The art show reception

Ruminating.

I think this may have been the first art show that CJ was genuinely pleased with his participation. He really enjoyed Kidz Artz, but there seemed to be something about the process of working on this piece and how difficult it was to muster up the idea and then how to carry out the execution and all the procrastinating, and all the self-doubt and all the... well you know what I mean. I think he began to appreciate the process of making something. Or maybe not. It's hard to tell. He's not quite 8 years old.

All I know is that once he decided what he was going to do his focus was stellar. It was all the warming up that seemed the most difficult. It didn't take much cajoling, cheering, or mothering to get him to work on his piece, and in the end I think he was pleased with the end result. And then came the questions. And the introspection. And a little self-admiration with what he had accomplished.

"People are asking me about my artwork!" he says.

"Well what did they ask?" I say.

"Oh I don't know," he shrugs. "Just like, what does the story mean and things like that."

"And what did you say?"

"I don't know. I didn't know what to say. I just walked away."

What can we all say about our own art anyway. We just do it.

Mark your calendars: "One Roof"

Mark your calendars for another art show! This time the lovely folks from Wild Goose Creative are hosting us MAW ladies for a wonderfully collaborative art show. We will be exhibiting our work as well as work from our kids! My son and I have been scheming and talking about our art pieces all week with the hopes that execution will be in the next few days, considering drop off is Monday! (Yikes!) He is truly an apple that does not fall far from the tree, as we both are guilty of over-thinking our pieces.

But we have finally narrowed it down.

For a sneak peek, our art will have something to do with this creature:

Suddenly last summer

So today is the last full day of summer vacation for my oldest son. And technically for my youngest son, too, even though he doesn’t start preschool until September. But his daily buddy will be gone for the weekdays after today, and so the house will return to some sort of rhythm again; a rhythm of early bedtimes and early mornings, packed lunches and homework sheets.

They are good brothers to one another considering their age difference. My youngest son does everything my oldest son does, and luckily he has been a good role model. Summer has been fun with them this year. Reflecting back, I've never been able to spend this much time with them during a summer vacation before. And so I think in the future I will look back on this as a good time, even though there had been a lot of upheaval.

So while it’s a bit bittersweet that they will now both be in school soon, I welcome the change. I welcome it because I think my youngest is very ready for school. Time for him now to understand, too what this time of year means as well. Change is in the air.

And the Winner Is....

I would just like to thank the players of our regular contest, "Caption This!" It's always hard to decide, but after some valiant efforts it was really hard to top the first entry.

Introducing the next winner of the "Caption This!" card line from Revelry Press:



Caption written by the funny and talented, Barb Friedman.

Thanks for playing everyone! Next "Caption This" coming up on September 18th.

Caption This!

For those that don't know how to play, click here.

For those that do, have fun! Let the one-liners begin.



Click on the image to enlarge. Leave the captions in the comments.
Good luck!

Giving back to the universe

This past week has opened me to a whole new prospective on the site I use to sells my wares. As you know I have a shop on Etsy, which is kind of like eBay for the handmade marketplace. What I hadn't learned until just recently is that there are golden nuggets of opportunity to get your shop noticed and hob knob with all sorts of talented Etsy artisans.

I posted about Etsy not long before, when I mentioned the great advice I got from a local seller. That advice is still true. What also is true with Etsy, is that it seems like if you give to the universe, it gives back. Over the last couple of weeks I had been featured on a couple things and it's been so delightful to see the response. I'm getting excited over shop "hearts" know like I used to get excited over blog comments. (They like me! They really like me!)

So anyway, back to the adage of what comes around goes around, I wanted to start featuring my favorite finds from Etsy every week. Just to give back. And show a little love. There's a few blogs out there that do the same, so I wanted to jump on the bandwagon.

My newest favorite shop is from digital artist, John W. Golden. I love his artistic style, and while it was difficult to decide what to get from his shop because he had a lot of camera themed art (and you know how I am about cameras!) I purchased this:



Lowtops Black on red in 5x5 square

I own a pair of black and white lowtops and so figured it was totally appropriate.

And the rest of this week's favorite finds with no particular theme in mind are as follows:


Fun Print Headbands


Take this job and LOVE it


City of fun carnival



Snoopy and Dennis the Menace Books


Cashmere Slippers (these are adorable!)

For more of my favorites, you can click on the widget to the right.

Flower Power

As summer moves forward, here is a bit of a pit stop.