Well folk, summer is quickly coming to an end. School starts for my little fairies in about 2 weeks. This summer has gone differently than I had planned.
Here was my plan. June: SUPER BUSY. we had a million things planned. JULY: We would be totally bored and my kids would fight 24 hours a day until I was forced to put them on any bus that went by my house.( No matter what day it was or where the bus was headed. ) I would then gleefully put them on the bus (their real bus) in August and wave enthusiastically and let out huge sigh of relief. Here is how it has happened. June: busy as planned. July: My kids have had a blast together and been all around fun and pleasant to be around. There has been minimal fighting. I have not once checked the Greyhound bus schedule. There has been lots of swimming, sleeping late, reading, giggles, being lazy and more giggles. what? Who are these kids? They are at such an AWESOME ages. My oldest is 10 and youngest is 5. We are catching glimpses of preteen, but for the most part our gal is friendly and herself. The youngest is obviously potty trained, and fully capable of dressing herself and other wonderful big kid things. Whining is almost non existent. When one sister is gone, the other one MISSES THEM. (for real) I am trying hard to find the pause button, but I am having no luck. sigh.
I have already given the lecture to all involved (especially myself) that come August 14th we are walking into crazytown and we are all to give each other a break and be kind to each other. The youngest will be getting on a bus and heading to kindergarten. Clearly she was just born last week and they must have the dates for this school thing wrong. My baby will be taking off for the real world. (I may or may not be teary just typing it). My oldest is also going to a new school (Intermediate school) and will have a locker. She has been practicing how a locker works all summer. As for me, I will be fired from my current job of full time mom/part time artist and hopefully hired on as fulltime artist and part/full time mom! I will be doing my best to do my best with what God gave me. I will be stretching my wings in the art world and giving it a full shot at making a real person job out of it. We will also be navigating the soccer business I mentioned in earlier blogs we have no idea what this will require of us. I am trying hard to not worry about the changes that are coming. They are coming whether I worry or not. I am also trying not to commit to anything else until we get our feet wet at our new gigs.
Look for more posts to come once school starts. Until then....it is the pool....and hopefully more giggles.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
craftiness. round one.
Happy Wednesday everyone! Thought I would post some pictures of what we are up to that last couple of days!
I have figured out that I am not good at multitasking. I am pretty good at the "mom multitasking" (ie.. brushing someones hair while yelling at another child to pack up the car, while trying to start the dishwasher and looking for shoes) Now throw in art show prep and it all goes down the drain.
Don't you know that person that can work full time and volunteer at the homeless shelter, and then set the table for a gourmet meal, run off to book club, all while looking radiant? Its not me. It just isn't. I have learned to be ok with that and give myself some grace. When I finished the art show I promised the girls that we would go to the library. I looked around and thought OMG its BOOKS! I haven't read a book in months. I wonder if I still know how. (again not a good multitasker). I had only one book on my list and I found it and I am reading it. I understand that people do this all the time, but I am so impressed that this is finally happening, I want to tell everyone. SO. there you go, who would have thought a good book would be blog worthy.
Let me also tell you that my oldest is 10 and a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE Beatles fan. We got her a ticket to see Paul McCartney for this upcoming weekend. I REALLY wish I could post the video of her opening up her present. She made me promise not to share it. So....I can say that she screamed louder than any scream ever, and then started sobbing. SOBBING. She has already promised there will be tears at the concert. She is going with her friend and her friends dad. I can't wait to hear how it goes. Apparently back in April I promised her that I would get her a new Beatles shirt for the concert. YIKES. I said "Lets make one!" This sounds crazy but I usually will do quite a bit of crafts with my sprouts, but this summer has been craftless. We ran out to Hobby Lobby and bought the kids shirts and supplies. Libby wanted one too. YEA! Let me preface this with girls t-shirts are not as cute as boys in the store. Boys shirts are no frills and witty. (more my style) Girls are kittens and hearts and stuff. Julia is against all kinds of pink. Libby likes pink but quirky. I showed Julia some Beatles shirts online and we were all set to plagiarize, which we successfully did.
Have you heard of making shirts with freezer paper? I have seen it on the blogosphere....and thought we could give it a try.
1. Draw out your pattern on plain paper.. Julias I printed off the computer and Libby's I drew by hand. This is Libbys drawing
2. tape design to cardboard and then tape freezer paper over top to trace, making sure the shiny side is down.
3. Using an exacto knife, cut out letters and design where you want ink at. This is when I really regretted the detail I put into Libby's drawing. If you have no patience keep it simple!
4. Place on the front of shirt and iron on the stencil, again shiny side down. Do not use steam on your iron.
5. Once the stencil is on the shirt, blot fabric paint over it. The ink SHOULD stay in the empty part of the stencil. I don't have a pict of this...sorry.
6. WAIT UNTIL PAINT IS DRY. Use a hairdryer if you have to.
7. Peel off stencil and you are left with fancy shirts!!!
I am pretty happy with how they turned out. The girls had fun and so did I. Summer craftiness was a success. Since I only have a month left with these two pixies at home we are going to be doing more crafts..... stay tuned! :)
MUCH love to you all, hope you are enjoying your summer.
I have figured out that I am not good at multitasking. I am pretty good at the "mom multitasking" (ie.. brushing someones hair while yelling at another child to pack up the car, while trying to start the dishwasher and looking for shoes) Now throw in art show prep and it all goes down the drain.
Don't you know that person that can work full time and volunteer at the homeless shelter, and then set the table for a gourmet meal, run off to book club, all while looking radiant? Its not me. It just isn't. I have learned to be ok with that and give myself some grace. When I finished the art show I promised the girls that we would go to the library. I looked around and thought OMG its BOOKS! I haven't read a book in months. I wonder if I still know how. (again not a good multitasker). I had only one book on my list and I found it and I am reading it. I understand that people do this all the time, but I am so impressed that this is finally happening, I want to tell everyone. SO. there you go, who would have thought a good book would be blog worthy.
Let me also tell you that my oldest is 10 and a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE Beatles fan. We got her a ticket to see Paul McCartney for this upcoming weekend. I REALLY wish I could post the video of her opening up her present. She made me promise not to share it. So....I can say that she screamed louder than any scream ever, and then started sobbing. SOBBING. She has already promised there will be tears at the concert. She is going with her friend and her friends dad. I can't wait to hear how it goes. Apparently back in April I promised her that I would get her a new Beatles shirt for the concert. YIKES. I said "Lets make one!" This sounds crazy but I usually will do quite a bit of crafts with my sprouts, but this summer has been craftless. We ran out to Hobby Lobby and bought the kids shirts and supplies. Libby wanted one too. YEA! Let me preface this with girls t-shirts are not as cute as boys in the store. Boys shirts are no frills and witty. (more my style) Girls are kittens and hearts and stuff. Julia is against all kinds of pink. Libby likes pink but quirky. I showed Julia some Beatles shirts online and we were all set to plagiarize, which we successfully did.
Have you heard of making shirts with freezer paper? I have seen it on the blogosphere....and thought we could give it a try.
1. Draw out your pattern on plain paper.. Julias I printed off the computer and Libby's I drew by hand. This is Libbys drawing
2. tape design to cardboard and then tape freezer paper over top to trace, making sure the shiny side is down.
3. Using an exacto knife, cut out letters and design where you want ink at. This is when I really regretted the detail I put into Libby's drawing. If you have no patience keep it simple!
this is my husband working on his laptop and having a frosty beverage behind the stencil.
4. Place on the front of shirt and iron on the stencil, again shiny side down. Do not use steam on your iron.
5. Once the stencil is on the shirt, blot fabric paint over it. The ink SHOULD stay in the empty part of the stencil. I don't have a pict of this...sorry.
6. WAIT UNTIL PAINT IS DRY. Use a hairdryer if you have to.
7. Peel off stencil and you are left with fancy shirts!!!
I am pretty happy with how they turned out. The girls had fun and so did I. Summer craftiness was a success. Since I only have a month left with these two pixies at home we are going to be doing more crafts..... stay tuned! :)
MUCH love to you all, hope you are enjoying your summer.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
art..where are we going???
Good Saturday morning to ya!
I just finished up a large art show and WHEW! It was a great show but I am totally exhausted.
I have to give a huge. HUGE. HUGE shout out to a few people. First a big public thank you to my parents. Not only did they watch my pixies for me while I set up for my show, they and my kids.....CLEANED MY HOUSE! When I am getting ready for a show I am pretty crazy Like many moms out there, when you focus on work, the house falls apart and then focus on the house and work is running away with itself. SO. my house was a wreck. I am so blessed call them both my parents. I could not do this without them!
Another huge shout out goes to my awesome neighbors. I have never done this show before and I was not aware that I could not bring my car in to load up art after the first night. The vendor parking lot was about 1/2 mile away and I had no way of getting my stuff there without walking 4 bins of art 1/2 mile there and back 4 TIMES. hmmm what to do. Just then my neighbors showed up and said "Do you need help loading up??" Errr...yep I do! :) I put my original art in their van and then carried a crate of prints to my car. I have no idea what I would have done had they not showed up when they did! If you think I am bragging that my parents and neighbors are better than yours. I am !:)
As an "artist" you work and work in the quiet of your own home, not sure what people will think of your art. I post my stuff on Facebook and get great feedback. This feedback is from my friends, total strangers is a different story. Art shows are exciting and scary. Once a few people buy things I start to relax and enjoy myself. I start to notice what kind of people buy my art and who "doesn't get it". I don't sell landscapes and I understand that quirky may not be the theme you want for your home. Here are a few things I noticed at my hometown's 4th of July fair.
I have used every bit of spare time I had to paint and glue and make all of this art. The act of each fair is tiring as well. The pay off was when about 75% of the people in my tent enthusiastically asked me where can I get more of this? do you have a store? can I get this in different colors? I have never seen anything like this before, I would like to buy more. I was overwhelmed by everyone's generosity. I also was very overwhelmed. My answer was always the same. "My youngest child is headed off to kindergarten in a month and we will see where all this goes!" I understand that this is an amazing problem to have but I have no real answers on how to make more art with the time I have. I have started researching "thinking bigger" . My husband has been encouraging me to do this from the beginning and I will have to give him the credit if it pays off!! :) Just quietly saying a prayer of thanks tonight and overwhelmed by everyone's support. Except for the balloon animal guy. I am praying he gets a how to make new balloon animals book for his birthday!
Have a great holiday weekend!
Lindsay and her seven lemons...
I just finished up a large art show and WHEW! It was a great show but I am totally exhausted.
I have to give a huge. HUGE. HUGE shout out to a few people. First a big public thank you to my parents. Not only did they watch my pixies for me while I set up for my show, they and my kids.....CLEANED MY HOUSE! When I am getting ready for a show I am pretty crazy Like many moms out there, when you focus on work, the house falls apart and then focus on the house and work is running away with itself. SO. my house was a wreck. I am so blessed call them both my parents. I could not do this without them!
Another huge shout out goes to my awesome neighbors. I have never done this show before and I was not aware that I could not bring my car in to load up art after the first night. The vendor parking lot was about 1/2 mile away and I had no way of getting my stuff there without walking 4 bins of art 1/2 mile there and back 4 TIMES. hmmm what to do. Just then my neighbors showed up and said "Do you need help loading up??" Errr...yep I do! :) I put my original art in their van and then carried a crate of prints to my car. I have no idea what I would have done had they not showed up when they did! If you think I am bragging that my parents and neighbors are better than yours. I am !:)
As an "artist" you work and work in the quiet of your own home, not sure what people will think of your art. I post my stuff on Facebook and get great feedback. This feedback is from my friends, total strangers is a different story. Art shows are exciting and scary. Once a few people buy things I start to relax and enjoy myself. I start to notice what kind of people buy my art and who "doesn't get it". I don't sell landscapes and I understand that quirky may not be the theme you want for your home. Here are a few things I noticed at my hometown's 4th of July fair.
- Women wearing denim shorts, wearing tall socks and tennis shoes don't get my art.
- People that bring their dog's to festivals tend to like my art.
- Women wearing maxi skirts/dresses love my art.
- The hippie guy selling magic wizard wands, incense burning was awesome when I set up the tent. Two days of it was overkill.
- The guy making balloon animals should be banned from making "Swords" for kids. I saw at least three kids come into my tent with these "swords" we are all adults right? OK. these looked like kids running around with giant genitalia. eek. This balloon maker needs to look on youtube for some new balloon making tutortials.
- When you let your kids come with you in a booth please don't let them touch all the art with dirty hands.
- Pictures. hmmm. There were a lot of people that would smile when they saw my art and say "OH so and so would love this...." Then text them a picture of my art. I have no idea what to do with this. I don't want my art ripped off but also don't want to be a jerk. hmmm fine line/
- I had some time to sketch while I was in my booth and I keep sketching the same mermaid wearing water wings. Not sure what to do with her. I realize this makes me sound crazy.
I have used every bit of spare time I had to paint and glue and make all of this art. The act of each fair is tiring as well. The pay off was when about 75% of the people in my tent enthusiastically asked me where can I get more of this? do you have a store? can I get this in different colors? I have never seen anything like this before, I would like to buy more. I was overwhelmed by everyone's generosity. I also was very overwhelmed. My answer was always the same. "My youngest child is headed off to kindergarten in a month and we will see where all this goes!" I understand that this is an amazing problem to have but I have no real answers on how to make more art with the time I have. I have started researching "thinking bigger" . My husband has been encouraging me to do this from the beginning and I will have to give him the credit if it pays off!! :) Just quietly saying a prayer of thanks tonight and overwhelmed by everyone's support. Except for the balloon animal guy. I am praying he gets a how to make new balloon animals book for his birthday!
Have a great holiday weekend!
Lindsay and her seven lemons...
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