There always has to be some fun time worked in! This was the night after the craft show when we spent a little time with family. K was roller skating for the first time. She loved it!
And whenever I get a little extra time it's spent with this kiddo. So you may not hear much from me until after Christmas. :) 
Happy Thanksgiving! Not your usual thanksgiving/fallish picture but I thought it would tie in well with what I have to say. I photographed this rose during the summer and even though I've looked at the photograph a few times I didn't see the "beauty" right away. A couple weeks ago I decided to play with it, majorly crop it and lighten it a bit and oh my goodness I was amazed! It was beautiful! (to me any way) And then it really made me think, God sees the beauty in everything... in us, in others, in everything he has created immediately. For us, well we miss a lot, sometimes we don't see the beauty in others or even in ourselves. The thing is, it is there, we just have to look harder. God has blessed us with so much. We have so much to be thankful for... and are we? Or are we bi-passing some important things, taking things for granted we shouldn't? Probably. We are only human. For some reason this flower touched me. It reminded me to look for the beauty in everything, because it is there. I am thankful for so much God has given me and my family. I am continually learning new things from Him. He is amazing. His creations are amazing. And you are his creation... yes I'm very thankful for you. For all of you who read this blog. You take time out of your day to read what I write. Many of you have never even met me, yet you offer support, encouragement, and leave comments... you brighten my day. You are a stranger yet a friend. I know I have family and friends who read this too. (Hi guys!) Even though many don't leave comments on here, I'm glad to hear you enjoy visiting my little on-line space to see whats going on in our life. Its heart warming. So thank YOU. Thank you for reading, thank you for following, thank you to those that leave comments so I know I'm not just talking to myself. You are all wonderful! I hope you will take time to look a little deeper, to see the beauty in God's creations that surround you and what lays within you. You will feel truly blessed! ♥
She really, really does! It's been snowing on and off all day and K 
So this is what I've been up to the last couple days. Once I printed out a tiny Jesus Loves Me print I thought it was too cute so my awesome hubby made me a bunch more blocks! I'm thinking they would make fantastic stocking stuffers! The blocks are currently sanded and surface prepped. Next is to paint and adhere the art.
These are getting close to being finished. Yay!
The coloring was actually a little lighter than the photo shows. The top was made out of the old formica but the rest was a nice hardwood.
A clean white look with brushed silver pulls. (Same ones that were there just spray painted.) I really like how it turned out. Who can't use more desk space and someday it might even be Kaelyn's if I can part with it. :)
My mother-in-law gave me a few treasures last weekend. I was so excited! One will be a perfect chair for this desk... just have to get it painted.
Last Saturday I was able to spend a few hours with my mom before going to a Halloween get together. Us girls headed to the Goss Opera House where a couple of my mom's friends were displaying their art. Little did we know that 3 floors of the Goss were filled with art. There was so much talent! I was truly inspired by the work on the third floor that was done by artist, Meranda Turbak. We didn't know anything about the artist but were both so impressed by her mixed media paintings. The imagination, color, story... wow! The size of her pieces were certainly eye catching and when you got close to them there was so much detail. And another thing I loved was that she often finds thrift frames/pictures and paints right over them. She doesn't spend money on buying canvases! How awesome is that?! When we went back down to the main floor and asked about more information on Meranda they told us she was working in the next room. So we headed over to the gift shop area and were able to meet her. It is so much fun meeting artists! She is such a sweet person. We talked for a bit and I sure hope to see her again in the near future. Maybe I can talk her into teaching a class. :)
Just a quick couple shots from the night. Hope you all had a great weekend!
This week like so many others flew by but with a couple memorable/exciting happenings. The beginning of the week I made my 100th etsy sale. To some that is very little, but to me it was huge! I can't say how thankful I am for my customers, and for my blog readers and commenters for encouraging me. You guys are incredible!!! I think most of you etsy shop owners know its not a walk in the park on getting customers to your shop when there are so many other amazing talents within etsy. It just amazes me that all these people all over the world found my little space in the on-line world and liked it enough to buy something! I am one thankful girl! ...and my awesome husband surprised me with this cake to celebrate! ♥
Yeah, I told him he had to take pictures for me since I was unable to be there. As you can see quite a few people were in front of my hubby. I can't even see Lance.
Lance is wearing the black shirt with the number 28.
And here Lance is signing autographs afterwards. Hubby just took a picture of him rather than getting anything signed. He didn't want to be pushy. :)
Wow! It's crazy how much the weather can change in a week. Last week we were painting our house when it was in the 60's to higher 70's and today it is in the 30's with snow! Unlike me, Kaelyn was excited to see the snow and was jumping up and down and said "Lets go sliding!" I'm pretty sure she meant sledding. :) She was not a happy camper when I said she had to wait until there was a little more on the ground. She'll get what she's hoping for soon enough.
A little difference don't you think? In the spring we will be working on a deck and a little landscaping. So happy to have this big job done. I'll tell you it was pretty scary! A friend lent us scaffolding, but boy it pretty much terrified me climbing up on that thing. It felt like I was 3x higher than I really was and when it wiggled I seriously thought I was going to puke! Thankfully my dad brought in his loader and lifted me up in that. It felt like I was at an amusement park. There was a section that my dad had to put David up high in the loader with a ladder on top of that to reach a part the scaffolding couldn't get to. That was extremely scary... yes, I was praying that everything would turn out smoothly and thankfully it did! And a huge thanks to my mom for watching K while I was working on the house! Hubby and I couldn't have done this job so quickly without the help of my parents!
Freelance projects always keep my job interesting. Each request seems to challenge me in a new way, sure some I struggle with but when I get to the end of the design process and see the end product I can't help but be pleased with the outcome.
This Grave's Disease has been taking a lot out of me lately. I've been completely drained of energy the last few days. Thankfully I'm starting to feel a little better now and am sure the beautiful weather has helped a bit. Saturday after my painting group, hubby, K and I took the boat out. This is the boat that David built 4 years ago. We didn't think it was going to make it out on the water this year as the summer seemed to fly by. But when you have 70-80 degree weather in October you can't pass the chance up. So even though rain clouds were coming we went for it. Kaelyn was so excited to go and no way was she going to take a nap and miss out on any boating time.
{Fighter Pilot ~ pencil drawing}
My first outfit ever made. Couldn't forget a matching headband. :)
Yes, K's 2 and happy to let everyone know it... but not always in such a nice way. Watch out for the 2 year old tantrums. Oh my! These fun photos were taken by my talented friend from Dolby Photography.
When I get more then 5 minutes of computer time I promise to share a little about how I work with charcoal. I haven't forgotten about it.
{me & my girl}
When the dance finally started K was mesmerized by the balloons. It was so funny with everyone dancing around her and she was just still holding onto a balloon. She acted like it was her job to hold it and couldn't do anything else at the same time. Ha!
Several people got a kick out of her and started handing her balloons. The guy thought she might start floating if he gave her enough. :)
{watching the newlyweds with daddy}
When she FINALLY let the balloons go and started dancing and pulled me out to dance with her they changed to the dollar dance so the actual dancing scene for her was short lived. We had fun, and she went the whole day without a nap which led to her sleeping all night... wow! That doesn't happen around here. She never sleeps!
Isn't it a beauty?! There's even a blinkie under the seat for any night riding. :) I hope his dad will put it to good use. It's definitely a good addition after having his heart attack.
This is my charcoal drawing. You can go HERE to see the photo I drew from. It was definitely fun seeing Kelly come alive on paper!
If you're curious on what I used for my drawing, I used charcoal pencils 2, 4 and 6, a blending stump and my finger for some extra blending. :)Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Busy working on an illustration project and getting stuff ready for a children's consignment sale. New windows are also being put in our home by handy hubby... so excited about that, but lots of cleanup is also involved. Crazy, busy!
Here is my newest thought provoking mixed media painting, "Pondering". It's another piece for my painting challenge I'm involved in. We had a photo of a bird to do whatever with and I chose to just use its shape. The meaning behind the painting is that we often stay at a point we feel safe in our life. It's hard to take chances/risks... what if what we really want doesn't work out? We don't want to chance falling on our face or is it we think its just to much work to follow our heart. Well that's just what this piece signifies. The bird can fly away, where?... well that's the journey, or it could go back in its cage... to the place it's used to, safe... the ordinary. But is that the place it's heart really is? Most likely it is somewhere else, yearning for something greater. That is the reason for the red dot... the heart. For sure it will not be the safest, most secure route to go after but with life being so short why not follow what your heart is telling you. Fly.
