#reverb10 Lesson Learned

Prompt: Lesson learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

This is MUCH easier for me to talk about!

The best thing I learned about myself is that I can remain positive and have great faith in the universe regardless of circumstances.  It's been an emotional, financially challenging, amazingly rewarding year for me.  No matter how frustrated or broke or angry I've been at the universe, I've always had faith that things will work out.  And you know what? They have! Even today, I started out wondering how I was going to get gas to go to work tomorrow and pay bills and maybe squeeze in a little Christmas gift buying with my paycheck.  I was stressed beyond belief! But I let it go knowing that those that love me aren't worried about what I give them or when they get it.  I just had faith that it would all work out the way it was supposed to and I got a check in the mail from my state's Department of Revenue from my ammended return!

When you find yourself spinning in circles, wondering what to do, just take a deep breath and HAVE FAITH!  I promise, it will all work out. 

Blessings to all.

#reverb10 Friends

Today's prompt:
Author: Martha Mihalick
Editor at Harper Collins
@curiousmartha

Friendship. How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

This is a hard one to write for me.  The person for me is a man I dated this year. 

We met online (I know, I know!) and emailed throughout the summer.  He's an artist and we would send pictures of our work back and forth along with some flirting.  I took the summer off from dating so it was fun but I didn't think it would go anywhere.  His emails were very supportive of my art which, for me, was the first time a semi-impartial party had commented either way! It felt great.  He encouraged me to post more of it online and to enter it into shows and to magazines.  He encouraged me to dream and grow as an artist. 

After school started and summer was 'over', I decided I was ready to meet him in person.  He was great!! Kind and caring.  We ended up dating for an amazing 2 1/2 months.  Short, I know, but wonderful.  Life changing.  He was nothing but great.  Sadly, his life changed drastically and we broke up.  I will always remember him as a HUGE influence in this year and in my life.  As one of the greatest influences in my artistic life.

#reverb10 Action

I've hopped on the reverb10 bandwagon! I love the idea of reflection and figuring out goals for the new year.

Today's prompt is:

December 13 – Action When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. What’s your next step? (Author: Scott Belsky)

So really; what IS my next step? What am I going to DO to achieve my goals this year?

One of my big goals for this year is to really improve my technical art skills. I've signed up for the Sketchbook Challenge, I'm commiting to sketching as much as possible (trying for every day), and I will take a drawing class. In addition, I will take a class in acrylics and one in watercolor during the first half of 2011.  And, of course, I'll attend Art and Soul in Portland in the fall.

2010 was a big year of goal setting and action and 2011 promises to be as big, if not bigger!

Mail art and Projects in the Works!

What a great and creative week this has been! Here are a couple of things I'd like to share.

First off, I wanted to share a piece of mail art that I received from Lis of Dandelion Seeds and Dreams.  I LOVE the bird! The back says "Only from the heart can you touch the sky" (Rumi) then she added "but some things are worth flapping your wings over".  Check out the stamp of Ganesha on the back of the envelope!

 This was a great fast project.  I lightly crumpled and tea dyed some manila tags that I had.  Then I used a mandala stamp with silver ink and black StazOn with the 'Joy' stamp from Michael's. I finished them off with a distressed grommet. I'm bringing these to my local stationary store to sell.

 Here is my latest collage that I'm making into cards. Another tea-dyed tag, Distress Ink, paper flowers and lots of glue dots! When I was making this one, my daughter kept asking for flowers and glue dots that she used to make a 'beautiful headband'.  I'll have to track it down and get a picture! It's very ummm.....'her'.

As you can see on my sidebar, I'm also going to participate in the Sketchbook Challenge! I'm excited to improve my technical skills and to see what everyone else does!

I hope everyone has a beautiful and creative weekend!

It has been a crazy and amazing couple of weeks for me! I'm in my first art show EVER!  10 Cupcake Lane was accepted into the 'Just Desserts' show at Atelier 6000 in Bend, Oregon! Wow! I also sold my first batch of greeting cards to a local store and they want more! The painting below, which will be a gift to a friend, is going to be part of the next batch.  It's acrylic on canvas board with fabric and dimensional paint.  I have an image in my head to do a white lotus next.

I'm not sure what direction this is headed yet! It's collaged hand painted and printed papers that I have ready for a background. Hmmm..... Any thoughts?



I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful day!

Gratitude

Today's NaNoJouMo prompt was 'Gratitude'.  So appropriate don't you think? I really have many things to be grateful for. 

One of my favorite quotes using the prompt 'Relax'  The background on this page was fun to do! I did it on a painty play day with scraped paint layers, stamps and glaze gel pen.

 My daughter helped me with this one. She got her first go at the Copic markers! I think she enjoyed them quite a bit.

 My kids decided to create their own museum today in their room. Really fun! My son made 20(!) pictures and my daughter did 15.  Wow! Here's my favorite of my son's: It's a feller buncher which is, apparently, a piece of logging equipment.

 Here's my daughters exhibit.  She's very much into drawing faces right now!

I hope you all had a wonderful, safe holiday. 

Art Journal Pages!

Yeah! I got my pictures to upload!

The first one was from the prompt "actualize". It was on the same day I found out I would be teaching art classes. How appropriate! The dragonflies are rub-ons that my mom found at Michael's.

The next entry is using the prompt "sumptuous".  I just made a fun list of things that I found sumptuous! Fun! And I just realized I spelled it wrong...oh well!

 This last journal page is just a fun one, kind of bragging about my kids. I was just so proud of how they did what needed to be done and are saving money for their new bikes this spring!

Thank you for looking and have an amazing day!

Exciting News!

I found out I'll be teaching 3 classes at our local quilt store, the Stichin Post! I'm going to teach 2 beginning stamp making classes (1 for adults and 1 for kids) and a card making class using a Sizzix. 

Teaching art classes is on a list I made of "101 things in 1,001 Days" a while back.  It's amazing how you put your goals out to the universe, work hard and you can achieve anything you put your mind to!

I have more journal pages to share but I can't get the pics to upload! Argh! Ah, well...soon, I promise!

Have a beautiful day!

10 Cupcake Lane

Here's what I've been working on! This piece has been entered in a juried show at a local gallery/ printing studio called Atelier 6000.  The theme of the show is "Just Desserts".  I find out for sure next week if it's been accepted but the owner was pretty confident that it would be. Yeah! My first show! It was a really fun piece to do.  Bright fabric and paint and candy! The little gingerbread people are sugar cake decorations and the 'apples' are actually Nerds candy!

"10 Cupcake Lane"

Mixed media on canvas

I have been keeping up with my NaNoJouMo despite coming down with Strep last week. My update for that will be coming soon!

Have a beautiful day!

NaNoJouMo Update

 I have been a busy, busy girl! I have ordered new business cards and greeting cards, written 3 class proposals (more on that later), and am trying to keep up with NaNoJouMo! Here are two of my journal pages:

November 3

November 4

I hope everyone is having a beautiful day!

4 Simple Goals Update!

1. Attend Art and Soul in Portland.  This one may be cheating because I have it set up already!  Done!

2. Learn to be a better photographer for my Etsy shop and my blog. I think I'm making some progress here! I'm making a point of taking a lot of pictures, thinking about the lighting and working on editing the pictures.

3. Continue to ride my bike even when the weather gets cold. I just re-discovered bike riding through a bike that was given to me. This is a way to stay healthy and to connect with my kids. I feel so free when I'm riding! It's amazing. I rode today! It was 32 degrees and foggy.  Brrrrrr!!!!

4. Blog twice a week. I need to keep accountable with this! I know some weeks will be more and some less but if I can average out to twice a week, that would be great! Slowly getting better on this one.  I've started using a blog post planner from Productive Flourishing which really seems to be helping me! They have other great planners there as well.

Have a beautiful day!

NaNoJouMo and the Cupcake House

November is National Journal Every Day Month or NaNoJouMo.  I have committed to doing something in my art journal every day for the whole month!  Hmmmmm.....can I do it? So far, so good! Here's my page from today:

 I love that quote! It's on a banner hanging right inside my friend's house and it really struck me. The picture is of my Buddha statue that I have in my house. 

The Cupcake House is my submission for the Cloth Paper Scissors reader challenge "All Buttoned Up".  It's based on a picture that my daughter and I did together one morning.  It's acrylic paint on canvas for the background. The house is pieced together out of fabric scraps that I fused onto the background and outlined with dimensional paint.  The cherry, the sun, the flowers, and the doorknob are all buttons from my stash! It was so much fun to do and my daughter can't wait to have it in her room!  Let's hope it's accepted so she has to wait! 

I hope everyone has a beautiful day!



4 Simple Goals

Back in August, I posted my 4 simple goals to accomplish by the end of the year.  Here's how I'm doing so far:

1. Attend Art and Soul in Portland.  This one may be cheating because I have it set up already!  Done!

2. Learn to be a better photographer for my Etsy shop and my blog. This is ongoing but I think I'm making progress! I'm getting some good feedback and encouragement from those around me.

3. Continue to ride my bike even when the weather gets cold. I just re-discovered bike riding through a bike that was given to me. This is a way to stay healthy and to connect with my kids. I feel so free when I'm riding! It's amazing.  So far so good on this one! We'll see how it shapes up when the weather gets really cold around here. I even got a basket for it to make it more functional. Let's face it, it's cute, too!

4. Blog twice a week. I need to keep accountable with this! I know some weeks will be more and some less but if I can average out to twice a week, that would be great! Ummmm....well.....let's not talk about that one.  I am recommitting myself to this so hopefully I can pull it off going forward.

Art and Soul

Wow! What an amzing experience! I had several people tell me "You need to go to Art and Soul" which I took as a sign.  I signed up for 3 classes and I was awed by all of them.

The first two pictures are from my 2nd class that I took on Sunday. 

Here I am with Alma de Melena Cox who I orignally met in my little town. This was my 3rd class from her and the most inclusive.  She has a technique called "Telemadera Fusion" that she uses in her art and teaches to others.  It involves woodburning, paint and fabric which is then varnished to give the finished piece amazing depth and contrast. In her classes, she offers her original drawings to be used as a template in which your piece is based off of.  I chose to use one of them in this piece.

(Alma is on the left I'm on the right)

Here is the finished picture after 7(!) coats of varnish!

The first class that I took was "Repurposeful Stamping and Printing" with Traci Bunkers.  She takes found and household objects and turns them into stamps!! Amazing!  Then, after playing and stamping and stenciling a good chunk of the day, we made our own book out of the papers and 5x7 canvases.  So cool! I'd been interested in bookmaking so this was like a 2 in 1 class for me.

(the cover of my book)

(the inside front cover)

(my favorite page)

The last class that I took was on how to use your Sizzix for embossing everything! I don't have any pictures of this one unfortunately! I did learn how to use alcohol inks, emboss metal sheets, and emboss cards and envelope flaps to make some pretty cool customized stationery.  I also plan on using these techniques in my upcoming mixed media pieces!


Have a beautiful day!

I'm Still Here!!

After some computer issues, school starting up and going to Art and Soul in Portland recently I'm ready to get back to business! I have so much to share! I'll be here more frequently as my goal is to post at least twice a week. 

4 Simple Goals

I just read about 4 simple goals to accomplish by 2011at  Style Crush. I LOVE this! This was originated at A Beautiful Mess in this post. 

1. Attend Art and Soul in Portland.  This one may be cheating because I have it set up already!

2. Learn to be a better photographer for my Etsy shop and my blog.

3. Continue to ride my bike even when the weather gets cold. I just re-discovered bike riding through a bike that was given to me. This is a way to stay healthy and to connect with my kids. I feel so free when I'm riding! It's amazing.

4. Blog twice a week. I need to keep accountable with this! I know some weeks will be more and some less but if I can average out to twice a week, that would be great!

I hope you can keep me accountable to this!

Creative Experiment Part 1

I decided to attempt "♥ Practice hand printing the alphabet using fonts as source material". I didn't actually use a font as source material but I did practice my hand printing! In art journaling this is one of the things that I find so beautiful in others and lacking in myself. So I decided I just needed more practice! Here are my results:

In the bottom picture I used a couple of quotes. "The art is on the loose!" is from one of my kids favorite shows, the Backyardigans. I heard it and knew I had to use it! "The rain falls..." is from a Michael Franti song called "Have a Little Faith" which is really touching a chord with me right now.

Etsy Shop Update!

We just listed some BEAUTIFUL jewelry that my Mom made in our shop! Please check us out!

Adventures in Gardening

This year we have attempted many things in our garden. We have learned alot.
1. Don't try to grow other vegetables with kohlrabi.
2. You CAN grow tomatoes in Central Oregon when you do everything juuussssstttt riiiiigggghht. I think I might know the tricks. Maybe. We'll see next year.

3. Kohlrabi, although it is a root vegetable, actually grows it's edible part above ground. This answers our questions of "how do we know when it's ready to eat". You can actually SEE it which makes it alot easier to know these things
4. Even if the strawberry plant looks dead, it might not be! You may be surprised one day to see a blossom.

Since this picture was taken, we have several more blossoms and maybe, possibly, even a strawberry! Yeah for us!

Creative Experiment

I'm always looking for new ways to challenge myself! I just came across this idea at Daisy Yellow and I thought I would join in! My goal is to do 4 of the 6 experiments this month.  The two that excite me the most are to document the month in 9 pictures and to work on my handprinting.  I promise to keep you updated!

Eek!

Sooo...My baby girl turned 5 today! Kindergarten is just a few short weeks away. Where does the time go? 

We had round 1 of the birthday extravaganza today. A Fancy Nancy Tea Party at Barnes and Noble, a haircut at the 'sparkle haircut place' and Red Robin for dinner.  Saturday, Grandma and Grandpa come over as well as one of my good friends and my Brother. We conclude with a trip to the County Fair on Sunday!! Should be good times for all!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Anne

Putting Myself OUT There!!

Summer has been great for us! We have been playing outside!




I'm working on collages! This is just the beginning of one I am making from a photocopy of a t-shirt from Lilith Fair.

We took a trip to Eugene! Kids LOVED PF Changs. We went to several farm stands in the area. The poppies are from one of them.

And...drumroll please..Here is my submission to the Cloth, Paper, Scissors Holiday Art Swap! I think I'm going to have to make one for myself!

I also sent in 5 postcards to swap at Wish Studio. Mine are in the far right hand corner and are red, orange and turquoise. I got my first one in the mail yesterday! How fun!

This promises to be a busy week with Sassy's birthday extravaganza!

Have a beautiful day!

Anne

New Items in the Shop!

We just did a little shop update today. A few Lickety Split bags and 2 Buttercup Bags. More to come!

Lots Going On!

Well it's been a busy time here! We've been trying to get our garden in and the weather finally cooperated.

My daughter had to plant some strawberries! We'll see how they go in our tough Central Oregon climate. She also took the pic!

Some pots that were originally terra cotta and green. Booooring! I used several coats of Rustoleum Glossy Cardinal Red. Makes them a little more 'us' don't ya think?

Our raised bed. I made this myself! Well...we bought the trellis but the frame was all me.

We have purchased the license and patterns to the Made by Rae Buttercup Bag and Lickety Split Bag so look for those very soon on our Etsy Shop!

Our Etsy Shop is Open!

After 2 years of craziness and planning and wishing and hoping..... We have made our dream come true! Our Etsy shop is open. The plan is to update once a week or so, most likely on Wednesday. We are so incredibly excited! We are located at Songbird Sisters. Thank you for checking us out!

What's Happening

Here is a little work in progress! These will be in our Etsy shop before too long! I am going to attach them to pin backs and add a little embellishment to make them extra special. We are also going to have these available in upcycled felted wool.


Organic, California grown strawberries are finally available! We really enjoyed our first strawberries of the season but can't wait for the Oregon berries to be available in a couple of months.

We have a winter storm warning for tonight! Yikes! White Easter here we come!

Some things in the Works!!!

Take 2!

Sooo.....my Mom and I went thrifting at the local Habitat thrift store! What a great place! Most of the things we bought were to upcycle into bags but a couple of things will be refashioned.

This little shirt is destined to become a dress for my Z. Not sure exactly how it will all work out but it's Hello Kitty and I had to buy it! Sorry about the wonky pic. I'm still new at this blogging business!

This dress is a little funky but look at the fabric! It's going to become a skirt a la freshlypicked

We are hard at work getting our Etsy shop

open. We are hoping for April 10 as our date!

It's starting to come together!

Well...after 2 years of craziness and planning, my mom and I are finally opening an Etsy shop! We are using the name 'Songbird Sisters' so we will be found at www.songbirdsisters.etsy.com!! The shop is still in the works but I will be sure to share when we get some items listed.

In other news, I am only a month away from kindergarten roundup for Z! My baby is going to be in the big school next year! Yowzer! In case you're wondering what 'roundup' is... our school district has a day for all of the incoming kindergartners to meet the teachers and staff and play without the current students.

Hello, Hello!

Well I've been threatening to do this for awhile now! I have no idea what I'll end up blogging about but it's sure to be a mix of craftyness, parenting and trying to live a peaceful and simple life. Can't wait to see what you all have to say!