Random Update

I know, I'm a bad, bad blogger.  I have been so busy, but we finally found a place to live.  YEA!!  We officially moved in on March 8th, and we still have a million, billion (not an exaggeration) boxes to unpack.  It is crazy!

I've got tons to catch up on, but for right now I just wanted to share this photo so I can delete it from my phone :-).

This was left on our back steps the day we moved in.  Let's just say our new neighbors rock!

Hope all is well with everyone, and I'll be back soon.

Sweet Home Alabama All Summer Long...

I LOVE me some Kid Rock!

 We saw him a couple of times this summer.  He puts on an AWESOME show!

Even if you don't like him, the audience is a hoot! Lots of fun people watching. ;-)

I tell ya, if I weren't a "grown up," I would be in serious danger of becoming a white-trash groupie.

How to draw a nekkid man

Chicken Little sent me this, saying she thought I might relate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br0MNFXpqzU

I did.

(And it's funny.)

Joy

I love color! ...and I love instant gratification.  And that's what this little project was all about.

Take all those broken crayons and peel the paper off.  Or not - that was the most tedious part, and I think it would be fine if the paper was left on.

Hot glue them to the top of a canvas, and then hit 'em with your heat gun.  I tried a hair dryer also, but it ended up blowing the wax too much.

I did this over an old cookie sheet and after I finished the first one, I noticed the drips!  OMG!  L.O.V.E.  Wish that I had done it over a big canvas....

So, I had to make a couple more just to try it.  It didn't work as well as the cookie sheet, but still pretty groovy. I think it would be REALLY awesome if the canvas background was painted black or charcoal first.

How can this not make you happy, happy, happy?

This was fun, but I have absolutely NO idea what I'm going to do with these.  Does anybody out there want one?  If so, shoot me an email.

Fun Way to Waste 10 Minutes

Want to know what's on your virtual desk top?  Click on this link, answer a few questions and voila...

Once your desktop appears, click on each item for a description of what it symbolizes.  Just a little mindless fun to break up your day.  :-)

Here's mine...

(If you click on the picture, it will take you to the page to see what each one means.)

Pre Mini-Camp

Yesterday I told you about the craft room I put together for our Soul Restoration Mini-Camps.  In addition to moving all that furniture around, for the last 2 -3 weeks, I have been working HARD to get everything else ready: planning, cleaning, making aprons for everyone, printing out fun clip art for us to use, pulling together all of my art supplies, and watching tons of techniques videos so I could explain the 'right way' to use all of them.

I also put together a box of goodies for each of the girls:

Originally, I saw these 2 for $3.00 photo boxes at Michael's and I thought they would be great for each person's apron, but I ended up adding a few other things...

 I decorated name tags for everyone. Front...

 ...and back.

Then, I put together a texture kit for each box.  I had bought some old-fashioned plastic doilies for myself to use as stencils, and I had tons of extras, so I included a couple of those, along with bubble wrap, punchinella, shelf liner, some mesh ribbon stuff and a hotel room key card for spreading paint.

(CONFESSION:  Seriously you guys, you have no idea what a BIG step this has been for me.  You can ask anyone in my family, I. DO. NOT. SHARE.  I've decided that is probably not one of my most appealing traits, so I'm taking baby steps here to overcome it.)

I gathered the apron, the texture kit, the box, the tag, and I found the accordion books we'll be needing later in the class on sale, so I got one of those for everyone. At work last week, they were cleaning out the storage closet, so I snagged those plastic file box things - perfect for putting clip art in and also for corralling all of the stuff you want to use on your projects.  I also dipped into my canvas stash, then I put most of it in the box, wrapped a ribbon around it, and put a name tag on it.

LOVED THESE!  SO CUTE lined up on that table!! :-)

Our craft-fests are from 11 - 5, so we're going to take turns bringing lunch each week.  I did it the first week.  We had chicken salad sandwiches on croissants, chips, cantaloupe and cookies. Obviously, I was working around the "C" theme for "C" for CRAFTING!  (not really, just a co-inky-dink that I just now noticed.)

Everybody watched the videos online before Saturday, so we all knew what we were doing and we could get right to work, but I went ahead and put all of it on a whiteboard as a reminder.  I set this up in the loft as a handy reference.

And this is the craft room/loft after everyone left.  Not bad, even though we didn't need to, everyone cleaned up their space a bit before they left.  It's still like this - ready and waiting for this weekend. 
It was So. Much. Fun! The time just flew by.  We're doing it again on Sunday this week - cannot wait!

Creating a Craft Room

I may have mentioned about a gabillion times, that I enrolled in the Brave Girls Club Soul Restoration 1 online workshop.  And because I really want to share as much of the Brave Girls Camp experience with everyone I know, I roped four other women into doing it with me (my mama, sister in law, step-daughter, and a bestie).  I invited them all over to my house for Saturday crafternoons - or Brave Girl Mini-Camps - while we're doing the workshop.  Of course, after I invited them, I had to figure out where we were all going to work!

I considered the kitchen, the dining room, and VERY briefly, squeezing everyone into my craft room/home office, and I finally decided to convert the loft in our house into a craft room.  Our loft area could be a game room or a den or a workout area, but mainly for us it's just the space at the top of the stairs.  We never use it.  That made it the perfect space for group-crafting - out of the way and we could just leave our stuff and not worry about cleaning everything up.

Whew!  It was a TON of work, but here's what it looked like before everyone showed up last week.

I moved the smaller furniture out  of the room and pushed the big stuff up against the wall so I could set up these two work tables.  I also covered the floor with drop cloths so we didn't have to worry about paint and glue drips.

Here's the view from the other direction.  At the end of the catwalk are Chicken Little's bedroom, my full-time craft room, and a bathroom.  As you can see, I moved most of the stuff out of my craft room into the loft.  I used one of those shoe organizer things to hold all the paint and various tools. 

It's a little cramped, but I also set up a sewing table and an area for hot glue guns, stamps and inks, and various other supplies.

The orange box holds the mists (Glimmer Mist, Adirondack Spray, etc) and the other box is to put your project in while you're misting it.  That stuff is MESSY!

This area holds all the scrapbook papers, clip art, and more bits and pieces (ribbon, rhinestones, buttons, etc.)

And finally, in that bathroom at the end of the catwalk I set up an area to do debossing on chip board or leather. 

FUN!!!!

Here's what everyone saw as they came up the stairs.  Tune in tomorrow and I'll tell you about those boxes... more fun!!

Linking up here and here.

Latest Obsession

Since I returned from Brave Girl Camp, I have been obsessed with a few things, but the one that seems to be consuming most of my time is cute-i-fying (yep, made that word up) aprons.  At camp, everyone was making their aprons fancy, and I didn't get a chance at camp, so I finished mine when I got home.

I loved it, and it only took me about 2 evenings to get it done.  It was quick and easy, and there began the crazy. 

Let's be clear - I do. not. sew.  Yet, I have been making ruffles and free sewing on my poor little $79 machine.  It's amazing what that little worker-bee can do.  Wanna see?  Ok, ya twisted my arm.  Here goes:

In case I haven't mentioned it, Joe is a chef  (a real chef, not just a my-man-does-all-the-cooking kind of chef). So, we had about, ohhhh...a MILLION aprons in the garage and laundry room.  Neither one of us EVER wore them at home, but they just kind of showed up.  They were just screaming to be embellished.

I had to respond, so I did ANOTHER green one, but in more fall-ish colors. 

 (I cannot get this to turn the right way - grrr!)

And another...

And, one more...

I don't love the rick-rack across the top on this one.  It may need to have a third or forth or fifth row of pom pom trim to cover it up.  I really like the rest of it though.

I am an apron-decorating rock star!  (In my humble opinion.)  :-)  And because of my apron, I'm famous now (LOL!) - click over to the homage to the apron that BGC posted yesterday. Look quick or you might miss me. I cannot possibly use all of these aprons, so I have been making them for the girls who are coming over for my Saturday Crafternoons, starting tomorrow.  I hope they have as much fun wearing them as I had making them!

Linking up here and here.

She is Rich

Christy Tomlinson's She Art Workshop is officially over, and I'm so bummed.  But, I have learned so much - so many techniques and clever ideas.  LOVED participating in this class - it was F.U.N.!  She is going to reopen the class in April.  If you are interested in getting your hands dirty and making some cute stuff, I strongly recommend it.  Also Christy is so cute and funny and a real pleasure to watch her videos.  (No, this isn't an ad, it was just my first online class and I really enjoyed it.  It's opened a whole new world of experiences and learning opportunities for me. Gotta LOVE that!)

This is the second girl I made based on the class materials.  The first one I made, you can check out here.  Actually, I made the first one before the class started, so technically this one is really my first with the benefit of the information I learned in the workshop.

I made her for my mama.  No special occasion, the saying was just swimming around in my head.  So, I took it out and put it down on this canvas.

This is mama.  She has the big, red, Farrah-Fawcett hairdo that I remember from my childhood.  Do not adjust your monitor, her hair really was that big, and I think the color on this is almost perfect.  That was her natural color - it was gorgeous and so striking. 

She also has a tendency towards bling - hence the rhinestone necklace and buttons on the coat.

The only artistic license I took is with the location.  You will rarely (never) find her standing in a field.  It's hot and there are bugs, and it just wouldn't happen.  :-)

I love the way the sun turned out.  It was a big pink flower that I cut out of a magazine or gardening catalog (can't remember which).  I just glued it on and then added paint and marker and rub-ons and stamped "faith" on it.  Just love it - almost like the color of some setting suns we've been seeing around here recently.

It says "She is rich beyond measure."  It was important to me that it be in the present tense, but also this has a lot of meaning.  We were pretty darn poor when I was a kid, and she has always talked about getting "rich".  As a single mom, she worked so hard all the time, and I'm sure that she wanted to get rich just so she could take a break!  Who can't relate to that?!  This is just a reminder (not that she needs it) that in so many ways she is already incredibly rich.

I'm so happy that I have been able to find so many ways to get crafty lately.  I have missed painting and collaging for the past several (probably 15!) years.  I gave it to her on Saturday - at first she thought that Chicken Little (the art student) had made it. HA - LOL!  She seemed to like it, so I took that as a compliment. :-)

I've got another 3 or 4 more of these girls floating around in my head.  I hope I get a chance to make one or two more this weekend.  FUN!!

Linking up here, here, here, here, here and here.

Glad I'm Here

I haven't been a fan of the birthday for several years, but I have a friend who LOVES birthdays.  The reason she likes them so much is because it's "the one day of the year we get to celebrate that fact that you are here."  Well....since you put it that way, it might not be so bad.

Saturday was my b-day.  Don't ask how many, that's not important - it's too many to get excited, but not enough to celebrate making it another year. :)  Anyhoo - all told - it was a pretty good day.

A couple of random shots from the day:

Joe walked in with this gorgeous bunch of flowers on Friday night. Lovely - off to a really good start!

 

I know, I know...  I said a few days ago that I gave up sugar for Lent.  I was doing so terrible that I just decided to stick with my no Diet Crack Pespi and going to mass every week resolutions, and to just drop the no sugar one.  I'm weak, but if I make it on the other two, I have made HUGE progress. 

Saturday morning (I use the word 'morning' loosely - I slept in til about 11:30), I woke up to these on the kitchen counter.  Now listen, we all know that I rarely meet a donut that I don't fall for like a bad boyfriend, but I am not a fan of the grocery store donut.  I REALLY, REALLY appreciate the thought and the effort, and I know that saying this makes me an ungrateful wretch, but I took one bite, let the box sit on the counter a few hours, and then threw them all away.  They were pretty gross. 

As for the cake, can you say "sugar coma"?  It was so sweet, it was suffering from it's own sugar crash (it seemed to be falling in on itself on one side).  We ate a few pieces and the rest of it went in the trash. 

Is that terrible?? None of us needed it, so it was probably for the best.

 

Chicken Little and I met my mother for lunch, and she had gotten me these SUPER CUTE salad plates (or maybe they are dessert plates, but I need to focus on the salad option for awhile).  Love, Love, Love them!

Because we'd been eat, eat, eating all day, instead of going to dinner, Joe, CL and I saw The King's Speech on Saturday night.  Joe was not excited about seeing it, but he ended up enjoying the movie.  It was WONDERFUL!  It deserved all the awards that it got.  If you haven't seen it, go, go, go - it was awesome!

Finally,



...one of the best presents I got was "the Super Moon."  It's a terrible picture, but I took this at 10:00 pm, and it was incredibly bright outside.  I hope you had a chance to see it - it was HUGE!  Joe told me that arranging this for my birthday "wasn't cheap."  LOL!  Whatever it cost, it was worth it - sooooo cool!

It was a good day - it was nice to be able to spend time with the family.  But the gluttony - ugh! - it's a good thing I have a year to recover!   :-)