Yes you heard right…

I am trying to raise money to update my illustration materials aka a Wacom tablet, etc.

I am offering up custom portrait illustrations done from any photo YOU send me.

I am charging a small fee of 2bucks… payed secruily through our PAYPAL business account with any credit/debit card. 

A custom illustration of you to put on your blog, or a portrait of a friend for their birthday, an illustration of your cat to hang in your kitchen, and illustration of you to hang in your mom/dad’s office. Anything you can think of. 

All only $2…… you seriously cannot beat that. I spend atleast 30minutes on all portraits. 

If you would like one… or several… please email me @ christopherbellillustration@hotmail.com 

or purchase on my blog http://theunholyharvest.blogspot.com

Please send a photo you would like illustrated, with your name, and your fave colour. 

here are a few ive done so far…

Hope to hear from all you guys wanting some illustrations!!!!! Please tell your friends… spread the word!!! REBLOG REBLOG REBLOG REBLOGGGGGGGG!!!! PLEASE!!!

Thanks,

-Chris.

1:47 pm  •  24 June 2010  •  2 notes  •  View comments

Yes you heard right…

I am trying to raise money to update my illustration materials aka a Wacom tablet, etc.

I am offering up custom portrait illustrations done from any photo YOU send me.

I am charging a small fee of 2bucks… payed secruily through our PAYPAL business account with any credit/debit card. 

A custom illustration of you to put on your blog, or a portrait of a friend for their birthday, an illustration of your cat to hang in your kitchen, and illustration of you to hang in your mom/dad’s office. Anything you can think of. 

All only $2…… you seriously cannot beat that. I spend atleast 30minutes on all portraits. 

If you would like one… or several… please email me @ christopherbellillustration@hotmail.com 

or purchase on my blog http://theunholyharvest.blogspot.com

Please send a photo you would like illustrated, with your name, and your fave colour. 

here are a few ive done so far…

Hope to hear from all you guys wanting some illustrations!!!!! Please tell your friends… spread the word!!! REBLOG REBLOG REBLOG REBLOGGGGGGGG!!!! PLEASE!!!

Thanks,

-Chris.

1:46 pm  •  24 June 2010  •  View comments

Hey guys! we have not been doing much posting on here cause we have multiple new endevors… yet we still run the Etsy shop!

our new blogs are : Kid vs City (Courtney)

                                The UnHoly Harvest (Chris)

checkout my website for illustration as well please: http://christopherbellillustration.com

Thanks guys.

-Chris.

3:30 pm  •  10 June 2010  •  View comments

It has been a while since we updated! To read our own personal endeavors, please check out our websites. We will still be updating this blog as time goes on, but we each have other websites that we dedicate a lot of time to.

http://kidvscity.blogspot.com
http://www.christopherbellillustration.com 

Recently, the two of us have been featured on a blog called Adventures in Love and Happiness. She interviewed us about our relationship and posted some pictures. Be sure to check it out!

We recently celebrated our six month anniversary. In order to celebrate through here, we are conducting our first ever giveaway! 

For this giveaway, we are giving away:

The “Yes, You Stole My Heart” card, and the:

The “you make me melt” card.

Each of our packages come with extra little goodies inside, so you won’t miss out on that part of it either!

IN ORDER TO WIN: You must leave a comment under this post (you will be able to find the Disqus form by going directly to our blog), OR you can e-mail us at mailboxkidskids@yahoo.com with your real life love stories! It can be the story of how you and a significant other met, or the love stories of people you know. If you do not know of any real life love stories, feel free to make one up! Either way, the best love story will win these two cards to give away to your honey!

CONTEST DEADLINE: June 2nd!

Lately, the two of us have been busy with work and enjoying summer. Chris picked up a job at Blackies, and I’m still working at Telesight. However, I applied at a new and awesome place, and I just have fingers crossed that I get that job.

Hope all of you have been amazing lately!

-Courtney & Chris.

7:24 pm  •  26 May 2010  •  View comments

I believe the title of our last entry was incredibly appropriate. Procrastination sums everything up pretty well. I have been busy with work and finishing up stuff for school, and Chris got a Sunday job and has been doing stuff for Etsy and freelance illustration.

First, I should say we have been doing a ton of cooking. Last week on Thursday, after I worked a six hour shift, I came home to steak, roasted asparagus, fried mushrooms in sauce, and ice cream ready to be fried. 

Chris and I sometimes like to take things we try at restaurants and do them at home for cheaper or by ourselves. As for fried ice cream, here’s how to do it:

Pour a big bowl of some type of smaller cereal. For this one, he used fruity pebbles.

You can use any kind of ice cream for this one, and Chris used Strawberry Swirl for this. 
 

Scoop the ice cream into the ball, roll it into a beat up egg, and then roll in the cereal. Place in the freezer until it’s ready to be fried. Heat up cooking oil and make sure it is hot enough. Then, drop the ice cream ball carefully into the oil. Fry for a few seconds until the cereal takes on a bit of a golden color, take out, and enjoy. If you don’t want to eat it right away - put it back in the freezer after frying it!

That day, Chris also received a letter from his mom. Aw :) 

Our cooking adventures broadened the next day. Chris got a job to do on Sunday’s at Blackies. I’m very excited for him, and it makes things look as though they are looking up. 

The other night, Chris also finished the illustration for a local DJ. It looks incredibly awesome, and it will be sent off to the DJ on Monday or Tuesday.

When we have more details about how it will be used and whatnot, we will definitely share it with you guys!

That night for dinner, we had baked barbecue chicken, macaroni and cheese, and corn on the cob. Yet another delicious meal. We also filled up our share of the compost pile with a load of vegetables and fruit.

And for dessert, we made Churros!

Things have just been really good lately. We’ve both got small sources of income, we’re taking on more and more projects, making more connections, etc. It feels good to be able to get stuff done. 

Now for some awesome links:

http://mailboxkids.etsy.com - we posted a new birthday card. also, chris is offering up personalized stencils. Total, it comes in at around $80, but you get a real work of art that is special. check it out, and buy our cards :) we are also going to add something to the shop that allows people to add a $1 donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Check out for that!

http://christopherbellillustration.tumblr.com - Chris switched up his URL, but it’s still the same idea. He will be posting his illustration projects, daily sketches of things that he has seen, and other things related to his art. 

http://kidvscity.blogspot.com - My new personal blog where I will be talking about everything. Life, music, fashion, art, etc. I’m also going to be doing a series of interviews featuring young talent and entrepreneurs. Kids vs. their cities. 

Thanks for checking out all of our stuff, and we hope you enjoy it. 

Have a great night, everyone!

-Chris & Courtney.

10:19 pm  •  10 May 2010  •  View comments

Last night we went to the Subterranean in Wicker Park to watch our friend Justin’s band Artists vs Athletes play. Also playing last night was Universe, and Mathletes. It was a decent show. I must admit that Subterranean gets low marks as far as venues go, but the bands were good. 

After the show we stopped at Hell’s Kitchen (we are actually unsure of the name…one sign says Underdogg, and all the other signs says Hell’s Kitchen…). Either way, I purchased and consumed my first Chicago-style hot dog. I’ve lived here almost a year now and had not yet had one. 

For those who do not know what make up a Chicago-style hot dog, it includes: beef hot dog, celery salt, mustard, tomato, sports peppers, onions, and relish. It was delicious. 

Ever since this morning, we have been crazy busy doing things we probably should have done a while ago. We went to my dorm room because I have slowly been in the process of moving in with Chris & Allen.

We went to Blick and Chris got new gouache paints.

Chris started working on the freelance illustration piece.

We went grocery shopping and got things to make stir-fry for dinner.

It was so good! Our stir fry included: chicken, carrots, broccoli, bell peppers, water chestnuts, baby corns, and a teriyaki stir fry sauce. Yum.

Tonight has been filled with homework, and more work on the illustration project and some card stuff. 

After all that, we are incredibly tired. Time to go to bed, where we are surrounded by Christmas lights!

Good night!

-Courtney & Christopher.

12:47 am  •  4 May 2010  •  View comments

Happy Saturday!

Yesterday was quite the day for both of us. 

Firstly, I went off to my first day at work at Telesight. It’s an okay job, I suppose. Time surprisingly went by a lot faster than I anticipated. Sometimes it’s hilarious calling people and listening to their reactions. We did a survey for Neiman Marcus/Bergdorf Goodman credit cards. Lots of people had their assistants handle the problems, or they mentioned how they preferred Saks Fifth Avenue’s customer service to Neiman Marcus. Hilarious. I also find it funny how I hate talking on the phone, and now I make a living off of making customer service phone calls for 4-6 hours at a time.

Chris had a much more exciting day than I did. After he accompanied Allen and I on our ride to work, he went to The Bleeding Heart Bakery to see/meet Johnny Cupcakes. He said that most of the experience was waiting in line. Waiting in line included free vegan mini cupcakes courtesy of The Bleeding Heart Bakery (he said the mint ones were the best), free Honest Tea, free Red Bull energy shots, and a great opportunity for promoting our little blog here as well as the etsy shop. He made business cards while he waited in line for three hours, and got to spread the word about our stuff.

Johnny arrived in a bakery style truck, and the 2,000+ people outside went nuts cheering. Then, they filtered people through the bakery and each person there got a chance to sit down and talk to him. Chris bought a few stickers and attempted to give him the Orange Head painting, but he unfortunately could not accept any gifts. He did manage to give the man our business card though. Chris also gave one of his crew members a birthday card. Great networking opportunity. Happy birthday, Kelynn!

If you haven’t heard of Johnny Cupcakes, I strongly recommend checking out his story. He’s always been a huge inspiration to me, and since I introduced his stuff to Chris, he’s played a large inspiration to the shop. 

I met up with Chris right after he was done meeting Johnny, and we took the bus home together. That’s when a torrential downpour started outside. The bus driver laughed when we got off the bus it was pouring so hard. We ran three blocks through ankle deep puddles, and by the time we got back to the apartment, our clothes were 100% soaked through. My phone is now water damaged, and I lost my wallet so we had to go back out in the rain to find it. Chris ended up finding it….my knight in soaking wet armor!

Today has been pretty minimal. I went to work for four hours, got good marks when my calls were monitored. I was exhausted though. We went to one of our favorite restaurants to get burritos, and after that I crashed for hours. When I woke up, Chris was laying on the floor with art supplies scattered around him. Making progress every day.

Inspired by Johnny Cupcakes.

Those are some sneak peaks into our latest card. We’ve got another version of the crossbones card coming with a typewriter in place of the envelope. 

Today, we also created a flier that we hope to get printed up soon to start distributing. Chris started it, and as usual, we combined our efforts to create something we both really enjoy.

If you know of any independent magazines or anything with cheap advertising rates, please pass it along.

We’re also learning, as far as our relationship goes, that communication is key to solving everything. Think on that.

Keep checking out our Etsy shop: http://mailboxkids.etsy.com . We have tons of cool new stuff coming, but tons of cool stuff already there that needs a home! There will also be a sale soon ;)

Have a nice evening, everyone!

-Courtney & Christopher.

now playing: ”spit the dark” by empires

12:41 am  •  2 May 2010  •  View comments

checkout the products we offer! 

handmade greeting cards! make with LOVE!

————>http://mailboxkids.etsy.com <————- 

Also in purchasing a card, you have helped a kid live out his dream…

because we donate 10% of sales to MAKE-A-WISH Foundation.

-Chris & Court.

Goal: 100 website hits by Sunday at midnight. help us reach the goal by reblogging!

8:37 pm  •  1 May 2010  •  1 note  •  View comments

First off, welcome new followers! We hope that you enjoy our stuff. For those who are new, we are a couple from Chicago, and we run an Etsy shop called MailBox Kids {click on that} and we donate to two great charities: Make-A-Wish and One Laptop Per Child. We use this blog to document progress on our work, as well as our daily lives in Chicago.

The other night we stumbled across a great website. It’s called Recipe Key. All you have to do is search the items that you have in your fridge and pantry, drag it into your ‘digital pantry’ and it gives you recipes including the items that you already have. If you don’t have some of the items, it gives you an estimate grocery store listing for all of the items you have to buy, and also gives you nutritional facts.

The other day we made tuna noodle casserole. Obviously not the healthiest in calories, but….

It was thoroughly delicious! We really enjoyed it, even though we had to walk a couple of blocks in the pouring rain to get the groceries to make it. 

{Look how cute he is!}

The next day was dedicated to some homework and relaxation.

The past few days we haven’t been able to do much. I have been busy doing training for my new job at Telesight and going to class. However, this morning, Chris made an intense bike trip to Bedford Park to apply for a job at the FedEx.

He woke up at 4 am to get there, and it took an hour and a half to get there by bike, and an hour and a half to get back. Crazy, because he was back by the time that I was waking up for class. 

Lately, we’ve gotten a really exciting freelance illustration job that we can’t wait to start working on. Lots of ideas are bouncing around, and it has a lot of potential to branch out to other things. 

Tomorrow night, Chris is going to see Johnny Cupcakes at Bleeding Heart Bakery. I wish I could go, but I am scheduled for work. Boo! If you’re going though, make sure you find Chris and tell him hey or something :)

Tonight includes lots of relaxing, pizza, NBC sitcoms, and movies.

Happy Thursday!

-Courtney & Chris.

8:47 pm  •  29 April 2010  •  View comments

Court and I are asking if you guys could please recommend our blog on the recommendation page. Select cute as the theme. 

In doing this, you help spread the word about our blog and our charities we donate to. We know its not much from each card sale, but anything helps. Without card sales, we cannot make donations. Please continue spreading the word about the “MailBox Kids”.

Also help spread the word on our charites we donate 10% of card sles to.

Make-A-Wish Foundation: they grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy.

One LapTop Per Child: create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

So PLEASE reccomend this Blog( MailBox Kids) for the tuesday tumblr best blogs, and help us change the world…and make the future a better place for everyone. 

Thanks guys, Much LOVE!

-Chris & Courtney

8:14 pm  •  27 April 2010  •  2 notes  •  View comments