moving this all over to http://abeytacreative.blogspot.com

Not sure if this will work. lemme see...

Ok, y'all, out with the old and in with the new!!! I have a new blog and website that I am currently in the process of designing. It is a work in progress, but I am anxious to blog and don't want to do it here anymore. In a few months this site and my domain abeytacreative will no longer exist. I won't be an Abeyta much longer and well, sometimes ya just gotta start fresh. I have loved this little blog and shared so much on it, but I feel I have just outgrown it and am ready to let it go.

So, join me over at MichellePaints.com and my brand-spanking NEW blog by clicking below (don't forget to bookmark and pardon the work in progress, still figuring out wordpress coding, etc.)

So without further ado do what the dog says:


See ya on the flip side! Smell ya later!

Ok, ready for new news? Ready for art news? ready for fun stories? Me too!! And as soon as i get my NEW WEBSITE and NEW BLOG finished up I will have lots of fun eye candy and treats for you!!! And a way for you to buy my books right from me!! Woohoo!!!

In the mean time, summer is AWESOME, I am totally ENGAGED, planning a small, fun BEACH WEDDING, loving that my kids are NOT LEAVING this summer, and hating TEN hour work days but LOVING Fridays off!!!

Exciting new changes across the board in my art, my family, my home, EVERYTHING. Can't wait to share it all!!!

The story to come. But it is romantic and amazing and perfect. At the end of a perfect evening I had to finish an illustration because there is an editor in NYC that is very eager to see a book dummy of mine. And tomorrow I need to overnight it. And so Best FIANCE Ever (don't you just LOVE that??!) went to bed without me and I stayed up to finish painting. And I just finished. And I love it. And life could truly not be more perfect. Because I have found a man that not only lets me be me, but loves me for it. And so he understood I needed to stay up late and work. Because he is amazing like that. And tomorrow? Tomorrow I will make it up to him. :D

Meanwhile here is me and the ring that has an amazing story behind it. And if I had more than four hours sleep in the past two days, I would TOTALLY tell you right now. But now? The bed is calling my name. And I want to go lay down next to the man I know I will lay down next to each night for the rest of my life.

Life is so good.


Before he took me out to ask me to be his wife. (LOVE that!!!!)




The ring!!!




detail! (the story behind the ring is good! tune in soon for more!!)

Sent from my iphone.

Sent from my iphone.

Sent from my iphone.

Sent from my iphone.

Sent from my iphone.

First full day of vacation. Whole family here. Ran at sunrise along the ocean. Jumping waves wirh The Soph and BBE. Life is good.



Sent from my iphone.

And yes, I cried. Too much for one Mama for one week I tell ya!!!




Next? A week at the beach. FINALLY!!! Pics to come!!

(I tried to post this from my phone earlier since I was in an all day meeting, but it didn't work. So here goes again.)

Dear Sophie.

Eleven years ago today, at 2:26 pm you entered this world. You were blue. Completely like a smurf. The cord had been wrapped around your neck and yeah, you were totally blue. And I wasn't scared until the dude that delivered you, who was um, maybe TWELVE? Completely FREAKED out too. See, you were born in a teaching hospital and therefore they let Doogie Houser deliver you. Luckily the chief of staff was there to calm down the child that delivered you, then calmed down the mama that was all, "Dude!! My daughter is a lovely shade of blueberry, but um, MAKE HER PINK!!" And so they did. And you were fine.

Since your blue birth you have gone on to be the most amazing, stubborn, creative, willful, passionate child ever. You are exactly the child my mother wished me to have. Something about payback she says. You are a child that knows what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it. You will work harder than anyone else when you want something. But if you don't want it, you don't - and that is that. You don't care what others think of you. This quality, is one I hope and pray you have FOREVER. Oh how I wish I had learned this so much earlier in life. Don't get me wrong, you are not in any way a selfish child, you just know what YOU want and could give a rat's butt if someone else doesn't get it. You do. And that's all that matters. I simply ADORE this quality in you. This alone will make your life so much easier and happier than you will realize.

Since you were born you have been my 'chaotic bubble of sunshine' and you still are. You light up a room and light up my heart when you walk in. I adore you more than you will ever know. I learn from you every day. I work hard every day at my art to make sure I can prove to you that passion and hard work ARE enough. Luck helps, but perseverance matters so much MORE. You get excited at all my achievements both large and small. You will probably never know how much that means to me and how the delight in your voice at my latest news makes me float on air. You make me fly, Sophie girl, so very, very high.

Happy Birthday baby girl. You are becoming an amazing young woman, and I truly don't know how I got so lucky to be your mother.

love,
Mama

Getting ready to sell the coloring books on my site. Needed new business cards so designed these. What do you think?





The mailing labels will be so cute you'll HAFTA order the books to make sure it makes it's way into your mailbox!!

The alternate title to this entry was, "Just in case I was feeling TOO good about myself, I went and tried on bathing suits."

The beach trip: 6 days away! Bathing suit bought. Running for the past 6 months made the experience of shopping for it slightly less than horrific. SLIGHTLY. But when will they make those fluorescent lights illegal? Srsly. They are just mean. And maybe make me cry. Am I REALLY that lumpy? Really?? Sigh...

Where do I start this feel good, pat on the back, confidence building mission, you ask? Target of course! Because um, is there anywhere else to shop? I forget. I just always go there. It is like a bullseye beacon luring me there.

So there I am, pondering the color choices this year, turquoise is big, the styles they will give us - boy there are a lot of string bikinis. Do the buyers hate us that much? Have they not SEEN the average Target shopper? And while I have been working out? Um, I could not wear a string bikini when I was 19, much less now. Just not the string bikini havin' body ya know? I like to work out, I like to look decent, but that food thing, that drinking thing and lack of personal trainer and a contract with Jenny Craig keeps getting in my way of oh, I don't know, having Valerie Bertinelli's new body. Just sayin'.

So, moving on. I am looking and a guy walks up to me and another woman pondering what we are willing to be seen in public wearing, and asks, "Ladies, what is a halter top?" She begins to explain, I scan the tops and grab one, "This is a halter top."

He replies, "That's what I thought! Thanks! My girlfriend said to buy her a halter top bikini." And he walks away all triumphant and proud of himself.

I look at the woman. She looks at me.

I say, "Well, there is NO WAY IN HELL I am sending my boyfriend to pick out a bathing suit for me!"

She says, "I guess she has a great body."

To which I reply, "We hate her, right?" she smiles, "Oh yeah!" And we part ways, but we had a moment. Oh yes we did.

I did go on to find a not awful suit despite how much the buyers and designers for Target obviously hate their shoppers.

I intend on all the margaritas at the beach to help me forget about the being seen in public part. heh.

And then I went and bought some tan in a can for my pasty white body. Don't want to BLIND anyone with the glare of my legs. Cause, I am considerate like that.

So you see the amazing ocean view I have at my cube???? Well, in 8 short days? I will BE THERE! Yup week long beach vacation with the whole family with a big ol' house smack dab right in front of the ocean! Shrimp, margaritas, lazy trashy novel reading, nights of board games with the kids, ocean swimming, sunrise runs along the shore...lordee I cannot wait!!!

no computers, no annual reports, no magazines, no posters, no ads, no can you please email this, can you please resize that. NOTHING. HEAVEN.

The only thing I do plan on doing is some much needed sketching and possibly working on a book idea my agent wants me to work on. Because art and the beach is not work, it is again, heaven. I will be posting pics and any fun sketches.

Also, I am much more lively these days on Facebook, so if you want to friend me, just look up Michelle Abeyta or Michelle Nelson and I will totally friend you! Cause I am cool like that. And you are cool like that.

I totally need to redo this website soon too - on a rambling, unrelated note. The coloring books are almost here!!!! I will have them for sale on this here website so check back soon!!!

So, the coloring books are almost finished, about to be shipped off to Hobby Lobby (insert GIANT squeal here!!!) and just got an email that prototypes from China for my DREAM product that I concepted YEARS ago are being made right now!!!! HAPPY FRIDAY INDEED!!!!

I will write about art SOON I promise, but he just bought me an iphone for Mother's Day. Um, how can I possibly justify deserving such an awesome man that treats ME so good? So the gushing of how in love I am must still go on!



He took this of me after he took me out to dinner too! Even without the phone or the dinner, I couldn't love him more. (um also, how crazy long and skinny are my thumbs?!?!)

Just saying. He is awesome. He puts up with all my crazy. And dude, I gots me lots and lots of crazy. How he always just manages to stay calm and smile and tell me it will all be ok even when I am being all emotional is beyond me.

He lets me, be ME. I don't have to pretend, I don't have to act a certain way, I just get to have fun and play and be however I want. And he loves me exactly how I am. And I love him exactly how he is. And that is the most awesome thing I have ever experienced in a relationship. And don't even get me started on the... heh! This is a kid friendly blog! Shame on you for thinking I would go there!! But seriously, WOW.

I can not be luckier.

Just got overwhelmed with my emotions and had to share. As you were....

Ok, these are just the prototypes they used for the sales calls. Currently at the printer and should ship to Hobby Lobby in about 2 weeks. Woohoo!!! I will have them for sale on my site here as well. They come with 8 trading/fact cards and I am SO EXCITED!!!! While I did all the work for these last year, including all the reference research, the fact research about each breed, the history of the breed, plus the actual painting of all these, etc - (SO MUCH WORK) I have never seen these put together until just this weekend, so you are seeing it just about as soon as I did! (You can click to see them all bigger)

Oh yes I did. Yeah, well, no one will be laughing when I have awesome tomatoes all season long!!


And also, because she is so super awesome and I adore her style, here is my daughter's outfit she picked out the other day. (I can't show her face because I NEVER, EVER comb her hair and therefore she looks like a hobo child. - heh - That is a private joke that only a few people will get. But I had to do it because it makes me laugh. hee.)




And I have some awesome, great news about my coloring books coming SOON!!!