Journey of a mermaid

MN Center for Book Arts

2012-03-05T10:00:00.000-06:00

My pal TJ belongs to a co-op that's part of the MN Center for Book Arts, so she's taking all kinds of fun classes and learning to play with all of these really big machines and stuff. She'll be typesetting and using presses and bookbinding. So, she took me there the other day and I got to play, too!! It was awesome!

There are rooms FILLED with type:

And this is what lino-cutting is for!! I totally didn't get lino-cutting because I was like "Um, can't I just carve a stamp out of the soft rubber stuff?" but this lino blocks are for PRESSES. She did all the hard work for this one she let me print, it's for a swap she's in (she might kill me when she sees I posted this), but she let me make this print! Isn't it AWESOME? I had the best time, I hope she lets me go back and play again!

GNOME!

2012-03-04T10:00:00.000-06:00

He's a stencil that TJ carved! How fun is that??

Full Brain

2012-03-03T10:03:00.000-06:00

I know it's a terrible picture and you can see my toes peeking out on one side and my son on the other, but I'm just too tired to take a new one! It's been a difficult semester for me and I'm not really sure why. My animation project, for sure, but it doesn't seem like just that. Rapid Visualization was hard for me, too, because it was so ridiculous most of the time. We had to make up new senses for the human race and design an alien race. All the projects for Typography have been a struggle. I'm not used to struggling in school. Math, Science, English - I can do ALL of those things easily. Music, too, and computer programming. This is the first time I can ever remember school being hard. Really hard. Luckily next semester I'm only taking one major class, along with Microeconomics and Math. I'm good with classes that have a question and an answer.

What you think about me is none of my business

2012-03-02T00:39:00.002-06:00

Isn't that the BEST quote EVER? Seriously, why do people feel the need to spew nastiness? You know who the person who ALWAYS manages to make me feel the worst is? My mother. I was never the daughter she wanted, I will never be OK with the way she speaks to me. Maybe she's right and someday I will wear makeup and dresses and pantyhose and LOVE to wash clothes and mop the kitchen floor...but I doubt it!

On that note, I'll be in Florida for a week starting today! Will I remember my blog posts? Time will tell!

Dreaming of Spring :)

2012-03-01T11:21:00.000-06:00

This pretty kit is called Butterflies and Blossoms and is by Farynar's Wings.

Here is a layout I made with it, of my sweet Liam sleeping in a very awkward place!

Suzi Stamp!!

2012-02-29T09:57:00.000-06:00

This stamp is GIANT. When I was skyping with Kelly she said it was hard to tell, that it only looked about ATC sized, so I held it up with a stamp pad and it was TWICE the size of it. It's enormous, trust me, and SO cute! I don't even know why I love her so much, but I really, really do!! She's so pretty that I want to make cards with snarky comments on them. But for now, I just colored her with my Copics and cut her out and stuck her in my journal.

Then I colored her again and did the same thing (in the same journal, only a couple of pages later - I was powerless to resist!)

Excuse the cocaine and crack whores talk, that's just how my c-faces and I roll.

Text spam?!?

2012-02-28T03:58:00.000-06:00

Seriously??

Mr. Owl...

2012-02-27T03:35:00.000-06:00

He started with watercolor crayons, activated with white paint (no water), and then sprayed over with some alcohol inks and stencils. A two-page spread, which I always SAY I don't like, but always end up doing:

Then I though that THIS page sort of looked like eyes, with its two circles.

And here he is!

I doodled on him, which seemed right and wrong at the same time:

Then I added some paint, a little house and some stamps:

I'm actually pretty proud of these pages. They make me happy!

P365 Update!

2012-02-26T03:20:00.000-06:00

Who's keeping up?? This girl! This app is SO helpful because it sends me a reminder every day!

WILD girl!

2012-02-25T09:33:00.000-06:00

I dunno, Kelly says she looks wild. You think?

Polka Dots!

2012-02-24T09:33:00.000-06:00

Polka dots ATCs on top of a polka dot table cloth...

They were inspired by polka dot journal pages, and then I glued them on..

I'm wildly amused by this!!

But, Goog...

2012-02-23T09:34:00.000-06:00

Why are the birdies dangling from the tree limbs on strings? I have no idea. But they make me smile!

Teesha Moore said to go with your weird notions, so I've been trying to go with mine. I wanted to make a bunch of eyeballs on a piece of book text, so I did. I wanted the birdies to have strings, so they do. Bring on the weird notions!

It's hard to tell...

2012-02-22T09:34:00.000-06:00

I have trouble making something that I see as "just" a background. I don't like to have things "unfinished", which is really silly because I mostly just paint and doodle in my journals, which no one sees! The Mixed Media Police are NOT going to knock on my door and tell me I have to finish my journal pages or ATCs.

So, here are some ATCs. There are four that look similar. Not identical, but close. Maybe they're finished and maybe they're not. If I get a ticket from the MMPs, I know it's you guys who told on me!!

The DENTIST!

2012-02-21T09:37:00.000-06:00

I'm totally freaked out by dentists, so I don't go. Ever. Except when I break a tooth. I ignore them when they hurt, I've had giant pus bubbles under my gums and just popped them myself. The ONLY thing that ever brings me to the dentist is a broken tooth. I broke one two weeks ago, the one right there in my x-ray:

It was a huge, gaping hole. Gigantic. But not down to the nerve so it didn't hurt at all. Still, it seemed like a problem I needed to have taken care of, so I did. Are you proud? And you know what, going to the dentist wasn't fun but it made me feel a little bit less like a second-class citizen. I've never had health insurance. Not ever. When I was a child, I went to the doctor twice for vaccinations and to the ER twice because they'll see you without insurance. There were NO "well-child" checkups in my household. A cold, the flu, whatever illnesses we had, we fought off at home. I remember being sick the entire summer between seventh and eight grade. I couldn't say two words without coughing in between. I had reduced lunch at school, wore second-hand clothes. It wasn't something I felt bad about, it was just my life. My friends lived at houses with pools, while we lived without central air conditioning in south Florida, and my brothers slept in the garage because we had six people and only two bedrooms. I want to change these things for my child. Right now, we live in an apartment, my husband supports us all but we have no health coverage. My son is clothed and fed, and we hit the occasional movie, but I want more. I want to be a two-income, two-car, solid middle-class family. I don't want to wish we were just a tiny bit worse off so he could have health coverage and free day care. I want to be SOLID. I'll get there. I'm giving us two years. In two years I want to be in a better place. A more solid place. For my son.

Iridescent Medium!

2012-02-20T10:03:00.000-06:00

I've been mixing my own paints because the fluid acrylics are so crazy expensive, but I ran out of glazing liquid yesterday and I really wanted to make a black. So I mixed it with iridescent medium instead! I freaking LOVE it. I love iridescence. The shimmery stuff just makes me happy!

Here's how it looks in my journal:

I can't wait to try it for hair!

Skart date!

2012-02-19T10:03:00.000-06:00

I know these doodles are ugly, but this journal is really making me happy!

The Point

2012-02-18T01:28:00.000-06:00

I've found myself OFTEN asking myself lately what the point of doing things is. If I'm going to be a graphic designer, what is the point of painting? Drawing? Journaling? Is journaling even worth my time? I look at people's beautiful work - I look at my OWN old journals and I think "What's the point?"

Suzi has always told us to make art for the sake of making art. There is no other "point" needed. But I've had a hard time wrapping my head around that lately. Today I watched a fun art journal video on YouTube and I realized - that IS the point. The journaling, the painting, the words - that's the point. The point is that I have this thought in my head and I want to get it out. Maybe to forget it, maybe to ease my mind, maybe it's a jumping off point for pages and pages of writing that's going to come pouring out of I just let it. It doesn't matter what it's for. It doesn't matter if it's pointless to EVERY OTHER PERSON ON THE PLANET. It just doesn't matter. I want to paint, I want to journal, I WANT to do it and THAT'S the point.

That's Liam's "hole in one" face. He was mini golfing with Daddy while I worked on Angry Banana. :)

Smash pages, continued

2012-02-17T09:06:00.000-06:00

Here I added one of my tiny pictures to a page already in progress:

Same here, plus I used the kindergarten type paper to practice my handwriting at the bottom:

Here are some pics from Tami's wedding:

I'm going totally random with this thing and I think I'm going to like it. Not sure, but think so.

Journal Silhouettes

2012-02-16T09:06:00.000-06:00

Nothing special today, just some pages...

Smash-able pictures!

2012-02-15T09:04:00.001-06:00

OK, so my Pogo (it's a tiny printer from Polaroid) hasn't been working. I threw away the cord (accidentally!!) and the car charger I got for it doesn't work. I took it to a battery place and the guy made a face and said it would take 24 hours to test the battery and they didn't have one to replace it if something was wrong with it and blah, blah, blah. So I did THIS instead!

The Pogo prints 2x3 inches, so in Photoshop I set up a 4x6 sized canvas and put 4 2x3 inch pictures on each one! It was 19 cents to get them printed, so I have 20 pics for 95 cents. How great is THAT?

Valentine's Day at ITT Tech!

2012-02-14T22:22:00.001-06:00

The boys came to have dinner with me (I get a twenty-minute break). How cute is that?? Tim got us Outback! Liam loves the brown bread, so it's a win for everyone. It was fun to have dinner with my guys instead of my usual PB&J.

Tami and the Garda

2012-02-13T08:49:00.000-06:00

Garda = Irish police

My friend Tami got married on Friday the 13th to Ian. Tami is an ex-patriot who's been living and working in London for the past two years and she and Ian met there. But Ian is from Ireland and has always wanted to move back there - so that's where they're going! But just like in America, they have to "prove" that they didn't get married just so Tami could live in Ireland. Prove that they have a real relationship. And the garda wants pictures. Seems silly, because KNOWING that, you could just fake them, couldn't you? But we didn't. Instead, I made her some scrapbook pages!

These four are made with Design by Blagovesta Gosheva's facebook fan freebie:

(I know this one isn't great, I was trying to show them DOING stuff.)

What do you think? Will the garda be impressed with our silly pages? There are about ten others, because I'm obsessive like that!!

Love is in the air!

2012-02-12T07:39:00.000-06:00

A new kit by One of a Kind Design Studio! It's called Love is in the Air and it's super cute.

Isn't this adorable? My best friend married her Irish sweetheart on Friday, January 13th in London. I'm SO sad I didn't get to be there, but she's so happy!

Smashed Liam :)

2012-02-11T07:33:00.001-06:00

This was before school one morning - I'm not the most awake person in the morning, and I hadn't had coffee yet, and he gets himself dressed and amuses himself until an alarm goes off that tells us it's time to go wait for the bus - and so his hair was crazy and he went to school this way. I don't care and neither does he, I actually think he's adorable like this! Will he hate me someday for letting him go to school with messy hair? There was also something sticky in his hair and I tried to get him to taste it - I was laughing to hard to get a picture.

There's a song called He's Mine and I love it! He's mine :)

Wanderlust by Farynar's Wings

2012-02-10T07:25:00.000-06:00

How lovely are these colors? Beautiful, right?

This was Liam in September 2009 when we moved to Minnesota:

That's his "ba-ba", Squishy (she's a giraffe head attached to a little blanket and at the time we called her "Blankie Friend"), and Elmo - all buckled in with him. It's one of my favorite pictures of all time. He's always been such a character.

Smash pages in progress!

2012-02-09T07:18:00.000-06:00

OK, I guess this one is done so it's not actually in progress. Don't tell the Blogger police!

Some trees on a page:

My leg while I'm peeing:

Cheeky on a school day:

And my sister-in-law and favorite little jelly bean:

Book of Days

2012-02-08T00:26:00.000-06:00

This is something Effy Wild is doing and I'm trying to play along...so far all I've done is the cover!! This is my current favorite picture of Liam, he was sitting next to me on the couch and I had no idea he was asleep.

I added some shimmery quin magenta, of course, and some yellow splatters:

And then a little bitty fairy:

All done :)

Liam Sprays

2012-02-07T04:58:00.000-06:00

We did this page together, we put some stuff in the way and sprayed over them...

These are ones he did alone:

I think it's so cute how he sprays so close to the bottom of the page. We had to make a deal that he only sprays them three times each because otherwise he just saturates the entire page and makes a huge muddy mess. He LOVES them, though, so mommy did a good job!

Journaling...

2012-02-06T04:47:00.000-06:00

I get really blah when I have my period, so I spent a few hours just sitting on the couch and doodling. I'm kind of proud of how this profile face came out. I'm not going to paint or color her at all because I like her!

Feb 2's photo prompt was "words" but I had trouble thinking about taking a picture of them, so I sort of journaled about that.

I made myself a little list of things I wanted to get done quickly and highlighted things as I got them done...

Full spread:

Tooth Fairy Kit!!

2012-02-05T04:43:00.000-06:00

Look how cute this kit is!! I can't wait for Liam to lose a tooth so I can use it!

Look at those little teeth!

One little bitty tooth in there!

Angry Banana storyboard...

2012-02-04T07:33:00.000-06:00

In case you didn't already know, I get really freaked out about "projects" when it comes to school. (Or work, or life, or basically everything). For my Flash class, we have to make an animation. It has to be a MINUTE long. So far I've been taught how to make eyes blink, a ball bounce, smoke, and buttons. I don't KNOW enough to make a whole minute of stuff. So I'm going rogue (I've already done so a few times in this class and my teacher keeps giving me these baffled looks) and I'm learning crap on my own. What choice to I have??

This is my storyboard, he gives it to us to do in class and he looks mine over, doesn't smile, and then says "Good. It's good. Very ambitious, though. A lot of drawing."

Thanks for the support, Teach. Now I'm determined to make it the best animation to ever come out of his class. Why couldn't he have been like "Wow, that's ambitious, maybe I can help you"?!? Don't even worry, I've got it covered. But this kind of thing pisses me off - assign me a task, then imply that I can't handle it??

Introducing Angry Banana....

2012-02-03T06:55:00.000-06:00

This is for a school project, of course, the final in my Interactive Communications Design class. It's going to be a minute-long animation (cartoon) starring Angry Banana and his sidekick, Altered Orange. I'm pretty excited about it so far, even though it's going to be a ridiculous amount of work for one minute...

And YES they're going to have arms and legs and stuff like that, these are just their basic shapes (even the eyes are just a layer, not part of either one of them).

Some Smashes...

2012-02-02T06:56:00.000-06:00

A page for Puma:

Me lounging:

I guess I have to come up with a name that's different than Smash...I'll think it over and let you know!

School Project

2012-02-01T06:48:00.001-06:00

I'm not in love with this project, but it came out a LOT better than I thought it was going to!!

The requirements are: a quote of some kind (this is a song), 11x17 format (tablet) and text ONLY. I like it!

Puma

2012-01-31T08:04:00.001-06:00

I can hear the gasps of shock - Goog has a PET? Not just a fish, but a walking, meowing, needing to be fed everyday and have its bodily waste cleaned up PET?? Yes, I do. It's for my little guy. He LOVES animals. Like, freakishly loves them. Remember those Sarah McLaughlin commercials? He was only about a year old when they started coming out and whenever one came on he would run over and throw himself into my lap, sobbing. It took awhile to figure out what the problem was (since he couldn't talk yet). Eventually I figured it out and changed the channel quickly!

So, he's five now and we got him a kitty. Her name is Puma (we didn't name her) and she's a rescue. Litter-trained and declawed. I don't care if you think that's mean, it was already done AND she's "scratched" at my furniture a million times and we've only had her for a couple of days.

She's actually pretty sweet, but also slightly annoying. She wants to sit right behind me on the couch, on the cushion that I'm using, and rest her feet on me - not OK. And she has a LOT of things to say. I mean, all kinds of stuff to say. And she doesn't make cute little meowing noises, they're annoyed noises that are more like "WHERE IS MY FREAKING MOUSE?" than "Hi, I'm a cutie, aren't I?" Liam is completely smitten, though, and that's the important part.

New pen!!

2012-01-30T08:06:00.000-06:00

And a new journal, you know I love those!!

The pen was free and it writes pretty well, but it's blotchy. Most of my favorite pens are, the most comfortable ones that I could use for hours and hours, the ones that write super smooth - they always end up being blotchy. I wonder why that is? Just to annoy the left-handed chick who rubs her hand across it and leaves a smear? Seems like overkill since I do that with my pencils, too. Oh, and the boy behind me in my Thursday night class borrowed a pen - didn't give it back! Jerk. It was a new one, too.

Farynar's Wings

2012-01-29T09:22:00.000-06:00

I am on a new creative team! Yay for me!! It's for a designer called Farynar's Wings and today was my first day. The kit I got to work with is called Lovey Dovey:

And the layout I made is with a picture of the first day that Shanti got to see Portia since leaving for Officer Training School - six months apart! Shanti was SUPER happy to have Portia back with her.

I think it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself! Off to a good start!!

Liquid Watercolor

2012-01-28T04:31:00.000-06:00

Spray bottles:

Watercolor:

Liquid watercolor!

One of the bottles didn't work right, so that's why I got 6 bottles and there are only five sprays. They're for Liam to play with but he doesn't know it yet!!

Grungy, shabby, worn - what's the deal?

2012-01-27T01:43:00.000-06:00

I've been trying for several years to understand the need, the love, the urge for "grungy" stuff. At the scrapbook store you can buy what looks like a nail file and it's for distressing paper. My bestie, Suzi Blu, is well-known for her girly grunge style. I like it, don't get me wrong. But I'm wondering what is it about it that SO many people find appealing.

Today I was thinking "Well, maybe it's because we feel that way. Worn. Used." Like the hoodie I'm wearing - it's TOTALLY grungy.

Sometimes I feel this way. Old and used and torn. Does it need to come out in my art? Is that the point?

But then I started wondering if maybe the OPPOSITE is true. Is it because of the polished perfectionism that so many people feel the need to project that accepting imperfections, even causing them, in our work is so appealing? I have no idea. Thoughts?

From Paper to Canvas

2012-01-26T05:56:00.000-06:00

Remember the journal pages I posted here? Well, this is the canvas version. So far. I don't know if I'm going to hang it up or not. I don't really know if I like it. I'm thinking of just painting on big pieces of paper and framing those.

This might be upside down. Hard to tell, right?

Smash booking, Goog style.

2012-01-25T01:14:00.000-06:00

OK, bloggy friends. I'm determined to overcome my Smash Book issues, but not in their book. The binding really is horrible. I want to apologize to all the Smash lovers out there for hating on your beloved books, but I really can't. The binding is bad. Horrible. Sucky. And this is not just the opinion of a loud-mouth. I worked in a place where we did ALL kinds of book binding, and the way Smash is bound would NOT have been OK there. The wire needs to be bigger. So, here is my solution: make it yourself. Duh. That's what I always do.

First I gathered papers. The more random, the better, but I did get a few that sort of have "meaning" to me. The toast one? My son eats a LOT of toast. There's a cat one, we're getting a cat. The mustaches just make me laugh. The music notes - I'm a musician (clarinet, piano, no rock instruments).

Here is it all cut up and bound together:

Cover:

Toast page:

This is actually a "scrap" page from a piece of paper my friend TJ gave me:

The last page is a bag from Starbucks:

The pages are 7x10, in case anyone is wondering. I'll try to post more about this, if I can make myself really do it! I'm going to try to make it my February journal. We'll see how it works out!

Doodles...

2012-01-24T05:55:00.001-06:00

Just some pen stuff in my journal...

School Doodles...

2012-01-23T05:57:00.000-06:00

Watercolor crayons: FINALLY successful

2012-01-22T05:57:00.000-06:00

People are ALWAYS talking about how they LOVE their neocolor II crayons. Well, I bought some for an online class and I think they STINK. I absolutely can NOT get them to completely blend so there are no streams, even when I use so much water the paper starts to pill. But I got it in my head that I wanted to give them another try, so I did.

First the face:

Same face, with pupils:

Adjusted the hair part:

Added color:

The picture makes it look blotchy, but IRL it looks beautiful!! Next I wanna learn how to use white paint with it to make the creamy skin tone color people seem to do effortlessly. Soon it will be effortless for me, too. Right? Practice makes perfect?

Hangin with TJ...

2012-01-21T05:58:00.000-06:00

I gotta get back to the process pictures, huh? Me & Kelly & Ajae used to draw and paint all day long and text each other pictures and skype...we don't do that so much anymore and I think that's a big part of why I don't really take pictures of the process these days - no one to show them to. How could I forget about showing them to myself on my blog? Doh! Silly me.

Lovely colors

2012-01-20T04:04:00.000-06:00

I'm COMPLETELY in love with this color combination. You can't see it as well in the picture, but the pink and the blue sort of combine to make this really cool purplish color that just makes me happy! I tried to replicate this page on a canvas, but it didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped so I'm going to try again.

CTJ

2012-01-19T04:05:00.000-06:00

Dive-In Scrap-Out

2012-01-18T02:08:00.000-06:00

So, I don't really understand the title but I'm doing this challenge thing at Digi Scraps Drive In. The first challenge was to take two LOs and "twist" them into a new one, and I've already posted it here, it's of my friend Tami and her fiance Ian's engagement photos. This was challenge number two, called "Groundhog Day" (Since it's a drive-in, I guess we're going with movie themes? I don't really know yet!). I took my oldest gallery-posted LO and made it anew. Here they both are:

I'm actually not at ALL unhappy with the first one. It was for a 4x6 photo book for my mom, so I make a bunch of LOs like that and then they got cut in half and slid into those plastic pages. She loved it and still carries it around. I should make her a new one! I do love the second one, too, though. I feel like it's missing something. If it was a paper LO, I'd use a credit card in titan buff paint to give it some grungy lines. I'm not sure what I'll do. Maybe just leave it alone. We'll see. Oh, and the kit used, with all those fantastic colors, is Live In Thanksgiving by Piccolina Designs. I LOVE it. I wish it was fabrics so I could make a quilt from it!

27th letter of the alphabet

2012-01-17T00:35:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's a school project. A slightly ridiculous one, I think, and I have NO idea what I'm supposed to learn from it, but there is is between R and S. It's called "pist" and sounds like "psst". The name and sound were provided by my friend Kelly, because she's awesome like that. I think it's the weirdest assignment ever but it's done and I'm turning it in tonight and "finished" is the most important part of school work.

Winter Wonder

2012-01-16T02:02:00.002-06:00

OK, I didn't admit this because it's one of those "If no one knows and I fuck it all up, it doesn't count because no one knows" but I'm trying to make a digital scrapbooking LO every day in 2012. Sometimes I do all my creative team stuff right at the beginning of the month and I have nothing to do for weeks until the next month, but that's not a good way to practice skills, right? So I'm going to try and make a LO every day or maybe make two in a day and skip a day, like that. Just make 366 LOs by the time the year is over. These two were made with Winter Wonder, Ahhh Scrap's January collab. The colors are awesome. I LOVE blue and brown.

TJ's first PanPastels

2012-01-15T00:35:00.000-06:00

Here it is, bloggy folks:

And just like that, another happy addict. I'm just going to carry them around and get everyone I know to give them a try, I think. They're just happy-making. Instant, soft color. Not "soft color" as in pastel, it's just soft to use and touch.

Here's a PP portrait:

And, of course, us being nutty. What else is new?

A Goog Talk about my 2012 word for the year

2012-01-14T01:01:00.000-06:00

You know, like a TED Talk? But more...Googier. Mayhem is my word. "A very confused situation" is the definition of this word that I'm going with. I don't particularly enjoy confusion. I doubt many of us do. So to avoid confusion, we ignore things we find confusing. I already talked about this a little when I posted my YSM Mayhem page. I realize that some people, hearing that this is my word, will immediately think I intend to cause harm. This is NOT the case. I simply won't let you do harm to me. Already in 2012 there are a LOT of things that would like to cause mayhem in my life. I mentioned eBay sellers and a class I wasn't happy with and possibly bank fraud. There have been other incidents ALREADY. Another with my bank, and with my gas company (who lets me have HEAT in this beautiful Minnesota winter), and my water company, and my apartment building, and my neighbors. All have been handled and dealt with swiftly. The best was the gas company - the woman I spoke to was amazing. The worst? The bank. The idiots there have NO idea how to speak to a human being other than to spout words from a script.

I don't think of myself as a MEAN person. I think meanness has to do with intent and I do not intend to be mean. However, I am not all-accepting, either. I am not going to sit and listen to you spout nonsense because you're my friend's friend and I "have to" be polite. If you're not being polite, I'm not going to be. If I've paid for something and it's not what it was advertised to be, I don't just say "oh well" and toss it into the junk drawer. I dig the receipt out of the trash and take it back. I leave negative feedback for crappy eBay sellers and I don't feel like that's being MEAN - it's being HONEST. If 99% of people have an awesome experience and only 1% have a shitty one, that doesn't mean the one percent doesn't deserve to be heard. My husband and I are the only people who have complained about our ridiculously loud neighbors - I don't care that no one else is bothered by the noise. I'M BOTHERED. I refuse to just "take" things. I'm just not going to do it. Does it make me mean? Lots of people will say "Oh, no, you're not mean, you did exactly what you should have done." But most of them wouldn't have done it. Because they're nice and I'm not? I want my son to be a kind, gentle person. I want him to not litter and to be polite. But I also want him to be able to stand up, not just for himself, but for others when somethings's wrong and say "That's not right and I'm not going to go along with it."

I refused to sign the "bed bug addendum" that our new management tried to slip into our lease when we renewed. I've lived here for 3 years and not had bed bugs, if I get them at this point it's because someone else brought them into this building - why would I sign a paper absolving the apartment complex of responsibility? Does that make me mean? My husband was like "Oh, yeah. I didn't think about it like that." You can damn well be sure the management company did.

I had a boyfriend go with me once when I was getting a gym membership. The signup fee was ridiculous and it was one of those "clubs" where there are levels of membership and the "gold" membership had all these stupid options. When I told the man who was trying to sell me a load of bullshit that I knew exactly what I wanted in a gym membership and that I wasn't their disgusting jacuzzi where sweaty people soaked after a workout, he sold me the membership I wanted at the price I wanted and I took my little key-card thingy and walked out. My boyfriend (who I'd been dating for two years) was astonished. Same thing when I was buying a car and the idiots at the dealership hit some snag with the financials after I already had the car and they were telling my husband they would report it stolen. I called their sorry asses and told them to call the police. I had a copy of the ownership paperwork - how could they possibly think the police would agree with them? They don't - it's just a scare tactic. Trust me, they were the ones freaked out when I threw the keys and them and demanded my money back for them being assholes. They can't sell a "returned" car for anywhere close to what I'd paid for it because it's not "new" anymore. I got lifetime free oil changes out of it.

But lately - and by that I mean for the past five years or so - I've just been letting things slide. I'm often circling the drain of depression just waiting for it to suck me in and I don't have the energy to fight these battles. I sign the check, or the permission form or whatever just to make people get away from me. I retreat to the couch and eat Zingers and try to remember when I wasn't this person. I have a teacher once say "Don't waste time being who you are. Be who you want to be." I've tried to find out if it was a quote from someone, but I can't find it online so I honestly have no idea. Who I want to be is a confident person who isn't afraid of other people. Who doesn't get pushed around or railroaded, who stops and says "Hey, wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense." The kind of person who is OK with mayhem if the calm, glossy surface isn't the truth.

Check this out!

2012-01-13T00:16:00.000-06:00

How fun is this new kit by One of a Kind Design Studio?? I'm in love with it!

It's called "Memory Board" and I can't wait to play with it some more!!

Top 10...

2012-01-12T08:55:00.000-06:00

This is my Smash journal. Tim made me go to Barnes & Noble on Sunday when his parents were here and we were all at Nickelodeon Universe. I HATE the Mall of America, especially on the weekends. It's a big mall, but it just has regular mall stores so I don't really see the attraction to the actual mall. Of course, Nick U is the fun spot for Liam.

I was feeling bad that I wasn't having fun and my hubby banished me - especially because I wasn't PREPARED to be banished. I only had my Smash journal, not my regular journal. I had no pens or pencils, no other supplies, I didn't have my headphones to block out the horribly annoying deaf man who kept shouting while he signed or the really annoying 12-year-old who couldn't chew his cheetos with his mouth closed.

I did meet a really nice lady while I was there, I'm hoping to get to know her better. She's some kind of psychologist or something like that, but we didn't really talk about that. She could TELL I was all annoyed by the people around me and that's what we talked about. And art. She liked that I was drawing, said it's good for calming my brain. Good to know, right?

That's my boy!

2012-01-11T08:55:00.000-06:00

A crayon in each hand. I LOVE it!

Word for the year:

2012-01-10T09:15:00.002-06:00

It's "mayhem". The more I think about it, the more I like it. Now, the legal and medical definition of mayhem is: willful and permanent deprivation of a bodily member resulting in the impairment of a person's fighting ability. But the more widely used definition is this: a very confused situation.

See, I'm not what you'd call a calm person. I mean, sure, in my day-to-day life, I have very little activity. But push me. Just try it, and I push back. And kick and punch and bite. But too often lately I've just sort of accepted things. Things that I find unacceptable. That time is over. I'm going to be who I am, regardless of the mayhem (confused situation) that it causes. So far 2012 is off to a VERY good start. I've harassed two shitty eBay sellers, emailed an online teacher whose class wasn't what it was advertised to be, called out my college on their crappy lab facilities in my student surveys, gotten my bank to reverse a charge for a grocery store in Georgia (I'm in Minnesota and it would be difficult to get back and forth this quickly), and had my apartment complex to threaten to evict my horribly loud neighbors if they can't be less obnoxious. Sure, the mouse was only $7.49 and there are worse things in the world than loud people or a crappy class - but I'm not willing to deal with anymore. Too many people just accept disappointment or obnoxiousness. Not me. Not anymore.

P365

2012-01-09T09:15:00.000-06:00

I downloaded a Project 365 app! It lets me set a reminder to take a picture every day!! OK, some of my friends would be like "Why the F would you need to do that? You take MILLIONS of pictures!", which is TRUE. However, sometimes I get in the funky head place and don't take some for days or even a week or two at a time. So I think this will help. Bottom line: I'm excited. Look how it stores them in a little calendar!

More Christmas LOs

2012-01-08T04:13:00.000-06:00

These ones make me LAUGH!!

Same kit from AS, Time to be Jolly. Both are templates, one I'm not sure who made it, the other by Down This Road Designs.

Journal Cover

2012-01-07T08:13:00.001-06:00

Birthday Boy...

2012-01-06T08:45:00.000-06:00

Five years ago:

Today:

Pen Doodles

2012-01-05T08:13:00.000-06:00

Itty Bitty Journal

2012-01-04T11:37:00.000-06:00

Ajae sent this to me and I think it's so cute and fun!! I'm gonna try and use it like a tiny journal.

I think I'll probably add words to the pages, but maybe not. We'll see!

New Year's Eve Snow!!

2012-01-03T11:36:00.000-06:00

On New Year's Eve it started snowing in fast, furious, FAT flakes. It was ridiculous AND awesome, so we went out to see it!

freebie 03 by Clarice {menina}

"Best Wishes" add on by Diana's Creations

Tim was feeling a bit old and married because people kept asking him what he was going to DO when he left work, but what is there to do? I mean, what are people supposed to DO on New Year's Eve? We watched Dick Clark's New Year's Rocking Eve, like I have every year since I was born and we went out to look at the snow.

In the interest of full disclosure, since I'm in Central Time, they stop Dick Clark for an hour and then play back the last hour of the show so the ball drops for us when it's midnight here, so we watched Hook and didn't see the ball. Am I a terrible person??

A face in the paint

2012-01-02T03:24:00.000-06:00

I don't know why, but I like her just the way she is! I "should" paint her so you could see her more or something, but I like her sort of hidden. And the pen I used is shimmery black - it's awesome.

Scrapped Christmas

2012-01-01T06:45:00.001-06:00

Every time I see these pictures I get the Red Solo Cup song in my head!!

These were all made with Ahhh Scrap's December Collab Time to be Jolly

Silhouettes

2011-12-31T09:18:00.000-06:00

The secret of the Rubik's Cube!

2011-12-30T09:03:00.000-06:00

My brother always gets all annoyed with his Rubik's cube because he can "do" one side. That's fine, it's exactly how you start. But here's the thing. This is NOT necessarily correct:

THIS is how you know it's correct:

This photo is borrowed from Ajae - see how the green is all done but there's orange, red, and yellow all next to each other? That can't be correct.

So that is my (very well-known) secret for you. Start with one side - but make sure ALL the colors line up. The rest is CAKE!

More Smashing

2011-12-29T08:52:00.000-06:00

So, I'm trying to make myself "journal" in my Smash Book. I played more with the cover...

Here's some of the packaging from Ajae's Christmas gifts:

And some pics from hanging at Kelly's:

Here is the problem with Smash:

See how tight that is? It's too tight. Seriously, how much money could they possibly have saved by doing that?

Make your own planner verdict: bonkers

2011-12-28T08:14:00.000-06:00

I spent DAYS working on this stupid freaking thing and check this out:

Yep, I bound the right-hand page upside down. I threw this stupid thing away. What was I thinking? Actually, I was thinking that it's hard to find a planner that I LIKE and they're expensive. I hate paying twenty bucks for a planner that doesn't make me one hundred percent happy. So, I bought this one:

I can't wait for it to get here so I can play with it!

Smash

2011-12-27T07:59:00.000-06:00

Let the record show that when I first got my Smash book, Kelly's exact reactions was "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" And, to be honest, I haven't really used it. I don't like how tight the binding is. BUT now she has a Smash book and since we're codependent, I dug mine out and started playing with it again. Mostly just the cover. Maybe this is what I need to get me journaling again?

I don't know if I even like it!!

Christmas with the Heggems

2011-12-26T20:12:00.000-06:00

Usually Tim works Christmas, this is the first time in YEARS he's been off. For the past three years, Liam and I have just hung out with our friends who moved away two months ago. I pictured me and Liam sitting home alone this year - like we do for most holidays. Even after Kelly asked us to come hang out with her family, I didn't think we'd be able to because Tim ALWAYS works. Well, he DIDN'T! He didn't work and we went to the Heggem House and it was AWESOME. It was the best Christmas I've had in years!!

Here Tim and Kelly are doing weird things in the kitchen - see the open window? It's so warm this year!!

Liam made a gingerbread house with some of the little boys and then they ate it. OK, Liam mostly ate it.

Tim forgot he's not a frat boy anymore and challenged Joey to a chugging contest. He lost!

You'd better watch out...

2011-12-24T23:00:00.000-06:00

Santa Claus likes chocolate milk best, did you know that? I didn't. Mini Me told me. My mommy read us The Night Before Christmas and now I'm watching South Park Christmas episodes. What could be better?

CHristmas ATCs :)

2011-12-23T10:50:00.000-06:00

I LOVE how these came out. I got the idea from Christy Tomlinson. She did a canvas with all her toys and stuff while mine is just leftover paper scraps, but they make me happy and several of them are in the mail, on their way to surprise friends right now!

This is what I used for the background. Remember this page? It's from YSM Brain Dead Journaling. I loved the page, but I always want to DO something with my backgrounds. I'm trying to not have that need - to just be able to fling paint around and say it's done, but I can't. A background needs a foreground. So I cut it all up and used it and now it has a purpose!

I also made this little canvas for Kelly:

Dont' worry, I already showed her :) I'm not good at those kinds of secrets!!

TJ worked in my journal!

2011-12-22T15:41:00.000-06:00

That's ME!! How cute am I?? I love it :)

Boring cartoon!!

2011-12-21T18:59:00.000-06:00

Why would I put that as my title? Won't it keep people from coming to my blog? Don't know. Anyone out there? That's OK, I know who is and that you love me even when I'm boring!

First day of Rapid Riz cartoon

2011-12-20T06:59:00.000-06:00

I know I already told you I was nervous about going to a drawing class - my teacher is ALL about getting up and showing things to the class, and I'm SUPER self-conscious so I don't usually like that.

Look at nervous me!! C'mon that's FUNNY!

I took this picture to try and help with the hand position and fingers and stuff.

Why do I always look so dang TIRED???

Wedding Invite

2011-12-19T06:15:00.000-06:00

For my friend Tami, who lives in the UK...I don't get to go to the wedding, which makes me sad, but I think the invitation came out pretty! I'm highly amused that she's getting married on Friday the 13th...

I used an old collab kit from Ahhh Scrap, Spring Wedding from June 2009.

Cartoon 12/5

2011-12-18T06:59:00.000-06:00

When I got a little behind in my cartooning I was going to skip some days - no one is perfect, right? And honestly, I don't DO all that much during the day. But then I was thinking I could just do ONE thing from some days, right? So here is my Parents' Day cartoon. I hate parents' days, by the way. I don't like people.

Make your own planner: brilliant or bonkers?

2011-12-17T06:31:00.018-06:00

It's HARD to find a planner that I like. Really hard. I want it daily. I'm not a doctor or some crazy busy office person - I don't care. I want a page for every day. And I want it to be about 5.5in x 8.5in. It needs to either open completely flat or be ring bound - but the rings can't be too tight so it's hard to turn the pages. When I've tried the "print your own pages" thing, regular printer paper is too thin, but even the thinnest card stock is too thick. I was thinking maybe I'd just figure out how to alter my Smash Book into a planner, but it has the too-tight ring problem and it's a little too big. So I'm working on another idea. Here's what I've got so far.

Month at a glance:

Daily pages:

Some tags for homework pages:

Date stickers I made with my sticker maker:

Some other tags and pockets and stuff:

Believe it or not, I worked on it for about six hours today and I'm nowhere near done! Oh, and the digital scrapbooking kit I'm using is Digi101 from Ahhh Scrap. I really like the colors. I thought about just buying a paper pack from Michael's or Archiver's and making it out of that - I might try that for February. Maybe this will be a year of finding the ideal planner? I want to find already printed daily pages (without holes) that I can incorporate into the thing. We'll see. I'll be sure and post an update if I ever get this thing finished!

Cartooning for SCHOOL!!

2011-12-16T01:06:00.000-06:00

How great is this?? AND it's not even for my drawing class, it's for my Flash class! I love ITT Tech. For reals, EVERYONE should go to school at ITT Tech.

FUDGE!!!

2011-12-15T01:06:00.000-06:00

Yes, is IS awesome!!

Christmas Tree :)

2011-12-14T01:06:00.000-06:00

I'm surprised how much I love our Christmas tree!! We live in a small place and we're pretty..."poor" doesn't seem like the right way to put it, but I'm not sure what the "correct" term would be. So, small place, one teeny half-filled box of decorations (the tree is the ONLY thing that gets decorated), I was feeling a little sad about it. Especially because of the Thanksgiving incident at Kelly's, and they have such a beautiful house and so does Ajae, and they both get a LOT more festive (at least cosmetically!) for the holidays. But I am in LOVE with this tree!

Look how pretty it is!!

And here is is all tacky'd up, just how I like it!

AND, you see that sliding door behind it? When you pull into our apartment complex, we live in the first apartment in the first building, and you can see the tree through the glass door!! It's pretty and I love it.

Rapid Viz

2011-12-13T06:43:00.000-06:00

I have NO idea why, but I LOVE this class! We're drawing RIDICULOUS things!!

These ones are: thinking outside the box, walking in someone else's shoes, a night in Charlie Sheen's life, and don't judge a book by its cover

These ones are: a porcupine's pillow, Abe Lincoln in the bathtub, a spider doing a handstand, and the other side of the argument:

This is my phone:

The phone isn't funny, obviously, but the rest of them had me laughing the whole time!!

Time to be Jolly

2011-12-12T13:23:00.001-06:00

A new collaboration from Ahhh Scrap!

December Calendar

2011-12-11T05:24:00.000-06:00

What? Today's the 11th!

That's true, but I usually write a few blog posts and post date them for when I don't have time to actually blog every day - so I REALLY made it on the 7th. That's a little better, no? After YSM (on Wednesday), the girls and I all decided to make December calendars to jump start us back into Moleyville. I'll try to post mine when it's all filled up at the end of the month!

Back to Moley

2011-12-10T05:23:00.000-06:00

Since journaling USED to be easy for me and has now become difficult, I'm headed back to my roots - Moleskine large sketchbook. Since this was when I was journaling the most, maybe it's what I need to get back to it. My friends are doing it with me, of course, because I'm co-dependent. So me Kelly, and Ajae are starting in fresh, new Moleys and hoping that it will make us journal more. I don't know if that makes sense, but it seems worth a try to me!

Introducing - TJ!

2011-12-09T05:23:00.000-06:00

This is my new friend TJ! We met and hung out at Archiver's in my local mall and it was AWESOME!

She just moved here from Germany, and look - she bought me that Germany tag to put in my journal!

It was SO fun to hang out. I'm not usually good with people, so it's always a relief to meet someone who seems to like me!! She said NOT to post pictures of her on Facebook, and so far I haven't, but I told her that any pictures I take are fair game for Facebook, blogs, etc, and that it took Kelly about six months to get used to it and now she doesn't care anymore. :) We just chatted and journaled and it was really cool.

Cartoons 12/4 and 12/7

2011-12-08T05:20:00.000-06:00

Fear of the blank page!!!

2011-12-07T22:15:00.000-06:00

This is one of my TEXT books!

VIOLATE ITS PURITY!! That's what we do to our PAPER??? How horrible is that?!? I've never been afraid of the blank page before, but this book might change my mind!

Journal Confusion

2011-12-06T07:45:00.000-06:00

I've been unhappy with my journals lately and I don't really understand why. What I want in a journal is thick pages, super smooth paper, NOT ring-bound, with pages small enough to not overwhelm my brain but large enough that they can stand individually because I HATE doing spreads. I found one that I was enjoying, I like the sizes, the pages were nice and smooth, it was landscape (a stretch for me) but I really wanted it to be awesome. I was having a good time. Then I did a page that was just sort of doodles. I wanted to paint over it. It was the back side of this face. I painted it green.

And then I was pissed! I didn't add any water or anything and the stupid paint leaked through anyway!! So I removed the pages and glued them into the journal I made. Why am I struggling with this so much? I used to journal every single freaking day. I'm GOING TO GET BACK TO THAT. I don't know how yet, but I will.

Christmas decorations...

2011-12-05T01:07:00.000-06:00

Kelly sent me a picture of five or six HUGE plastic bins of Christmas decorations she had the kids haul up from the basement and this is what I sent her back:

That's every single bit of my Christmas decorations!! Does that make me a terrible person? I LOVE Christmas, but we live in a small apartment with a small child. So it's not like I could put out ceramic houses or anything. Last year was the first time in seven years of marriage that we even had a tree...

New CTJ!

2011-12-04T22:47:00.000-06:00

A fresh journal for a fresh semester! I start my second semester at ITT Tech tomorrow. They call it a "quarter" because it's only three months, but it's the change of classes, so it FEELS like a semester...

This was supposed to be the BACK cover, but I printed it first and then my printer ran out of yellow and wouldn't print the front cover, so I made the back the front. Sometimes you gotta improvise, right? I LOVE starting in a fresh new journal!!!

Cartoon Page for December 2...

2011-12-03T23:49:00.000-06:00

I have to admit, I like the page from the 1st better. It's because there were no faces in that one. I'm not good at cartoon faces, and these ones I just sort of went at with the pen, no pencil first. Next time I'll make SURE to draw them in pencil first!!

Cartoon!

2011-12-02T23:12:00.000-06:00

I'm hoping to cartoon yesterday, today. You know what I mean? So here's yesterday's page! I gotta ink it, color it, etc, but it's a good start and it makes me happy!!

Mini me :)

I'm kind of excited about making today's page because I got to hang out with Kelly! We tried on horrible dresses, got buzzed on margaritas at lunch, and laughed like idots - that's the best part!

National tree LIghting!

2011-12-01T22:19:00.001-06:00

My friend, Dr. Shanti Nolan, recently completed officer training school for the air force and moved to Washington, DC. This is her FIRST GIG!! She's conducting The Airmen of Note at the National Tree Lighting Ceremony where she is not only inches from the president and his family, but also Rodney Atkins, and KERMIT!!

I know, I know, the pictures are HORRIBLE - I took them with my phone while watching on my computer. Still, come ON - that's my friend up there!! I've known her for a million years and I'm SO FREAKING PROUD of her! I hope it was super crazy amounts of fun.

Foosa Moon Creations

2011-11-30T14:34:00.000-06:00

A new designer at Ahhh Scrap! You know that new stuff to play with makes me happy...

This is my husband, who is ALWAYS looking at me like this! He has no idea I have this picture or have it posted on here for the whole world (or my 53 followers) to see. I'm totally amused!

The kit I used is "Fall Frolic Collection Bundle"

This is Kelly's hubby, who NEVER lets me take his picture. Don't get me wrong - I take pictures of him all the time, but he ducks or covers his face with his hands so I have very few good ones. This one he let me take! We sent the men shopping (after we had a meeting about Thanksgiving dinner) at a restaurant supply store (my husband is a chef so he has a membership there) and this was Paul's favorite purchase - an enormous can of cranberry jelly (I say "sauce", but I wanted to be clear about exactly what this can is). Is this not amazing??

Same kit used, and also FMC's Photocentric Templates 1-4

ANOTHER ONE?

2011-11-28T23:07:00.000-06:00

After:

Before:

You know you love me when I'm backwards!

Game Design Program at ITT Tech

2011-11-27T13:36:00.000-06:00

Cancelled. Not just at my campus, at ALL ITT Techs across the country.

We found out Wednesday night at our final. You should have HEARD the immature idiots in my class whining and complaining about it. The man who came to talk to us about it had NOTHING to do with the decision. Zero. There was nothing he could do about it, no amount of bitching and complaining could change that. The number of times an idiotic teenager called out "That's not the point!" made me want to punch people. One kid left and came back with his mother. Five people walked out. What do they think that accomplishes? The class is PAID FOR. It was the LAST DAY. If you can't get your money back (you can't) what is the point of leaving class on the last day? Seriously, what point does that prove? It was an amazing amount of immaturity and THEN people whined about how LONG the final took. I wanted to scream "If you idiots hadn't spent an hour bitching we would have gone home a lot sooner!" but I resisted. It wasn't easy. So I'll get my degree in Graphic Design and be done with it. What's the BFD?

Friends makin' art!

2011-11-26T23:29:00.000-06:00

The other day this little bug had the nerve to tell me about something he'd done at HIS friend Kelly's house!! Bratty McBratster, isn't he? That's MY friend Kelly!

Smashed cake!

2011-11-25T10:35:00.000-06:00

It tasted AWESOME!!