Year in Review

LOTS of changes around here in the last year!  First, of all, we are no longer homeschooling.  This was a very hard decision for us, since we had homeschooled our daughter in grades K-5.  However, we decided that she would benefit from having a greater diversity of teachers, strong academic programs, and the chance to be more independent.  We found an awesome school for her and she is already thriving there.  Here is a photo of her from our summer vacation, ready to take on the waves!

Another BIG and AMAZING and AWESOME change is that my husband and I now both work during the day!  For years he worked at night to acccommodate homeschooling and keep our daughter out of child care. It was great for her - she got tons of time with each parent.  However for the parents, it was the worst!  I am really crazy about my husband and for 8 long years I only saw him two evenings a week plus summers.  It was SO HARD.  I cannot emphasize enough how hard it was.  I felt near cracking point. But this past Spring he got a job offer within the organization and is now home with me and our daughter every evening!  It's wonderful and relaxing and the best thing that every happened.  And great timing - we celebrated out 15th wedding anniversary this summer by renewing our vows at the spot we had our first kiss. 

We have an amazing new family member - my second nephew. He is one of the sweetest, happiest babies I have ever met.  We hadn't had a new baby in the family in 5 years so you can imagine how much kissing and squishing he got immediately!  I've been extra lucky to get to spend lots of time with him.  Hard to believe he is almost 10 months old.  

My one-year anniversary of my "new" job is tomorrow and I still love it as much as I did on day one.  I really feel like I am where I belong, sharing art with kids and helping them interpret the museum, as well as helping young adults gain experience and find their next steps.  I have also been very forturnate in the last year to have the opportunity to go back to school and I have been taking one class a semester, choosing things that relate to my job.  Last semester I took Arts of China and this semester I'm taking Printmaking 1. 

I will say I find the homework for printmaking much less stressful than writing papers.  I am not sure why - I've always been a strong writer - but wow college is a lot of work.  I can't believe I ever took 5 classes and worked full time!  

Since last year there has been another major change in my life. I have entered an adult weight management program.  Technically, I was in it last year, but I was only doing the counseling portion of the program.  I was getting ready to jump in and really get moving. I'm doing great in it and I'm really happy!  I will have a whole separate post on that soon!

2 Songs by Ethan

My sweet husband celebrated his birthday yesterday by playing at a local open mic.  I love these songs!

Adult Time

 

Our daughter is away at camp, and my husband had the first four days of this week off!  We had a wonderful time together.  We shot off some fireworks in our yard, went out to eat, went and visited a waterfall, swam in the lake, read together, listened to music, went to a city fireworks display, went out for ice cream, etc.  Time alone with him is extra precious to me because most of the year we work opposite shifts and don't see each other very much.  It can be very hard - I spend a lot of time missing him.  So four uninterrupted days together was such a gift!

That said, we really missed our daughter too!  He went back to work on Thursday and lucky my best friend, Lisa, was there to help me beat the missing-Esme blues.  She met me at a scrapbook store that is equally distance from our houses.  Time with Lisa is also very precious since we live an hour and a half apart.

Here's the layout I did - these photos are of my niece around this time last summer.  I have been hoarding some 6 by 6 paper pads so I broke one of them out for the patterned paper on this one.  I also used Doodlebug stickers, BasicGrey rubons, and a Simple Stories bingo card.

Wow I have been out of commission for a while! I had no idea how long it had been since I'd posted. I've been keeping very busy with things like Girl Scouts, teaching, and homeschooling for the last couple months. I finished up scouting last Saturday, and teaching today (homeschooling never stops!) so I feel several projects coming on! In the meantime, the big news at my house is that my husband has officially converted to Christianity and was baptized at our church on Pentecost. Also, he released his first CD of the Month for May which was awesome! I will post an art journal page and a couple scrapbook pages soon! Hope everyone is enjoying their last few days of Spring and looking forward to summer!

Our awesome friend, Matt Wilga, has just released his first single, There I Go. In celebration of his accomplishment and getting to see him play live in Amherst, we stamped these shirts to wear to the show. Being a crafter is extra handy for things like these - I already had these huge Heidi Swapp stamps (which I love) and some black Crafter's ink by Colorbox. I'm not sure the show was strictly appropriate for our daughter, given the other acts and the lateness of the hour, but she is a big fan so we didn't want her to have to miss it. He dedicated a song to her and gave her the set list.

I'm so glad the cold weather is almost behind us for another year. Esme and I like to sit outside with paints or colored pencils, at home or at the park, and let Ethan serenade us while we create. This is one of my last winter-inspired pictures for this year, and it's a typical scene from my life! It's just a quick sketch with oil pastels and acrylic paints, where I made some swirls on paper and saw what kind of people would emerge. Now I'm looking forward to Friday, when I hear we might hit 72 degrees here in the Pioneer Valley, and hoping that soon pictures of little girls in flowered dresses will emerge from those swirls.

I think I am on the mend and at last feeling in more of a crafty mood. When the last spot goes away, I think it will be time for a party. I have been really been wanting to work on whimsical projects the past few weeks. I was lucky enough to go away for the weekend with my handsome husband, and created this painting in our friend's cottage on the Cape. It was inspired by a line in a song he once wrote that always inspires me, "Paper thin hopes folded into a boat, to sail away with you." I am planning to do a few more pieces with this line in mind.

LYB True Love Album

Having a cold is decidedly uninspiring! I am extremely relieved that my daughter, Esme, has recovered from her pneumonia, but depressed that her dad and I now both have this awful cold. Since I've been under the weather I haven't felt like doing much, so I've taken the time to sort and organize my photos, as well as back them up on the terabyte drive I got last Christmas. In honor of Valentine's Day, I'd like to share an album that I made for Ethan last Christmas, all about romance. I hope everyone else is staying healthy and warm!

This is one of my favorite pages of Ethan and me. I did it with supplies I received during my month as a guest designer at Scrapperie, when they were a kit club. I took this photo on the street in Northampton. Scrapbooking is one of my favorite things to do!!

I've been spending most of my free time the last couple weeks trying to get my studio organized. I use it for all my painting, scrapbooking, sewing, and otherwise crafty supplies, so it is QUITE full. I was lucky to have a friend over to help me redo it and make me feel less boxed in when I'm sitting at my table. Now I've hit the place where I just want to give up and just do some creative projects!! Enough organizing, I want to be painting or scrapping! I have been trying to develop my own style of portraits so I'm doing some smaller sizes for practice. Soon I hope to get into these lovely bigger canvases I've been saving.

This is just a quick sketch I did of Ethan one day while we were up at Mount Tom for an afternoon. Esme and I brought our art supplies and Ethan serenaded us for awhile. For years I've been talking about making some album art for him and I told him this will be my first one - plenty of room for the title and easily printed.

Christmas Presents and a Painting

I was very lucky to receive some arty gifts this Christmas, including an easel, and a mat cutting system. Hoping Ethan will learn to use the mat cutter and become my mat guy! I am just not very good at things that require such precision. Thought I would share another piece that includes him - this is one of my favorites from a new series I'm doing of post-industrial areas. This is a building in the crumbling downtown in our city and that little green speck on the lower left gives it it's title - "Ethan on the Street." This painting is done with kind of a different technique - it is paint pen on one side and acrylics on the other of a transparency. I've been inspired by Ludwig Bemelmans, author and illustrator of the Madeline series and hope to finally open my Etsy shop when I have four finished. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting my new blog!! I plan to share my new pieces here, and thoughts about the process. To start, I'd like to share a quick portrait I did of my husband, Ethan, after learning some new techniques in a class with one of my favorite artists, Donna Estabrooks. Ethan is my biggest supporter and has encouraged me to create from the very start. This abstract piece is a mix of oil pastel and acrylic paint and was initially started with my non-dominant, left hand.