Sea Dragons, Books, and Ballet Shoes!

Whew! What a week so far!! This week has been chock full of funness and it seems like the fun isn’t going to be over anytime soon. =) Hmmmm… where to begin?

Well Tuesday the girls and I got to model for my friend Ali who is a face painter and VERY gifted artist. It was beyond a blast! I am just as giddy about it and can’t wait to have her come to AJ’s birthday party to paint faces. I think my friends and their kids are in for a treat, just check out Gabby’s cat face and the awesome sea dragon on mine. (AJ blurred hers out accidentally before I could get a good pic.)

Aren’t they amazing! I am in love with sea dragons so this was especially cool for me. =)

 

We have been spending a lot of time in the various libraries lately, always a plus in my book.It’s funny because we always agree to not get more books than we can carry and then end up taking out way more books that this poor mama ends up carrying. I honestly don’t mind though… the girls and I have a lot of interests and books only fuel the fire. Here are some of the books currently on our shelf:

A wonderful list and only a small fraction of what we actually have out, lol!

 

Finally, Miss Amelia had her first real dance class yesterday! It was exciting and a little bittersweet because it made me see the little lady that she is all too quickly becoming. I would have put her in dance last year but I wanted a year at my studio to get acquainted before I threw my kids in the mix lol! I also didn’t want her to be in one of my classes, been there done that, it just doesn’t work out well. So this year AJ is in Miss Mandy’s class, a lovely teacher who I know will both teach and inspire. She couldn’t stop talking about class and her favorite teacher, lol, it was cute. Here are some of the photos this proud Dance Mom had to take, lol!

Sigh… she is growing up too fast!!!!!

Have a great day friends!

Color Palette Addiction

Isn’t it pretty? I have a serious addiction to making these color palettes. It is so much fun to take a photo of something amazing, maybe an inspiration for decorating, and pick out the colors that would compliment it. And they are sooooo easy to make if you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Here is another one I made last night:

I love that photo of the owl! And I could see me decorating a room of the house around it…. So how do you make these you ask? Well easy peasy! First, go here to The Coffeeshop Blog. She is a genius and you will be sucked into her realm of photo editing and templates for hours. But download the template she gives. Then open up the template in Photoshop or Elements. Then just put your main photo in there, click on the layer with the color box you want to fill, pick your color, and voila! A beautiful color palette. There are tons floating around Pinterest but I think it is more fun just making my own!

Here is my favorite I think:

Color palettes are really useful as well in seeing how colors look together for other things like outfits, quilts, party decorations… the possibilities are endless!

The Art of Journaling

In one of my favorite movies, My Sister’s Keeper, one of the main characters has a beautifully made scrapbook that she created for her family to have when she is gone. It is full of photos, color, words, and memories. Every time I watch the movie I can’t help but stare at it in wonder. For all the creativity I have scrapbooking is not something I have really gotten into. However, I have been seeing art journals popping up all over Pinterest and it got me wondering if that is something that I could do…

I adore typography, doodling, quotes, and of course art. I see this blog as a diary for my thoughts so I wouldn’t use the art journal for that… but I think that sometimes my ideas, hurts, and such would be better worked out in a more artistic manner. (I used to dance to clear my head, but let’s face it- 30 yr old knees can’t take all the life that I need to dance out!)

I have found some wonderful prompts, examples, and photos of other art journals and thought that maybe this is something some of you would like to try.

Kathy Barbro is an art teacher who is responsible for the lovely photo to the left. She is brilliant at giving her students ideas for their own art journals and I am sure that I will look to her site, found here, when inspiration is low.

Since art is unique to the individual, as are fingerprints, what better way to combine the two like this?

This blog has a fantastic post about kick starting your own art journal and accepting that it isn’t going to be perfect, but wonderful all the same!

This is the photo that got me thinking about starting my own art journal. I loved the boldness, the different fonts and colors, and the sentiment.

Here is another post about art journaling prompts… these give 50 simple ways to get going when you need a bit of a creative lift.

I haven’t decided yet on a kind of journal but I think that it may be a once a week thing or random type of project since there are many nights when I am too tired to do my regular work, nonetheless making a mess in a journal. =)

Do any of you keep a journal of some sort?

(Don’t forget to check our my giveaway! I am giving a copy of Waiting for Winter to one lucky reader!)

When Craftiness Goes Wrong

Do you ever get a picture in your head of something and then when you try to make it a reality it goes woefully wrong? Usually it isn’t a problem for me… I can see things, take them apart in my head, and then recreate them pretty easily. However, there are times….

Remember this project?

Well, I decided to do something similar, but with a fall twist since I am replacing all of our decorations. In my head I imagined using a whole bunch of brown crayons on a tall canvas, melting them like the other project but letting the drips look like branches. Then I would glue faux leaves onto the branches and viola! a wonderful fall tree scene! But… what I didn’t count on was the wax not behaving and splattering all over the canvas… leaving my “trunk” looking more like, well smeared poo!

I just couldn’t move forward with the project with the poo-ish looking trunk! So see, even the most craftiest people can make crap- literally! Well, back to the drawing board… =)