I Wish!

YUP!

(This website kills me. I love it)

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: 8th Grade Fiction

When I was in 5th grade, I was advised to keep every scrap of my writing. "You never know what you'll need for inspiration later," my mother said as she gave me a file cabinet to keep it all in.

I took that advice to heart and as a result, I have EVERY scrap of my writing - especially my middle school writing, which, let me just say, is the most boring writing ever.

At the age of 14, I was obsessed with naming characters and made sure to have at least twenty main characters per book just so I could name all of them. And list all those names within the first two pages. Invigorating stuff, I tell ya! Who needs plot?

If a story survived those first two pages, the rest of it tended to look something like this (a sample from my 8th grade fiction folder):

Your heart was hammering in your chest as you read this, wasn't it? Palms tingling with fear? Scream caught in your throat? Yeah, that wildly lurking mirror of night... you gotta watch out for it. At the tender age of fourteen, my two biggest writing influences were VC Andrews and Victoria Holt. Is that obvious?

Sadly, the only writing I finished back then was my About the Author page...

How funny that a decade later I graduated college with a degree in Creative Arts, my emphasis being art, English lit and children's theatre. I haven't changed much...

Happy Friday, folks! I woke up today thinking it was Thursday, sulked for a few minutes and then remembered it was Friday. Oh, happy day! I am ready for the weekend, how about you?

xoxo,

Illustration Friday - Duet

When I saw the Illustration Friday prompt for this week - Duet - I instantly thought, Aw, how cute! I should sketch up a duet illustration of Hector and Consuelo, my froggies in love!

Then I thought, Oh, well, I don't really have time for that, what with this book I'm trying to revise sucking up every ounce of my energy and time.

But my muse was all like, HA! THINK AGAIN, little caterpillar, for I am bored of your book and I shall ruin it until you find the time to sit and sketch!

And I was like, No! I have a self-imposed deadline and must finish my revision by May! How can you do this to me?!

And my muse laughed.

She laughed in my FACE!

But you know, when your muse is burnt out from revisions and ready for another creative outlet, you gotta listen. You definitely don't want to mess with your muse. I should take my own advice. My muse and I are not always on speaking terms. I am stubborn and she is sadistic.

But she is boss and I am merely a pawn in her creativity game, so, I pulled out my sketchbook, sharpened a pencil, and, though I'm somewhat rusty, I sketched a little duet!

Here is Hector and his sweet Consuelo! Rough and sloppy, but that's okay.

Happy Wednesday, folks!

xoxo,

Make It: Personalized Baby Book

I've had babies on the brain lately. It could be because spring has sprung and baby stuff is EVERYWHERE. It could be because my BFF Jenni is due with a baby girl this summer. Or maybe because my teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy newborn baby girl is turning SIX in one month...

SIX!! She's practically a grown up.

With babies on the brain, I thought I'd share a crafty project I made when Gracie was in her baby days. A personalized baby book, made with photographs, scrapbook paper, and magazines. Super simple.

I started by writing a poem:

Baby - From Head to Toe

Baby has a button nose
Two blue eyes that open and close
She has ten fingers
and she has ten toes
Kissable lips like the bud of a rose
She has two ears
A body wearing clothes
And a little belly button for...
Raspberry blows!

(Okay, I'm not the world's greatest poet, I admit, but it's not too bad, and if you plan on making one of these for the baby in your life, it can be easily changed to suit your needs)

The cover is the above photo - scrapbook paper, photo, letters cut from a magazine - and here is the rest of the book:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the back cover is an about the baby page, because it is just so easy to forget all the day-to-day baby stuff!

A quick and easy project! And if you want to make it nice and durable, head on over to your local copy shop and have it laminated and coil bound - you can get it done at Office Max for only a couple of bucks.

Enjoy!

xoxo,

Sunday Morning Soccer Art

This morning my girls had a "draw pictures for Mommy" hour with Will while I toiled away in my studio with the revision of my book (I've officially hit the 2/3rds mark! Woo hoo!)

And the art theme o'the morning: Soccer (that's football, for the Brits who can't figure out what this Yank is talking about). Inspired by Will's Wii FIFA soccer game. I'm such a lucky lady.




When it comes to soccer (football!) the only thing I'm really interested in is Michael Owen...
*wipes drool*

But I appreciate my new soccer (football!) artwork anyway.

Especially Annelie's backward name.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, folks!

xoxo,

No Laughing Matter

This is my coffee pot.

Sadly, this is no April Fool's joke - my hubs broke my coffee pot yesterday. I panicked. HOW WILL I EVER SURVIVE WITHOUT COFFEE??

So I came up with a solution that my once again highly caffeinated-self found amusing.

(I am easily amused)

Happy Friday folks! We'll be kicking off our weekend with a dinner of spaghetti, fresh off the tree. There is nothing better than homegrown spaghetti, in my opinion!



xoxo,

Lisztomania Love

My super rad friend Kearsie (who needs to start blogging again, soon, because she is hilarious) sent me this video, knowing my love for the band Phoenix and my love for awesome YouTube videos.



This is the PS22 Chorus and they have a blog: http://ps22chorus.blogspot.com/

Seeing those kids feel the music as they sing makes me insanely happy and the song, Listzomania is one of my favorites. I blogged about it 2 years ago, with cute mash-up videos, if you haven't seen them. {click here to be magically transported!}

Enjoy! and Happy... what day of the week is it? Thursday?? How did that happen? My week has gone by too fast!

xoxo,