A couple of weeks ago, my sister-in-law and I planned to bake Christmas cookies with our kids today. Originally, the plan was to have us go there for the day…but at the last minute we switched it to my house. Last night we had Christmas with Sam’s mom and his sister’s family and didn’t get home till around 9:30. This morning I got up and cleaned, put away laundry and tried to get ready for everyone to spend the day at our house. Sam’s Aunt and cousins came along too, so we had 5 extra adults and 3 extra kids hanging out here for most of the afternoon and evening. It was so much fun though. The kids got along great and we had fun making the cookies. Around 5:00, we fed the kids and I decided I had better make dinner for all the adults, which I hadn’t planned on. So, I just threw some rice in the rice cooker, cooked up some chicken in the Turbo cooker and we ate the rest of the corn that the kids had not eaten with their raviolis. It was totally last minute…but I didn’t stress about it, and I didn’t even really feel like I was under pressure, or that I was in the kitchen all the time. I had a wonderful time talking with everyone and I felt like it went very well. It was about 9:00 when everyone left, then I decided to draw one of the Christmas cookies. Savannah and CC cut out and decorated most of them. They were really hilarious. I loved the way they turned out.
The past few days, Sam and I have been trying to learn our new dig. camera. It is a Canon Digital Rebel XT. So we have been snapping pics of everything. It’s fun…and so nice to have a DIGITAL SLR camera where you can scrap a picture or play around with different settings till you get it right…without having to pay for the film! Here are a few of our experiments:

Our tree…not nearly as lopsided as this, hung wih ornaments: old, new, and handmade.

I had this big long entry written, and accidently deleted it…so here it goes again! I haven’t drawn much lately and I miss it. Tonight I tried drawing an idea I had for Illustration Friday and it was NOT working out, so I had to scrap it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since it’s been so many days since I even drew anything.
Anyway, today, I finished putting together a book I had started months ago. By started, I mean that I had the paper cut and the cover papers selected…Today I sewed the signatures together, glued the cover together and assembled it all. I love making books. It’s so fun to be able to make a book from just paper and mattboard and thread & glue. I am such a sucker for blank books, I have a few sitting on my shelf that haven’t ever been written in, yet. This book is 7 signatures of 3 pages each, sewn with Red string. (Red is all I had on hand at the moment). It is covered with patterned papers that I bought at a store. I attached a ribbon for a bookmark into the spine, which has beads dangling from the end of the ribbon. Inside the back cover I attached a pocket of coordinating paper to hold important papers & stuff.
I made a journal like this last year and used it for my daily art journal…it worked great. I loved the size. This book is 8.75 x 5.5 and I used a couple of different kinds of paper in it. One is a textured cream colored paper that resembles watercolor paper, but it’s like 70lb. The other paper is white sulphite drawing paper, 80lb.
I will probably give this as a gift, or keep it around to use as an example for my book arts class which I am teaching this winter. I think it would be fun to make journals and sell them…but I don’t know if anyone would buy them…I know some handmade journals are so expensive, you hate to write or draw anything in them. I am always nervous about starting out a new journal anyway…but it’s kind of exciting too. Anyway, I thought it would be really cool to add some handdrawn embellishments on random pages inside. Do you think people would like that? If I were to sell a journal like this, it would probably be around 20.00. Do you think anyone would buy them?
I don’t know if I will really sell them, just thinking about it. I just love to make them! But I’ve got to do something with them, ya know!

I don’t normally post this kind of stuff on my blog…because I think a lot of people do it and it gets boring…but I saw this on Jazz’s site and it was cracking me up.

Google your name + needs, (__________ needs) and list the top ten…
So here goes:

1. Julie needs cards for hospital visit for transplant.
2. Julie needs your help!
3. Julie needs data protection.
4. Julie needs to work on her parenting.
5. Julie needs complete access in the hallway, so rugs, console tables and plants are out of the question.
6. Julie needs to go for cotton styles with a bit of structure rather than anything too flimsy like chiffon, which clings.
7. Julie needs to show off her womanly frame.
8. Julie needs to get paint.
9. Julie needs one more qualification to complete her AKC Junior Hunter Title.
10. Julie needs a caring, nurturing placement with consistent boundaries.

Do you think this is funny? Or not so much?

Tonight after she got done with kid’s choir at church, Savannah and Sam headed over to Walmart to pick up a few things and then went to a little Mexican restaurant across the street, where they happened to have a Mariachi band tonight. They ordered up a few tacos and Savannah was having the time of her life dancing to the songs. This little dance was to La Bamba. However, Sam recorded it with his phone, so the audio was really bad. So the music you hear is not the actual mariachi band. Sam said it was even more hilarious when she got up and started dancing right in front of them. Everyone in the restaurant was laughing. Don’t you wish you could be this carefree? What a cutie!

I did this blind contour drawing of our Kirby. A salesman came to our house, and we ended up buying it for WAY too much money. But we’ve had it for almost 11 years, and it still runs good. So I guess it was almost worth it. I would hate to see inside the bag, we vacuum so much stuff up, it’s rediculous! Ya know how they say change the bag every month…well, ours gets full before 30 days are up! Let’s see, some of the most common contents of the vacuum cleaner bag are Goldfish crackers, Polly Pocket shoes, Hair ties, ok, hair, crumbs from cereal, peas, corn (why do the vegetables always end up on the floor – maybe I should be watching my kids more closely at meals!), pieces of paper, those plastic ties from kid’s toys (man, I hate those things – they are such a pain), pennies, dead ants, broken glass from lightbulbs and ornaments, plastic beans (from the Don’t Spill the Beans game), and probably a lot more things I can’t think of right now!

Go check out the other blind contours at Inkfinger.

My first attempts at packing tape transfers (the printed text and the face) on a painted background, embellished with a black sharpie and a gold paint pen.