I am relocating this blog to WordPress because I want all of my blogs in one place. Here is the link: http://simplecreativity.wordpress.com/
I finally received my power cord yesterday... YAY! It is amazing how difficult it was to be without my computer for over a week. I used Pete's, but it just was not the same. Here is the final result of my painting project I started a few weeks ago of a sunset over Lake Champlain in Vermont. It went pretty fast because the wood I was working with was not very big. I was happy to dust off my painting supplies and try my hand at some techniques I learned a few years ago. Now that it is finished, I have the painting displayed on a console table in my bedroom. I love the reflection of the painting in the glass tabletop (see below).
It is a day for celebrating in my household (actually more like the past 2 weeks...). Pete's favorite day of the year is St. Patty's Day, so needless to say he is so excited and headed out the door right now to go celebrate.
I am currently working on Pete's computer because my power cord decided to die. Hopefully it will be here soon - yay for Amazon. I have a bunch of things to post but am very limited on what I can do on this computer. So on that note, I am signing off until my power cord shows up at my door. Happy St. Patty's Day!
I recently got my hands on my mother-in-law's digital camera and was able to get her pictures from a trip we took to Vermont. Pete's cousin Alissa got married and we were able to make it out for her wedding. Here is the scrapbook layout I made with the pictures from the trip. The patterned paper is Basic Grey (my favorite) and the word embellishments are from my scraps that have been around for about 7 years (I finally used them up!). I was happy to scrapbook since I have been trying to limit my scrapbooking. The only reason for this is that I think of the sheer amount of books I will end up with when my daughter grows up... (for someone who does not like clutter, it is scary). I do print most pictures once they are fixed up though and include them in a photo album for my daughter along with some journaling.
I am in amazement at the number of weddings I will be attending in the upcoming 6 months. A few of my friends recently got engaged and are planning on a short engagement and others have been engaged for longer, but they all decided for a summer/fall 2o10 wedding. The current count is 6 weddings (4 of which are in August!). Oh dolly, we will be busy and broke - wedding presents and hotels are not cheap. So with this information on my mind, I am brainstorming like crazy for gifts I can give these couples that I can make beforehand. I the past I have given personalized stationary and crocheted afghans. There is no way I am making 6 afghans - with my luck I would end up with carpel tunnel! Personalized stationary is a possibility and I am playing with the idea of a cookbook or a collection of recipes.
My favorite cookbook is the America's Test Kitchen Cookbook. My parents received it as a gift when I was in junior high and I have ever since been in love with its never fail recipes. I then received it as a gift when I was pregnant. It holds pretty much all of the main East Coast and Midwestern fares. Recently though, I have been trying to expand my cooking skills and spend a lot of time searching Rachael Ray and The Pioneer Woman's websites for new recipes.
I will give it some more thought, maybe a homemade gift in combination with a giftcard. I like the sound of that. I will keep posted on what I end up doing, the first wedding is in late June.
As I mentioned a few days ago, I have been spending a lot of time on The Pioneer Woman blog. I first found the blog when searching for a pumpkin muffin recipe (hers is amazing!). Then I got addicted to her love story (From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels) - it's almost as good as Nicholas Sparks but less tears. After that I found her photography (sigh...). It is so beautiful, it makes me want to go out and buy a Nikon and jump right in (maybe next year though, I have a lot going on right now). Browsing through her pictures gave me the inspiration to start a new painting of a sunset.
I recently got my hands on my mother in law's pictures from a wedding we attended in Vermont last summer. She had some amazing pictures of sunsets over Lake Champlain which I then started playing with in GIMP (I used to have Photo Shop, but lost my subscription when I graduated - so now I am figuring out GIMP because it is free). Above is the photo I am working with, but beware the quality is not great. I had to crop the photo quite a bit then started playing with the colors. I am using it as a starting point for my painting, but will pump up the colors and textures once I dive in.
I took a painting class in college about 3 years ago, but haven't done much since. I am excited to get started again. I've been craving to work with the medium again (literally craving the feel of the paint and brush). I think this is interesting because at the time I look my painting class, it actually was very stressful for me. I am a recovering perfectionist, but back then I was a full on perfectionist and didn't allow myself the time to learn and experiment. I just wanted to make a masterpiece in as little time as possible. The fact that I was taking 18 credits, many of which were very time consuming, definitely played into the feelings I had toward the class. I have nightmares of the end of that semester. I literally did not sleep during finals week for 4 days straight. I was a walking zombie. I also had started a new waitressing job and was trying to work in my final projects around my shifts. Ahh, just thinking about it makes me want to crawl under my covers for days...
Alright, here I go. I'm going to apply the gesso to the wood I am using this afternoon during my munchkin's nap time and take it from there.
This morning I was playing with my munchkin in her room. After a while she wanted to go watch TV and took off downstairs. When I went back upstairs to grab something, I noticed that Faith had put her Cookie Monster doll on her potty chair. I couldn't help but laugh...
So it has been awhile since my last post and I don't really know why. The time has just been flying lately and I don't know where it has gone. Well a lot of it has been spent on The Pioneer Woman blog, my new obsession. Reading it makes me want to meet a hunky cowboy, pick up and move out to the country and spend my days cooking, baking, and gardening (but wait I have a handsome guy and a little munchkin and I cook, bake, and garden already). Speaking of my little munchkin, above is a picture I took of her yesterday in the backyard. She was so excited to wear her new Hello Kitty rain boots.
And speaking of gardening I am getting really excited for this year's backyard garden (taking that we have a backyard - we will be moving somewhere at the end of April, but we don't know where yet, EEK!). Last year I attempted tomatoes, green peppers, and a raspberry bush, but only the tomatoes turned out. My disturbingly deranged backyard squirrels ate the raspberry bush before anything had a chance to grow - literally all that was left was a stick, and the green pepper plants never took off because the tomato plants ended up towering over them. This summer will be another round of honing my green thumb, I can't wait. Until then here is a picture from last year's garden. 