handmade portraits-black-eyed suzie

found this video and thought i'd share. i guess i was intrigued by the style of her dolls, not your usual prim and proper..check it out for yourself...this is black-eyed suzie.

home sweet home

ky and i took a trip to hobby lobby and i instantly fell in love with this little cardboard house. all the possibilities! so i brought it home with me and i started creating. it's still a work in progress...

it was a clean canvas and i could do anything my heart desired. i also bought some scrapbook paper and embellishments, added it to the lovely home and voila! what a pretty house. i would love to live here, wouldn't you?

the bird that sits on top is big, but i like that it adds a bit of whimsy. 

so there is my little house. i sit her on my fireplace mantle and now my little family (i painted a while back) has a lovely little home.

slumber party!

we had a slumber party for kyree this past weekend. her first.
for the last few years i've been a pro at having 'boy's sleepover' so this was very different for me.
we had so much fun!
makeup, nails, tea party, talent show, dance party and ended with a strawberry shortcake movie..here are a few snapshots that i wanted to share and document. my baby girl is so lucky to have such great cousins...

lots of pink! i can definitely get used to all this girly fun! we shall have more in the future!

new year.

what. a. year.

when 2010 arrived i decided that my word of the year would be brave and i must say that i had a brave kinda year. i tried new things that i once would've passed up and i bravely got serious about my art. i followed my heart with braveness. i learned so much this year. some were good and some were yucky. i don't like yucky.

although yucky can be very uncomfortable i have also realized that yuckiness is filled with a lot of great lessons. like, man...i am a lot stronger than i thought i was. i have learned to just live through the yuckiness and let things sail along. through that, we can find the deliciousness that we never expected. 

i knew that my little family and i were always very tight and strong, but these past few months i have proof. i have a wonderful husband and three beautiful children that i get to watch grow everyday. boy, am i lucky. 

so..what's my word for  2011? embrace. i want to embrace whatever life may bring. good or bad. delicious or yucky. because i know that with anything that comes our way, we will be okay. we can look back at those moments and know that i've learned something. 

i want to learn to just let go and ride with this beautiful thing called life! and to know that i am strong and can overcome whatever may come my way. 

what's your word for 2011?

whatever it may be, i hope you have a wonderful brand spankin' new year!!!!

my mother's love

my mom has always been a thoughtful woman. when i was little i can remember her having to run errands and sometimes she would bring me back a surprise and i would be so excited because anything she got for me i would love...fast forward a few years and she hasn't changed all that much.

i think of myself as a thoughtful person and i have to thank my mama for that. i hope that i pass some of my mama to my own children.

another thing that i get from my mother is crafting, put us in a room together with a glue gun and scrap paper and we'd probably build a town. ha! yes, we are very creative. i think she's a lot better than i am so anything she makes, i study each detail wondering, how did she get that so perfectly? oh, i see now...

every christmas my mother sends a box filled with goodies, from cookies to shirts. this christmas she did the same and every present she wrapped was so beautifully done. each roll of wrapping paper perfectly matching the embellishment carefully placed on top. she takes the time to do these things with love. that's just one of the many things i love about my mother.

she also filled these wooden containers with cookies, there were about four of them altogether. she knew that i couldn't help myself, but try a little mixed media painting on them. i totally know why she sent them. she was so right :)
this is what one of them looked like before:

here's are a few shots of the still-working-on-it-after:

thanks so much, mama. you know exactly what i like. so happy to share a creative soul with you...

little me.

image: little-me-starfire

have you ever had a moment that you totally felt your existence? like..at this very moment i feel alive and it feels so good kinda moment?! i get that feeling when i'm on the floor and i can feel three little bodies climbing all over me in laughter. those are the moments i totally feel mommy. or when they need my kisses on their boo boos. or when my husband looks at me like i'm the most beautiful woman in the world. or when i do something for nice for someone i can feel their gratitude...

well, last night i felt alive again by a total stranger's simple sentence in my post about a book, hand wash cold by karen meizer miller. just a simple, "if he doesn't come through, let me know. i have a book with your name on it." what? who? (as i carefully looked at the name of the commenter). none other than karen maezen miller herself!

wow! as you can read how the rest of the story goes (all in the comment section) ...needless to say, i felt alive. that sentence alone made me feel so special. i guess what i'm trying to say is that you never know that just by a small gesture you can make someone smile. you can change someone's mind. you can change someone's life. you can make someone that was having a hard year have another beginning. 

karen maezen miller made my day. i was so excited that i called my husband from work and said "you have to go and read my blog. the last post. look at the comments. you must stop what you're doing this very moment and look at it now!". and he did and was just as happy as i was at that very moment. 

thank you, karen (if i may) for making my night so exciting and my morning too. i will never forget that. ever.

hand wash cold by karen maezen miller.....good read.

image from blogcritic.org

 Readers follow the author through youthful ambition and self-absorption, beyond a broken marriage, and into the steady calm of an “ordinary” life. Household chores and caregiving tasks become opportunities for self-examination, lessons in relationship, and liberating moments of selflessness.....(from Amazon.com)

i am super duper excited to read this! i was hinting to my hubby about christmas ideas and this is my first choice. it's hard for me to find a good read that interests me long enough. it's really hard these days with three little ones, so the book has to be extra special..this one is. i hope to find it under the tree :)