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Monday, September 17, 2012

Birthday Celebrations and Art

It was an extremely busy weekend with two birthday celebrations, brother-in-law as overnight guest and play time in the art room. I also made some Beef Mushroom Barley Soup. It was delicious, if I do say so myself.





On Saturday Miss K's birthday celebration was at the roller skating rink for a bit and then at her Dad's. I took the time to decorate her present in a way that I thought she would like. She did.




It was crazy, busy and she had a sleepover. Needless to say, I was glad I wasn't going to be trying to sleep in that household that evening. They had pizza and cake, neither of which I can have (I am severely lactose intolerant). It all works out pretty well as I shouldn't be eating that kind of food anyway.


On Sunday I went to my daughter's house early so she and big sis could get to the site and get things set up while I stayed with the birthday girl. Her party was held at a local pizza place that specializes in birthdays. The menu here was also pizza and cake. Oh, well! I had taken the time in the morning to wrap her presents in a similar style to her cousin's present, but she had specifically asked for Doc McStuffins. I did my best to satisfy her request. She loved it. I overheard her telling a friend, "My Nana made this all by herself." Too cute!




I forgot to take my camera to either event so don't have pix of my own, but I borrowed a couple of pix my daughter posted to her Facebook account to share here. I didn't see any that my son took of his daughter so I will post a recent pic from the first day of school.


First day of School 2012 - turned 9 one week later.


Cupcake cake at birthday party. Actually turns 5 tomorrow.


I also spent a bit of time in my art room playing in my altered book journal. Here are a couple of pages. This first one has a bit of gesso, Neocolor IIs, cheesecloth for texture,  parts of the paper I punched circles out of for a previous page, a bit of a handmade bird stamp and some lettering.



 This one is a work in progress. The first layer is gesso with a bit of color, followed by colored flakes on the left side and sand on the right. The next layer is a bit of stenciling with white paint. I don't know where this is going, but will keep adding to it until I think it is done.



Usually Saturday is a dull mail day. We usually get a flyer and nothing else. I usually look at it as a boring, but at least no bills event. Imagine my surprise this Saturday to find mail art for myself in the post. I had completely forgotten that I'd requested a bit of art from Mark B Hill some time ago. I think he must get hundreds of people asking. His art is quite special. Here is what I received. This is actually a commemorative sketch to celebrate the 4th anniversary of his open heart surgery. Wow!





 I've been meaning to feature some of the wonderful blogs I read in case you don't know about them (there are literally thousands to choose from), but I usually have so much other stuff to share, I've been remiss. I am thinking of making my week more themed. I'd like to do List It Tuesday with Aimee at Artsyville and maybe will choose Thursday as my Feature A Blog day. I know there are themes for other days, but don't know if I will choose to participate in any others or not.


So how was your weekend? Did it include making art? Are you willing to share?


xoxo

13 comments:

  1. Reading your post today makes me so happy!

    Can I have a coffee? :))

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    1. One coffee coming up! Do you take cream? sugar?

      I really appreciate your encouraging comments, Stefano,

      xoxo

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  2. I was inspired this weekend. I kept making my backgrounds and finishing them off as soon as they were dry. As I am mean when I squeeze some acrylic onto my palette (a metal kitten flat bowl) I usually find its too much so I use it thick and thin with this and this way and over lots of pages - I use watercolour spiral bound books. As you can do a double page at a time I now have 5 journals going. I only complete the pages in one or two. Really only one but I still such a lovely page on the 'Gothic revival' a headline from a magazine that I went to that second journal and wrote up notes about what the Gothic novel was and who they were and so. Then there is a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition starting in London so again I wrote up about them. I also had leaves as stencils and moved some and made swirling lines around overs. A page I called 'leaves in motion' and I copied in a poem about Autumn. Then I did a 'talking' 'my thoughts' sort of page. And a couple of pages that have ended up as stand-along collages with no words. Then I spent the weekend hoping my Russian Blue female would have her kittens over the weekend. Would really prefer her not to have them in the wee hours of the morning because I will end up going to work looking like a zombie and worrying they are alright. My husband is at home and he is lovely and looks after Mum and kittens very well but even so I worry.

    That's what I did at the weekend, Vicki

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  3. so much delightful creativity here ~ Wow! ~ Happy Birthday to the 5 year old ~ she is precious! ~ (A Creative Harbor)

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  4. What a happy weekend you have had, there is always someone to lend you a photograph if you forget the camera.
    Great journal pages with cute litte birds. Talking about making stamps I once made a hen stamp; fun, but it was not very professional.
    Have a good week.
    xx

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  5. Great post, as usual, and your bird stamp is amazing! I love the wrapping paper you made - you really did a nice job with both of them. Cute pix, too! hugs, nancy

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  6. Vicki, you seem to have the knack of wringing every last drop of creativity out of each 24 hours - sounds like a fantastic weekend :)
    Sue

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  7. What a great weekend! What great drawings. Your soup looks yummy too :)

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  8. I love that bird stamp, too! I really need to get back to carving some stamps - I've had a few things lately give me the urge but i haven't sat down to do it yet.

    The wrapping paper you made for the girls is great!

    Love the envelope from Mark, too. I am on his list somewhere, looking forward to seeing what I receive.

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  9. The girls grow up so quickly, I'm sure they loved their wrapping paper!

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  10. Oh my! growing up to fast. Want the SOUP! Yummy! Glad you had so much fun and JOY!

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  11. The soup looks delicious. The party looks fun...even if you couldn't eat much of anything. You had fun with the journal play. And I am way late stopping by. Hope it was a grand week. :)

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