Category Archives: Feeling Fartsy

Hello

I have been saving these photos to share for 2 months.

I don’t have the energy to be melodramatic and express how insanely busy my life currently is.

Self induced, organized? chaos.

So instead of all that, I thought I would share my photos and we can take a moment just to breath and think happy thoughts.  We don’t take nearly enough of those kinds of moments.

I made these Junkmail/magazine snowflakes and hung them in January to add bright winter cheer.

We took a trip to Ben’s Bells and painted beads.

Conrad’s note he wrote for Newtown, CT.

We launched more rockets.  Everybody got a turn to launch their own.

I love my life.

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Filed under Family, Feeling Fartsy

Playing

Playing around with a black piece of construction paper that I punched a heart out of, and Instogram.

Owls are perfectly awesome!  The cuteness gushes off of them.

I want to do this again, with all sorts of stuff.  I just need to make time.

I have been CRAZY busy with being President of Booster Club at Ami and Conrad’s school.  With as much time as I’ve been spending at the school, I just have to say, I’m in love.  Today I got to help 1st graders make Gingerbread cookies, and taught them how to sew gingerbread dolls!  I know people think I’m crazy for wanting to become a teacher, but I just can’t help myself.  I’ve decided to get my Bachelors in elementary education.  It feels good to finally’ve made a decision.  I hope I don’t flake out.

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Repurposed CD Jewel Cases

My good friend Patti, recently presented me with a ginormous box of empty CD jewel cases, and asked me if I had any creative ideas for them.  I love a repurpose challenge!  I took a huge stack home with me and here’s what I came up with.

We now have an awesome and free “stained glass” window in our family room.

I just stuck them to the window with double stick tape.  The edges were tricky because these things don’t like to be cut.  They’d rather crack, snap  and send pieces flying across the room. Watch your eyes!  With patience and a little finesse, I managed to cut them down to fill in the gaps.

It’s a fun and looks really cool at night. The best thing is when we get tired of it, it will be super easy to take down.

Here’s a close up of my never-gonna-be-finished Kermit portrait, that had a cameo in the first photo.

For 5 years I’ve been saying I will finish him…some day, and haven’t yet.  When I tried to donate him to Goodwill, Der and the boys pitched a fit, so here he sits ever so patiently waiting to be completed…one of these days…maybe.

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Filed under Feeling Fartsy, Goodwill, Let's make things pretty., On The Cheap

All Souls Procession 2012

I’ve wanted to participate in Tucson’s All Souls Procession for several years, but could never follow through, until this year.

If you don’t know what the All Souls Precession is click here for the history.  It was actually created by one of my drawing teachers in college, over 20 years ago.  It has grown with each passing year and is now HUGE, like-miles-long-HUGE!

It’s a wonderful way to honor those you love, who have gone on before you.

There is walking art EVERYWHERE!  Every float is human powered.  It was hard to get a lot of photos during the procession, but here are a few.

As I said this was our first year, and though I knew it would be amazing, I was a little intimidated and unsure of what to expect.

I found out one of  the great things about the procession is that you can move freely through it, if you want to step out and take a break you can, and then you jump right back in whenever you’re ready.  Because Ami’s legs get tired quickly these days (all that supersonic growing) we mostly watched.

I painted all of our faces.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I just kind of winged it.  Ami and Conrad were the hardest, because they’re twitchy and squiggly and move all over no matter how hard they try to hold still.

I like how they turned out, and judging by all of the people taking our photos at the procession, so did everyone else.

Driving in the car to the procession.  I pulled down the visor to check my makeup and a yellow butterfly fluttered out.

Derek and I both got teary eyed and I said “Hello Benny”.  It was such a beautiful moment and I will treasure it forever!  Thank you for staying with us always, Benny.  You are thought about and loved every single day!

We can’t wait to honor Benny next year with pink flying piggies.

The All Souls Procession was such an uplifting experience!  I am glad we finally made it there and we will be back every year from now on!!!  If you ever get the chance to go, don’t hesitate, just do it!  You’ll be glad you did.

 

 

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Filed under Amazeballs, Everything else, Family, Feeling Fartsy, Making Memories

Paper Art

I don’t think it’s any secret that I love making stuff with paper.

Recently I was wondering why that is and that’s when I started remembering some of the things I made as a kid.  Once I made an indian (that was before we were taught they are native americans) costume with paper grocery bags that I cut into faux leather clothes.  With one bag I cut a hole out of the bottom for my head and arm holes out of the sides.  I then cut the front of the bag, creating a vest look and cut the bottom into strips aka fringe.  I turned another bag into a skirt and gave it fringe too.

I also made a robot costume out of paper bags, but don’t remember my process.

In later years I would use construction paper to make 3 dimensional buildings.  I would staple, glue and tape the paper to make walls with functioning windows and doors and would construct little furniture out of paper.

Right after Derek and I got married (almost 18 years ago) I would sit for hours constructing 3D vases full of flowers, using only construction paper and glue.

So it seems I have been in love with paper for a very long time.

Here are some of my latest creations:

Paper flowers (different than the ones I made for vases).  The one above is made from an old dictionary page, the ones below are from card stock.  I made a friend a string of them as a thank you gift.

I saw this rainbow on Pinterest (follow me).  The directions were in a foreign language, but I was able to figure it out from the photos.

Who doesn’t love rainbows?

I saw this heart garland on Pinterest as well.  It’s super easy and fun to make.  Jeremia wants me to make wreaths out of it.  I love when the boys give me ideas and suggestions.  Igniting their passions to create is just one of the many perks of being a parent.

I urge you all to do something creative every chance you get.  It’s good for your soul!

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Hand Carved Eraser Stamps

These are so much fun to make.

I sketch a doodle directly on the eraser and then, with my trusty exacto knife, carefully cut it out.  Imagine what I could do with the appropriate stamp carving tools!

I bought some of those “big mistake” giant erasers at the dollar store after carving all of the erasers we had at the house.

It’s so simple and fun, you should definitely try it…mind your fingers.

 

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The last of the Pinetop photos

We were playing a cool monster/dice/drawing game while simultaneously enjoying the beautiful Pinetop weather.   You roll a die 6 times and draw the corresponding monster body parts.  I know this is where I should show you the finished monsters, but I don’t have photos of them.  I do encourage you to go draw your own though.  Find the printable here.

Boy that sun sure was bright!

Two things you should know about Ami are he loves ducks, and he almost always has food on his shirt, face, or both.

Ignore the glaring sun and smile boys :)

No trip up north would be complete without roasting marshmallows for s’mores.

Or as Ami likes to call it, “fishing for marshmallows”.

Notice the food on his face, but to be fair, I think we all had food on our face at this point.

This photo made me do a double take when I downloaded it.  Even though I took it and I knew Keegan wasn’t on our trip, I thought this was Keeg at first…and then I realized it was our man-boy Jeremia.  No matter how much you think you are soaking up your kids when they are young, it’s never enough, they still always grow too fast.

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Filed under Adventures, Entertain Me, Family, Feeling Fartsy, Making Memories, Natural Happenings

Hidden Hearts

I love hearts, more specifically, I love finding hearts.

Here’s a heart I found in my sandwich a few weeks ago.

Thanks to Instagram for helping me commemorate the awesome pepper!

A while back I discovered that dried out Yucca seed pods look like hearts when separated, so I took to fiddling with them.

The one in the middle is my favorite by far.  Not pictured are the 20 others that I varnished and glittered and one that I turned into a necklace.  I know I’ve said it repeatedly, but there just isn’t enough time to experiment and create all of the things that are bouncing around in my head.

Finding “hidden” hearts make me positively giddy and I have been known to squeal like a little girl, when I see one.  It has caught on with Der and the boys, for whenever they see one they point it out, because they know it will make my day.

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Filed under Feeling Fartsy, Natural Happenings, With Gratitude

More Fun With Instagram

Donny is almost all grown up.  His voice is changing and every time I hear him half chirp, half quack, I think of Peter Brady’s “When it’s time to change.” song, from the Brady Bunch.  P.S.  When I was little, I wanted to live with the Brady family SOOOOO bad.

His little nubby wings are starting to get real feathers.  I can’t help but think that this looks like an uncomfortable process.  It has to hurt.

I adore watercolors!  They make me happy and fill me with the desire to get my art on.

Arizona sunsets are unbeatable!  So are desert trail bike rides! (not pictured)

I love the perspective of this shot.  I had my phone laying on the ground, angled ever-so-slightly up.  Ami’s serious expression is my favorite.

Happy mushroom growing in our empty flowerbed.  Mushrooms are just cool.

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Filed under Feeling Fartsy, Natural Happenings

Rainbow Paper Suncatchers

I freehand cut blue sheets of paper into clouds.  Then I cut their centers out.  I cut 2 at a time, so there would be twins that we could stack to match.

After cutting tissue paper into thick strips, I gave each boy 1 in every color.

Conrad’s friend, Gavin, was over again and was happy to make one too.

The photo’s pretty self-explanatory, but you outline the cloud with glue and overlap your tissue paper on each previous piece.  We made sure to leave plenty of tissue hanging out the bottom of the cloud.

As you can see we used white glue, but glue stick would have been better.

If you look closely at the tops of the clouds, you can see the hanging string we glued to the tops, in-between the paper.

The cloud shape is clearly visible through the tissue paper, so it was easy to see where to put the next layer of glue, in order to attach the twin cloud.

The boys gently tore any tissue poking out of the top.  Scissors would have created a cleaner edge, but this way was much faster.

Rainbows are so happy!  I love them!

I also love how the different colored paper overlapped creates new colors.  It was a makeshift course in color theory for the boys.

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Filed under Entertain Me, Feeling Fartsy, Let's make things pretty., Making Memories, On The Cheap, Rodents aka kids