February Watched and Read

Watched:

We're totally obsessed with the weirdly hilarious and offbeat  Suburgatory. 

Heathers

Pump up the Volume

Grimm: Season Two

Bunheads

Side Effects: Jude Law was excellent in this. 

Warm Bodies: The kid from About a Boy is so cute now.
He just makes you go, "aw"

But as importantly we QUIT watching:

Glee

Last Man Standing

Vampire Diaries *sigh* after all these years!

FaceOff

And shows that are on the bubble

(in other words I'm thinking I might be done with them soon)

Dallas

Being Human

READ:

The first three books of Gallagher Girls series. They are simple, sweet YA novels where the girls are smart, fierce, independent and pretty normal - for spies. I passed them on to my 14YO son who is devouring them too. Note: these aren't edgy in the least.

Glory Season

The world is extremely well-developed and you can tell that an enormous amount of thought went into every detail.  That said, I wish Brin had held back on the description a bit as I found the endless descriptive pages (Life or the colored light wall come to mind) to be a little tedious.  The main character also gets knocked unconscious an awful lot. To the point where I felt like he had her get hit in the head every time a scene change was needed. ">What I loved was how you couldn't help but place yourself in the book and wonder what it would be like to live in that world, what kind of niche you would carve out for yourself, how would you handle the challenges faced.

Dreams of Joy:

I really loved this book. It as a wonderful continuation of the story of Pearl, May and Joy. Often brutal and heartbreaking, the vivid nature of the story telling transported me to China during The Great Leap Forward. One thing that struck me was how much the book felt like a retelling of Animal Farm using beloved characters in place of the animals. I mean that as a compliment.

">Note: This book could stand alone if a person hadn't read Shanghai Girls but you'd miss out on the transformation that Pearl goes through

Girl Under Tree Modern Girl Collage

Here's a new Modern Girl collage. 

Ain't she sweet?

I love the little pearl flowers in her hair.

The leaves and apples were made with some of my Gelli Plate prints. I love the variation you get when you print your own paper.

$45

Available on Etsy :-)

Two New Skinny Quotes

I felt like these go together in a karmic balance sort of way.

One is cheerleader positive 

and the other... less so. But just as true.

Busy! Busy! Busy!

I'm going to be a vendor at Craft Sabbath this Sunday, March 3rd, in SLC.

Yay!

Painted Elephant Stamp and Art Journal Page

Here's a six-second Vine video of the stamp I carved, the link is pause-able but here's the gif:

And I used it in this art journal page where I tried out my new Dylusions. Wow are they ever awesome. Great color saturation.

(click to see this full sized)

I did lots of reverse stenciling on these pages I think it's a technique I'll be using a lot more. 

I love being able to do different spray techniques on the background and the foreground and still only have one layer.

The stamp has been wonderful for notecards, I've made zillions as I had a ton of notes to write lately.

They've been very well received so... yay!

Thanks so much for popping in.

Warmly,

~~~Nicole

Prayer Flags

I've been wanting to make some prayer flags for awhile. So when I was painting this canvas for a different project, I was able to get seven flags from it.

Just a little tip, if you know you'll be using your canvas as fabric (not a painting or art piece in it's own right) it's sometimes easier to start with a theme or large, simple drawing to start getting paint down.

In this instance, I painted very basic flowers. It helped save me from an orderly march of stencils and such across the space.

Next I ripped the canvas into 5x11 inch pieces. Then I folded over the top by about 3 inches making the prayer flag the customary 5x8.

As you can see in the picture, while I was sewing them together I couldn't resist adding a few bits of scrap canvas here and there in the form of tags and ruffles.

In my opinion, cutting apart just about anything makes it much more interesting. Where the whole cloth above was okay - it's certainly bright and cheerful but not terribly inspired - the flags below have all sorts of variety and interest.

Next I started stenciling, painting and decorating each flag. Here are two I have completed:

Here's a little bit about prayer flags from Wikipedia, I think a lot of people have misconceptions about them:

Traditionally, prayer flags are used to promote peace, compassion, strength, and wisdom. The flags do not carry prayers to gods, a common misconception; rather, the Tibetans believe the prayers and mantras will be blown by the wind to spread the good will and compassion into all pervading space. Therefore, prayer flags are thought to bring benefit to all...

The prayers of a flag become a permanent part of the universe as the images fade from exposure to the elements. Just as life moves on and is replaced by new life, Tibetans renew their hopes for the world by continually mounting new flags alongside the old. This act symbolizes a welcoming of life's changes and an acknowledgment that all beings are part of a greater ongoing cycle.

I also have a Pinterest board of prayer flags if you are interested in seeing beautiful pictures from Tibet

You can read more about The Prayer Flag Project at this blog, including tutorials.

Easy Valentine's Floats and Other ideas

"Cupid Cocktails" were very popular with my crew. 

They have SUPER-LOW standards as we don't really celebrate Valentine's Day unless my mom makes me feel guilty about it :-)

(this was a year ago, he's grown up so much!)

Edit: and now this year:

For the more ambitious among you:

Romantic Date Night at Home

My favorite Valentine's image:

And my Valentine's wish for you:

print available