Friday, September 17, 2010

Painting Projects

Here are two projects I'm currently working on. It was inspired by pregnancy induced anxiety and lack of focus on much of anything else. Each item took just long enough to pay attention to in order to complete it. Good for keeping me busy!


Friday, August 27, 2010

First 7 Parts of Disney's Summer Magic



















Last Six Parts of Disney's Child of Glass
















First Five Parts of Disney's Child of Glass













Monday, August 2, 2010

Cake

I made a cake for the kids' birthday party, a castle & a toy box. I spent 15 hours on it. I learned I still have a lot of practice to do on icing a cake and I need some fondant lessons! All my hard work fell apart on the way to Lehi. Lesson learned: Put together Castle cakes closer to end location!

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Photograpy Experiments: Water

So I have always wanted to learn more about photography, have excuses to learn creative things and be truly good at it. I love to take pictures, but I guess I just really lack confidence in what I can do. So, I entered a series of photo contests under the theme of Water by The Pioneer Woman. I haven't had any success yet at having any of my photos make into the daily groups, but I'm not giving up yet. Here are a few photos a took playing with the theme water. Tell me what you think?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

A Mother Day's Project

I wanted to do something different this year for Mother's Day. I didn't want to buy our moms giftcards or movies, you know the kind of things that we so often buy. I know the giftcards would be appreciated, and we actually all chipped in for one for Chris' mom anyway. No, this year I actually wanted to give something to them that was unique and had a lot of meaning and so, when I got the email from Shutterfly about photobooks being 20% off I knew I had found the answer. I was going to put together a photobook for both moms, but I was going to do it from my kids. So, I spent over a week gathering pictures trying to find the right ones and then it was all about the right placing. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. It took me about two weeks to complete the project and I think in the end the hardest part was finding the right words to say, the right words to compliment each photo, each memory. I really enjoyed getting to use artistic talents I didn't know I had to create this beautiful book to be given to the two most important ladies in my life. We haven't been able to give this special gift to our Moms yet, but once Aidan & Aislynn get a chance to place their little handprints on the back cover in paint, we'll be making a couple special deliveries. Here is a small shot of the cover from the website. I'll post more photos later as I can.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

APC Cake (Armored Personnel Carrier)

So, this is my latest cake project, which I made for my father-in-law's birthday. It's an Armored Personnel Carrier from Vietnam, which her served in the Army during that time. This cake was alot more complicated than the dragon cake, because it had a lot more intricate details. It took me fourteen hours and I could have used several more hours to have finished working on it. Needless to say, Chris' dad knew what it was right a way and he loved it. The APC was made out of rice krispie treats covered with modeling chocolate and all of the detailing was done with gum paste. Gum paste is alot like fondant, except that it actually hardens and it does it quite quickly. I hated working with it and I think next time I'll stick with modeling chocolate. I did have lots of fun working on it and we'll see what my next project will be.





































































































Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Writing Exercise #1: Diving In

I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go downstairs five miles or more. --Herman Melville


Today dive into writing by choosing any one of the following words that have more than one meaning: bear, cleave, lie, , sewer, , sewer, tear, or desert. Start by copying the word quickly, without stopping for any reason, continue writing until you reach the end of the page. Making sense is unimportant. Your goals are speed and endurance. If you get stuck, repeat whatever word you’ve just written until something new spills out. After you finish read the result. Don’t forget to breathe, and try not to tense up your hand. Ready, set, go…



Bear
to bear the weight of the world is a heavy burden and one I do not know if I can carry I wish I knew what my fate will be and what will happen over the next few months I wish bear the bear opened his mouth and showed the rows of his jagged teeth and I could smell the stagnant decaying stench of death roll out of his mouth how I wished I wasn’t that close to him but he didn’t seem to feel threatened by me which is so very odd I should have been first thing on his mind as a wake up good morning snack for snack is about all I would account for but he rolled over and acted as if he wanted me to scratch his belly why was this giant red bear acting this way what was the matter with him or what was the matter with me did he not see me was he perhaps blind no that could not be the case because if it was then his sense of smell would only be more acute and he would come for me anyway since I know I smelled very ripe and that would most certaintly alert him to my prescence he continued to lay on his back awaiting something I slowly inched closer and he slowly raised his paw toward me and I coward away from him hoping he wasn’t planning on batting at my head like a ball but it moved in a come hither motion and so I continued to move closer to his giant mass the closer I got the more I could smell him but now I could smell the scent of pine trees and earth the scent of the sun warming the earth and it was a very soothing and pleasant smell then when I stood trembling beside him he spoke to me and I let out a sharp gasp I would never and could never have imagined a bear speaking and speaking so that I could understand and yet I could he spoke in a soft voice he told me his name was lars and that he had been sent to find me and had been in search of me for quite some time he said that time had little meaning to bears but he said that many seasons had passed since he had left the kingdom that had sent him to bring me back I asked in a small quavering voice who wanted me and for what purpose for I could not even begin to imagine I was just a girl who lived in a small village just off of the great forest my parents worked a small plot of land owned by the local baron a hard cruel man who had decided that he wished to take me for his bride this coming spring and in doing so he would continue to allow my parents to live on the land if they refused him then they would find themselves in debtors prison and I would be sent away to be sold as a slave to some far off country to pay back the cost of their debts so to avoid such a terrible fate for us all we had all agreed and today was only a matter of days before I was to travel to begin preparations for my wedding to this horrible man who was more than two times my age I decided to come for a walk in the woods that I love so much to pick wild flowers and berries to bring back to my mother for her to make into her famous preserves and bring in a meager amount of cash for them

Monday, February 22, 2010

Cake Projects, too

So, I decided that this is going to also be home to my cake projects. My first cake project was a dragon cake that I made for Chris' birthday last Friday night. I made the devil's food cake layers on Thursday and froze them in the freezer. Then on Friday, I started decorating at 7:30 PM and didn't get done until 4:00 AM. It had chocolate buttercreme filling and was covered in homemade modeling chocolate aka candy clay. It took a lot of work, but was tons of fun.






















Sunday, February 7, 2010

Writing Space

I'm going to use this space as a place to do writing exercises, brain storming and even some of my writing for my stories. Its a place to go and get lost, to become someone else, but all the while be myself. If you bother to read this or anything I post here, I hope you enjoy it. If you don't...well I write all this more for me, as a practice and a new place work, so its not a real big deal if you don't like it. I would however love to hear what you thing especially when it comes to pieces of work or brainstorming that have to do with current stories I'm working on. I bid you all welcome to the private imaginings of my mind!