Discipline finished page.

The finished page. I am pretty happy with it.

Still life #2

A quick pen drawing of my cell phone before bed.

Still Life #1

A pen sketch of my water brush with colored pencil on watercolor paper.

DISCIPLINE!

The theme for me for this next season is Discipline. Over the next 10 Months I am going to be focusing on my art & faith and create in myself a disciplined mind, body, and spirit. My goal is to be able to hear and know where the Lord wants me to go, to be in good physical condition that I can get there, and know my craft so well that I can flow with the Holy Spirit without having to stop due to my own criticizims of the art. I want to be able to "play/paint by heart"! Currently for the Month of March I will be focusing on Faith & the power of the tongue, The Book of Hebrews, and still life.

Felt Flower

Here's two rows in on the felt flower I made. I took some more pictures with the camera and hopefully I will get some time with the computer to upload them. The flower turned out great in my opinion. Hopefully I will get some more supplies and will make more. I have a huge supply of felt at home.

FELT FLOWERS

Felt flowers. This is what I have so far. Liquid stitches and felt & a heavy books and a cup of beans. But I may end up using a whole tube of liquid stitches.

Self Portrait #1

Here's a better picture. I think later I will delete the one I took yesterday...I look so sullen and serious. It's weird for me to look at pictures of myself or look at myself really. It's something that for a large part of my life I have avoided doing. Even now when I stand before the mirror I constantly critique my image.

Pounded flower prints.

Pounded flower prints.

Shaving Cream + Food Coloring + Little Hands + Watercolor Paper = Awesome Paper!

These are the awesome outcome of shaving cream, food coloring, and watercolor paper. Isaiah and I had a blast making these, even Gracie got in on the action! A word of caution though...food coloring does stain your fingers and probably stains your clothes as well. I love the silky almost crushed suede feel the paper has after it's dried.

So are you inspired? Wanna try yourself? 1) Spray shaving cream all over clean cookie sheet. 2) add drops of desired food coloring. 3) mix the food coloring in with fingers or knife to spread out but not too much. Just make sure shaving cream covers the whole surface. 4) take card and press into shaving cream 5) peel off and lay shaving cream up to dry. 6) once dry, if there is excess dried shaving cream on card. wipe it off with a paper towel.
You can use this techique to make any kind of marbled paper. For ATC's, altered books, greeting cards, art journals, whatever you need pretty paper for.

Go manifest God through creativity! Be blessed!

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Finally I have finished Princess Peach. I think for the blanket I will need to

Finally I have finished Princess Peach. I think for the blanket I will need to either find a better skin tone or a darker pink to make her sleeve stand out a bit more. I've done a lot of sketches of grids and graphs of different characters. So far I am loving how she's turning out. Now to decide if we will do each character as different blocks and put the patches together.

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Tuinisian Fire Power Flower

So here's the first test run of the Mario Blanket things. I learned a lot doing this one. First in working a small project such as this one you don't need much yarn. Second, two Tuinisian stitches equals 1 square in my graph. This looks pretty great anyway, even if it's not as wide as I would have planned. These are so cute. I think I may do a mock up little Mario Blanket to design the big one. Do I want to do a larger blanket of individual panels? Or should I do a scene? I wonder how wide of a panel I can fit on my hook? Well it's a 10 inch hook so obviously a 10 inch panel...but how big is that in squares on my graph? How come there is so much math in crafting? lol! Stay tuned to find out more as the Mario blanket unfolds.

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Tuinisian Crochet

Here's the practice run of me teaching myself how to Tuinisian(sp?) crochet. On my brand new afghan crochet needle. I am thinking about doing Micah & Isaiah's Mario blanket like this. I think it will be totally awesome. Now just to figure out my design. I am so excited! I guess I am going to have to learn hoe to do blocking as well.

Art Lesson

Yesterday, I was feeling adventurous in teaching Isaiah his colors. So we raided the studio for supplies and found him a great little 4x4 canvas that I got on clearance from Michael's for probably under a $1. It has a preprinted lion on it, and came with a few little little tubes of paint in the back as well as a little tiny brush. But we used some old paint by number paints we got handed down to us by my late Grandma Hites.

Isaiah loved exploring the colors, and making marks on the canvas. He paid little attention to the manufacture picture, and covered it up almost immediately. The brush he was using had a wonderful long handle on it and he did manage to get the wall 3 or 4 times and did get the floor and the toe of my sock. Thank God for a quick swipe of a wash cloth and no one would know it recently had red, yellow, orange, blue & green on it. All that remains is the beautiful painting that Isaiah created. The painting is the perfect size to keep forever in a momento box!

Corruption

Here's one of the things that I love to do...corrupt other people to embrace their creative side & discover that they too can paint & create beautiful things. This is Melinda and her painting "Surrender All". It's quite prophetic actually of her life and circumstances. I really love the whole design of it, her surrendered with hands in the air and light breaking forth out of the sky, what I call God clouds (as if there was a cloud that God didn't create. lol!). But I particularly like these clouds because they open up and let heaven here to earth! And that is exactly my prayer for Melinda...for heaven's light to breakthru into her life and she fully surrender to it all. That no area of her life be left in the dark from God's light. I also pray that where ever she is, and whatever she is going through that she bloom where she is planted and not strive for what God already has blessed and
promised her and us really. God is good & faithful & worthy to be praised!

All your heart.

I haven't given this blog much love lately. But I do have a bunch of ideas swirling around my head after reading and drooling over the latest issue of Somerset Studio Magazine...oh how I love it! Anyway, I am participating in a swap for Valentines Day which I've participate in many time before....anway here's a sneak peak of the hand carved stamp I made last night. I rather love the image of the heart & I love all the scriptures & songs about love & hearts. Perhaps I will hang out in this theme for a bit?

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Ipod Nano cozy for sale!

Here's the ipod cozy that I made for the tiny ipod Nano. I think this will work out just fine. But since I don't actually own an ipod nano it's hard to tell if a button closure would be more beneficial. Anywho, this little darling will be posted to my etsy shop as soon as my good camera arrives and I can reconstruct my light box. Did I tell you? A tissue paper lightbox does not stand up very well to a 3 year old who loves to drum on things. I think the loop on this is just perfect to loop around your thumb for holding your ipod while walking or jogging.

Crocheted Ipod Nano Case #2 for Andi.

This is the ipod case that I made for my friend Andi. Her favorite color is purple. I have been trying to make her one for a while. The first one I made ended up being a map holder for Zay because it was way too big for an ipod case & Isaiah loves Dora the Explorer but they don't market anything for Dora for boys. I will have to add that picture later of Zay & his maps. In the next mobile post I will show you the other Nano ipod case I made. You may have known this already but I was unaware that the nano comes in two sizes. The smaller one will be available on my etsy shop here shortly.

Indoor Hopscotch a great thing to do on a cold day!

This is how we spent our afternoon. Learning our numbers and getting a little bit of exercise. It's bitterly cold outside as we discovered this morning for our daily doggie walk. So this was a great way to burn off some energy. It's so hard to not get bored stuck inside all winter long.

Felt project #1

Made from no pill felt, these adorable little circles can be used for a felt chore chart, routine reminders, or even a memory game if you collect enough of them. I am totally in LOVE with these! They are so cute! And easy for my son to understand & he get a great feeling of accomplishment when he gets a physical display of all that he has achieved for the day. We will also use these circles for learning to count & learning colors! Oh....how I love felt! Now to narrow down all the things I want to make. Should I have the chore felt board be a framed piece? Or a roll up mat that can hang on a ribbon? So many ideas to make with felt!

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Happy New Year!

Wow! So far it's been quite the year so far....we have lots of changes that are coming our way. Which seems appropriate that these pictures come to me in this time and season. This pot, is something I made in a ceramics class in Champaign at Parkland College, it was one of the last requirements I needed to fill to get into Grad School for Art Therapy....(long story, I will get back to some other day). Anyway, it has on is Proverbs 3:5-6 carved into the walls of the pot. It's a pretty tall pot....one of the best pieces that I completed in ceramics. Anyway, I love this piece. Is it proudly displayed somewhere in my house? Um....no. God had me give this away. I remember distinctly arguing with God about it too. I was walking through the Vineyard Church, and God spoke to me and told me to give the pot to Emily. She was Emily Hoerr, now Pool....she was moving to another town to plant a church. At the time she didn't have a job, and she bought a house in faith that God would show up. And He did! She got a job, she also got engaged in that house I believe. She's now happily married and has a beautiful little boy! She is also the one that took these FABULOUS pictures. Here we are, just having moved from Missouri back to our home state of Iowa. I don't really know what the year is going to turn out like, or what the Lord has in store for us, but I know that He is there guiding our paths...and I am trusting in Him!