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I’ve added some new stickers to my Etsy shop, including some clear ones that are perfect for your water bottles. ☺️

Buy two and save $2 with promo code “SAVE2BUCKS” at artbyerinshhh.etsy.com

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New sticker coming soon

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Reminder from Mel Robbins!

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Whatever your goals for 2023 are—big, small, or non-existent—I wish you luck in achieving them all. 🥂🎉 Happy New Year

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Cheers, friends 🥂🎉💝 Have a happy New Year!

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It’s been a shit year and I’m happy to say goodbye to it. Here’s hoping 2023 is better. 🤞🏼

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The final piece in my holiday lettering series. I hope you are having a fantastic day! 🥂🎄🎁💝🎅🏼

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Happy Festivus, Seinfeld fans!!

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Reminder

“Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 lowers the risk of long COVID after infection by only about 15%, according to a study of more than 13 million people.” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01453-0

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Here is some of the holiday art I’ve created this year.

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Finished this piece tonight, based on a quote that was on a Godspeed You! Black Emperor amp. (I don’t know anything about Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Someone posted a photo on Twitter. 🤷🏻‍♀️)

Stand up against trans hatred and transphobia. Lives are at stake.

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I finally finished up all of the signs, place cards, and table numbers for Georgie’s upcoming wedding. It took me two weeks to get everything done. This is the biggest wedding project I’ve taken on. (Typically I just do envelope addressing and place cards, which are less satisfying, because no one really keeps any of that stuff.)

It’s been very cool to actually create pieces I can hold in my hands instead of just digital files attached to an email. But it is also very stressful to hold a paintbrush and think, “If my hand slips, I will ruin this piece, and I don’t have the option to start over because I don’t have extra wood to work with!” 😫 And my hands are not especially steady!

I’m really happy with how some of these came out, and I hope I get a chance to do more projects like this (though maybe not so many in so little time 🤣). It’s very cool to be asked to contribute to someone’s special day. They are going to keep some of these pieces to display in their home, which is the best part.

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I’m working on some pieces for a friend’s upcoming wedding—signs, table numbers, place cards, etc. Doing lettering with paint brushes is hard! 😫 I like how the table numbers turned out though.

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I guess this is where I will be spending my time now that Twitter is up in flames. Who should I follow??

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I have not posted in a long time. Here are some stickers I added to my Etsy shop this year. You can get them at artbyerinshhh.Etsy.com!

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I finished my holiday card art today and I am super excited about it. I’ve been meaning to make my own cards for years, but kept putting it off. Doing the lettering is easy, but figuring out how to fill the space is hard. And I am NOT an illustrator. My illustration skills are garbage. But I saw a stock photo of a bunch of presents set in a grid and it gave me this idea. Drawing a bunch of rectangles is easy! I didn’t expect it to come out looking this good though. 😂 I’m still a little surprised that I’m the one who made it.

I captured most of my process in the first photo. I draw out the idea in brush pens first, and then I refined it in pencil, scanned it, brought the pencil sketch into Procreate, cleaned it up, and added the presents and color.

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Stop putting yourself in the back seat.

I think there's a thing that a lot of us do when we are accustomed to being around dysfunctional people, or emotionally manipulative ones, or even people who just have very big personalities. We make ourselves small. We put ourselves in the back seat. We decide that a lot of shit is not worth the drama, not worth the headache, not worth the battle, not worth trying to COMPETE with someone else just to be an equal or whatever. It is easier to get into the habit of letting someone else make the decisions, or just saying "Yes" or "No" to the options you are presented with instead of being the one presenting the options half of the time.

I have spent a lot of this year thinking about personal growth and improvement, finding out that a LOT of it is absolutely not for me, but a lot more of it is hitting me exactly where it needs to--like this concept of playing small. I have surrounded myself with assholes, because, whatever, I grew up in a hostile environment (otherwise known as Orange County), and assholes are what I had to choose from. And then it takes awhile to grow up and realize there are other options. WHO KNEW? 

But then, even when you have other options, you've learned everything about how to live and survive from THE WORST people! So of course you don't get to immediately make the most of it.

I don't know who needs to hear this other than me, but: you can put someone else in the back seat from time to time. You can have agency, even when you're not the only person in the room. YOU can drive the car, and you can take it where you want to go, and your friend or boyfriend or whoever absolutely has the option to GET OUT if they don't want to go with you, and that doesn't mean that the relationship is over or anything. It just means (for example), dammit, I want CPK for dinner tonight, and unless you HATE IT, suck it up and let's have pizza!

How many times have I been the one to suck it up and do the thing that someone else wanted to do?! Right?? I've seen the movie they wanted to see, went to the brewery they wanted to try (I DON'T EVEN DRINK BEER.), and even celebrated my own 🤬 birthday the way THEY wanted to celebrate it. So I don't know why I struggle so much with this concept of simply expecting others to endure what I so willingly put up with CONSTANTLY.

Sidenote: I have always wondered why SO MANY DUDES just ASSUME I would be totally submissive in the bedroom! (TMI?) WELL I GUESS IT MAKES SENSE, WHEN YOU LOOK AT HOW I LIVE THE REST OF MY LIFE. Duh, Erin. In actuality, what I crave from ANY PART OF ANY RELATIONSHIP OF ANY SORT is a give and take. Okay? I don't want any ONE PERSON to be dominant for any prolonged period of time, IN ANY SITUATION! What a turn off. I'm not your little bitch, bitch. If you pull my hair or slap my ass, you are going to get laughed out of my bedroom, and feel free to verify that with the last guy who tried it.

I DIGRESS.

So, like I said, after all this time of being around dysfunctional people, you get used to making yourself small. You get used to not taking up a lot of space, not being difficult, not being too needy or demanding or loud or inflexible. You become whatever other people need you to be, and forget who you actually ARE. You lose touch with what you even want or need. It's all about accepting whatever's LEFTOVER instead of sometimes getting first dibs.

I've been stuck on a concept that Marie Forleo mentioned when she was on Amy Porterfield's podcast awhile back. I think she was talking about business, but it was this idea of opportunities and obligations that make you feel expansive vs. restrictive. And so I've been thinking about relationships/friendships that make me feel like I have to be smaller vs. those that make me feel l can be bold and brave and no one is going to go, "Whoa, what's going on here?" in either a good way or a bad way. 

GROWTH is good, and it should be expected. People who care about you should expect you to grow, and they should forgive you and give you some grace when you stumble. But they shouldn't have low expectations for you. They shouldn't treat you like you're a dunce. 

But my family, and most of my friends, do NOT know what to do with me. They don't know what bucket to put me in. I am constantly fighting back, and often sabotaging a lot of things in my life, because I hate all of these stupid buckets. I’m kicking them over right and left, because they are dumb and make me feel like shit.

I've been STUCK, and I have FELT stuck for my whole life. Nothing has felt aligned. 

But I am starting to figure it out. 

And when I think of 2020, I think it is going to be the year a lot of things start to change.