Artfully Said

Save the Date....my Mom is getting married

I was wondering this morning what to post about today. My intention when I started this blog was to post about my art, invitation designs, and little insights into life. I have mainly posted about life and my family. I guess becuase that is where most of my time is spent these days.

But today I have both an invitation design and a little tidbit about my family. My mom is getting married, on New Year's Eve! So very happy for her. So very happy to to be helping her with the preparations. First was a save-the-date as the date is quickly approaching and she wants to make sure her nearest and dearest are there. We printed it on cream card stock with a slightly irridescent fleck in it. I wasn't too sure on the paper slecetion at the time but Mom insisted and she was right on. When we printed on it it was gorgeous. Here is just an image of the design. What do you think? Looking very forward to the invitation and all the preparations. Which will be understated and elegant. I'm saying this in case Mom is reading. I've heard you Mom, less is more, right?

Birthday Presents!!

My Mother-In-Law celebrated her 50th birthday this month. We planned a few special things. For 1 of our presents, a most proper party hat. I was inspired by 2 of my very favorite paper arteests, Miss Teresa "Foof" McFayden and Miss Rebecca Sower. Here are the results. I was rather pleased with how it turned out. I do hope she was. Present #2 was inspired by a project in this year's issue of, Somerset Life, containing vast amounts of beautiful eye candy and loads of inspiration. I could look through the pages all day. Each of my MIL's "boys" she has 5, prepared a speech of sorts for her, reflecting on a spacial memory, why she is such a great mom and a funny moment involving said birthday lady, which they will never forget. We took each of these lovely speeches - which did make MIL tear up a bit here a there, printed them out and fashioned little scrolls from them. They then became part of a memory jar. I decorated the top of the jar with vintage buttons (mostly mother-of-pearl). I added some tulle and vintage lace. I think it turned out well. She said she liked the buttons which I was not sure about at all after I did them. So, here are the results of this little project.

I do hope she liked them. My husband also traveled to the town her grandparents were from (not too far from where we live now) and snapped a photo of the farm house she spent her summers. They added the bay window so it looks a bit different now, but here is the results of the photo.  We had a 5x7 printed of it and of course framed it nicely.

It has been a few weeks since we had the party. I can be so slow to update my blog. I think I nice time was had by all. We went out for lunch. I learned our niece is in the creative eating stage. This is her impersonation of eating like a little puppy from it's dish. Seriously cracks me up!! I know it is not a great picture but it makes me giggle none-the-less.

And we finally got some pictures of the 2 nieces with their uncle

I have been working on creating a scrapbook of our trip to Mexico in May/June too. I am doing it in 8.5x11 and feel like I have come home again a bit. I started scrapping in that size and have kind of switched to 12x12. It is truly more difficult for me but I did not realize this until I started the Mexico album. I may switch back all together. We'll see I'll post some of the layouts soon!

I'm out of time for now. Grady left a bit ago with his dad for vacation to Canada - Niagara Falls, Toronto and Waterloo. Jason has a wedding to do today and I'm helping the Sunday school task force at church. Tonight is dinner with friends in Milwaukee at my all time favorite Mexican restaurant La Fuentes. While in Milwaukee I'm hoping to have time to stop at a favorite scrapbook store (or 2) Busy, busy! Hope you have a fabulous weekend!!

Hugs,

Johanna

Science Fair and my art this week...

Today Grady exhibited in his first science fair. His dad helped him with the project and did a really good job of letting Grady have ownership and be responsible for it. As you can see - we have one proud little guy on our hands! His project was the classic volcano project. They built what turned out to be 2 volcanoes - the first didn't fair to well. And Grady drew a poster explaining the different parts of a volcano. See the following pictures (if you click on them you can see then full screen. He did a really excellent job explaining his project and the Principal even stopped by the booth to hear about it! So proud of you kiddo!!

I was able to complete a couple little things this week. I finished a layout and a garland I started months ago and then packed away...just because. I'm supremely good at starting projects. Not so good at always finishing them. Anyhow, here is a peek at the layout. It showcases a couple of the lovely gifts I have rec'd from Grady int he past year or so and my thoughts on them.  

And the garland - I just could not get a good light. I'll try again tomorrow. This is for our bedroom. I have a very cool mirror I need to paint over with white or off-white paint to transform into a shabby chic style mirror and then I plan to hang this above it. It really is much prettier in real life. I got inspired by Teresa McFayden's project here and added some vintage sequins I've been hording. Each letter is rimmed in silver glitter - just regular - although I SO want some German glass glitter - and is on a scalloped piece of cardstock because everything is cuter with scallops you know. I'm excited to work on my mirror from Goodwill and see the final outcome. I'll post when it is done for sure. It sure had felt great to get back into some paper arts these past couple of weeks. Hopefully I can keep this up. I have already found my ideas are coming to me more quickly. I guess the key is keeping the saw sharp, huh??

Lots to share today....

Lots of little tidbits to share today I guess. First, this past weekend I spent some time out shopping with my mom and my Aunt Barb. Time with the two of them always makes your cheeks hurt from smiling a lot and laughing. Anyhow – we found the best shop....APJ Designs. I’m really serious. I have a pretty little purse obsession with Vera Bradley (love them!) and this store is making me consider switching. First you have never seen so much fabric in your lives. And the purses are so fun – any style, shape, color imaginable. And when I say imaginable – I mean it. You can have your purse custom designed...and they make it just for you...at no additional charge. Not to mention when visiting the store you always take 25% off the price you see on the tag because that is the price they have at shows. Really - go check them out. And if you can – stop by and visit the store. So much fun. I cannot wait for my first one!

So I thought I’d share a little bit of creativity I had back a few months ago. My little old altered clock from a vintage pie tin. Here she is: She was pretty simple. You can just buy the clock pieces at you local craft store. This got me asking myself, “What else can I turn into a clock?” The question sort of started and stopped there. I’ve had ideas but not taken the time to do anything about them. I think my favorite idea was to take an old book and turn that into a clock. Couldn’t that be fun?? I’ll be sure to post if I ever do anything with that.

Another blog I like to visit Rebecca Sower. She is a paper artist who has a number of scrapbooking product lines and oh I have just admired her for years now. She even has her own Etsy shop where you can buy handmade by her.

Oh and tonight I treated myself to The Look Book because I have not done much scrapping in the past few years (yes I of course kept shopping and buying and making gifts just not personal scrapbooking) so anyhow and I feel a little “behind the times” and love the artists in this book so I treated myself. Anyhow, it has its own blog! You don’t have to have the book by any means to follow along and participate in the challenges. Lots of fabulous ideas.

Here are a couple of layouts I have accomplished in the past couple of weeks.   The little girl may seem familiar – my little niece Frankie. Love having the opportunity to do girl pages! The other is my guy – Grady – with lots of paint on his face. The pictures of him are old – about a year and a half.

OK - I promised myself I would work on art tonight so off I go! Enjoy!

Hugs,

Johanna

Francesca's Birthday Party & the Trimmings

My niece, Francesca - or Frankie as we call her - turned 1 in February. I made her a little party hat which she very graciously wore for at least long enough to snap some photos. Her mama (my lovely sister Amy) served very, very delicious cuppy cakes. White chocolate with raspberry frosting and chocolate with chocolate frosting. They were both wonderfully yummy but the white chocolate ones were divine really.

So anyhow - I really like to try and sprinkle little bits of my love on the guest of honor. So, as I said for Miss Frankie, she got a party hat and to decorate those divine cuppys, we had little Frankie Flags. It was all very festive and fun!

Here is a picture of our lovely, happy little girl!

Hugs,
Johanna