bye bye...

we finally moved out of our old apartment. no more paying two rents. no more miserable manhattan city living quirks.

now i have to put our new apartment back together again. it looks like a bomb went off. yikes. my husband is one patient man...

happy birthday haylie bird...

today i am grateful for...

a sketchbook page from our screen-printing class, many moons ago at scad.

a gratitude list from this summer.

my friend haylie b. waring. i am so glad she moved to new york, even though we live in opposite parts of brooklyn. reasons to love haylie...

1. she has the ability to make you feel like you are already old friends, even if you are just meeting her for the first time.

2. she pronounces, "orange" like "or-inge", and it makes me smile every time.

3. she is incredibly clever and a renaissance woman when it comes to anything textiles. she can turn straw into gold.

4. she is incredibly humble, so if she happens to be reading this i know she will hem and haw and exclaim, "oh ginnybranch!" with a roll of her eyes. and probably claim i am exaggerating.

p.s i'm not.

5. she is 1/3 mainer, 1/3 floridian, and 1/3 land where characters like mary poppins hail from.

6. she creates the loveliest statuettes (amongst many other things). i want to buy everything she makes. no joke.

7. she has naturally silver streaks at the age of 25 and i could not be more jealous. there is nothing more beautiful to me than silver hair, baby skin, and pink cheeks. she has the golden trifecta.

8. here are a few of my favorite things i think of when i think of haylie bird...

pegboards. peach, baby blue, chocolate brown, pink, and red. moustaches and beards. liberty print. banjos and bluegrass. camping and girl scouts. canoes and fishing chenille. good-natured gossip. doughnuts not cupcakes. all-night art projects. honey bees. lunch sacks. alphabet flash cards. silhouettes. fast dancing. donkey spirit animal. old-school office supplies. stacks of books and magazines.

everyone loves haylie. she is the kind of friend everyone wants to have. she makes you feel funnier when you are with her. adventurous and naughty. kind-hearted and loyal. talented and inspiring.

haylie, i am so glad you were born.

hello dollies...

today i am grateful for...

1. enjoying a hot bath with epsom salts. september is a busy fashion month...lots of hustlin' in high heels for eight + hours a day.

2. persuading my husband to give me a (much needed) foot massage. he is too good to me.

3. watching the new mad men episode on our very large, extra fancy flat screen television... a big thank you to ed's grandfather, pop.

4. celebrating my sweet haylie bird's birthday. i caught the tail end of her party in the park, just as the rain came to shoo everyone away.

5. eating haylie's gluten-free chocolate birthday cake for breakfast. it was baked with love by the adorable abby dear and effervescent emily cox.

6. the wedding dress chelsea cook is working on... it is so beautiful it hurts to look at. i want to kidnap it. or dressnap it.

7. helpful advice from mollie little, from one illustrator to another. and she has a line of letterpressed goodies coming soon!

8. working on new projects that keep my hands busy again. see below...

p.s i hate that the scanner reads some images as blurry. it really sticks in my craw.

dear sarah sophie flicker, you are my muse. love, ginny branch stelling.

here is the only kind of sewing i fancy. hand sewing that requires no real skill.

i'm trying my hand at making necklaces again. i love me some flair.

have you ever read jacques magazine? it gives french playboy a run for their money. and our dear friend, the coquettish savannah wyatt is the fashion editor.

tomorrow i am going to tame my unruly eyebrows and hopefully change out my sorry, wilting flowers for some fresh buds. i need a proper day off soon...

hide your love away...

i think it has begun...

as soon as the weather gets chilly, i become the ultimate hermit (this can also apply for hot weather too). i don't know why i am like this. so i sit and push my pen around paper.

i make bad drawings and try and cover them up.

it's true. i don't believe girls who make this claim. not one bit.

sometimes i miss my gap teeth. i got em all fixed when i was 15. i had braces 'til i was 18. ouch.

the next few weeks are all business. my days off will be with new projects(yay) and tying up the last loose ends with the old apartment(boo). so at the end of the day, all i want to do is curl up on my bed with a cup of milky tea or hot chocolate and draw. stream of conscious style. i feel like henry darger. a kind of crazy recluse with stacks and stacks of creepy girl drawings and collages that don't make much rhyme or reason. except he was a genius and i'm just a weirdo.

so i apologize for the illustration-heavy gratitude lists. i just am a busy bee who forgets to bring my camera.

hearth and home...

today i am grateful for...

darkness and light. silhouettes on walls. candles and the smell of a freshly struck match. practicing shadow puppets. creating vignettes in little nooks of my home. chamomile and lavender tea. a home-cooked meal. making collages on my bed with bits of scrap fabric and pressed flowers. my husband falling asleep on my shoulder.

having a clean home make you appreciate the small things.

*****and a box of juicy clementines and containers of pomegranate seeds*****

trying new things...

today i am grateful for...

pushing myself to be proactive on my day off. i had a back-to-back breakfast and coffee date with two different gal pals in the city. i moved a load of stuff from the old apartment. i fiddled with flickr to try and work out technical kinks. i played with markers and pastels. oh, and i made some unsuccessful sketches. but i am forcing myself to try and incorporate materials i don't normally like to work with.

tomorrow i have to do a crazy clean sweep of the apartment. the hands and knees scrubbin' kind. right now our home looks like senior year of art school... not a good look.

and i will show you mine...

today i am grateful for...

indulgences. last night i unabashedly cheered my lil' heart out watching the UGA football game in a soho sports bar with my husband and friends. i introduced my coworkers to the genius that is "party in the USA" by miley cyrus (and a few other current top 40 chart toppers). and i shared cheesecake ice cream with eddie. in bed. while i drew some cheeky pin up gals.

i am a huge fan of guilty pleasures. in fact, i kind of swear by them. things i (not so) secretly love...

*biting my nails.

*being an obnoxious sports fan, mainly football and soccer.

*espousing worthless pop culture trivia.

*bad dancing, such as droppin' it like it's hot... probably the worst offense of them all.

*taking cabs, whenever i can "justify" it.

*making my own ice cream sundaes, in the pint carton, and eating the whole thing.

*eating a cupcake in one whole bite.

*drinking prosecco and cleaning the apartment.

*wearing granny panties, and not in an american apparel, ironically sexy way. the kind you buy in a pack at a discount department store. white cotton and high-waisted to the navel.

*reading self-improvement books and children's books. you will probably never find me on the train reading palahniuk or bukowski.

*staying up til the wee hours to watch netflix's watch instantly t.v. section.

phew. i feel better. i tend to surprise people with these certain guilty pleasures of mine. i know it's not very fashionable to reveal such shamefulness, but this is me. so what are y'alls? it's only fair to show me yours, since i showed you mine...