Art Day

I love to paint. When we were on vacation my husband went quading for the day and I told him I wanted a painting day! I was really inspired by these pictures of Christy's art retreat she had this last summer. I have never painted on a large scale before and wanted to give it a try. My husband made some of these great easels out of simple 1 x 2 boards. Then since large canvases are expensive we all bought foam boards to work with. It was so fun to go outside and be larger then life with our art work. 

We all wanted to do some abstract art! We all picked different colors and made beautiful works of art in our own styles. I wanted to play around and make a fun background, but all I could think about was creating a girl. I started with a simple background and a rough outline of a girl. 

So at first I thought this art day would be just for me, a no kids day. But then I read this amazing blog post by Alisa Burke about Creating with a Kid. She is totally inspiring in how she lives such a creative life. After seeing how much she creates with her daughter I wanted to include my girls in our painting day too. I put them in "paint clothes" that they could get messy, and let them explore. 

Mckenzie was really into finger painting.

Lydia would play, paint, play, paint. 

Addy was very focused. 

Then Mckenzie got into splatter painting. It was so fun to have an art day with my kids too. I loved sharing something I love with them. It was great. They had a blast and painted for hours with me!

We didn't have a lot of paint colors and I quickly ran out of time. This is roughly what my canvas looked like after our art day.  I wish I had taken a better picture, but it was so rough, so I didn't. Everyone had a great day and we enjoyed painting together. There were so really beautiful pieces when we were all done. 

My piece sat unfinished for a couple weeks, until one day I felt inspired again and reworked her. I've been wait to post on her until she was done, but I've realized that will take a long time. I just want to keep adding layers and working on her over time. I'll keep you posted on her progress. 

I added lots of modeling paste for dimension. These flower will be getting lots more paint. One thing I've learned about working on a large painting, it takes lots and lots of paint!!!

I like her blond hair and textured shirt.

I really really like these clouds. So simple, but I love them. 

A work in progress. 

Etsy Store Grand Opening and a GIVEAWAY!

First of all I am so excited to announce that my Etsy store is now open! You can get some of my great necklaces right now!!! There will be more items coming soon!

My Store's name is 33 Lily Pond Lane and the link for it is here. 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/33LilyPondLane

These are just a few of the fun items in my shop. 

Wild Flower Bubblegum Necklace

Pink Frosting Bubblegum Necklace

Flower Power Bubblegum Necklace

Sporty Pink Bubblegum Necklace

A Silver Lining Bubblegum Necklace

Now I want to announce a fun giveaway. I want to send one of these beautiful necklaces to you! To enter you can

#1. Leave a comment telling me which necklace is your favorite.

#2. Share this blog post on Facebook and leave a comment saying you did

#3. Pin to Pinterest. Then leave a comment with the link. 

This giveaway will be open for 1 week! It will close Saturday, Feb 1 at midnight!! Then I'll announce the winner next week. Good Luck!

Studio Calico Project Life Kit- Copper Mountain

So lately I have fallen in love with scrapbooking. I have always enjoyed scrapbooking and scrapbooked a little, but I got a little lost on what my style was, and got a little busy with kids. I have faithfully done project life since 2010, and loved every minute of it! (I'll talk more about that in another post.) But I haven't have time for traditional 12 x 12 pages. I have a million pictures of my cute little kids and couldn't find a way to stay organized and keep up. 

 When my mom came to visit after I had Austin she introduced me to the Two Peas in a Bucket Designer Videos. I was totally hooked and loved watching all the different designers. I felt totally inspired in a way I haven't felt for a long time. I love The Adventures of Glitter Girl with Shimelle. I love layering paper and have learned a lot from her about how to add embellishments. I also really love Wilna's painterly style. I love mixed media art and love how she uses some of these same elements and products on her scrapbook pages. Check out Wilna's blog here. Her banner is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! I really want to take her Art Class 2. Wouldn't that be so fun!!! 

I found myself immersed in this wonderfully creative world full of paper and photos that I want so much to a part of. I would love to be a scrapbook designer someday!! For now, I am so excited to dive into the scrapbooking world head first and share my work with all of you. 

I have had so much fun shopping like crazy! Some of my favorite products are anything related to Project Life. I have the Honey Core kit, Bliss Core kit and a kit from We R Memory Keepers. I also have several mini kits and lots of fun stuff. I love The Polka Dot Party by Elizabeth Kartchner and Flea Market by Maggie Homes.

 I also set up my profile at Studio Calico, you can see my projects and follow me by clicking here. I  signed up for their Project Life kit and am totally loving it!!! This is a pic of the Copper Mountain Studio Calico Project Life kit. You can buy one here. 

Now to be perfectly honest, when I opened up my kit my first thought, was this is kind of random. I loved the cut cards and wood veneer letters, but I wasn't sure were to start. There were a lot of different colors and it didn't seem to all go together at first glance. I took the few cards that weren't my style and tossed them. Then I started separating things into different piles that would be fun to put on a layout. I like using 4 x 6 cards and 2 x 3 cards in traditional project life page protectors, but I also love using them on regular layouts too.  

I was immediately drown to these kinda navy/ dark grey 2 x 3 cards and put them all together for this beautiful monochromatic page. I used the "Love This" card as my title and even turned one of the grey 2 x 3 cards sidewise to do my journaling on. The one downside to this kit is it doesn't come with any 12 x 12 papers. I was a little bummed at first, but I have plenty of paper to use. I also had a blast using the fun embellishments and mini stamps ( I love those).  

Love This

The sequins were such a fun finishing detail. 

I though this 2 x 3 card was very fitting on a page about pregnancy. lol

The next cards I was drawn to were the cute heart 2 x 3 card and "You are Loved" card. I looked through my pictures and used them for this Project life spread about when my sister came to visit. On the left is a mini page protector with three 4 x 4 slots. It was the perfect place to add just a few more pictures.

You are Loved. 

Next I was smitten with this "You are the Bread to my Butter" card. I picked out a bunch of the cards with coordinating colors and did this great Project Life Spread about the kid's grandparents. 

You are the Bread to My Butter

I put the map card behind this card for some fun dimension. 

 I used a bunch of the blue and grey cards on the back of this spread for another quick spread about  our baby boy Austin. I forgot to take pictures, but it was cute.

So let me explain, I have 2 Family Scrapbook Albums. One is my Project Life Album where I take a picture everyday and document our lives. The other is my scrapbook Album, where I mix all sorts of styles and page protectors. I love mixing different size pages and page protectors together. It gives my album the free and eclectic feel of a mini album. In my books, anything goes. I can even throw in some art if I feel like it! I'll have 12 x 12 pages, by 8 x 10 pages, by project life pages, by small 4 x 4 pages protectors, etc. So these Project Life pages here are ones that will go in my regular album. These pages are documenting an event and will go side by side with my 12 x 12 pages. 

Lastly I used the pink, grey and wood grain cards to make this fun layout below. I like how it's put together with bits and pieces of paper and cards. Then I stitched a large heard over the whole page. I used my own background paper and a few embellishments, but the rest is from the kit. Next to this page is a page protector with six 4 x6 pictures of the rest of the event. 

What I Love Most

So with this Studio Calico Project Life kit I easily got 5 layouts!!! You could probably even get a few more. I was so happy with how it all came together and I was able to use the cards to make layouts that look like me. 

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all had a great Christmas. This year was very busy and stressful for me, but there were so many great moments as well. I loved spending time with family. I loved seeing the joy on my kids faces as they opened presents. I loved seeing Christmas lights and dropping off some neighbor gifts while it snowed. I loved the cute art projects my kids brought home from school.

 After taking the Artsy Ornaments Class, Junelle Jacobson, had the idea of painting some cloth and wrapping it around a mason jar. I love giving gifts to friends and teachers and this was perfect. Instead of baking tons of cookies, I spent time painting this sweet little canvas and filled a mason jar with treats. 

I love this idea of giving mason jars as gifts. You could fill it full of crayons, candy, hand sanitizer, homemade treats, art supplies, mints, whatever you want!!! I filled some with mints and some with some homemade treats. 

I sketched all kinds of ideas, and even though I had sketches of all kinds of things, trees, a nativity, stars, etc. I am always drawn to painting girls. I liked this simple quote, "She kept Christmas in her heart." I wanted her to be simple, with stars in the back ground. I was really inspired by Kelly Rea's Christmas collection. I would love to do a bunch of holiday themed canvases. Next year, I'll have to start working in July. (smile)

I photo copied my art work with our copier and then Mod Podged the paper to strips of cloth. It was an easy way to get lots of copies. I did have wrinkles on the paper copies when I Mod Podged it, but I decided that it didn't bother me. I liked having it adhered to the cloth. I then cut strips of fabric and twine and tied them on to the jars. 

Here they are full of cute little mints. 

The backs are tied with a bow. 

I hope you all had a great holiday and Merry Christmas!