New Painting

I did this a couple weeks ago.  I didn't show you guys because I've been letting it "sit" for a while.  I struggled working on it, and when I decided to stop, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not.  It's grown on me a bit while it "sat".  Overall, I'm happy with it, but I think it just won't be one of my favorites, you know?

So I've been toying with the idea of making prints of some of my paintings to sell on Etsy.  But I'm sort of at a loss as to where to start, as far as printers go, etc.  Do any of you have any suggestions?  Or is this something anybody would even be interested in?  I'd love some feedback!

Little Ballerina

Ah yes, Miss Avery has started dance class!  You can imagine how exciting this was for me (notice how I said "me"!).  While she was definitely excited, I think Mommy was looking forward to the day much more than Avery was!

 I was very lucky, because I was able to get a few minutes in the room alone to take some photos of her before class started.   And then the teacher allowed the mothers to stay during class (just for the first class), so I took advantage!

 So excited!

I just love the concentration on her face above-she's trying to figure out which foot she should be tapping!

 Sweet little ballerinas in a circle!

Of course I had to make a journal spread about it!  I've had that pink tulle trim probably since she was a baby, and I've never used it!  Good thing I held onto it, because it worked perfectly on this page!

Ta Dah!  You'll see my name in lights someday, she says!

I'm linking up to Small Style this week.

Lots Of Project Life Stuff...

Okay, you guys are going to be spared the post with a bazillion photos, and will just get a post with a billion photos.  I went to upload all of the journal work I've done for Riley and Noah over the past few months, and half of them are uploading sideways.  Blogger and Canon cameras just do not get along, unfortunately.  The only way to remedy this is for me to go open them all and resave them with the correct rotation in a program like Picmonkey, and I am just not in the mood right now- ha!  

So here we have all the photos that uploaded properly!  If you would like to see the rest (the other months that are missing here), they are on my Flickr site- they are all behaving and rotated properly over there!

As you can see, I've continued with the Project Life scrapbooking system for the boys' journals.  I was playing catch-up with Riley's, so his go back to 2011, while Noah's began early this year.  At this point, I am caught up until April 2012 for both of them, so I'm slowly working my way toward being current with them.

I still love doing the journals this way, and the "once a month" timeframe seems to work well.  It covers just the right amount of time for a two-page spread most months.

Again, if you'd like to see the rest of the pages, from the months that are missing, hop on over to Flickr and take a look!

Okay, now I'm off to work on a journal page for Avery.  She had her first ballet class a couple weeks ago, and the cuteness was hardly containable!  

New Journal Pages

It's been so long since I shared anything done in the kids' journals.  Unfortunately, that's because I haven't done a ton of work- this summer really put a damper on my creative time!  But thankfully, my artsy mojo is returning now that the kids are finally back in school.

Here are three spreads done in Avery's journal.  You should be able to click on the images to see them larger...

The first was about how much she loves miniature golf.  We took a trip to Myrtle Beach in the spring, and that place is a huge mini-golf town!  We played probably three times in a week, and she LOVED it!

The second is about potty-training.  We are finally (after almost seven years!) a diaper-free house!  Can you hear me jumping up and down over here???  My two boys trained late (a couple months after three y.o.), but we didn't have that luxury with Avery unfortunately.  She had to be potty-trained by the time school started, which was about a week after her third birthday!  She was so stubborn about it!  But thankfully, about three weeks before school started, she finally decided to do it- way to make Mommy sweat it out, Avery!

So anyway, onto the journal page.  I found the image of the little girl on the potty chair in an old baby book, and painted around Avery's photo to match it.   I notice that the vintage drawing shows a buckled strap to hold the child into the chair- that probably would have been a little helpful for me, with her stubborn-ness!!

And finally, here is her birthday spread. I used a kitty cat image from a vintage birthday card.  What's funny is that I used another image from the same card on the spread for Riley's third birthday!  I also used the pink and yellow streamers that were hanging as decoration at her little party.

Poor Avery- her little journals don't get as much attention as the boys' did when they were young, but that's always the curse of the last child, isn't it?

I've also done several spreads in the boys' Project Life scrapbooks, which I'll show you soon!

Small Style/Toys Photo Challenge

I'm trying to get back into taking photos of Avery wearing vintage clothes.  Morgan from Mama Loves Papa does Small Style every Thursday, so that's good incentive for me!  I also tried to incorporate Paper Mama's photo challenge of "Toys" into the photos.  I took pictures of her playing with several toys throughout the day, but unfortunately, none of them were fantastic shots of her cute vintage outfit.  That's okay though, because you get the idea! 

Her Pinkie Pie Dancing/Singing Pony.  She will listen to this thing sing for hours at a time.  Strangely, I don't mind that much- the songs are kind of catchy!

 She also played for a while with this felt book, in between running back and pushing the buttons on the pony to make it sing again.  This was the best shot of her little dress.  It was thrifted, of course, just like 95% of her clothes!

 And then she decided on this box/fort that's been sitting in our family room for a week!  I meant to put it out in the recycle bins on Monday, but didn't get around to it. However, now I'm glad I didn't...

 ...because I would have missed this wonderful shot of her!

 In case you were trying to decipher the sign hanging on the box/fort, here it is:  Noah's version of "No Girls Allowed", which was then crossed out because he felt bad for Avery.  He went back and added drawings of a girl and a boy, and marked each with a check, meaning that they are BOTH allowed!  Aren't kids great?

And here is Avery's REAL first day of school outfit, for those of you who saw last week's post.  I guess I shouldn't have been so worried about her wearing her school shirt, because really, it doesn't get much cuter than this, does it?

New Steps for the Keystone

Here's something I've been working on the past few days.  Well, I guess I should say, "We've been working on", since my husband did a good deal of the work!

When I got my Keystone dollhouse, it was a bit run-down.  One of its main issues was the absence of stairs. As you can see in the above photo, it had the top step, and it had the bottom step (guess you can't see the bottom one in the photo!), but nothing in between!

I knew from research online that the steps should look like these above, so I asked my husband whether he could make some for me.  

We removed the bottom step, and he used it as a template to cut more steps, like the one above.  I forgot to take a photo, but after cutting the steps, he added another flat 1/8" piece on the top for the overhang, which he bevelled to resemble the original step.

I painted them to match, then glued them all together over the course of a couple days.  Since they were on a curve, I had to wait for each section to dry before adding to it!

Here they are being propped up while they are finally glued in their final position.

And you thought I was done there, didn't you?  Nope, when I acquired the dollhouse, there was also this remnant of paper included.  It was initially longer, and ran the length of the steps.  It's hard to find photos with this paper attached, because most houses lost this piece through the years.  So I took the above photo, and edited it in PicMonkey.  

I used the "cloning" tool, and was able to recreate the step paper into this!  Aren't computers great?

I butted several of the images up together to make an entire stairway...

 ...and here it is attached to my new stairs!

  

The lady of the house is very pleased!  She can now get up to the second floor to begin decorating!

"Pretend" First Day of School- Vintage Small Style

 Miss Avery starts preschool tomorrow.  Unfortunately, the school has requested she wear her preschool T-shirt for the first day of school.  Boo!  I hate that- don't they know that crazy mothers like me plan our entire week around taking cute photos of our children's first-day-of-school outfits???  The boys have uniforms, so I already knew I had no choice with them, but come on!  This is my little girl, who has the potential to look this cute on her first day (by the way, holy cow!  How did she get so old in just one year?)!  

Anyway, I decided to do a little photoshoot with her today instead, and pretend that she got to wear this adorable little dress for her first day!  I found it at a thrift store, and it's completely handmade!  Such sweet details- Avery loves the pockets!  It's been a while since I dressed her up and took photos (other than for her birthday), so prepare yourself for photo-overload!

Here are MY favorite photos:

Be still my heart with the photo above- I may need to get that one framed!  I love it!

I mentioned that the above photos were MY favorites...

The ones below are AVERY'S favorites!

Oh, you silly girl!!

I'm linking up here this week- Morgan's back with Small Style!