Word Art Wednesday - February 29, 2012

As seems to be the case every week, the scripture for this week's Word Art Wednesday is just so apropos:

As I work toward wellness on this cancer journey, I'm finding myself more and more inclined to praise God, and to tell of the marvelous things He has done. When I do so, I am filled with joy -- because of Him. It's amazing what an attitude of gratitude does to inspire a song in one's soul!


When I looked at this week's word art (above), the shape reminded me of a lyre, so I wanted to incorporate one into my art. I also wanted a woman in there. The end result is not exactly what I envisioned originally -- but this is what emerged when I began drawing around the word art:

Nicecrane Designs is this week's Word Art Wednesday sponsor, so if you decide to link up a piece of your art that has a scripture or encouraging text on it, you might just win a little something! I do hope you'll join us!

Just the Two of Us

Today found just DD9 and me home alone together. It was a perfect opportunity for us to spend some one-on-one time together. We agreed that doing art together would be fun, but she said she wanted me to actually teach her how to do something instead of her just playing with paint and stuff. Actually, I think it was a ploy to have me more engaged with her instead of us each just doing our own things -- which often means I'm in my own little world separate from her. (She's a smart cookie. Me teaching her would mean I'd really be paying attention to her. I'm glad I caught on!) So we did a quick search of Kathy Barbro's Art Projects for Kids and decided to try a cat painting. There were step-by-step instructions, so I showed DD9 how to do each step (and explained how I would have written the instructions a bit differently ;) 


Here she is comparing her drawing to the example -- and she was quite pleased with her work!

Here is her finished piece, which I think is awesome! I like it better than mine because it has more character.

And here is mine. (More angry eyes! What's up with that?!?!?)

DD9 had also  talked about making lollipop flowers, and her dad had suggested painting a lollipop garden -- so that's what we did next. We started by painting a sky and grass background, then painting circular "blobs" on which we stamped hand-made, plasticine lollipops. We got the idea for the  modeling clay stamps from a pinterest post -- quite brilliant, I think! Here's my lollipop stamp:

Here are our gardens before we stamped them with the lollipops:

And these are our finished gardens:

Baking/cooking was also high on her list of things she'd like to do, so we made chewy granola bars for an afternoon snack -- but I forgot to take a picture of them. Trust me -- they were yummy! 


For supper, she had a real hankering for mushroom soup. I didn't think we had any mushrooms, but she rummaged around in the fridge and found some! She had lots of ideas about how to go about making the soup -- so that's what we did! We sauteed mushrooms, onions, and garlic, added vegetable broth and almond milk (because she wanted it to be creamy) and then blended it a bit with a hand blender (because she wanted it to be chunky, but not too chunky ;) A dash of salt, and -- voila! 

It was DELICIOUS! 

 I think DD9's love tank was sufficiently topped up today. My undivided attention and words of affirmation made her glow. And I know I sure enjoyed our time together. 


What says "love" to your family members?

A Husband Who Remembers

Yesterday was the anniversary of our first kiss. My awesome husband commemorated the occasion with a beautiful card and these roses:

How blessed am I?!?!?

Word Art Wednesday - February 22, 2012

This week's Word Art Wednesday challenge was to use the verse, "Be still and know that I am God." 


I like that verse. I've always liked that verse. But it's so hard to apply. Even though I'm a human being, I always feel like I need to be a human doing. And life is so busy. So, so busy. It's hard to be still -- to be and know that He is God, and He is Good. It's hard not to get my feather's all ruffled in the winds of life.


This little bird has it mastered, though:

When I visualized this piece, I wanted to use a busy background -- something full of colour and movement. I started with magazine cut-outs, but realized that it would be difficult to see the bird if the background was too busy. So I dug through my stash and found this background (inspired by The Artistic Mother) that I created by sweeping paint across paper with an old gift card. It's sufficiently busy, but I like the fact that it also reminds me of a sunset. I drew the bird using a Googled silhouette as a model and coloured it in with permanent marker. The verse is backed with black cardstock to tie it all together. 


Would you care to join us in depicting this verse in art? If you link up on the Word Art Wednesday Challenge blog, you might just win a little something from Lisa's Altered Art. 

Dancing in the Snow

I just wanted to share some of my husband's latest creativity with you:

I love it!


(He's going to miss Picnik come April.)

More Valentine Loveliness

My awesome DH helped make Valentine's Day special this year. For breakfast, he had these sweet treats prepared:

This photo looks cluttered, but it gives you a glimpse of our table setting. Do you like the Valentine tree? I love the idea of it, but this particular one is a bit big and lopsided. 

DH and DD14 made Valentine garlands:

We forgot to buy Valentine's napkins, so we used Christmas ones instead. They still worked for the occasion ;) 

For dinner, we had our traditional heart-shaped pizzas -- but this year we all topped our own.

DH and DD9 created this awesome marble cake for dessert . . .

. . . along with these jam-filled heart cookies.

It was a lovely day of fellowship with family and friends celebrating this:

Subway art courtesy of The Girl Creative.

Do you have any Valentine traditions? Whether you do or not, how do you celebrate love?

Word Art Wednesday - February 15, 2012

Whew! It has been a busy week! Just popping in right now to post my Word Art Wednesday piece for today. 


The verse is Psalm 119:105. I really struggled with how to visually represent this verse. The Word is the lamp. I wanted to stay away from typical images of bibles and lamps -- but then I was without any images! Just as I was drifting off to sleep last night, though, I had an image of God's word literally plastered on the page illuminating the path of a woman. So, using a print-out of the verses I'd used in my DH's Valentine's Alphabet Book, I made a background with the Word and painted it yellow to represent His Word being a lamp -- and drew a woman on a path being led by that light. I wish she didn't look quite so angry -- or worried -- and I can't quite determine which way she's a walkin' -- but I like the concept :) Perhaps I'll try again when I have more time. 

How would you depict this verse in a visual image? 


The sponsor for this week's word art challenge is Lindsay's Stamp Stuff. If you participate in the challenge, you just might win something from her collection! 

Valentine's Art Gifts 2012

Valentine's Day has traditionally become a time for our family to get creative and celebrate love with pretty decorations and heart-shaped personal pizzas (more about that in another post, most likely ;) This year, it was DD9 and I who went to town making Valentine art. Inspired by one viewing of these Crazy Hearts Club collages, DD9 made these for some of the people at our table (and then some). (She had an extra, so though she wanted me to have a surprise, she decided to make one for me, too.) 

She likes her paint muddy -- and I have to get over that. It's all about the process for her -- and I love that she just delights in painting. I bit my tongue after suggesting once that she try to keep her colours bright. Who am I to tell her what her colours should look like?! 


We added the thready texture to the hearts by gluing on some remnants from the wool that I used for my project below (the litter of which was still sitting on the art table!). It's glittery litter -- so we were both happy to find a use for it :) 


Here is the special card she made for Daddy, inspired by this one I pinned to my pinterest board because I liked the idea:

We recycled some of her old art for the heart (she traced around a cookie cutter in the spot that appealed to her most) -- and I love how it goes with the background paper she chose. 

The inside has one of those fanned paper hearts that I helped her make with an assortment of papers, including recycled art, waxed paper, vellum, and scrapbook paper.

She used an old dyno tape label maker to create the words inside the card, which she had painted silver. 

I used the same label maker for my card, which was inspired by this Love Map. I didn't have a bunch of old maps to cut up, nor did I have a suitable picture frame, so I modified the idea to make a simple Valentine's card for my husband. I mapquested the places we met, married and live, then simply printed them on photo paper before cutting them out in heart shapes. 

 Not quite as eye-catching as the original, but it works for the occasion :) I can't bring myself to pay the outlandish prices for a store-bought card!

For several years running now, I have made a Valentine's gift for my husband. Inspired by this Valentine's Day Love Album, I made good use of my time during my last chemotherapy treatment. After pumping myself with some caffeine to counteract the effects of the Benedryl, I spent the morning creating this alphabet book to commemorate significant aspects of our love relationship. I had a nosey nurse -- she kept asking what I was writing for each letter and trying to read what I'd written! LOL I didn't mind, especially since I knew I'd be posting about it here, but I thought she was rather brazen in her nosiness ;) Of course, I'm not sharing the whole alphabet (that would be boring!) -- but I will point out that I took the idea a step farther and added a scripture verse for each word I'd used to correspond with the letters of the alphabet. That took forever! For the actual book, I kept things simple by using a pre-cut pad of colour-co-ordinated cardstock (with varied designs) and black letter stickers from our dollar store stash. I bound them with a Xerlox binder comb -- easy-peasy. 

Finally, my DH got creative a while back after I sent him a link to Skip to my Lou's Valentine's ideas. He picniked a photo and prepared a bunch of these for DS5 to give to his friends:

Pretty stinkin' cute, don't you think?


Have you enjoyed some seasonal creativity lately? This morning you might have seen me in our back yard sawing off the top of a dead tree (don't worry -- it was small!). Check in later this week to see how that tree top fit into our Valentine's decor! :)


I shared these creations at: Amongst Lovely Things' Pinterest Challenge: