote, I couldn't find the money to produce it. Anyone who has ever written a grant knows how the Paper Monster tries to blow you away.


But I didn't give up!

I eventually found some money and kicked in a healthy chunk from our savings. Everyone helped with the production - my co-creator @RosieEmery, my husband, and even our kids provided the voices. We had fun working on it because we truly believed in the idea. We knew that young children learn best when they're having fun and this series of eight little films would have them smiling and learning earth friendly stuff.

We called it "The Little Earth Charter".

April 22nd is EARTH DAY. If your kid is in primary school, chances are their class is doing something for Earth Day. If your son or daughter brings this DVD to their class anytime around Earth Day, they'll be sharing the Earth friendly energy with all their classmates.

Behold the Awesome!

How much does the Awesome cost? Only $12.99.
Where can I buy this Awesome? CLICK!
What age group is this for? Preschool to 8 year olds.
Here's the first of eight videos.



So go and get your kid's Awesome. And I'll include a free "Earth2Rosie" postcard, while quantities last! Remember, this animation is for the kids.

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SELF Portrait To INFINITY!

I was drawing my self drawing, and I thought, why not draw my self drawing my self...?

I think I just blew my own mind....as we discovered when I made this little cartoon about the inner workings of ME, it's dangerous in there!

Someone said there was a name for this kind of infinity image. Does anyone know what it is?


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YOU. @hellophotokitty

Surprize! Sometimes, if it's your birthday, I will draw YOU.

This is my "in real life" friend @hellophotokitty. Besides being a quality blogger, she also takes pictures - and when I say takes, I mean steals, captures, literally plucks them from thin air with skill and groove. She's an artiste and a professional. She's even taken pictures of lil' ole moi at my Impromptu Black Tie Potluck New Years Eve Party.

I'm kinda surprising her with this drawing cuz I know she really, really wants one of my RageKAT t-shirts hee hee...

Join me in wishing a Happy Birthday to Kathy!

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The ALIENS Have LANDED.

APRIL FOOLS!!! Ha ha ha....

Meep meep bip bop meegle meep. Take me to your Leader.

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