Meet my new love....

Kalon

Fabric Shop

I was at a fabric shop today & it reminded me of how I was introduced to sewing.  When I was 12, two women came to my low income neighborhood and gathered up a group of us girls and invited us to join their 4H club. It was amazing what they did.   They met with us in a small neighborhood church and taught us how to sew.  Arlene and her sister Lois were such great teachers and had a huge impact on me and the other girls.  I was a member of 4H into high school.  Our projects started with a simple apron to detailed blouses, dresses & slacks.  Our sewing projects competed in the State Fair & never got less than a purple or blue ribbon.  I learned so much from both Arlene and Lois, but Arlene is a major influence and mentor.  I tell her all the time how grateful I am that she is a part of my life.  She gave me possibilities.   Funny how a trip to a fabric shop moved me today.

Martin (Arlene's husband), Arlene and her sister Lois.

My January Art Journal Every Day

 I had so much fun journaling everyday.  As I mentioned before, I'm using my work desk calendar as my journal.  Feels great to journal this way.  I found it's best to watercolor the backgrounds a few days in advance so not to tear threw the wet page.  I found it was so fun to add to it while I'm on the phone or eating my lunch.  What a blast.

This is my journal art kit.  I have a watercolor kit, a watercolor brush (cool tool, has a water reservoir), pens in shades of blue, couple of reds, a thick & thin black sharpie, typed words and glue stick.  Amazing what you can do with such few tools.  Loving it!
Stay tune for February's art journal.  

Recycle

Clip boards from work needed to be replaced and I was asked if I could do something with them instead of throwing them away or buying new ones.  I primed them and set them aside.

I didn't want to spend too much time or thought since I'm limited on my free time right now.  So I thought why not paint stripes with whatever paints I had around the craftroom.

I think they came out nice.

The back was painted with leftover pantry shelf paint. 

 

They'll be finished off with some black highlights.

Blog, I've missed you.....

I'm finding it tough to get to posting on my blog.  I've been a busy person on the creative side of my life and of course there's my real job, too.  This is what I've been up to...

Designing, printing and assembling wedding invitations for a few people.  I finished one and I'm in different stages on two others.  I've taken out my sewing machine and made a few small projects.  Just for fun I'm working on some funky hairpins for my niece, I'm working on my daily artwork journal....will be posting pics soon.  I'm also working on a project for five friends having to do with a little bit of journaling.  In between, I've made a few sets of earrings and I'm still finding a minute or two to paint.  Oh yeah, that reminds me I have five clip boards to paint for my real job.  One big job was to unload all the photos off my camera storage cards...over a thousand.  I'm very organized with my photos, plus I back them all up on an external hard drive.  Ugh, that was a big job.  I'll post some of my favorites.  But as for now I need to get to my real job.....  Thanks for stopping by.

Check out my niece!



Amanda with her daughters, Hadley & Channing



Meet Amanda, she's making the cutest bows!  

 Check out her website.

 http://www.bumble-bows.com/bumblebows/ 

Art Journal

I stumbled on Balzer Design blog a long time ago.  Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is crazy creative and shares so many ideas.  She offered up a daily art journal challenge.  I love the idea of this. 

I had an idea several months ago about using my desk calendar to journal on.  I want to document my 25th year of my job.  I decide to begin on January 1, 2011.  One late night I was catching up on some of the blogs I follow and here's where it all came together.  The next day after reading her entry I put together my journal kit(paints, brush, markers & pencils) and took it to my office.  I painted some backgrounds squares into the first week of January since I was going on vacation.  Each day in my job something awesome happens in the mist of all the chaos.  That's what I want to capture on the calendar.  I'll post photos as I complete the month.  This is so exciting.

2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

Blog, I'm still here...

I'm noticing how I don't post for a time and then I have lots to post.  I just can't seem to make it a habit to post daily or even every other day.   I'm on my laptop daily but just don't have the right state of mind to post.  I'm working on this...2011 resolution?? 

The cookie exchange went very well this year.  I always make sugar cookies.  Here's my packaging.  I should of photographed all the cookies!  This was my last year of organizing the exchange.  We've had the same group of seven or so of us for the past 15 years.  

Next year I think I'd like do a baking day with a few close friends.  Hopefully, one with a big kitchen.

The christmas crowns are recycled material...commercial size empty toilet paper rolls!  The janitor saves them for me at work.

Our christmas cards got done.  They were a huge project this year.  I had a million little steps , drawing, painting, paper gluing, more painting and glue and printing.  I loved the way they turned out.

I also finished wedding invitations for my friend Casey.

 Printing....well let me tell you how I stressed on printing.  I set a unreal deadline and stayed up too late and made a major printing mistake!  I printed the wrong zip code on the response card THREE times!  I was way tired and should of stopped. I tried to cover it up by making some address labels, can you say "cheesy".  So the only solution was to reprint....well I didn't have cardstock.  I remembered my friend, Melissa had the same card stock for her wedding invitations.  Bless her heart she gave me enough paper to finish Casey's.  

Cutting was so time consuming cuz they had to be perfect.  I was so OC about it.

This yellow thingie is the best tool ever!  I got it at a rubberstamp/scrapbook convention and thought I spent too much for it.  But, it's worth every dollar!  Made the assembly so much easier and quick.

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Final invitation came out so nice.  Very pleased with the final product.  They're packaged and mailed!  

I have some photos of Christmas tamale making and sparklers.  I have some photos of baby girl, Marisol and nephew Robert's Texas Tech basketball game.  Oh and more photos of babies and puppies.  I'll save them for tomorrow.  

December Birthday Month

It's that fun time of the year....my birthday and Christmas!  While I was in Nebraska my niece and I decided we needed to throw ourselves a birthday party.  We've never had a party together...oh...we have the same birth date!  The cake was special ordered and I must admit it's my first and only "Susan cake" .  It was both chocolate and vanilla!  Yummie, too.  My niece is going to be 18!!!  Me, well let's say I quit counting.

Cookie exchange

Cookie exchange invitations... started with a emply spool.

Added cookie exchange information on a strip of christmas themed scrapbook paper. 

Added a eyelet, circle and string to the end of the strip. 

Glued one end of the paper strip to the spool and wrapped it

 and then wind the sting around the eyelet circle piece. 

hello blog

Haven't typed at you in some time. It's a good thing it's Monday which means it's only Monday and I found a mintue to type....I still have the rest of the week to update!

 I finished up some senior photos for my niece, Chanel...she's beautiful. 

It was tough shoot.  It was so cold outside we had to go inside and lighting was a challenge and I just couldn't get a good focused photo.  Here's a peak..

Treking

I've been busy with family stuff in Nebraska.  I thought I would find time to hit some thrift stores, vintage shops or some cool art stores in between but not so lucky.  Didn't even use my camera much.  But stay tune I'll see what I can do....
How's your turkey plans going, by the way....

One last post for the night

food for thought...

what would you put on your bucket list?
my friend and i talked about this last night
my list needs "do-able" and "impossible"
i think some of my "do-able" haven't been done .... out of fear
as we talked i realized i've done some pretty cool impossible things already
make a list of things "done", too.

what to do with apples?

 make a apple pie, of course   pie crust came out so nice. 

(only I should of used crisco not the bargin shortening). 

i haven't made a pie in years!!!

a tidbit about me...

i won a cherry pie bake off when i was a kid in 4H

and the judges were quite impress with my pie crust



i don't eat pie, ever
tom ate the whole thing!