Over here is our Christmas tree farm… or story in pictures about how Christmas tree grows. We love our trees from Holidays Coloring Book. They bring joy to kids all over the world… perfect time to share with others…

All best!!!

It is official!!!!! The application is ON AIR! December the 6th was THE day… our new app was published. We set it as holidays coloring book with all the holidays you can imagine. For now we have Halloween and Christmas but wait and you will see our new ideas in 2012!

The excitement grows day after day… people really like it!!!! After one week we were among first 10 apps in the Kids + Family category… Now (in less than two weeks) we are in the 5TH PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!

It is great to see joy in kids eyes when they are coloring these pictures… After couple minutes kid that has never used the app is using it without any difficulties (the effort we put to redesign it has paid off ). Last week little Emilia made my day… I could watch her first moments with our coloring book… her smile, engagement, sound of her giggling…. priceless!!!

So all best for the time before Christmas!!!!

Friends helped me to choose the main graphic for it. Christmas tree was the first idea but I had not interest in it… Santa came to my mind but got lost in the corridors and I ended up with the face of a snowman… Unfortunately for the snowman everyone liked Christmas tree as the symbol of the event…

Three pictures…

and the winner is…

I spent lots of time with MS Expression Design trying lots of things…. I wanted to show light in the pictures – no luck for now… It will take me some time and practice to figure it out. I need to learn the tricks and technics how to do thing using vector graphic…

The work is done… now we will wait for the new application Holidays coloring book.

New ideas are in my head… Life and time are priceless… I try to use my moment as much as I can!

We are in the marketplace for Windows Phone 7 !!!!!! I feel excitement…

Shapes Coloring Book is a coloring book that was created to help develop abstract thinking in the way the kid would not notice it and even more, the kid would have fun with it!

All the coloring pages are made out of geometrical shapes. You play with them, you get to know them, you recognize shapes looking at everyday things…. and you are in the middle of the matrix  

For kids the application gives very nice way to start the journey with geometric shapes… nothing looks difficult after the play time with a robot, an ice cream or a girl mage out of circles, rectangles, triangles… and more….

I am really curious how the application will be received by users. I used my math skills, teaching abilities, artistic soul, my computer science background, added my husband programming ideas and WE built that product TOGETHER.

Please, keep your fingers cross for us!

It turned out our Halloween Coloring Book was a hit!!! Kids loved it!!! In two weeks we jumped into the second position in our category for Windows Phone 7 apps. The SECOND place… It was great race to the top  

My husband admitted I had great intuition. What could be better…. I am proud of our family. The team work was a pleasure for us. We were organized, focused and our work was effective. We reached the top. The satisfaction we have is priceless.

Soon (very soon) we will release a new project…. Shapes Coloring Book… All the drawings are done with vector graphic. In May I had idea how to help little kids to get to know basic geometrical shapes… I mixed my skills, learned new software (MS Expression Design) and prepare more than 45 pages… Lately I had time to put all the elements together and I hope this week the app will deliver fun to kids from different parts of the world.

More details to come

Two weeks ago I came home and it happened…. dinner, homework with my daughter…. my hands wanted to do something more…. and that was the beginning of Halloween Coloring Book. After 15 new coloring pages my husband came and said “It looks good”. I got the first good review!!!!! Week later we were in marketplace for Windows Phone 7 and we started AMAZING trip around the world…

We visited so many places with spooky and funny coloring pages, so many happy kids

Today we were featured in this post Pinworthy: 5 fun Halloween apps for Windows Phone SO COOL!!!!

It is great to put all the pieces together and be happy looking at the product.

Creativity can have different faces… This time it was a spooky face for Halloween.

Before the trip, days were busy because of the gifts we wanted to prepare. It was great to work on pendants, bracelets. I had lots of creative time with my friend, with my daughter…. at the end we had gifts for everyone! I called them my army: pink, blue, brown, red, some with flower some without flowers… I think there were 10 pieces… Each of them was special and ended up with a special friend. It was pleasure to see happy faces, happy ladies… It is always nice to give your joy to others!!!!

I do not have pictures of all the pieces of the little treasure. I saved only one – the Blue Pendant with new color ideas, with the white and blue mini mosaic design. We did not have time for pictures… time was running to fast… but we took photos of beautiful old buildings… soon I will prepare mosaic made by life.

Gosia is very proud of her creation.

As you can see, she used the same technique, she was really good at following the steps.

We both learned a lot.

My friend invited me over with the idea we would paint together. I took my artistic daughter with me and three of us started painting. We were painting all day and my friend taught us how to paint using her technique. It was great, I learned so much. I also had chance to watch my daughter talking with other artist… priceless, I was so proud of my daughter!!!

So my inspiration was a painting of poppies by Carol Nelson http://carolnelsonfineart.com/. The lady loves poppies and so do I. I hope it is OK to post the original painting here. Take a look.

I love the colors, the composition, the texture. I love the sky… Beth told me to paint from nature, from photos not paintings but it was too late I already glued myself to that painting

First step was to draw the poppies. I have been dreaming about poppies for a long time and I have never been brave enough to try…. I did it, I draw and I was happy about it. Friend told me “Good, now move on and draw more….” So finally all the poppies were ready. I thought I passed the hardest part at the beginning…..

Step two – paint the outlines…. how or how I could destroy my beautiful sketch with BLACK paint…. The poppies should be red/ orange/ OK yellow…. but not black…. but I had to trust my artist…. After that step I was in love with it… even black and white would be perfect enough to hang in our living room…

Step three – sky, scary but very nice part to do, everything had to be blue, paper towel help a lot to get what I wanted. All the tips Beth generously shared with me were GREAT!

Step four – grass… I did not like it at all, I still do not like it in some places… Now I know on what part I have to work more in the future.

Next steps were just fabulous, poppies, poppies…. all over. I discover I preferred visible canvas’ texture, less paint on canvas, less texture of paint.

I have more plans… Beth is really penitent. I am SO grateful for all her effort, her time, her knowledge

I would love to post my daughter’s painting but I have to ask her first… soon it will be midnight, she is only 7 years old… so I will let her sleep.

The Red Summer

one more tree…

and the old two trees blooming this year again

It was great to work together LeeAnn. Thank you!