Decked Out in Denim

I altered this cute notebook for my niece's 12th birthday. I loved this idea of recycling jeans into a fun gift, perfect for a pre-teen girl, complete with a funky belt to hold it closed. I got the idea here.

Unfortunately we were unable to make it to her birthday party on Saturday due to blizzard-like conditions. Looks like the weather's cleared up now, so we'll be stopping by to give this to her today.

Another family birthday -- Today is my dad's birthday, so if you're reading this, Dad . . . Happy Birthday! :)

Nine

J turned 9 a couple weeks ago. So hard to believe! And he'll be an entire decade next year - wow. He's becoming so grown up. We were pretty busy with school and a cub scout meeting on the actual day of his birthday. We had just one present to give him - a very small, very light box. He opened it and it was a cut out picture of a bike. He tried so hard to be polite, thinking of all the things he could do with his picture, hang it on his bulliten board maybe. We soon broke it to him that we were going to take him out to get a new bike. We had to wrap it up like that because we couldn't take him out till the next day. He found one that he really liked at Walmart. Now just to wait till the snow's all gone to ride it.

J had a slumber party to celebrate his birthday with 5 of his closest friends last weekend. It went rather well - the boys are all good kids and they had lots of fun playing games, eating pizza, and watching a movie. The power went out here about an hour before the party. I had planned on making frozen pizzas, but ran out to Little Caesars for their Hot and Ready pizzas since I had no way of cooking them. Wouldn't you know the power came back on just before I pulled into my driveway on my way home from getting the pizzas. Oh well, at least it was back on. I sent all the boys to bed in J's room in their sleeping bags about 10:30. I think they all finally got to sleep about 1:30 am. I didn't want to go to bed until they were all asleep so that was about 2, and can you believe those kids were up at 7 am?! I was so tired the next morning. It was worth it though - J had a great birthday party and I heard talks of it being the best party ever. :)

Flamingo

I really enjoyed drawing this bird in charcoal pencil. I hadn't picked up any charcoal in a while and knew this would be good exercise for me. I love how it turned out.

Thought for the day

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
~Scott Adams

Illustration Friday - Blanket

This week's Illustration Friday topic is blanket and what is sweeter than a baby under a blanket?

A new year, a new post (finally!)

Has it really been almost 4 months since I last updated my blog?? I guess life has just gotten in the way lately. My apologies to the 2 people that read this blog. ;) LOL

We've been so busy around here. I was working during the holidays and of course the holidays itself is so busy. We're working hard on remodeling and organizing our house. So much work to be done! We're almost done with B's room. I'm almost done with the paint and we've ordered carpet to be installed. Then to get started on the 2nd bath/laundry room.

Lately I've felt a little burnt out on scrapbooking and playing the whole publication game. I haven't been doing much with that lately as I'm trying to get my priorities in order. I'm certainly not going to give up on scrapping completely, just slow down a little maybe? It's something I need to make fun again and not feel so much like work. On that note, I'm starting a new project called Deck of Me. It's a fun challenge I found on this blog. It is taking a deck of cards and altering one a week for 52 weeks and turning into a mini-album/journal. Currently we're on week 4 and I haven't actually started but I hope to catch up soon. At least I found a deck of cards to use! LOL

I'm also doing fun stuff for Frances Meyer with new papers they're developing and I'm still on the DT at The School of Scrap. Classes are starting back up in February and I'm excited to be the new Advanced Math teacher.

I've felt such a need lately to pick up my brushes and pencils and renew my passion in creating artwork. It's been so long since I've painted or drawn anything. Again, life. I've drawn a few pictures recently. Here's one I've titled Pondering.



I've been hanging out at a place called Wet Canvas lately. It's a wonderful artist's community with so much support, information, and resources. I'm taking some refersher courses there, just for fun. I hope to share more soon.

Reminisce contest

I've decided to throw my hat in the ring for the Reminisce DT contest. I had so much fun using the Boys Gone Wild line from Reminisce to make a mini book about Brandon and his toddler years. All patterned paper, stickers, and most rub-ons are Reminisce. I used Tie One On ribbon that went quite well with the fun colors and patterns of the paper line and also used some Frances Meyer cardstock. This little book was so much fun to make!

Click on each individual picture to see it larger and in more detail.

Club Scrap Bistro

Another great sponsor of The School of Scrap is Club Scrap. They offer gorgeous monthly kits with beautiul unique papers, matching ribbons, embellishments, and stamps. Here are some of my recent projects using the Bistro kit.

I altered a pair of flip flops to create a mini album of some things we did this past summer. I still had plenty of paper and embellishments left from the kit to create several layouts and cards.

Tie One On

August and September have been extremely busy months . . . Here's a quick look at a few things I've been doing . . .

Tie One On Ribbon Club has continually been a fantastic sponsor for The School of Scrap. Here are a few of the projects I've finished for them.













These last two also feature products from Club Scrap, another amazing sponsor for The School of Scrap. More on those projects in my next post . . .

A Quick Update and Inspiration from a Child

It's been such a long time since I've blogged . . . Summer has just been so busy.

So here's my news: I'm officially on the School of Scrap DT!
I'm so excited to be on the faculty there with such amazingly talented women! I just got a DT package the other day filled with Club Scrap goodness and some other yummy stuff from some more sponsors. I'm going to be a busy girl! In addition to playing with lots of fun product, I also get to teach a class. My assignment for Music class this month is to create a summer LO using a summer song as the title. I hope you'll check it out and play along.

Speaking of packages, I also got another fabulous package from Frances Meyer last week too! This time it was lots of yummy art products and textured cardstock. I am having so much fun playing with all my new goodies and working on plenty of submissions.

I'm not the only one having a good time playing in my studio. My kids were in here last week playing with stickers and J came up with this gem - The Great Crayon War.


He insisted I post it online so I told him I'd put it on my blog. I think it is so cute and creative.That got me thinking about how talented and creative he is. Of course he think's he is not . . . wonder where he got that from? J is such a perfectionist and his own worst critic, just like his mother. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I have to post another of his creations too.


This painting is framed and sitting on an easel in my studio. This is the most amazing painting I have ever seen by J! When he brought it home from school last Spring, I flipped out and was gushing all over it. I told R, the only thing I wanted for Mother's Day this year was to have it framed so I could hang it in my studio. Yes, I know it's my kid's painting and maybe I'm a little biased, but I was so impressed with his creativity. The kid's only 8 years old and I think he did a fantastic job. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but he did a cool resist technique to give the dragon scales texture. I must use his painting as inspiration.

Stepping down off my soapbox now . . .

Before I go, I do want to say that my dad is recovering quite well from open heart surgery a few weeks ago. I don't think the doctors could have done a better job. And for that I am glad.