Be on the lookout...

I'll be listing lots of odds and ends bead sets on Etsy over the next week...Just need some sunshine for decent pictures.

Nothing much going on around here to gab about. Lots of organising and freecycling mainly... Nothing beats the feeling of getting rid of your trash especially when it's someone else's treasure. Chloe's finally back to school after her bout with strep throat. Working on the 2cd art card challenge...This one is a bit tougher so I'm sitting on it for a few days trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it. I am thinking it's going to be low-key and simple.

A-choo!

I've been hit with a nasty headcold. What a way to spend a weekend. *wah*

I renewed a few items in my Etsy shop and will be adding more over the weekend. Pop by if you feel like looking around. :) My shop has been empty for far too long.

52 Q

I read Emily Falconbridge's blog regularly and she has started a new art challenge for 2009 that I decided to sign up for. It looks like it will be fun/interesting and hopefully stir up the creative juices. I'm always up for a challenge and something new.

Basically each week she will ask a question and you take that question and make a mini art card (or whatever you so choose) with your answer. After pitching the first one I started I finally completed one last night and posted it in the Flikr group where everyone who joined will be sharing their completed projects.

Stop by and take a look through some of them-they're really interesting! I love seeing what everyone comes up with. Here's mine:



In other news: yesterday me and my friend Kim were gabbing on webcam and-the goobers we are- gave each other kitchen tours (cabinets and all-lol) I think it started with my whine of feeling so unorganized lately. As Travis says "organised chaos" and I hate it-but I feel like I never have a free arm to get anything done lately. SO-I've been a busy bee today-my kitchen looks like it was hit with a tornado but lots of cabinets have been rearranged and shelves readjusted up or down and things OFF the counters. Loving it so far. Doesn't take much to get a fire lit under me.

Off to finish it up!

Uh-oh...it starts this early???

She'd kill me if she knew I was doing this -lol!

(written by a boy on Chloe's bus)

Dear Chloe,
this is for you, (picture of a dog)*(i think?)
love,gabe (ya his name is gabe too)

next note-torn from his notebook by the kid sitting w/ him to torture him and get it to chloe

I *heart* chloe
she is cute
and when she smile
she look
beuteful

Say it with me now...AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW...(and eek! 2cd grade?)

She came tearing through the yard from the bus yesterday with this look on her face and papers in her hand. She says READ THIS all exasperated sounding BEFORE I TEAR THEM UP!!! I read-did the awwwwwww-then when she tried to tear them up I told her she should keep them and put them away somewhere. I think it's sweet and she'll appreciate it one day when she's older. I can't beleive she listened to me. :)

Last night she started indoor soccer on an older league (10 and under-she's 7 1/2) and I've just gotta brag for a minute-SHE ROCKED! Usually she's a little timid on the field for some reason-runs alot but not many kicks in. But for some reason with these girls being MUCH bigger than she was she was aggressive and getting her foot in there to steal and blocking-I was so proud! She did end the game with a smacked ball to the gut and some tears but was fine and I think she was pleased with how she played as well.

Oh-and yesterday I didn't get those last 3 things done (trying to be accountable here!) so boxes,yearly goals and etsy didn't get done but I did figure out wii fit! :) So rollin em over to today-lol.

What can be done in a day?

Chloe came home with a cough after spending New Years with our friends up north. It's now passed to Gabe and of coarse blows up into this huge thing. Almost at 104 temp yesterday and was up most of the night talking in his sleep and acting disoriented even after his fever broke. It always settles into his chest and sounds so awful-scary.

I've been playing around with the blog if you haven't noticed. I messed around yesterday making the new header-that was fun. I have a boatload of blogs to add to my list on the side that I haven't gotten around to doing...maybe later today.

I started the artist way morning pages this morning. Oy! 45 minutes of writing when the alarm went off-so needless to say I didn't get a chance to shower. lol. I can't believe I'm going to have to set my alarm earlier just to WRITE...sigh. I wasn't at a loss for words like I expected to be though. Funny when you're used to typing more (like we all are these days I think) when you go to write so much longhand your arm and hand starts cramping up-lol.

Todays goals: rearrange Gabe's bedroom to accomidate the huge train table that's smack dab in the center like an island, clean upstairs, add blog list, make my bead goals for the year on here so I have something to follow and work on a listing or 2 for etsy. OH! And order some boxes! Doesn't sound like a ton but with one sick and one crying and teething anything is a challenge. Enough for the day I think-hopefully I can check em all off later :)

OH! I have had a facebook page for quite awhile but never mess around on there at all. I tend to forget I even have it until I get an email saying someone added me as a friend then I check it. Anyhow, got on yesterday and figured out the high school checker and started poking around adding people-it was so fun to see people I went to school with-some I didn't know very well and some who were great friends who moved and lost touch. I heard back from one that just gave me a huge smile when I read her note. I'm excited about reconnecting with her :) (yes,YOU,Heather!)

Happy Birthday to me...

After me telling Chloe that I was 26 quite awhile back she believed it and tells everyone I am 26. Works for me. She's 10 years off but I'm not correcting her. I figure as long as she thinks I'm younger I'll feel that way too. I told Trav if this keeps up year after year it she will sit and think gee, were you really 14 when you had me?

Here's a shot of what we were doing last year on my birthday~
MGM on our 2cd day at Disney watching Beauty and the Beast...



The light display there was so cool!



I can't beleive a whole year has flown by so fast. Feels like yesterday.

So I get to pick whats for dinner tonite. :) I'm thinking a run for Thai is in order-it's been at least 6 months. Hoping they're open since it's Sunday-and since I"m craving it they probably won't be...eek.

We had yet another xmas this morning (with Trav's dad and step mom) since they went on a cruise over xmas. Gabe got a new train table and I'm still trying to figure out who had more fun setting things up- Gabe, Chloe or Travis? I'm also anxious to try out the wii fit they gave us :) looks neat!

A year of goals

This was another custom order for a friend's sister. Thought I'd wait until after xmas to show it in case she stopped by-lol.

So I was reading Linda Lawrence's blog and love her idea of having the goal of concentrating on something in particular each month for bead designs. Especially things that you're not feeling too confident in or would like to tweak. great idea-and I work better if I have something in writing to follow along. I haven't written up what I'd like to be working on yet-I'll work on that this week. Ohhhhhhhh I got a few new fun mandrels to play with for xmas! I'll definately have to work in designs from them!! (a cone mandrel, button hole mandrel and a puffy one-helps with hollow beads-FUN!!)

Also, I think for awhile I'm going to concentrate on listing some bead sets on etsy. (and lots of hearts for Valentines day!) Oops-I also have a few leftovers from the art association show I need to get listed and forgot...Speaking of that show-it went fairly well, I sold more than last year but concidering the economy I wasn't expecting much anyway.

Starting fresh

Happy New Year!!!!!!

I've had a couple of days to just chill and gather my thoughts-they seem to be running rampant lately. I'm not one for New Year's resolutions-I think they're silly and I never stick to them-but this time of year does get me thinking about changes I could incorporate in my life.

So I like to call them GOALS. I haven't actually sat and written anything out-this is on the fly-some of my random thoughts lately.

Happiness. That's a huge one I want to work on-not just for me but for members of my family. I'd love life to be more stress free and just-happier. How does one make that happen? Not sure-but it's certainly a goal-as well as healthier eating, more quality time together(game nights?),etc.

Health. Our doctor kinda sucks. We've needed a new one for years and never get around to getting a new one. That needs to be lined up and also a new pulmonologist for myself to keep up w/ my sarcoidosis. With my recent allergy testing and breathing issues it's made me a bit paranoid about torching and want to speak w/ a lung dr at length on this.

I've started a new project as well. A book set I asked for for Christmas and received from my mother in law that I've wanted for years. It's called The Artist's Way and it's basically a guide for getting unblocked as an artist and freeing your creativity. I love the premise of it but so far it sounds like it's going to require a lot of time and committment. (Setting my alarm 1/2 hr early to write 3 pages long hand of random waking thoughts? Oh my...LOL.) We'll see how this works out. It's a 12week coarse-I'm optimistic though...

OH!!-it also requires a weekly artist date w/ yourself-forcing yourself to go somewhere alone to do something special for yourself. Whether it's going thru Starbucks for a coffee by myself or wandering around Barnes and Noble by myself for 1/2 hr (sounds like heaven!) just to BE. This should be interesting since my life revolves around the kids-my needs haven't been looked into for 7 yrs! I'm not quite sure where to start-lol.

All I want for Christmas...

is my 2 front teeth-----to come in already for I could quit crying...lol. Oh and some jammies. Santa, I seem to have had a blowout.



Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas from our house to yours. :)

i think*i hope*i pray

that I'm done shopping for Xmas...I keep going over and over my list thinking I've forgotten something-but isn't it like that every year?

Wow, I've been hearing so many stories of it taking over 1/2 hr to get from one parking lot to the next or just that long to get OUT of a parking lot. I'm so thankful I'm finished and can officially stay in here (blogging-lol) in my pj's while 2 boys are snoring upstairs in a warm house. I'm watching the "wintery mix" out the window the weatherman is talking about on the tv right now.

We've gotten a big jump-start on wrapping each night when the kids are in bed. Only 1gift for Chloe has made it under the tree and you'd think it was a box of gold the way she is eyeballing it -so excited. She can't stop talking about that one little bitty gift-it's hilarious. If she only knew how many were in the basement. lol

There's been a few times in the past week that Santa (or the lack thereof) has been brought up in our house. Apparently a boy in her class announced that there is no Santa (what?) and that their parents lie and buy it all and wrap and sneak it under the tree when they're asleep. When asked what she believes she says (chuckle) that she DOES believe but she didn't tell him cos she didn't want to get into it. She says she KNOWS there's NO WAY her parents could afford all of that and that the whole idea is NUTS. Like my mp3 player from last year was in the HUNDREDSSSSS there's no way you could buy that for me! (um...try 29.95 cough cough but ok...)

Stupid people suck!

Open letter to the dumbass who hit my 2 yr old with her car in the doctor's parking lot this am:
Scrape your damn windows! How hard is it-really!? Look before you back out-you're in a PARKING LOT there may be PEOPLE walking by your CARRRRRRRR...

(*%^&$%^*%(*_*&^&^$^&$&$%
lol
Ok I guess I'm done.

What an eventful morning!! So I go in for a checkup with the urologist to talk about the pathology of that nasty kidney stone and on the way in this lady just puts it in reverse and runs right into Gabe!!! (This kid-I'm thinking doesn't have the best of luck-huh?) Now honestly-I don't know how hard she really hit him...I screamed as I felt him going down while holding his hand-not sure if it was the car that pushed him or him slipping on the snow as he tried to get out of the way since it all happened so fast. I yanked him-hard-a couple feet and she stopped and just sat there. Oh ya- lady? Thanks for getting out or even cracking your window to ask if he was ok by the way...errrrrrrrrrr...

So I squat and brush the snow off of his ENTIRE BODY since I drug him out of the way and she sits there not moving-staring at us in horror thru the 5 inch swoosh of open glass she thinks is appropriate to brush off her drivers side window to see out. I give her the eye. I shake my head. I yell a couple choice words. She sits there. Says not a word. As we walk in I turn and look back a couple of times and she's still sitting there backed 1/2 way out. Probably shitting herself. I hope so.

The receptionist asks if it's slick out. I said ya but luckily I didn't slip when I had to yank him out from under the bumper of a car out there. That's when it happened. Oh boy.....tears galore!!!!! Total mama meltdown w/ bout...oh say...20? people staring at me?! She runs to get her boss and they wisk us back to an exam room and check Gabe out all over. I said the only thing hurting if any would be his shoulder from me yanking him as hard as I did...He's totally fine thank God and it could have been so much worse...Doesn't stop me from shaking like a leaf and bawling though...So in comes hospital security.....then a Spfld cop to take reports. mortified. No I didn't get her license plate. Dummy.

Oh ya in other news-wooooooooohoooooooooooooo I can't eat chocolate anymore! What's that you say? yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa CHOCOLATE you heard me right. Things are not right in thsi world today. He says the pathology shows it's dietary. Here's your list of food to avoid. I scroll down saying ah not bad,I don't drink soda,coffee,tea much...eh tofu? no problem...say whaaaaaaaa?????-does this say chocolate? You've gotta be kiddin me! God help me it's the holdiays!

Oh-and you should know-I brushed every*stinkin*snowflake off of each and every window of the van when we left!!

awol

So I'm typing away the other day and my screen goes dim-check my plugs, then find the light on the power box thingie on the cord is out. Trav has had to resolder some connections in there a few times-it had officially bit the dust.

So thank goodness that my brother in law has an old laptop he doesn't use often since he prefers his desktop. It's gotten us by for a few days to finish up some xmas shopping online and to order a new power source and also a new laptop(merry xmas to us, huh?)-so now we'll have 2-no more racing to see who gets to the computer first-lol. Seriously-we needed a new one so bad anyway-it runs sooooooooo slow.

I have been having some SERIOUS AOL-IM withdrawls here!I hate that I can't upload pics, no photoshop to work with, can't access my photos on the comp to make xmas gifts I had planned......that power cord better get here FAST! I have too much to do! **panic!!**

Ohhhhhhhhhh but in other GOOD news!! I went shopping tonite at that crazy Design Ideas holiday store they do every yr (gel gems galore...) and snagged some really cute candle sticks for the dining room. Everything else ended up to be display type stuff for jewelry...I don't get it-I went in looking for stocking stuffers and came out with these crazy looking glass contraptions-I think they were called "candle aquariums" anyhow,they're metal and have glass on all 3 sides bout 10 inches high-maybe 16 inches long or more...I am totally seeing them as jewelry displays. I bought 2...I wonder if I need to go back for more........eek! I think I will...lol. Now I just have to fiddle around with how to make it into something...Sure wish I could post a picture *cough cough* and get ideas from others what I could do with them...soon enough...OHHHHHHHHHH I also got these huge humungous hot pink flowers for my front door! Come on spring! Hurry up and get here so I can put these puppies on my front door! lol.

Why am I excited over working?

I'll be working at the Art Association today until noon. Come visit me! What's that I hear? No diapers? No whining? No fighting? Adult interaction? Cool artwork? I am SO there. They may have to force me to leave.

Mary!!!

Thank you so much to Miss Mary!!

I've mentioned Mary and her dad on here before. He makes these awesome wooden cars and she manages the whole shebang.



This was sent to Gabe as a gift to ease his little toofer pain-lol. She felt bad about his teeth getting knocked out. Here's a great shot of the infamous lack of teeth and his awesome racecar! If anyone has any little ones to shop for for Christmas please visit their Etsy shop for great gift ideas!

For Angela~

If you happen to be one of my parents stop.right.now.

But honestly you probably won't pop on here anyway since you never seem to pay attention when I tell you guys you can come on here to see recent pix of the kids...lol. Oh well...

In any case-here ya go Angela-the finished project! I love how it turned out. Frame was 5.99 at TJ Maxx. Sorry-bought both they had-lol. My mother in law will get the same-except for her I plan to make xmas ornaments in the style of soldered photo charms-only larger-wallet size-ish...

I love how each one looks exactly like them-obvious who's who.




As far as how it's done-there are a couple different ways. The first way I heard was to take a profile pic then print, cut out carefully then paint black and paste onto white paper. Would probably have been easier and quicker than what I did in photoshop. I started w/ the magic wand and set to pure white and took out sections of the background as much as possible (best if profile has plain, light background w/ no shadows) then do the same for the head-except switch to black...then enlarged really big and switched to the paint brush to do detail work and the sections the wand didn't do-then do the magic wand again on both just to clean it up and make back and fore grounds uniform in color...

Make sense? Any questions just ask! :) I'd say it took close to an hr or a little less on each.

One went missing...

So Gabe will wear his Santa hat all day long-in fact he tried to wear it to a doctor appointment yesterday. Can I get him to jump in for a simple photo with it on? Ya right...I got these 2 little elves to sit still for me for a few minutes at least. :)

Here's Sawyer all decked out in his Christmas shirt. He just turned 6 months. So hard to believe.

What does YOUR wild side look like?

I love this new blog I stumbled across! It's an elementary art teacher who posts projects on her blog for kids to do from her classroom. She's even got them seperated by grade level or medium. Chloe and I sat and scrolled through and picked one out to try the other day and here is the one we tried~



You're supposed to draw a line down the center of the paper and draw your calm side and your wild side.It was actually pretty difficult for Chloe to do (notice she's got 2 noses lol) Evidentally my wild side has huge nostrils-who knew?

In other news-my silhouette frames turned out AWESOME if I do say so myself. I have been cheesin out over how great they turned out :) Two gifts down...how many to go? ack! lol

Thanksgiving traditions

Here's my noodle roller in action... This year for Thanksgiving I decided to make my Granny's homemade noodles for the first time. My mom came over to make her batch and walk me through it and Gabe helped us both out. I was so excited that they tasted just like Granny's and plan to start making them every year.



Tonite we went to the festival of trees. We always try to go either the day or day after Thanksgiving. It's always interesting to see what the people decorating the trees will come up with. I think this one is my favorite-it was definately different! Would you concider this origami? It was all paper ornaments folded in really intricate ways. Amazing.



Just look at the tree topper...I'd never have the patience! lol



I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Cousins

I made this for my cousin's daughter who just had her 7th birthday. Hopefully she likes it. Chloe still gets tons of comments when she wears hers...I love making those little letter beads :)

Not much to gab about. I'm soooo sluggish today! Recently went through allergy testing and took Zyrtec today for the first time- it's been all I can do to keep my eyes open all afternoon! ugh.

Haven't made a single thing in the past week but do have a couple beads set aside to make pins with and a bunch of beads pulled out to put into groupings to list on etsy. Maybe I'll work on pictures, etc this weekend after Thanksgiving is over and the tree is up. Tomorrow is pie shell and noodle making day with my mom. I've got my list of handmade gifts I really need to get crackin on too. :)

I just love this little guy!

Gabe is my little buddy. He's just got the sweetest personality in the world. Even for how challenging 2 yr olds can be-he's pretty darned good. Here he is laying on our bed in the sunshine with his beloved froggie.


Been working on those silhouettes! Chloe's is finished (but may need to be tweaked) and here is a shot of Gabe's. I think it turned out pretty good!!! And it looks exactly like him which I think is so cool. :)


My friend Kim and I have been mulling around ideas for fun classes to take. We'd both really love to do some sort of sewing/knitting class but so far none to be found in my area. I think a digital photography class would be awesome and I have a feeler out hoping to track a class down........Anyone in Spfld know of any good places? hint*hint*

Took a walk today...

down memory lane. I'm not finished either.

My dad brought over a bunch of old boxes that had my name on them that he found in the attic. I love digging thru my old things finding goofy treasures I had forgotten about and remembering...Among the goodies- Rubber bracelets, swatch watch protectors, fingerless gloves, wedding planner/wedding notes/rsvp's, my fave stuffed animal, all of my cosmotology notes and tests, tons of old aveda bottle from the first salon I worked at (still smelled yummy) and photos.....

Here's senior year homecoming w/ a couple friends~don't laugh!

What kills me is Chloe wore a similar outfit to school the other day-although without the metal toed doc martins or hat-lol.

Handmade pledge

With all the talk out there about taking the handmade challenge I'm just curious if any of you have done this as well? I really really really wish that I could but with kids it's jut unrealistic right now with the plastic junk they want from Target.I do always try to make a little something for each person in some way at Christmastime. I am ALWAYS looking for new ideas! I know family members assume and expect something with glass beads and I like to shake it up a bit...

Now I saw this in a magazine and thought they were precious-these hairbands. I am envisioning a glass bead instead of a button in the center of coarse and different fabrics-but you get the idea. I also picture them as pins as well as hairbands. *sniff* since I just cut 13 inches of Chloe's hair off I guess she can't use anything like this-lol.

Now if there any immediate family members reading stop NOW! lol


So~
I've been thinking alot about those old silhouettes we all used to make back in the day. My dad still has mine hanging in their house from kindergarten. I look at it and remember how much it sucked to sit that still so the teacher could trace my shadow on the wall. There ain't NO way my kids would sit that still. Thankfully there are ways to digitally do this w/ profile pictures. I found the cutest little triple matted frames to do all 3 kids. The openings are about the size of a large wallet picture and have a double mat of black around each opening. This photo is an example from etsy but I left and didn't get the etsy address-sorry! Mine will be littler than this one-hope it's not too difficult to do as small as I want!!

I'd love to hear if anyone out there makes/buys handmade. I think it shows the person receiving that you cared to do something special just for them. :)

A gift...

I love making personalised jewelry-and I love that my neighbor Lindsey asks me to make it for her to give as gifts. It makes me feel great to know someone else out there appreciates the same style.

Here's the necklace I whipped up for her friend Leslie. I hope she likes it. I understand she also received a watch in gold/silver tones for her birthday. Funny coincidence. :)

Come see me...

I will be working in the gallery at the Holiday Hall on Sat. Dec 6th from 10am-12pm-drop by to see me!

*You're invited*

The invites have been sent and posters hung. Anyone in the Springfield area-come by to check out some great handmade works! Lots of great ideas for Christmas or if you'd like to spoil yourself....I can't wait for the artists' preview night to see who/what is there this year.

I will be signing up to work on a Saturday-once I get the date/time firmed up I'll let you all know so maybe you can come visit me...:)

Great friends...

We had a blast! Goes to show you it doesn't matter how much time is in between visits-we just pick up right where we left off. I can think of no one else I would feel comfortable with hanging out in my mis-matched pj's in the morning drinking coffee and hanging out with. The party was fun and the kids all got to go to Chuck e Cheese w/ the dads while we did our thing-then we all stayed up late gabbing while the kids played.

We ended their visit with eating mexican for lunch as we always seem to do. Funny how much of a comfort that can be. I can't wait until we can get together again. We really miss them.

I...must...eat...me...some...yummy...lookin...beads!

Oh well-I guess I'll just settle for rice cereal. First time for everything...Mom says glass doesn't taste too hot anyway. I reallllly wanted to eat that bead though! That was mom's first successful hollow bead and was so excited that it turned out and has been whipping them out now! :)

Just cleaning and waiting...

Been cooking and cleaning all day getting ready for a Tastefully Simple party here tonite. I guess it's what I had to do to get our friends Tim and Jolene and their kids down here to visit for the weekend-lol-she sells TS so I offered to do a party for her. They live bout 3 hrs away up close to Chicago. I'm so excited to see them! It's been about a yr and 1/2 since we've seen them-and even longer since Chloe has seen their kids-so she was sooo excited going to school today knowing when she got off the bus they'd most likely be here...Can't wait!

Happy (late) Halloween!!

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

I dressed them early and headed outside for pictures before Travis got home.

Here's the punk witch and horsie~



The toothless chef~



Witch, Elvis and Obi Wan~


As you can see we have a ton of kids on our block. I think there are actually 3 or 4 missing from that picture!~

Gabe's outfit was whipped together out of play clothes we had laying around-so easy but everyone made comments all night about how cute it was. We heard lots of "dough boy" and "Pierre" lol.

Making "ghosties"

as Gabe calls them. This was interesting to do w/ a 2 year old with all the Elmer's glue running down my arm...Turned out cute-although next time I may add starch or something to make them stiffer...

Here's a picture of what we used...(1/2 elmer's 1/2 water)


One balloon blower-upper


Drape over the balloons and let dry overnight-in a nasty basement or not-your choice.(this was before the teeth incident)


Chloe modeling the "after"-before we hung them from the porch.