The Indecisive Artist

Little Leprechaun Treats

Let me confess that I am not Irish, nor am I one to get into the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Most years, I forget to wear green. I’ve never had green beer, never even gone to a bar to celebrate St. Patty’s.  My family isn’t Irish, and so it just wasn’t something we made a big deal out of, beyond the St. Patrick’s Day projects we may have done in elementary school.

However.

I spotted the most adorable idea on Pinterest (Follow me here: Camragaldenise on Pinterest) and decided I HAD to try it. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. When I found these super cute, and perfectly sized clear plastic tubes at my craft store, I grew even more excited. (The original project I saw had used long, thin, plastic bags, but these tubes are so much cuter.)

I decided that these little treats would be given to my coworkers – the ones I sit closest to in our team area (which is sometimes referred to as the hamster cage).

 

 

These were so easy! Just two Rolos at the bottom to make the pot of gold, topped with a rainbow of M&Ms. Yes, I had to sort the M&Ms – but it was a matter of pouring the bag of candy into a cup and using a spoon to fish out the color I needed. It wasn’t painstaking in the least – in fact, I think it took me 10 or 15 minutes to finish all 7 tubes I made. Even the husband was impressed. The girl? Loved them. I have a feeling we’ll be making up some more tonight!

These are seriously so cute, and so, so easy to whip together. I’m even feeling a little bit Irish!

Soap Swap – Goats Milk, Honey, and Oatmeal Soap

I was lucky enough to participate in a soap swap with some online friends recently. The challenge with this particular was was to keep all ingredients natural. I know a lot of soap makers make exclusively natural soap (no artificial colors or scents), but I like using more variety in my scents and colors, so I frequently use synthetic fragrances, as well as oxides and clays as colorants. (There’s some debate about whether micas/oxides/clays are natural or not… for me, they are.. others disagree… so for the sake of the swap, I went without them.) So this swap was going to challenge me for sure!

I’ve always wanted to try using milk in my soaps, but never had the courage. Now, I had a reason to try it. My oatmeal soap (which is one of the few all natural soaps I make) is one of my most requested; my friends with sensitive skin tell me it is one of the few soaps they can use. However, I wanted to spice it up a bit, so I decided to create a goats milk, honey, and oatmeal soap. It wouldn’t have a scent, and it wouldn’t have any coloring ingredients, but it would be filled with lots of good stuff.

I have to say I was nervous, but in the end it all worked out great! (Except for the part about it being too stubborn to get out of the mold! I had to both pop it in the freezer and use a knife to loose it up. In retrospect, I realized that I poured it at a much thinner trace than I normally use, and some of the soap seeped behind the paper wrapper… I decidedly poured it thin so that it would be extra smooth on top… but I didn’t anticipate it being so difficult to unmold.)

 

I decided to decorate the tops of the soap with lavender buds, giving a tiny bit of natural scent to the bars.

 

 

These are half size bars. I attached a label with some hemp twine to finish them off. I hope my swap mates like the soap!!

Wrapping up 2009, Looking into 2010

Wow, what a year! I have been a horrible blogger. So much has gone on and yet so little of it has been recorded in this blog. I started the year with the goal of doing a photo a day (project 365). I mostly succeeded on that one, but failed miserably at keeping the blog up-to-date with photos. I will keep that blog open and hopefully catch up! I have not yet decided whether I will do a project 365 in 2010. In fact, I’ve been thinking about my “word” for the year of 2010. In 2008 it was ‘create’ and in 2009 it was “explore.” I’m thinking that for 2010 my word will be “quality.” Part of my rationale for that word has to do with a certain level of frustration I felt this year in thinking I had to get so much done in terms of quantity. Like project 365… I had to take a photo a day, even if I didn’t feel like taking a photo or the resulting photo was total garbage. It didn’t matter if it was garbage, only that I took one. Late in the year I eased up a bit on that expectation because honestly it felt as though I were forcing things, and that was definitely NOT what I had intended. I intended to take on the project in an effort to improve my skills… but when it felt forced and created only garbage, it was hard to feel that my skills were improving. It only felt like a chore.

I also had set a monthly goal of creating 20 scrapbook layouts. Some months I failed horribly. (Like the month we moved!!) Other months were uber productive. But as the year went on, it started to feel like it was more about the number and not so much about the quality of what I was creating. True, I set a number as a goal, thinking that by doing more, I’d be more likely to strike gold once in awhile. However, I think that for the next year my goal will be not about volume or quantity but instead about taking the time to think through what I’m creating and approaching each work as though it were a masterpiece – whether it’s a scrapbook layout or a photo shoot. No need to take 100 pictures in hopes of getting one good one. Instead, I want to focus on doing more with less. (OK, I really dislike that phrase in the way it’s used in corporate America…) Which really means that I want to make sure that whatever effort I’m putting forth, I’m doing so from the perspective that I’m setting out to create quality instead of creating volume in hopes of finding something worthwhile in the heap. Basically, I want to improve my quality to crap ratio. :)

I thought I’d share some of my most recent scrapbook layouts. This was a self-portrait I set up one day when I was working from home. I’m sitting in the sunroom in my house. I am terrible about getting myself in photos, so this was an attempt to record part of my day-to-day life.

 

This next layout contains an image of Gianna I took one night while photographing some friends. Gianna wanted to have photos taken, too, so I snapped a couple of her. This one was a keeper. :) I wanted to try a technique of blending the photo into the paper.

 

At Thanksgiving, Gianna thought it would be appropriate to bake a cherry pie instead of traditional pumpkin or pecan. She was very insistent that we try a cherry pie. So I let her tackle the making of the pie! She rolled out the dough and poured the cherries in. She actually did quite a good job! Unfortunately, she realized she didn’t actually LIKE cherry pie, and she refused to eat any of it on Thanksgiving day!

 

I was busy wrapping up a year-in-review scrapbook to give to the grandparents, when I quickly took some snapshots of Jay and Gianna in Santa hats sitting by the Christmas tree. I thought this was a fun, seasonal layout to include here.

 

 

And finally, the year-in-review layout of Gianna. Each photo represents a month of the year… from her birthday in January to sitting by the Christmas tree in December.

 

 

Christmas has been very good here. I’m just amazed at how quickly this year has passed. So much has happened… the move to our new house, the sale of our old house. Gianna participating in soccer, t-ball, gymnastics, and dance. And so much more everyday stuff that has made this year so rewarding and exciting.

I’m busy refocusing my energies on new things for the coming year, too!

Photobooks Available! Free Shipping, too!

I’m pleased to announce the launch of my first photobook with Hoorray.

I’ve been busy working on my designs since spring, and am happy to say my first design went live a few weeks ago. Now there’s a promotion for free shipping for my blog readers, so I wanted to post a big announcement here!

 

Free shipping is available through the end of September only, so don’t delay!

My book can be accessed directly via the link below. I’m proud of my first book, a photobook designed to highlight the little girl in your life. Inspired by my own little princess, this book features pinks, browns, and greens on simple, classic page designs to allow your photos be the focus.

When you create your book, feel free to mix and match the background pages and page layouts to your liking. Don’t like the blue pages? No worries! Just replace them with another available background.

I’ll post announcements here when additional photobooks are available.

Now, I’m off to create my own copy of my photobook. I plan to do a quick tutorial for my readers to show how easy it is to create these long-lasting treasures! I recently did Gianna’s 4-year photoshoot, so I plan to put those photos in my photobook. Can’t wait!

I hope you enjoy my books!

Catching Up: A Couple Gianna Layouts

I have been really bad about blogging these last few months. I think I may have overextended myself with things I want to accomplish. I have a monthly goal to scrapbook 20 pages each month. My average so far? 6. Last year I completed 15 pages a month. I haven’t updated my Project 365 blog for months (though I am still going strong taking a photo each and every day.) I don’t know what it is… I thought that once we moved to the new house, I’d have more time to scrap and do my thing, because, after all, I now have my very own scrap room to use. The truth is that sometimes weeks go by without me stepping foot into that room! Work (my real job) has been busy and challenging as well. And now that Gianna is 4, there are lots of activities to participate in: Soccer, T-Ball, Swimming Pool. It’s all going by so quickly.

I have also been very busy creating scrapbook designs for sale as photobooks… and once the designs go live, I will make a big announcement here! Hopefully I can encourage a few people to make some photobooks with my designs!

I do want to share a couple of layouts I’ve done recently. I really wanted to share one of Gianna’s dance recital last May, but I already moved the layout to my external hard drive. (I fight a CONSTANT battle with finding space on the laptop’s hard drive… but I just bought myself a new, portable external drive and soon ALL my photos and scrapbook stuff will reside on that instead of on the laptop drive and leave me some room on this computer for insanely large disk space requirements of Photoshop… and maybe even Illustrator if I can get the courage – er, time – to try to learn another program.)

Instead I will share a couple very recent layouts.

This is of Gianna at soccer practice. Yes, we bought her a special pink soccer ball. :) Soccer didn’t actually go so well for us. She liked the idea of playing with the ball and kicking it around the field… but when it came time to compete and play tag games with the other kids… the idea of other kids kicking HER BALL away from her was a bit too much at time. Luckily in TBall, no one steals your ball, and it’s going much better for her! She ADORES TBall.  Still, I love this layout of her with her soccer ball because you can see her really making an effort. She looks so cute as a soccer player!

 

This layout is about the night I took Gianna to the hair salon for a quick cut with the intention of taking her out and taking portraits of her afterwards. She ended up with her hair braided, which, while it was totally cute, is not something she normally wears, and wasn’t the look I wanted for her formal photos. So loved them so much that I couldn’t bear asking her to take them out either. I still took some informal photos of it and made them into this layout.

Holy Cow It’s March

I realized the other day that I haven’t blogged in six weeks. Yikes! In that time, my family and I have moved into our new house (FINALLY!) and have spent a few weeks unpacking and organizing. We are not done yet – there are some finishing touches to be done with the house (I’m looking for the perfect mirrors for my bathroom and am improvising for the time being. Also, we neglected to order a door handle for the front door, so we are using the very unmatched brass colored round door knob from the previous door. ) But we are getting settled. There are still boxes to unpack, but there’s an end in sight, I think. :) Unfortunately, this work of moving and getting settled has left me little time to be creative, and when I do have time to be creative, I have lacked the energy to do anything creative. So I haven’t edited any photos, created any scrapbook pages, or stamped anything in a long time. I have managed to keep photographing each day as part of my project 365 commitment, but those photos still reside on the memory cards – I haven’t even transferred them to the computer yet!

But I am bound and determined to blog tonight. And also to start posting some of the last 2 months’ worth of photos to my project 365 blog.

**********

One of the decisions we made as part of remodeling the house was choosing paint colors. And it wasn’t an easy decision-making process. We decided on a palette of greens and browns for a very earthy, nature-inspired theme. But for a long time, I’ve been wrestling with the idea of painting the kitchen red – kind of a pizza-sauce color. I decided it against it. Red is bold and vibrant, and I decided to play it safe.

But this red color kept weighing on me, and the more I tried to not think about it, the more I couldn’t help but think about it.

Last weekend we shopped a local furniture store that’s going out of business and finally found a black kitchen table to go in the small dining nook. The table, however, did not come with chairs. So we headed to Pier 1, which is my favorite store to shop. I love going there and just looking at all the pretty stuff. And so when we went there, I knew I had a lot of really gorgeous chairs to choose from. And then I saw them: these pretty red velvet dining room chairs. After some back and forth, I decided to go for it. The red chairs would be the bold, bright, daring accent against the safe colors I used in the rest of the house. It was the perfect answer.

We also picked up a pretty red bowl and charger to use as a centerpiece on that table. Plus, some red pillows, some red rugs, and some red gerbera daisies to carry the red accents through the house.

Slowly, it’s all coming together. It is starting to feel like our home, like we belong. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Explore

So after some consideration and suggestions from others, I decided to use Explore as my One Little Word for the year.

I want to explore new things, new opportunities, new locations, new techniques. I really want to try new things/learn new things, so I thought the word 'explore' would be a good guiding principle for me.

I'm working on the Project 365/Photo A Day thing in hope to learn new photographic techniques - both with my camera and post-processing in Photoshop.

I plan to take a post-processing course online to learn new tricks.

In my scrapbooking, I want to try new techniques - color combinations or techniques or layouts that would normally have been outside my comfort zone.

I really should learn CSS so that I can really customize my blog and take advantage of everything the $14.95 monthly fee gets me.... I'll have to think about that.

I told my dear hubby last night that I want to try out two new recipes a month. At first he thought I said two per week, but good grief, that's just too ambitious for me, and he agreed!

I would also like to travel to new places. Now the budget for the upcoming year is going to be much more restrictive with with new house and all, so it won't be any trips to Paris or Madrid in there. Heck, a trip to Orlando or Boston or NYC is out of reach. But day trips to places nearby. Places in my own backyard that offer some neat photographic opportunities. Places like Madison County, Iowa (ok, so that's like 5-6 hours, but doable over a weekend), The North Shore of Minnesota. Various Minnesota wineries. Stuff like that.

Some things I want to accomplish photographically speaking: take more photos of my family as a whole (and not just DH and DD). Learn how to use my flash more effectively. Try new flash techniques. More night photography (or how about ANY night photography). Use my tripod (kinda goes with the whole night photography thing...)

I'd LOVE to book more photography clients, too. Even if it was just enough to pay for a new camera upgrade that I've been salivating over.... I'd be DANCING!!!

Happy 2009 everyone! Let's hear your words/resolutions/goals for the new year!

One Little Word

Remember last year I talked about the 'one little word' that was to be the guiding principle for me for the year? It's a concept made popular by scrapping guru Ali Edwards (aliedwards.typepad.com). Last year I choose the word 'Create' as my word because I felt like I wasn't getting enough creative balance in my life and that I really wanted to take every opportunity to create - didn't matter what it was, just wanted to create.

Over the last year, I created lots of things.

• I scrapped 111 scrapbook pages (since I started counting in May....)
• I snapped 1100 photos during our trip to Napa/Sonoma
• I created a family calendar in Photoshop and had it printed and bound at MyPicTales
• I created a photo book of a friend's engagement portrait session
• I took 3.5 cake decorating classes and learned a few techniques with which I created fun cakes!
• I started a photo book highlighting our trip to napa/sonoma via digital scrapbook pages
• I spent a weekend in february scrapbooking with some girlfriends - creating art
• I created a few batches of soap in the spring, including a chocolate covered strawberry soap
• I spent a weekend 'up north' with my daughter taking photos of the fall colors
• I joined the local camera club as a way to continue to explore reasons to take photographs
• I assembled bookshelves, night stands, storage cubes. (not necessarily 'creating' but it's building something, and it definitely gave me a sense of accomplishment.) the ikea furniture, however, is still unassembled in my new stamping space/studio/loft.
• I created the layout for our family christmas cards
• I created mini scrapbooks for the grandparents for christmas
• I created some really fun altered photo frames to give as gifts (i plan to blog about these more later)
• I spent two Saturdays painting pottery with my daughter and created lots of fun pottery pieces to give as christmas gifts.
• I created birthday cakes for my hubby and father in law (tried new recipes)
• I tried out lots of great new recipes this year.

 

So it wasn't hard to let the word 'create' guide me this year - i tried some new things. some of them I succeeded at and some of them were, well, learning experiences that I am glad i tried. :) I have to admit it was sort of fun looking back at the things i did this year and compiling this list.

So for next year, I've been thinking about what my word should be. I'm not sure I have the right word, but it's something like 'explore/experiment/push/try new things/learn new things' Explore isn't quite right because I want it to be more than a casual exploration - I want it to be about pushing myself to try new things. Experiment isn't quite right because, again, it sounds too casual. What I'm really thinking about is working outside my comfort zone in trying new things, with a certain sense of direction and things i'd like to accomplish. So maybe there isn't just one simple word to describe it, but I'll keep thinking on it.

Holiday Baking and Cards

I'm not much of a baker at the holidays. My holiday treats consist of things dipped in chocolate. That's as complex as it gets. :) Chocolate covered oreos are my specialty.

 

 

So I made up some fun little treatbags with the goodies I made this year and gave them to my coworkers as Christmas presents. The chocolate and white chocolate covered oreos are on the left, and the white chocolate covered popcorn is on the right. I got a little fancy with the white chocolate oreos and put crushed candy canes on them.

I have a few more things to do around here to get ready for Christmas. I especially love the handmade gifts I put together this year. I can't post photos of them because I don't want to ruin the surprise. :)

The Christmas cards have been done for a long time as well - just not mailed yet. I designed them digitally using a photo I took of Gianna in October. Had them printed at whcc.com (I used their FABULOUS Pearl finish on the cards. Wow. Worth every penny!) and received them two days after submitting the order. I've been stuck at the whole address label thing. When I moved to the new laptop, for some reason, I didn't move my address databases over to it, so I had to dig them off the old external hard drive. I have the file now and am making updates to it, so I should get those cards in the mail tomorrow, and recipients should get them just in time for Christmas.

This is what they look like:

On the inside I put some wordart that I created that reads: "a happy holiday season."

Next project: making tags for all the Christmas presents!

Lesson Learned

When, at 11 pm, you decide that the fish's bowl is just too dirty and that something must be done before the fish DIES from swimming in filthy water - cleaning the fish bowl has been a task you put off since your darling little girl emptied the WHOLE bottle of chlorine treatment directly into the fish bowl the week before and you just haven't made it to PetSmart to buy a new bottle - and you realize that untreated tap water is better than filthy fish poop water, and you put him into a temporary bowl - the square tupperware container that's sitting so handy right on the counter anyway - and you pour the fish and some of his water into the new 'bowl' while you clean the real bowl, and decide the cleaning can wait until morning (because, face it, you don't have the water treatment stuff anyway so it may as well wait until morning) and the fish spends the night in the little tupperware bowl....

 

well, just remember to cover the bowl with something

 

because

 

fish CAN jump

 

out of their bowls

 

and onto the counter

 

where you find them

 

the next morning.

 

I thought the little guy was dead and that we'd have our first family lesson in what happens to pets when they die.

But then -

I saw him flop his little head.

I quickly scooped him up and put him back into his bowl, where he began to swim around.

So he's alive.

For Now.

And there's a cover on the bowl now.

(You know what's weird.... last night as I was putting him into this little temporary bowl, I had a crazy thought run thru my mind.... like, what if i find him on the floor in the morning.... But did I think to actually cover the bowl last night???? NO. Note to self... START LISTENING to these inner voices.....)