July Adventures

July has been pretty hectic. We have been trying to get our Master Bedroom/Bathroom prepped for the installers to come in next week and start installing the tile. I will be showing pictures and writing a full post about that.

I only took one sky picture this month, but it has a little rainbow in it so that should make up for it!

I have actually been painting and drawing quite a bit this month. I hope this feeling sticks around.

I purchased some art supplies from Dick Blick. I have been researching using gouache paint and wanted to give it a try. I also purchased these water soluble crayons. These are neat because you can color with them and then take water and brush and they work like water colors.

I have been doodling a lot at work lately because our computers have been running slow. This first one is kind of funny we have a font at work called Hamburger Heaven so I drew this to go with the font.

This one I was playing with an idea that popped in my head.

This was a study sketch for my next LifeBook lesson.

This is the final sketch for my latest LifeBook Lesson I am working on.

I purchased this Dylusions Art Journal a couple of months back and finally started using it. I drew this from my little sketch from my work doodle above. I still need to put some paint on it.

I also finished a couple of my LifeBook lessons. You can check those out here and here.

I just finished the fourth book of the Outlander series. These books are so long they are taking me just about a month to finish them. I am so intrigued by the story of these people that I can't stop now. This fourth installment was good. There were some slow parts with some parts where I couldn't put the book down. There was one point I had to keep reading to find out what happened to a character and once I found out I had to put the book down for a bit. My heart was racing so fast trying to figure out what happened to this character.

That is all for this month. I am hoping I will be just as productive next month.

2014 Library Catalog Cover

This year's catalog is off to the printer and I can't wait for it to be finished to see the final product. I always love when our books or catalogs come back and see my designs printed. I realized I am about a year behind showing off some of my Graphics work. This was the cover I designed for last year's library book catalog.

LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 15 ~ Quirky Animals

I had so much fun with this lesson. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. This lesson was taught by Tamara LaPorte of Willowing Arts. I really love her fun whimsical style. When this lesson came up last year I already knew what animals I wanted to do. The lesson encouraged us to list out how we are feeling and use an animal to represent those feeling. I decided to go a different route and chose mine and the boyfriend's astrological signs, in both the Chinese and from the traditional zodiac. When I sketched out the animals they came out a bit more cutesy than I planned but I went with it. The boyfriend would have liked to see them look a little more fierce. I will have to work on drawing different facial expressions. I had so much fun working on these I didn't take any progress photos. I did take some photos of the finished piece from different angles.

LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 14 ~ Journaling Collage

I am really trying to push through these lessons. I have decided that if I watch the video and an idea doesn't come to me right away or I am not feeling called to the lesson or technique I am going to skip it. So I decided to skip Week 13 and move on to Week 14. I loved this lesson taught by Dyan Reaveley. I just love her fun funky style and quick techniques. Her Dylusions sprays are so much fun to work with, and the colors are so bright and bold.

June Adventures

I can't believe June has come and gone by already. 

I think I will start with my sun/sky photos that I took this month. It has been really hot and humid here in Florida already this summer. It is so uncomfortably hot out. I was able to get a couple good sun pictures this month.

I was super excited to be a backer for the LightSail Kickstarter campaign:

The campaign is over now, but there are ways you can still support it find out more here. I will share more on this later when I get my little gifts for my support.

My little area held its own first annual Comic Con. It was small but definitely fun and entertaining. I took more pictures but they didn't come out very well. I should have taken the DSLR camera with me to get better pictures. There were a few celebrities there, we sat in on a few of the panels. Spencer Wilding was very charming and interesting to hear what projects he worked on and tell stories about working on certain sets. Sebastian Roche was a total nutcase. He came out and just turned the place into a huge party. He had kids up on the stage dancing and singing. It was pretty crazy. Then Natalija Nogulich who was best known for being Admiral Alynna Nechayev on Star Trek: Next Generation. She was so down to earth and had very interesting stories of working with other actors.

Here are the few pictures that actually came out ok:

There were some food truck outside the convention. We ate at a truck called Phatz Chicken, and had the most amazing chicken and waffles.

I saw a couple interesting movies this month.

First was a little animated movie from Ireland called Song of the Sea. This movie was one of the most beautifully written and artistic movies I have seen in a long time. The whole movie looked like a huge watercolor painting. There were times the story made me laugh and then cry. If you like beautifully animated movies and are interested in Celtic Mythologies/Folkstories, you need to see this movie.

The second movie was Jurassic World, which was great and full of adventure. If you liked any of the other Jurassic Park movies you will like this one. Plus it has Chris Pratt in it!

I was excited to finally finish the LifeBook lesson I was working on, you can read more about that here.

I do have another lesson finished for this and will post about that next week.

I finished the third book of the Outlander series. This story was by far my favorite so far. So much suspense, anticipation, adventure, and action in this one. I have moved on to the fourth book and that was is starting out a little slower for me but I am sure it will move along soon.

I have been on pinterest a lot lately and that recipe for Smores Dip kept popping up in my feed. I just had to try it. I went and bought one of the tiny dutch oven pots. I broke up a hershey bar on the bottom, then put as many small marshmallows on top that would fit. I put it in the oven on 450 for about 5 minutes. Then dip graham crackers and enjoy. It was amazing!!!

The last exciting thing that happened this month is I finalized the paperwork to have my master bathroom remodeled. They are not going to start work until the beginning of August, but I am super excited to get that room all fixed. I plan on taking before and after pictures.

I think that is about it for this month. I would like to wish everybody a wonderful Fourth of July!