have not seen you

inky flower

I've been inspired by Traci Bautista (Collage Unleashed)
to pull out my calligraphy pens & drawing nibs and do some
decorative sketching. I've always liked the scratchy,
unpredictable line you can get with dip pens.

thank you

little star

My new niece was born today! She's beautiful!

our day out

new blog layout

Whee! As you can see, I've been playing with backgrounds lately.
Thanks to infocreek.com for the latest one and for solving all the
html code problems I was having with repetitive response lines,
dates in the wrong places, and general blog chaos.

purses, bags, and backpacks

is anyone home?

octopus in the rain

fun with markers

this one's a collaborative piece with my three-year-old
son and a variety of crayola markers.
some of their new colors are pretty delish.

vines

peace with words

travel

dish towel bib upgrade

i've been experimenting for the past couple of years
with making toddler-sized bibs out of dish towels.
they give great coverage, but how to fasten them?
i've tried clothespins and velcro, but both pop off
too easily. here's my latest solution: the magnetic
snap! the ones pictured are a shower gift for my concunada
(brother-in-law's wife) and their soon-to-be-born baby. yay!

the tiny baby doll

i didn't draw this to be creepy. really.
it's just that this little 2-inch long baby doll
is a common sight around my house.
she's become quite endearing, and isn't
always naked. she often sports fabulous outfits,
thanks to my daughter's sense of style.

shake it out

you know how sometimes you'll have a friendship
that stays with you for the many years of your life,
even though it gets beat up from the rocks in the road
and the changes that both lives take? i have one of
those that's lasted 23 years so far, and this week
i got to have a conversation that shook out the rug
and helped us move into being our current selves in
our current friendship. because for the the past few
years, it's been kind of painful and awkward.
i don't know what will happen next, but i feel hopeful.

butterfly

as you can see, i'm having fun with embossing powder lately.
whee!

cherry

melstampz.com has instructions on how to emboss
things other than stamps, such as embroidery
patterns or your own drawings, using a glue pen.
good stuff.

circles

two trees

doodle #2

key limes

for my first key lime pie!
aren't they so cute?

little boots

maple candy

my creative effort today was, no, not dog food: maple cream candy!
i'm glad to have this out of my system for the year, because i find
candy-making to be incredibly messy and frustrating. still, i'm
drawn to it on an annual basis. this one hardened before i realized
it should be poured, but it tasted okay. nonetheless, i'll just make
my way on over to cost plus world market this coming december
and buy some maple candy of the kind i remember fondly from
my winter days in chicago. always creamy on the inside with a thin
layer of crunchy on the outside. yum!!! and well worth every penny,
i now know.

cleanup can wait until tomorrow.

genesis

i've decided to follow God's example and take a break from the
creating process once a week. now, I know God probably wrapped
things up on saturday, but with the way my life is structured, i'll
have to go with sunday. So from now on, no posts on sundays!

doodle

i think this doodle came out looking like a person
leaning over a piano. what do you think it might be?

3 shirts to the wind

i made this card today using my daughter's paper
fashions (by klutz) stencils, which are super fun.
it's a thank you note for a clothes-shopping birthday gift.
to which i say... uh, better late than never.

happy new year!

this year, i've decided to shake things up a bit on my blog.
i'm going to post daily expressions of all sorts, not just
paint/pen/pencil sketches. these may vary from doodles
to photos of the things i'm sewing to clips of songs i'm
writing on guitar. so it'll be my life in sketches: daily expressions!
for today, a little mixed media semi-collage.
happy new year!