crafty crafty

This past summer when I went to IKEA, I got a new bedspread. I love it - it makes me happy. But it's kind of plain, so I wanted a new pillow to go with it. I had a hard time convincing myself that spending money on a decorative was worth it, so I decided to make my own.

I already had a pillow form and some Wonder-Under so I just went to Wal-Mart and bought some fabric. The total cost of making this pillow cost me less than $2.

(I got the silhouette from Google Images)

Ta-Da!

The End.

=)

spooooky

Every day (or ever other day, let's not get too specific), I go out to check on my little garden...

Most of the plants I've grown this year are gone - spinach, green beans, lettuce, a few radishes.. But I have some cucumber plants with bunches of cute little cucumbers growing, ever so slooooowly. I check to see if, magically, one has grown to picking size over night. I swear, it happened once, with my first and only cucumber of the year - and it tasted divine. It hasn't happened since then, though, and I doubt any of my other cucumbers will reach maturity before autumn decides to really settle in. Even so, I go check on my plants, pick a stray weed, will the cucumbers to grow big, and fast, before hurrying back inside.

However.... On Wednesday I went outside as usual, checked my tomato plant, checked the cucumbers, pawed around for a couple strawberries, and had the impulse to pick a carrot. See, I didn't thin my carrots very well, so most of them have been pretty stumpy and small. I usually just leave them alone hoping they will grow long and slender so I can give some to my dad and maybe keep a few to eat myself.

This is the carrot I picked.

A little orange monster - perfect timing for October. I though it looked like a ghost, so I drew him a face. I've kept him in the fridge because Joseph wants me to keep him Halloween (don't ask me why), but he's getting kind of soft. So I thought I'd take a picture of him for my blog, before he gets too old, and also take a second to say:

HAPPY AUTUMN!

Aren't you so glad fall has taken it's time to get here?

Most posts to come, soon. Promise.

you can paint it any color

Lately I have been:

Doing homework and taking what feels like a boatload of tests.

Picking these (I didn't think they'd keep coming out this late in the year but I picked a handful today, so I can't complain).

Waking up at this time 3 days a week.

And missing these goofy people (aka my parents), who officially moved out of the house yesterday. Even though I saw them today, I miss them already. They're only one hour away which isn't really that far... But when I've been seeing them every day, it's going to be hard.

up date

I just wanted to hop on my little blog and write a quick little update of me and my honey.

Fall semester began 2 weeks ago. Kristofor is going into Health Information Management and I, of course, am doing the Radiology program. He has 12 credit hours and I have 16, so this may get a little tricky for us! I have school one day a week for 4 hours and I go to my clinicals for three 8-hour days a week. The hospital I'm at is about an hours drive away, so that's not really any fun, but I'm just so glad that I got in that so far I can't complain. I really love the hospital I'm at - for one, everything is nice and new (it's been open for less than a year), and I have yet to meet anyone rude. My clinical instructor is about as nice as anyone can get, although he does like to play little pranks on me and the other first year student. We're gullible. But it's fun. All the other techs are really patient and nice, they take the time to answer all my questions and explain things to me. I feel a bit overwhelmed with all there is that I have to learn, even just knowing my way around the hospital, but I'm trying to be patient with myself. Sometimes have to remind myself that I'm not going to remember everything right away.

My parents are for sure moving. Which means a lot of things, but basically we need to find a new place to live sometime at the end of the year. My parents will start training for their new job in just a few weeks. And I'm glad they found something and feel good about it, but I'm really going to miss seeing them every day. =(

Life right now consists of homework and watching movies in our down time. And the occasional trip to Jamba Juice.

2 of my loves

Needless to say, I reaaallllly love my Kristofor.

But, I also love Ogden. I've been living here for about 5 years, and it's really grown on me. I feel like I own it. Like it's mine. I've never felt like that about a city before.

You see, I've had these weird almost-relationships with the places I've lived. I love my hometown it because it's my hometown, not because of anything cool - like, if I wasn't born and raised there, would I even like it? I'm not sure. When I lived in Nanaimo, I felt like I was staying over at someone's house - I was comfortable and liked it, but somewhere deep down I had this unsettled feeling because I wasn't home. I also felt like there was no way I could like Canada, because if I did then that would be betraying Utah! Duh!! ;)

Anyway, I feel completely at home in Ogden. Like I've adopted it - or maybe it's adopted me, I don't know. There are some pretty big changes coming my way. Like the kind that are scary and slightly exciting but mostly you dread them because who likes change, anyway? Yeah. So, with these changes we'll be moving.. I'm not sure where to, yet, but hopefully we can stay in Ogden.

Because, really.

I love it.

(and Kristofor)

longest post everrrr

After my big brother Ben saw my fish painting, he told me he wanted me to do a painting for his office. He told me the colors of the wall and carpet in his office, about how big he wanted it, and that he wanted it simple like the fish one. And that's all. After that, I had full artistic license, or whatever - which is kind of nice, and kind of scary!

So I'm going to share with you my thought process of deciding what to do for the painting, how I did it, etc. etc. etc., and finally, the end result!

*I draw everything in Microsoft Paint (fancy!) before I paint - it helps me decide on everything from composition to colors. Please forgive me.*

First, I decided I wanted to do these little bumpy wave pattern things because they were part of the pattern on one of my dresses and while wearing it a few weeks before Ben "commissioned" me, I decided I really like the pattern and wanted to put it to use somehow. So, I thought, perfect way to put this pattern to use!

So I drew it up in Paint . . .

. . . and decided I wanted to do this for the background of the painting. So then I just had to decide what the main image of the painting would be. I went to Google Images and typed in random things that came to my head. I'm very productive like that, you see. Finally, somehow, I don't know exactly why, I decided to do a tree. So I started typing in "Tree silhouette" and "tree wall decal" and things of that nature to come up with some images that I liked. These are they:

Using these trees for inspiration, here is the first tree I drew in Paint:

[Yes, it's hideous!] [don't you love the bird??]

Then, after feeling sad and like this painting was going to really suck, I tried again, more copying the little orange tree. I Paint-ed this:

Okay, things are looking up! Before getting any further on this project, I decided to Facebook-send Ben the Paint-ing above, and below, and see what he thought.



I told him this was a subject matter and composition thing only - the colors could be changed.

He told me he liked the portrait oriented one better, so next up was deciding colors (the fun part)!

So then I Facebook-sent him all these different color schemes to give him an idea of what he might like - he liked the blue one (one of the walls of his office is a pretty sky blue), so that was that!

**Just a little side note, my favorite one was the green and yellow one - oh well!**

Next step - buying the supplies. I bought an 18 x 24 inch canvas from Michaels, and the paint. Oh, the paint. I would be using acrylics, as always. And I knew I didn't want to go around mixing my own colors - if I ever need to replicate the same color again, it's nearly impossible. So, I spent a while grabbing a bunch of different blues and seeing how they looked together to decide on the final contenders.

I ended up using all of these except one color - it was a bit too green.

Also, I learned a valuable lesson about paint - the cheap stuff is cheap for a reason! You have to spend a lot more time painting to get a solid looking coat, so next time I am definitely spending the extra quarter to get a little better quality paint. My favorite of the 3 types I got was Americana.

Next I had to get my design onto the canvas so I could get started painting! It was a long and dumb process, but basically I drew my design onto some poster board as a rough draft before doing anything to the canvas. Then I cut it out so I could arrange it on the canvas. The hardest part was arranging the leaves. I cut out tons of leaves in 3 uniform sizes (except I made 1 BIG leaf), 2 big ones, some mediums, and tons and tons of the smallest ones. I arranged them all on the poster board first, would take a picture, and rearrange them until I got an arrangement that I liked.

This is the final arrangement - very messy. I colored the leaves blue so I could see them better.

So I took this picture and then took the cut-outs and put them on the canvas, trying to get everything in the same place it was on the poster board - this is where taking a picture came in handy.

***It was during this process that I realized doing the bumpy wave pattern would be too much work! So, lazily, I ditched that idea.***

After I had the cut-outs where I wanted them, I traced them, lightly, with a regular old pencil onto the canvas (which I had painted white earlier). I decided which leaves I wanted which color (to try to avoid getting any of the same colors right next to each other), and started painting!

Basically, I sat and watched a million Netflix movies while I painted. I don't know exactly how many hours it took me in total, but from start to finish - Ben telling me he wanted a painting, and me actually giving it to him - it took 2 months. But most of that was me procrastinating and letting it sit.

Without further ado,

The finished product - TA DA!!!

I had a lot of fun doing this project. It's the first time I've ever painted anything for someone other than myself, so I liked it a lot. =) I went and saw it hanging in Ben's office the other day and it looks pretty good in there!

Sorry for the overload of information and pictures. =)

blur

My sister Brein says one of her favorite things is color. My dad thinks it's pretty silly for color to be considered a favorite thing.

But really . . . doesn't color just make everything better? Happier?