There was a little girl who told everyone who would listen, "I'm going to be a writer when I grow up!"

Writing books was all she ever wanted to do.

She'd been artsy and crafty and generally creative all her life...but was she an artist? No way. No how. She doodled. She scribbled. She made things. She liked drawing. But she never felt like art was "her thing".

Then, when she was in her twenties, she picked up a paintbrush.

She started out painting big eyed girls that were slightly sad, because she was a little bit brokenhearted and very unhappy in her job.

Over time, she got over the boy who decided she wasn't right for him before she realized he wasn't right for her, either, quit the bad job, and as she got happier, so did the big eyed girls.

Even though she got super busy making both art AND a dream she didn't even know she had come true, writing was still a huge part of who she was, so she wrote little stories to go along with her paintings and she even started incorporating things she wrote INTO the paintings.

As she went along, though she loved the big eyed world she was creating, everyday she made lists of other artsy things she wanted to try "someday".

One day, she woke up and decided life was too short to keep waiting for a "someday" off in the distance to do all the other creative things she really wanted to try...and so she branched out to doing other types of art, including illustrations done digitally (using a mouse instead of a paintbrush!) and typographic work where she found she could turn her poetry and other writings into pieces of art all on their own.

This artist writer girl had learned that life could be tough and there will be jobs and boys and myriad other things that will make you sad. That lots of times we can't control the bad things that happen to us. But what we can control is what we ourselves give. And so through her art and writing, she wanted to spread as much happiness, sunshine, positivity and good as she could.

They say art imitates life...but she wanted to make art that celebrates life.

So that's just what she did.

And, of course, she pretty much lived happily ever after.

(Much gratitude to Jana E. Pye for the lovely photographs of the Sweet Smiles figurines!)