Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Merry Christmas

This year, for some crazy reason, I thought it would be fun to do a homemade Christmas. I started back in November and my easel, my sewing machine, the glue gun, and other craft items were constantly cluttering the house (much to Philip's dismay). Since everything I was making was for Christmas, I couldn't post any of the fun things I was making.

Well still most of it is wrapped under my tree, but one thing I made has been given away so now it's time to share.

My parents came to Utah over Thanksgiving and one of the things we did was visit a little store called "The Wood Connection." It was one of those stores that you walk into and are so overwhelmed at first, but then suddenly, even if you're not crafty at all, all you want to do is make crafts! Needless to say, all of us walked out with paint, wood, scrapbooking paper, and many other fun craft ideas floating around in our heads. (need I give you more proof?)

Feeling all motivated, I set to work that week and busted out a few of these:



And before you think how hard to make they look, let me just tell you that it was one of the easier Christmas projects I did this year. The wood, and both green and cream paint was bought from The Wood Connection (and let me just tell you that everything from that place was CHEAP). Then I printed out the words I wanted in the size and font I wanted. After that I took two sheets of carbon paper and placed them between the printer paper and the (already painted green) wood, and then simply traced the letters. Even though the paint was pretty dark green, the carbon tracing showed up great. Once the tracing was complete, I set to work with a tiny brush and just colored in between the lines. As easy as that.

I think out of all the presents I did this year, this one is close to my very favorite. Maybe next year you can try it too...or if I have an Esty shop up and running you can just buy one :)

Merry Christmas to all -- we're off to Las Vegas so the blogging will recommence next week (in which I promise to show you lots of other homemade gifts!)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The Best Part of the Season

One of my favorite things about this time of year is that everyone is home for the holidays. We're taking full advantage of that in Provo -- if only the rest of the DV 7 could have been with us...





Oh...and if you look closely, you can see the baby bump starting to emerge!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Summing Me Up



Feeling so happy today.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

It's Beginning To Look Alot Like Christmas

I've been Christmas shopping for several months now, have been listening to Christmas music since Thanksgiving was over, and have been thinking about Christmas almost constantly. But somehow it didn't seem like Christmas until we woke up to a winter wonderland on Sunday, and then spent Sunday evening putting up the Christmas tree.



Putting up decorations wouldn't be completely without Philip doing a little cleaning :)


Our new star twinkle lights from my mom...I love them!



NOW it feels like Christmas.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Thanksgiving

I was going through the photos on my camera last night and realized I had a few Thanksgiving pictures on there. Somehow I completely skipped over that holiday, like half the world. Have you noticed that? The Halloween decorations come out around September, and then November 1st the Halloween decorations disappear only to be replaced by Christmas decorations! Apparently the retail world does not care about Thanksgiving.

Well I do.

But not enough to take more than 3 pictures the entire day, two of which were really ugly.



Happy Belated Thanksgiving.

Friday, December 4, 2009

The place where I usually put the models name, but I don't know her name

All this pregnancy excitement has caused some serious slacking in the blog department. Actually it's more like all of the Christmas projects that I have piled on my kitchen table, waiting to be taken care of. So little time.

Anyway, here is the head painting that I did in class last night.



I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out, and I was even more pleased when Justin came to look at it and said how much better I was doing. I'm finally starting to get the hang of painting faces. I purposely didn't include much detail because I'm trying to just deal with the basic shadow shapes right now. And interestingly enough, even without painting her eyes or ears, or other little details, it has a pretty good likeness. Funny how my teachers have been telling me that for months and I'm finally starting to see it all come together.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Biggest Project

I've been so busy lately with my latest and greatest project. It's been taking up nearly all my time, so I figured I'd better share some photos.

Here I am in my "studio" working HARD


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Oh...you want to see what I'm actually working on??? Okay...
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But wait...there is more news!
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ANDDDDD...the question you'll all ask....
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And now enough photos of me. On to the main event:



Now in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for my two dudes. The big one and the little one!