Prayer Flag Swap

I wasn't going to join the prayer flag swap because I am not a spiritual person.  And yet, here I am. Blame Kelly, who was doing it and wanted me to do it and said it was OK even though I don't pray.

I started with little flowers, made using a Donna Downey tutorial from an old INspiration Wednesday. Of course, her foundation was felt and mine is cardstock, and she used fabric glue and I used Elmer's, but still - the flowers came out SUPER cute. I love them and I hope the recipients love them, too!

I guess I didn't photograph each step like I should because here the flag is sprayed (the blue background AND the orange flower) and the step painted. I used alcohol sprays I made myself and glue the flower onto the canvas with more Elmer's glue. Trust me, no one who's getting a flag reads my blog so they'll never know.

I added a little fabric ruffle to the bottom. I have no idea how to actually make ruffle, so I scrunched up some fabric one little bit at a time and ironed it, then I sewed it on with a few back and forth lines because I wanted you to be able to see the stitching, I wanted that to be part of the flag.

Next, the word or words. I simply don't have very many. I was thinking of writing "bloom" with a Glaze pen, I practiced it over and over in my sketch book. But then I dug around in my stamps to see if I could add anything else to them, and I found the "dream" stamp. Blooming, dreaming, neither of these are praying, exactly, but dreaming could lead to praying, couldn't it? We have to dream of what we want before we can ask God for it, don't we? I don't know. It seemed OK, so I went with it. I stamped it with StazOn, thinking permanent was good, but it doesn't matter because if the thing gets wet, it's toast - Elmer's is washable!!

I'm not sure if I like the fairy on it, but I asked my peeps for a vote and they said keep it, so it's staying.

I know it looks like there's a big space at the top, and there is - we're supposed to leave the top two inches clear for hanging, so I did (other than the spray, which wont interfere in the hanging process). I don't know if I like them, but I really like swapping. I just to swap quilt blocks and I kind of miss that. I made six - five to swap with my group and one for Kelly. The more I look at it, the more I feel like it might still need something.

Breeze by Farynar's Wings

A super pretty new kit, released today!!

She also made a couple of templates to go with the kit! I absolutely LOVE templates, I have no idea why. Maybe because it helps me figure out where to put the embellishments. I'm sort of sucky at that part!

Here is what I did with the kit and templates:

My mom always says she looks like "crap" when I want to take a picture of her. Silly lady!

This one is my little silly face when he was about six months old. He makes me smile!

A teeny tiny change

This was completely surprising to me. Maybe the whole world knows this already? If so, how come no one told me?? This is the mom from my Angry Banana animation (I got an A, by the way, AND my teacher showed it at the end-of-quarter showcase - the ONLY one he showed) and here she is looking happy:

And here, angry:

So, anyone who is familiar with photoshop can see the background. This is a digitally drawn figure, I made her in Flash, so when I tell you that the top one and the bottom one are the EXACT same one, I don't mean I redrew her the same way or made a copy somehow - it is LITERALLY the EXACT same face except in one she has angry eyebrows and in the other she doesn't. That is the ONLY thing I changed. I'm the one who did it and I can still hardly believe it. Is this amazing or am I just crazy? (Wait - don't answer that...)

Peeking...

I'm giving journaling a different way a try. No way will I do this long term, I'm not really a "cutsie" kind of chick and this is a little too much for me. I do think it's cute, but not very journal-y. I dunno, maybe it is. 

Chili's Crackle

This was right on the wall at Chili's! How fun is that??

A Carving Date

What are we carving? What else: zombie bunnies!

Krusty Krab

Built it with my own two hands!

One of the headlights is missing...

The cheekster and I had a lot of fun playing with these!! 

PS Four months today is my birthday - start saving your pennies! I like video games and paper. :) 

Zombie bunnies!

And their human zombie, pretending to be a bunny! Look out world, the zombie bunnies are going out in an ATC swap for Easter.

I wonder why...

Sometimes I think blogging daily is silly. I mean, it's mostly pointless. It doesn't help the world or change anyone's life. I don't expect my great-great-great grandchildren to read this blog one day searching for wisdom. But on a day like today where I've done basically nothing - I'm sitting on the couch in my pajamas (still) at 5:08 pm, the house could certainly be cleaner, Mini Me is watching Nickelodeon, I'm blog surfing - taking five minutes to think about what I could blog makes me remember that I HAVE done things today. I made breakfast burritos. I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. I baked lemon cake and turned it into cake balls. I did two loads of laundry. I talked to my friend Tami in Ireland and my friend Suzi in NJ. I sketched. I made expresso. I scrapbooked. I sketched some more. I did some of it while sitting on the couch, and some of it in combo (talked to Tami while unloading dishes). I played about a million rounds of Draw Something. Even though the things are small, even though they matter only to me and two other people on the planet, they're something. I did lots of somethings. Even on the days where it feels like ALL I've done is sit on the couch, that's NEVER reality. But on the rare day that I haven't done art AT ALL, knowing that I want to be able to post something on my blog is enough to move my ass from the couch to the paint table. Sometimes all I can manage is a scrapbook page or an ATC. Some days I do a zillion art projects and then have blog fodder for a week or two. Today, so far, I haven't done a lot of art. Not none, but nothing post-able. So I'll leave you with this:

Chocolate covered lemony goodness. I LOVE lemon cake balls!

Kitchy Kitchen!

I LOVE food related kits. I have NO IDEA why, I just do. Here is Mini Me flipping his first pancakes!

Cartoon: March 4

I'm so damn PROUD of this page! I think it came out super cute. I have to add some words and erase the pencil lines before color goes on, but it makes me happy!

Watercolor Tree

First, tape on a canvas board:

Next, a five-year-old and watercolors:

Goog & TJ love 5 Guys...

Cartoon March: 3

I've still yet to be able to do this for an entire month. I REALLY need to just sit down every morning and do the previous day's cartoons. Maybe April 2012 will be the month?

World's Greatest iPhone App: Draw Something

It's like Pictionary for your phone, only BETTER! It's truly amazing. 

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...

That's Amore! New kit by Piccolina Designs, available at Ahhh Scrap!

Inspired by Amy McDonald

I really liked the way Amy did hair one day - it totally made me think of fairies, because it's totally out of the way for flying and ding magic. I loved it, so I tried it!

And since it was on canvas board, not paper like usual, I headed straight for paint. No colored pencils.

Voila! Fairy!

Where's Waldo??

Just kidding, I have no idea where Waldo is! Ignore the mess and focus on the two journals - mine on the left and Liam's on the right. See the freshly painted rainbow? They're his new thing to paint. Usually he just slops paint on top of paint until there's a big mess and he gets all mad and says "It looks like garbage, I'm throwing it away!" (Don't worry, I don't let him do that!) Anyway, I got up from the table and was coming back to sit and thought it was fun to see them both there open, drying together. I love that crazy kid!

Lights, Camera, Popcorn!

A kit by Piccolina Designs, isn't it cute? This is Mini's first 3D movie, I totally love the picture!

I also think this is a good example of using a horribly taken picture ANYWAY. Scrapbooking isn't about perfection, it's about life. Will the world come to an end if I don't scrap Liam's first 3D movie? Nope. Is it going to end because I used a crappy iPhone picture? Nope. My friend Sean took him to this movie and I thought it was amazingly sweet of him, especially because he took a picture for me when I couldn't be there. Memories aren't dependent on photo quality.

Check these out!

How sweet is this?!? Misty Frederick-Ritz sent me four ATCs! I can already see them in a frame, hanging together! AND, even cooler - I think they're prints. I don't know why, but I find prints fascinating!

Just think - if you have a piece that you know is amazing and you don't want to sell the real thing, it could be prints, or notecards, or even ATCs! I'm going to email Misty right now and thank her for these. 

ATC Swap!

I can't believe I never showed you these! We did a swap over at Suzi's Academy and these are the ones my partners sent me! Aren't they fantastic?? We had so much fun we're gonna swap again. 

This one has very shimmery eyes - you know how I like that - but it's SO hard to get a picture of!!

Shopping Spree!

My husband talked me into ALL these markers! He really liked the BV04 because I used to have a car that color. Silly man! He loves to shop and is always trying to get me to spend MORE money. 

Mommy, can we paint a rainbow?

Journey into watercolor

So, I was trying to channel my inner Ajae for this drawing. She makes the pretties noses (and eyes and lips and hair) so I was trying to be more like her and less like a kindergartener with an iron grip on my pencil.

The drawing itself came out pretty good. Sort of. Not horrible, anyway.

But I just can't seem to get the hang of watercolors. I'm not subtle enough for them, maybe. 

So, I ditched the idea of subtle and went the way I always go, BRIGHT.

She's finished, I think. I sprayed some fixative on her and she's outside drying. I might play with her a little more, but for the most part she's done. Now I have to decide what to DO with her. I'm thinking of taking her to school tonight and scanning her so I have a nice digital copy. I'm in love with digitally manipulating stuff, and being able to print stuff over and over and over. What can I say, I'm easily amused!

A Lovely Mess

Another page making skart date with Kelly :) 

Oh, Glimmer Mist, how I love thee...

I was skarting with Kelly (remember that's skype + art) and she was using gorgeous glimmer mists on what she was working on and I was using the alcohol sprays I made. I love my sprays, I really, really do. The colors are fabulous, I just made a bunch of new ones with some different color markers, they're awesome.

But. (You knew it was coming, didn't you?) But glimmer mists are so shimmery. I love shimmery stuff. Iridescence has always been something I love. So Kelly suggests that I just try putting some mica powder in with the alcohol. I remind her that it doesn't have a binder and she tells me that if you rub your hand over glimmer mist that the shimmery stuff comes off! So I figured, what the hell?

I used the back end of a spoon to scoop it out and put it into the bottles:

These bottles are from Target, they cost $1.19 in the travel section which is .20 more than the Wal-Mart bottles - I threw all of the Wal-Mart ones away and replaced them with these ones from Target and I am CHEAP, so that tells you the Wal-Mart ones are super crappy!

Then I couldn't stop myself, you know how I get - I added the shimmer to ALL of them...

They are FANTASTIC. I bet if you sprayed one of mine beside a Glimmer Mist, you'd never be able to tell the difference. I absolutely LOVE them. And yes, some of the shimmer comes off if I scrub at it, but it doesn't just fall off (it's not glitter) and watercolor paint comes off if you scrub at it, too, so what's the harm?