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#robayrepatterns Part 2

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on March 31, 2017

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Day 11′s theme was “Tile” I worked in watercolor and used my little 4×4 scrapbook pattern journal, with bold and graphic patterns that would work well as floor tiles, and since the pieces are small and set next to each other or “tiled” so it works that way as well. Day 12 Brush – I built this pattern in Paper by 53 and then did some more assembly in photoshop on the desktop.
Day 13 Greenery – Which also happens to be the name of Pantone’s color of 2017, and made me extremely happy to hear because most of the time when I hear what the color is I’m fairly disappointed. I painted some blades of grass and cut them out scrapily to layer, and then added a handpainted Pantone chip.

Day 14 was Ice. All day when I was at work I kept thinking “Ice?” Which then quickly translated to Nice, and then soon enough “Niiice”. So I cut out the letters from gelliprinted papers, and placed it over a scribbley grid.

Day 15 Swan or Flamingo? I had been wanting to do a swan pattern for a long time, maybe even since last year’s Pattern January? I have done two so far, but still have more ideas I want to do. The first one is a pattern made from a tiny handcarved stamp I made, over a watercolor or gesso background, and the second one is gesso over a black watercolor background.
Day 16 Bright – Going back through these patterns I remembering how many of these I actually really loved. It’s funny how time goes by and only one or two struck out as “really great” but that is not true. I love this one so much I want to reproduce it as a fabric and maybe on some other items.

Day 17 Palm – On this day I used a preliminary pattern I made last year and turned all these hands into palm leaves.

Day 18 Rhymes with at – I chose Matt, and since I bought him a ukulele for Christmas and he plays it just about daily, I decided to paint a bunch of ukes. I placed them over another pattern I made last year and these ukuleles might end up being used for another project.

Day 19 House – This is another one of those themes that makes me want to do a bunch. I had the idea of a pattern of dollhouses. I did this sketch and inked it, and watercolored it, and drew it and others, and played with it at the computer and so on and so forth and nothing was clicking so I just ended up sharing this and promised to do more, but shhhhh, I still haven’t yet. I have it blown up so great in my head, but I’m not sure if that means it’s this style or that style and I need to sit down and really think it out before I finalize it.

Day 20 Baked Goods – Before Christmas I had this idea in my head that I wanted to make sugar cookies and then decorate them with piles of royal icing and sprinkles and confetti. It never happened and so this pattern was tribute to that. I thought for sure I might do it with my niece and nephew for Valentine’s day and it still didn’t’ happen and still hasn’t :(

Stay tuned for one more post to finish up Pattern January!

#robayrepatterns 2017 part 1

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on March 21, 2017

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I just looked at my blog and was floored to find that I haven’t updated this whole year! I am in disbelief because in my mind I had updated weekly during #PatternJanuary. I’m in such denial that I’m looking around like “Who deleted my posts?!” The whole month of February I was under a cloud, in a funk, and definitely in a rut. Spring is officially here and I have turned the page and feeling like a spring bear emerging from winter hibernation. Time to get back to it. Time to get back to everything. Thanks to Anika‘s organization and promotion once again, I participated in Pattern January and had a super productive January.

Day 1 was “J is for” and I cut out the days of the month from gelli printed papers. I really like this pattern and would like to scan it and clean it up and possibly put it up on some POD sites for fabric or a phone case or something.

Day 2 hit me. This is real. A whole month of daily practice and I had not been regularly making or creative in the slightest for a month or more. The theme was Citrus and this was all I could come up with and muster. I felt SO RUSTY and recognized it, but pushed through it, rather than throwing the towel in.

Day 3 was Snowman. I was still feeling unsure of myself and ended up searching my flickr images for inspiration. One nice thing about having been uploading images regularly on flickr for an eternity, is that I have an easily accessible library of images to reference. I picked this miniature snowman I made on our front porch when we lived at the duplex and built it in Paper by 53, on my ipad.

Day 4 – Keys. I reminded myself that even though I love the idea of doing super simple and basic patterns, where I am able lay down a couple brush strokes and voila, it’s finished, the truth is, that when I dig in, spend a lot of time and do the hard work, that is when I get really good results. I grabbed a variety of keys and painted them in watercolor. Here is a progress picture of just the keys with their references.

Day 5 Octagon. One thing I love about Pattern January is that everyday I have a new theme and since I work a day job, I am thinking about that theme all day long before I get home to actually work on it. On this day I wanted to take some of my irregular geometric shapes used in my work but as silhouettes, and combine them with the striped watercolor lines, as seen on many of my banners, and stationery. The funny thing about this one was that Anika, ended up doing such a similar pattern, it was awesome!

Day 6 Desert, I was pretty impressed that I came up with this, having never been to the desert in my life

Day 7 Mermaid watercolor, more to come on this pattern hopefully

Day 8 Cut & Paste, pretty straight forward and probably one of my favorites

Day 9 Fan – pen and ink in my sketchbook

Day 10 – Numbers. This one was inspired by alphabet pinback buttons I’ve made for my shop before

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for 2 more parts!

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2016 Kusudama Ornament

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on December 29, 2016

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Every year since 2008, Matt and I make a Kusudama ornament. I always reminisce about how the first year I thought we’d make enough to decorate the whole Christmas tree. Two hours later (racing each other the whole time to make as many petals as possible) we had ONE ornament finished and it was the size of a soccer ball. Now, we finally make them ornament sized and only aim to make one a year. We are up to 9, though only 6 of them are small enough to hang from the tree (it took us a while to get the size right).

This year, like every year, I wondered “what are we going to make the ornament out of?” The first few years we used old catalogs and magazines. Then for a few years we used origami paper, then wrapping paper and finally last year an old page-a-day calendar. This year it occurred to me that I could MAKE my own paper. I looked at my Color Inspiration board on pinterest and was instantly taken with this picture of a pillow on a chair. So, pinks and rust as a base with pops and accents of color and pattern.

I printed, double sided, on the paper using my gelli arts plate and hand cut paper stencils, and trimmed down the paper to 3″x3″. It actually worked better than a lot of the other papers we’ve used because with the additional layers of paint, it was that much more sturdy. The origami paper ornaments have a tendency to get banged up corners because the paper is so thin and fragile.

See previous Kusadama ornament posts here

We follow this 2 step tutorial each year.

Autumn 2016 Chalkboard

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robayre

on December 27, 2016

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Of course it wouldn’t be fully into the next season before I post last season’s chalkboard. This year has been SO full and busy.

Previous Chalkboard Calendar posts right here!

Robayre100Days part 5

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robayre

on November 12, 2016

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For the final installment of my 100 day project recap I’ll be covering my gelatin printing and work that came from that, over the 100 days

From the get go, I’ve been working with my own hand cut paper stencils on the gelatin plate. I want the resulting work to be mine alone. Part of my interest in cutting comes from 7 years doing paste up at the local newspaper. I just may have been told I have a way around an Xacto knife! For a while I tried some acetate, but I think the fact that the plastic is non-porous, just resulted in prints I wasn’t too crazy about. Now I stick exclusively to paper or cardstock, but mostly paper. I’ve been printing for a few years now and still have all the stencils I’ve cut. The first few prints using a new cut stencil are very sensitive and fragile and could tear easily, but after you build up some coats of ink or paint, it makes the stencil stronger and stronger. I haven’t had to retire any yet!

Whenever I’m working on gelatin prints, the stencils will get new layers of color, so they are ever changing. As I flip through the folder I keep them in, I’ll notice beautiful compositions of color and pattern in the layers. I’ve been keeping a collection of these captured images at #robayrestencilstack It is my hope some day to permanently adhere some of these, and either incorporate them into other work, or make them their own Art pieces. The only problem is that it means I’d have to remove them from my usable collection, and/or cut new ones to use again.

scraps from collage cuttings

Pushing paper around

Always gluing some down into little art books

I put together some collections to make some letter writing stationery set headers, using the gelatin printed papers

I just love how these two sets came out, a color version that comes with handmade envelopes from original prints available in my shop here, and

and a black and white set that comes with gray envelopes available in my shop here

That wraps up coverage on the 100 day project, whew! Read the other installments First part, Second part, Third part, Fourth part

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Robayre100Days part 4

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robayre

on November 1, 2016

in General Update, My Artwork, Projects and shop update

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Back for part 4 of my 100 day project. First part, Second part, Third part

Another one of my goals for the 100 day project was to get my etsy shop back up over 100 listed items. In my shop’s glory years (when I averaged a handful of sales a week over several years) I had around 100 items listed in my shop at any time. When I let things slide I realized I had gotten down to less than half that. I’ve been working steadily at bringing it back up again and I think I was around 80 items when the 100 day project began. I did get up to 100 items, but with sales and items expiring, it has dipped below and comes back up again. Now I’ve realized that I really need to get it closer to 110 or so to stay above 100.

This is a little out order, this was my post for day 100. When we bought our house there was a whole wall with pegboard in our basement and one day when I was down there I had the idea of hanging up some of my stationery sets to get a group shot. The lighting is not so great down there, but this was fun to put together. It’s really satisfying to see the collection.

This project was long overdue! Last Christmas my nephew (5 at the time) wanted stationery because he has a couple of pen pals. I designed this “adventure” set for him.

I painted the headers in watercolor, based on things I thought would interest him, dinosaurs, space and treasure maps. When I gave it to him at Christmas, I just printed a few sheets of each and gave them to him loosely. My intention was always to have them in a large notepad for better stability when a little kid is writing in it, so I did just that for the 100 day project. I finally made it into a notepad. 1 single notepad, for my nephew. The bottoms are lined for littles who are learning to write, and the pages alternate with illustrated headers and fully lined sheets. I’d love to design a companion set, and I would love to offer these in my shop, but they would really need to be printed commercially because it takes a lot of time printing and assembling, since each header is significantly larger than the types of headers I print on my regular stationery sets.

I painted some large watercolor patterns to use as additional backgrounds for taking product pictures over. A few years ago I drew out a large scribbly grid in a graph paper style and have been using it a lot. I wanted to make a few others so I’d have some variety.

I made these checkered watercolors above and a black and white stripe in watercolor too, but I still end up using the old grid one mostly anyway. I think they are too busy and too colorful/saturated. Oh well.

A simple lined stationery paper set with the tiny posie theme

I made it using elements from my tiny posie pattern I amade during patternswithanika earlier in the year. This set is available in my shop here.

Inspired by flags during a battle scene on Game of Thrones, I decided to make a notepad. I painted a few of these flag posts before settling on one I liked.

And tested it out to see if I’d be able to write my own messages over the printed black. Success!

For fun I cut down a few of the headers and made them into stickers, where the gel pen was printed on the protective coating, so it can be wiped away and changed as needed.

And the final notepad, which was printed on a natural speckled paper. These notepads are available in my shop. LOVE how it came out. It’s rare that I am inspired and then able to start working on something immediately. That helps so much! I need to make a bar graph that shows how the likeliness of a project coming to fruition declines rapidly as time passes.

Another goal I had for the 100 day project was to update some photos from some classic oldies from my shop, like my recycled envelope stationery sets. They used to be a top seller and I had a lot of returning customers for just this product, but when I let my shop slide they kind of got forgotten about. I still love the product, but I think I need to breathe new life into the listings.

I made a bunch of new envelopes to replenish my stock. I use an old shoe box (as pictured above) to sort and categorize the envelopes. It helps when assembling them, so I know each pack gets a good variety.

And here was an attempt to take a new product picture. One thing people have told me before on a number of occasions is that they don’t understand or know what this product is, and even though I love this picture, I don’t think it helps clarify that. I detail what the product is exactly in the listing, but I think most people look at the picture and decide from there if they are interested or not, and so many may not even get to the details of the listing. Maybe the craziness of this pic would make people click just to find out exactly what is going on? I just don’t know how to photograph this product in a way that makes sense, because all the envelopes are different and the stationery designs are a variety as well. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear it. Another item on my list for the 100 days (but that I never got to) was of a video that would show what the sets are like.

Looks like I will be back with one last post to wrap things up. Catch up on the previous posts here:

First part, Second part, Third part

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Robayre100Days part 3

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robayre

on October 20, 2016

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Back again with another installment.

The first reason I chose to focus on paper products for my 100 day project was because I had so many letter writing paper sets already designed or in process, but just not produced. It felt SO GOOD to finally cross them off my to-do list and put them out in the world! SO GOOD!

I created this pencil themed stationery set using the pencil illustrations I made earlier this year for Patterns with Anika. I still want to make a skirt with fabric printed with the pencil pattern on it.

I don’t think I have ever shared this set on the blog before, but it was probably the first set that came to mind for projects that I wanted to wrap up. I’ve literally had the original rough sketch, AND the base for the original artwork for this set stuck to the door in my studio for YEARS. It is also probably the first stationery or paper product that I created where the lines were my own scribbled lines, rather than inserted digitally. I painted the frame in watercolor, drew the lines in pencil, scanned it and had it printed professionally. The last step is what really kicks it up a notch, because I personally silk screen print each gold metallic swoosh around the edge. These sets really make me swoon.

#robayre100days cleaning up a scan 19/100 A video posted by robyn wells robayre.etsy.com (@robayre) on May 8, 2016 at 11:39am PDT

Here’s a little video of me trying to clean up a scan. This was a piece that I made on a whim and then it sat forever needing to be completed.

I scanned it and tried cleaning it up, then scrapped it and tried to redo the piece entirely, and scan it afresh, and clean again, just to go back to the original and spend an eternity cleaning it up.

I really liked the quality of the pencil and watercolor on the rough cold press paper, but it made for a nightmare to clean, meanwhile keeping all the great texture where I wanted it.

I finally conquered it and had fun taking pictures for the product listing.

This might look familiar to you as I created this stationery and offered it as a limited time, free printable download, during my 10 year anniversary celebration.

This fun digital set is now available in my shop

Another process shot, while I was setting up a layout.

The strawberries for this came from a few years back. I drew them in pencil, then colored them in very roughly with neo color II watercolor crayons, and then went back in with a wet brush. I think I’ve mentioned it here before, but I took one illustration class in college and one of the things I took away from the class was the importance of scanning while in process and then working over the printed scans. I’m sure I picked it up, because as a graphic designer I know the importance of saving files that way as well. This piece was one that was done in layers that way.

The Strawberry Stationery can be found here in my shop

And here are a couple projects I started, but didn’t finish during the 100 days project

I was looking back through instagram earlier this week and realized that I actually did 3 different daily projects this year (This one and 2 pattern a day months) and I am really proud of myself for all the work I’ve done. That’s it for now. Thank you for visiting and following along on my 100 Day project follow up, stay tuned for more installments, and if you missed the previous ones, you can find them here:

First part, Second part

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#the100dayproject update 2

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on October 13, 2016

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Look at me, back so soon with the next installment of #robayre100days! In the first post I left off right before I got to my quilted fauxdori travel journal covers which I posted about back in May when I hosted a sale and giveaway for my 10 year etsyversary.

I really love these covers! Just a quick reminder for those that might not know or remember what a fauxdori is… Faux=imitation + dori=short for Midori. It’s essentially a knock off of a Midori Traveler’s Notebook. Midori’s are leather covers that fit standard moleskine notebooks. Instead of buying a standard binding book that gets filled up and has to be replaced, you can insert smaller notebooks into it and replace as needed, so while your inside books can be replaced and archived, the cover can remain constant. People use Midori type books for a variety of things such as a planner, sketchbook, journal, etc.

The quilted ones I make, which I loosely based off my own leather fauxdori I purchased from Ray Blake (he calls them Raydoris). I say loosely because my books are made not from leather, but are quilted and veer from the standard moleskine notebook sizes. I suspect that Midori and Moleskine books are the sizes they are based on the UK paper sizes, making them narrower than our standard letterheads, half and quarter folded sheet sizes. I made my books so that you can use the moleskine inserts AND/OR make your own books from stapled halved, and quarter sized sheets of paper. They have an elastic closure, and elastic bands inside to hold your books.

During #the100dayproject I shared many quilted fauxdoris I made and so this post will be a giant post of all the quilted fauxdori covers I did and progress pictures I posted along the way. I am so grateful that they received a warm reception and many of these have already sold, but there are a few still in my shop, with new ones to be added soon, so keep an eye out!

Whew! That was a lot! As I mentioned above, there are still a few of these available in my Robayre etsy shop as of October 13, 2016, and I will hopefully be adding more shortly so keep an eye out!

To read the first installment of my journey into the 100 day project, click here

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#the100dayproject update

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robayre

on October 10, 2016

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I have FINALLY conquered #the100dayproject! I know, I know, it took me WELL OVER the 100 days. In my defense, I could have easily wrapped it up in the 100 days had I allowed myself to post pictures of nearly the same thing in back to back days. Instead I wanted each “day” to be, if not something entirely different and new, than at least visible progress.

I am very proud of myself, and I hope to remember how I committed myself to working regularly on my etsy shop, focusing mainly on paper products, in 2016… rather than spend a huge percentage of my time watching Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, which is how things could have easily gone.

However, I am NOT so proud that I neglected my blog and didn’t post here about what I was making and doing along the way. So, this is what I’m gonna do: I want to break this up in a bunch of smaller posts and hopefully share all of the finished projects.

I started out the first day with sketchy drawing “Here we go”,

which turned into a notepad, stationery paper set and

even a custom requested greeting card.

I replenished my stock of these metallic embossed card bases that I use for my garlands

And then I made some garlands too

I sold out my stock of these mini ephemera spiral bound notebooks, so I made some more. And I was in my best friend’s wedding, so I altered and updated these cards for the guests to fill out at the reception.

I added this little notebook to my shop. It is a collage made of my own gelatin prints, made from my own hand cut paper stencils.

This project was a recurring theme throughout the 100 days as I attempted to create a geometic/space/galaxy themed header for a black and white stationery set.

I have sheets upon sheets of black rectangle watercolors with all sorts of patterns drawn on them, all over my studio and yet nothing really grabbed at me. Not every idea is an instant success, lol. Someday…

OK, that is enough for this post. It already took me over a week just to post this one update. I hope that it won’t take so long for the next installment.

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Gotta Keep Livin’

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robayre

on September 20, 2016

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L-I-V-I-N

So much for weekly updates on my 100 day project. I’m still chugging away, but am in the home stretch. More on that later.

In the meantime, I’m here to share my summer chalkboard, and my annual Renegade haul. Hold on, it’s about to get real.

Reflecting on this list, the summer was overall a pretty great and adventure filled one. Highlights include a trip to the Dunes, Mathiessen, starting a monthly dinner adventure with Matt’s family (for my month I went to Dave and Busters for the first time), and a trip walking our feet off all over Chicago (chinatown, navy pier, and Wilco at Pritzker and taking the train home). Sadly, I also had a cloud hanging over me for half the summer. I somehow threw out my back just walking down the block, which led to me spiraling out with hypochondria where I wasn’t sleeping, had all consuming thoughts that there was something much bigger and worse than a thrown out back, and pretty much crying every day. Thank God for Matt, and prayer. I think hypochondria has a funny-haha, rep, but what I had this summer was no joke. I feel like it’s mostly to blame for me not wrapping up the 100 day project and working more towards larger goals. And while others may not have noticed, it kept me from fully enjoying many of the otherwise good times over the summer. After a bunch of Dr. Appts., that aren’t quite through yet, I’m through the woods for now.

Previous Chalkboard Calendar posts right here!

Onto my Renegade Haul

This is, HANDS DOWN, my smallest haul I’ve ever had! I bought 3 things, THREE! A Chicago dog enamel pin from The Found (that I’ve had bookmarked on my wishlist for a long time), a tiny ceramic bud vase, and I went in halfsies with my sister on a caramel, pear and blue cheese pie from Justice Of the Pies. It’s sad when you bring a wad of cash, and you are ready to drop it at this event that you look forward to all year long. I was overall unimpressed with the booths. Of course, many of the good standbys were present, my old favorites, but I’ve already purchased things (sometimes, many things, multiple times) from them in the past. The new to me booths just did nothing for me. In fact, I realized when I got home that I had only picked up 2 business cards the whole time I was there. Normally I come come home with a dozen or more, from business that I want to look up later, and possibly shop from online. The things that I love and look out for at Renegade, are often real grass rootsy, hand made-y in the truest sense, DIY passion projects. It is a “craft show” after all. What I saw was a lot of instead was very professional, super polished small businesses with refined, almost gallery like booths and displays. When the items in your tent look like they could and may be purchased in high end jewelry or furniture stores, it kinda loses something for me. If I wanted to shop in those kinds of stores, I’d do just that! Later I did find several booths literally already have store fronts, not just items in stores, but own brick and mortar shops for their products. There’s also something kind of intimidating about entering a small booth, when things are so fancy that you are afraid all the products are well out of your price range, and you are afraid there is judging going on from the booth attendants that you are not one of their “target customers”.

It got me thinking.

We’ve been going to Renegade for over 10 years and the DIY and Indie movement has been going strong that whole time, BUT it’s growing up. Should I be sad when someone makes the leap of passion project to going BIG TIME? Of course not, I should be, and often am, happy for their success. But I guess I’m just wondering, for a booth at a craft show, is it really required to make your brand so “sophisticated” that the aesthetic matches the looks of big commercial and mass produced aesthetic, that you lose all originality and uniqueness? AND, even if the displays, logos and overall atmosphere of an indie “booth” are refined, does it mean that your products also have that same look and are no longer edgy or pushing the envelope, but instead just pretty generic and safe? Where are all of the imperfections? I love the imperfections! Maybe it comes down to what the “masses” want. I know I’m not like most people. I don’t watch the Bachelor, or Housewives, I don’t care what Kim or Yeezy are wearing or saying, I don’t want everything I purchase to sparkle, but it seems I’m in the minority. Maybe the small businesses that are having the most success might be the ones who are churning out the most easily digestible products and produce work that the masses want? OR is the general commercial consensus leaning more towards the indie aesthetic? What are your thoughts?

Previous Renegade Craft Fair posts

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Inspiration Junkie robayre.com

Archive Page 2 of 117

#robayrepatterns Part 2

#robayrepatterns 2017 part 1

2016 Kusudama Ornament

Autumn 2016 Chalkboard

Robayre100Days part 5

Robayre100Days part 4

Robayre100Days part 3

#the100dayproject update 2

#the100dayproject update

Gotta Keep Livin’

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