Oodles of Doodles

This year I challenged myself to draw/paint more and just be more creative in general. Which I think I have been doing, but I do lack in the other half of my challenge of sharing more. The biggest problem I have with sharing is I want it to be perfect and I want it perfect now. I am constantly reminding myself that when I see others art I do not expect perfection and I often enjoy the imperfections that make it unique and give it flair. 

So I am going to keep on drawing and painting and keep telling myself that the journey to perfection might be unattainable but each improvement is something to celebrate and a way to mark and see growth. 

Paper Glue & String

I wanted to make Mimi something to help her remember our trip to Europe (she complains about forgetting things). It wasn't till I saw Debbie's Christmas card that I knew that I wanted to make a book and draw/write the places we went.































I also made the cover which I forgot to get a picture of maybe I can get a picture of it and post about later.
I actually made it rather fast I drew the pictures in pencil then just used pen to go over it. Glued on the pictures and hand stitched the book together.

Hip Hip Hooray

My parents decided they wanted to treat us all to dinner and while we were gathered for dinner my brother Mark found out his grades for his first semester at Law School were all A's & B's, good enough that he is in the top 25% of his class!
Once my brother in law Russ mentioned that getting a group of people to follow you in a cheer of hip hip hooray is good fun. I decided to give it a go and  while at the restaurant called "three cheers for Mark! Hip hip hooray... and by the third round I got a good number to join in. It was good fun, I highly recommend cheering people!





I have resolved to try and improve my artistic abilities and get over my fears of them being seen. So you may be seeing more of my little doodles on this blog.

Potter Party

A year ago I gave William the movie Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone and can I just say my plan worked out brilliantly!
This year William invited a few close friends to his Harry Potter birthday party. There was way to much awesomeness for me to document so I will just share a few pictures. Keep an eye out at Debbie's blog for a full report.

The Quidditch Pitch

This is just Debbie's pomegranate tree, it made me happy so I took a picture. 

I saw this lady made a Marauders Map of her house for a party & William is obsessed with maps so I stole her design and made one for the kids. My hand hurt the next day, it was a lot of writing, but totally worth it.

Here is Professor Snape & Professor Joe teaching Potions.

The surprise of the night was when William got the Elder Wand he was literally speechless, finally a little dazed William said "it's good." 

My favorite part of the party was when I was pretending to be Professor McGonagall I was speaking with a British accent (I know it should have been Scottish but it was impromptu) then for the rest of the night when he was thinking about it William also spoke with a British accent. It melted my UK loving heart!

Here is Gracie playing with the potions kit I gave to William for his birthday.

Joseph loved it as well. I bought the box at Hobby Lobby and painted it myself & found all the bottles, jar & little caldron at thrift stores. Yes I did know the kids would want to drink out of them don't worry I washed them. 

Pretend Party Planner

After Chelsea got engaged I called my sister Debbie and told her I would be throwing a bridal shower for Chelsea so if she (the real party planner) could just watch out for ideas. The next morning she had sent me a folder with several pictures of ideas. One of the pictures was a random picture of a girl holding a purse with the British flag. I began to wish I could some how think of a way to fit London & Paris into the theme since we loved our trip so much. Then it hit me... I See London I See France Let's Get Chelsea Some Underpants!

I called Debbie she loved it as well we talked about ideas & soon we had pretty much planned what we wanted to do.

The invitation

The red phone box were pins that the girls could take off & wear to the shower. We also asked them to bring the moustaches with them.

Inside we asked the girls to bring some underwear that they thought described them so we could have Chelsea guess who brought which pair. Which we were going to hang using a clothes line & clothes pins. I stamped words on the pins like I Heart Paris, I Heart London, Cheers & Oh La La. Here is a picture from Debbie's baby shower so you can see.

Next up was the food, Debbie had these cute take out boxes that we used. Inside we had baguettes with pesto, mozzarella, tomato & lettuce which is what I ate while in Paris. Then we added crisp which is the name the Brits use for what we call chips.

For desert we found someone who liked to bake and hired them to make blue macarons. Then I made red velvet cup cakes since I know Chelsea likes them & it fit with the color scheme of red & blue. I also made the pendant flags with the French & British flags in the picture above.

Debbie already had the little pendant flags you see that we hung from the tree's from another party she did & the Chinese lanterns.

Then we made our own home made photo booths. We just got cardboard boxes & painted Big Ben with the London Eye & the Eiffel Tower on the other. (Something I should have learned but didn't when painting the Eiffel Tower is start from the top.)

When on our trip in Edinburgh we walked by this window display, I loved it and wanted to make my own version & stick the word phrases for the photo booth.

& voila!

We were now ready to dress up to take pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower & Big Ben!
Oh La La indeed

Cheeky

It may seem like a lot to put together but really we has so much time we just did a little here & there. I had a lot of fun brainstorming & making stuff with Debbie. And really the shower could not have been lovelier so happy to have good friends & my great family who helped me.