Uncle J

If anyone was reading this thing, they would probably be tired of hearing about my uncle. Thank God it's just me here in cyberspace talking to myself! Today I started a memory quilt for my aunt. I "sketched" it in Photoshop so I could figure out exactly where I wanted the pictures and it's going to be pretty cute, I think. I took a quick snap of all the pics. There's going to be one 6x6, but the other twelve are 4x4. I hope she likes it!
I know the pictures are crappy, I just wanted to give you an idea. The photos cover the full range of his life, from his birth to the last time I saw him when we hung out at the beach. I didn't reverse the pic of him and his siblings in Durango, so it reads backward. I'll probably fix it, but I might be all right with it not being perfect! I don't really know what colors she likes OR he liked, so I'm just going to use ones that I like. I'm SUPER excited about this project and I think I'm going to work on it some more right now!!

ATCs

OK, I really want to make ATCs. I think they're a REALLY fun idea. But I'm just not good at collage. I have trouble making art with people who don't belong to me. I have some vintage pictures of my relatives I'm going to try next but for now, this is what I've got.

"she felt herself evaporating"

"lie to yourself until it's true"

"transforming herself into the person she needed to be"

"afraid of falling short of perfect"

"it all comes out wrong in the end"

"caught up in a world far away from home"

"showing one face and knowing she had another one masked away"

All the words are from Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes.

Zombies!!!

That's right people Zombie Pub Crawl VI:
When we were on our way to this last night, I told Mo that there would be at least a hundred people that if we told them we were going to a pub crawl dressed as zombies they wouldn't believe us. We had the time of our lives. There were THOUSANDS of people dressed like zombies wandering around the streets of Minneapolis last night, it was wonderful. We drank and laughed and we're doing it again next year.

Ahhh Scrap!

Some new LOs for October! These first two are made with "School Beginnings" by Piccolina Designs. They're a two page spread and I used a template by Yin.


For this one I used October's collab "You're Beautiful". It's a tribute, of course, to breast cancer awareness but is also to be a tribute to women. To remind us that we're beautiful, ALWAYS. (Remember my princess picture?) Half of the proceeds from the kit will go to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
This was Mini Me's first popsicle. Ever. I know, I know, he's THREE and we used to live in FLORIDA and this is his FIRST POPSICLE? But the thing is he doesn't like to get his hands dirty. He used to fall and skin his knees and be more concerned about the sand on the palms of his hands than the blood running down his legs!
OK, one more silly little story. When he was younger, Mini called himself "Baby" and if he would eat something that made his hands dirty, he would frown and hold them out to me and say "Mommy. Baby sticky." Silly boy.

Art!

So today, my son came out of my bedroom where he'd been watching Nick Junior (whenever people tell me how smart he is I can barely resist blurting out "Really? Must be all the SpongeBob he watches!") and announced "Mommy, I want to do art with you!" So we did some art. Circles. We punched some and glued them, we dipped water bottle tops into paint and stamped them. I plopped some paints drips into his journal and we closed it and opened it - it made circles, but he wanted to do it again, so we smushed it some more and the circles were gone.Oh, yeah, we punched a few stars, too!

Don't worry, I'm getting to the point. It's this: he calls this his "journal". I didn't even know he knew what a journal was the first time he called it that. Hubby asked what he was doing and he replied "I'm working in my journal." Adorable? Totally. I've been making them - cutting the guts out of composition notebooks and stitching in file folders because they're thick enough for a toddler's scribbles and paints and because he hated the lined pages. This is an unmolested composition book and he's all right with it this time.

Anyway, I wanted you to know WHY I started doing this for him. First of all, I hate having a million pieces of loose paper with scribbles and smudges on them but I can't throw them away. I thought a book would be a good idea. I was right - it's perfect. I really like tossing it into my bag with my own journal or sketchbook when we're going out somewhere we might need to entertain ourselves (he's three - that's everywhere). AND he really likes it - it's a place to paint and glue stuff and glitter and stick things. He's never liked coloring books, but he likes to color and draw. It's so funny when he asks me for it and people looks at us like we're crazy.

For my BFF

This is a cigar box purse I'm making for my bestest friend. Is it silly that I'm 30 and I find this very amusing? Perhaps, but I don't care. This is the front:Side:Side:
SideBottom:
I want to add some words to the phone booth side and the one where she's sitting on the bench. Maybe add a little more silliness. I just wanted to post the progress because I'm pretty excited about it!

Angel

I already posted an angel with this quote, the journal page led to the painting and here she is all finished. I'm going to give her to a friend who has a heart of gold and seems to attract people who hurt and/or take advantage of her. I tried to take a pic and upload it straight from my phone with "mobile blogging" but it didn't work and my horrible computer doesn't recognize USB devices (yes, I know how to temporarily fix it, but really - how many times a day should it be necessary?) so I had to upload it to facebook and download it from there again.
The beeswax that I often use on paintings looks SUPER yellow on her for some reason. If it looks this bad tomorrow I'm going to reheat it on her face and wipe it off. Bleck.

On another note, a friend I've recently reconnected with on facebook called me today and we had a very amusing (to me) conversation about how she seems to attract crazy people. Apparently they hide it well for about a year, then LET IT OUT and start terrorizing her. The best part? That means I am NOT one of the crazies!! Who knew? See, people - I'm not as odd as you think I am!