Cubes!!

OK, so remember the puzzle cube I made for a little girl I know with the family pics I took? Today me and Mini were hanging out with her dad and little bro at our indoor play area and I brought it along to show him and he asked me to make THREE MORE for Christmas presents and he's going to PAY ME for them! How about that? I'm so excited. That's not the only exciting news I have, but I don't think I'm allowed to tell the other part yet, so I'll wait...

So I spent today making puzzle cubes and printing pictures. Good times!

Kelly's Journal

I made this journal for my friend Kelly and I watched Donna's latest Inspiration Wednesday video and I was totally inspired. So, this is the cover! It's a hardcover book that I glued the journal guts into, so I gessoed it a little, and the rest is just acrylic paints. I don't have cool inks and stuff like Donna does, so the writing is a Sharpie water-based poster paint marker and the yellow is acrylic paint with glaze medium over it to make it shiny!

I was super excited about it and I think Kelly really liked it. She pretended really well, if not!

The copic adventure continues

If anyone cares, they're going on sale at Blick's tomorrow. I got them for $4.48 a piece today instead of the $5.99 I was expecting! Usually I sort of just buy whatever colors look like fun to me but today I had more of a purpose. Skin colors and background colors for ATCs. I've decided I'm just going to make ATCs and start sending them to a friend to get them out of my house (Otherwise I stare at them and convince myself I'm a horrible artist and really, what difference does it make if I AM a horrible artist? I only make art for me and to give away, and beggars can't be choosers.) but don't tell her because she doesn't know it yet!

So, in an effort to get to know my markers better, I turned (of course) to my Moleskine. Now, I started this page last night. Suzi advised me to draw late at night when I'm tired with a pen so I can't erase. I'm not quite to that point yet, but it's possible to get there. Maybe. But I was feeling really un-artistic yesterday because I'm about to get my period and it always makes me feel indigo. So when I went to bed and couldn't sleep, I brought my journal and doodled. First I wrote about feeling uninspired (in green sparkly pen), then I drew over it (pencil!). Recently Illustration Friday's prompt was "racing" and instead of Nascar, I thought of racing hearts...that was the inspiration for the little couple and their little hearts. Anyway (geez, sometimes I just babble on and on, don't I?) I bought some new markers today and decided to just USE them in my Moleskine instead of staring at them for awhile first.So, THIS is the friend I'm going to send the ATCs to. DON'T TELL HER! I just want them to start randomly showing up at her house.

NaNoWriMo

OK, the above stands for National Novel Writing Month. Feel free to look it up if you've never heard of it, I don't make these things up. I have a HUGE pet peeve with what people change "NaNoWriMo" to. For example, I got a Facebook message talking about NaNoJouMo and how that meant we were supposed to journal everyday. I gotta tell ya - National Novel Journal Month just doesn't really seem correct. How about NaJouWriMo? Doesn't that make more sense? National Journal Writing Month. Seems better to me. I really hate when someone is supposed to be a leader of some kind - Hey, come join this group I've started, it's going to be wonderful! - can't get things grammatically correct. Now, I do realize that I have a spelling problem. I'm not a bad speller. In fact, I'm a really GOOD speller. But I have dyslexia. (That's a hard word for someone with dyslexia to spell, in case you were wondering.) So I mix things up and sometimes I post the blog before I realize it. But isn't this just common sense? It's like when an advertisement says "chip's only .59" and I want to say "Your second grade education was free, maybe you should head back there and discuss this with your teacher."

On a different note, I spent most of today organizing the den which now holds all of my art and sewing supplies (including my broken sewing machine). I didn't get to make a lot of art today, but I did work on these two ATCs that I have to show you. I'm playing with my stupid copics and they're just not easy for me. I need some lessons.

OK, and one quick one of Mini while we were waiting for the bus because I think he's a cutie pie.

Mermaids in crisis

It was a stressful mermaid day today so I got very little art done. Just one LO for you today! It's made with Crazy 4 Monogram's "It's a Boy Thing" kit and using a template made by Urban Mom Scraps.
The play date was MINE, by the way. Not his. :)

November Calendar

Made this tonight while skyping with Kelly! :)

Bee girls all finished!!

OK, so they're drawn on Strathmore Bristol (smooth) paper. Outlined in Sharpie pen (no, of COURSE I didn't draw them in pen, I drew them in pencil and then inked and erased the pencil lines) and colored with Copic markers. I say COE-pick, even in my head. Some people say COP-ick. Whatever.
Same pic - without flash and with. Two of them have blue eyes an done has green. I don't have a lot of copic colors yet, they're EXPENSIVE, but I actually kind of enjoyed coloring them. After I did the first one and got all the frustration out, anyway. They're for trade, the red one will be going to Tal in Australia and the green background one to Kelly in St. Paul. (OK, I probably won't mail that one...would be funny if I did, though!) The one going to Kelly has her blue eyes and she has a little brown part on her right eye (left as you're looking at it) because Kelly has that! And on top of the hive is a little queen bee. Kelly likes the tilted ones because she said you can almost FEEL her tipping over but I want Kelly to have the balanced one because I feel like Kelly balances everything in her life very well. She is calm and patient, even when she doesn't think she is. I might add some words to them, but I'm not sure...opinions?