what the heck has maia been doing
various things made during the summer of 2025
I do not have new comics to share, because instead my summer consisted of:
trying to find housing before my lease ended, with increasing desperation (literal days before I had to vacate my apartment the stars finally clicked into alignment), followed by actually moving (across state lines, for extra spice)
working one zillion hours at my nanny job
working behind-the-scenes on a professional portfolio website (with help from a webdev friend and a typographer friend!), which on my end has involved a lot of writing alt text, running comics through glaze as an anti-ai-theft measure, and submitting endless handwriting samples
fighting The Horrors
And now it’s fall, and I have not made a single comic. Well, except for this comic about moving newsletter platforms because Substack is infested with nazis and the management team over there is like “yeh that’s fine, fascism is p. lucrative for us <3.” (You’re receiving this email through my ✨new newsletter platform✨! Everyone say hi to Buttondown!)
But! I’ve made other things!
So! behold: the things that I have made.
Stickers of Goose the cat, printed through StickerNinja (we love them!!)
Hand-painted bookmarks, my favorite thing to do with scraps of watercolor paper!
I took a wheel throwing class at our local ceramics studio! I made these three very tiny bowls!
Then I organized a pottery painting party, again at the local ceramics studio. I picked a pre-made yarn bowl to glaze.
I screenprinted one (1) custom bandana as a birthday gift for a friend.
Screenprinted baby onesies for gifts, my first time screenprinting with a rainbow roll. (The little banner between the fingers is printed with the letters “ily,” in case it’s hard to read! Somehow these are the only photos I remembered to take 😅)
I made this group birthday card for a first birthday party activity:
I also got to bake the smash cake :)
The 4-year-old I nanny has been into air dry clay lately; here’s one of our collaborations.
You might remember this zine from June that my friend Liam and I made together.
I knitted matching cardigans! For a big sister and her new baby sister!
Here’s a closeup so you can see the sweet little stars on the wooden buttons!
This next category is: Garbage crafts!!
My housemate Iris and I made these together from furniture packing materials, unused shelf pegs, popsicle sticks, and leftover wood stain. Please picture me, mere days after moving house and surrounded by half-unpacked boxes, standing in the kitchen in only a tank top and boxer shorts at midnight, maniacally drilling holes into bits of cardboard liberated from the recycling bin, while Iris hunts around for superglue.
I regret to inform you that I have taken up junk journaling. It’s very fun and there’s no way to do it wrong; would recommend.
Baking! I have made a lot of baked goods. Like. A lot. This tally represents two months’ worth of baking in our new! house!!
And! Last thing! An actual illustration! I made this as an announcement when I was getting ready to visit my hometown recently, just to remind myself that I actually could still draw.
Okay thanks for coming along on this tour of Things I Made This Summer! Until the next newsletter 😘
<3 Maia
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