Brody Bear's Bear

My nephew turns two next week and I wanted to make him a little something, since his parents refer to him as "Brody Bear" I thought a little bear was appropriate. I also love circus themes, so here is what I came up with.

This is my first piece of "art" that I have ever given out and I'm pretty nervous about. I think that it is a pretty cute illustration and hope others will think so as well. Tell me what you think.

desperate for sweets

Today was one of those days...... it was pouring down rain, freezing and windy. I left my rain boots at work so of course my shoes and socks were soaking wet all day.  I had class but as soon as school ended, I just wanted to be home. I came home and made some yummy thin crust pizza and then wasted the next three hours on the Internet. Yes, that's right I wasted three whole hours doing who knows what and spying on who knows who. After all of my Internet stalking, I wanted something sweet (seeing as I'm not a sweet person, I have nothing sweet in the apartment to eat. I want cookies. I need cookies. All I could find was some leftover mix for ginger bread, I had no eggs, no vegetable oil and no butter. This is where not being picky and being able to improvise come it handy. I didn't have any ingredients to make traditional cookies but I did have some pear sauce (like apple sauce but with pears) and olive oil. The first makes sense seeing as apple sauce can be used in lots of recipes, olive oil was really stretching it but since I was making ginger cookies, I hoped the savory taste could be masked. And this is what i got.....

probably not a Mrs. Fields cookie, but for me, it for sure hit the spot.

I'm also the girl who's been out of soy milk for past couple of days and as a result haven't been able to have cereal in the morning. What do I do instead? I heat up a tortilla and put peanut butter and jelly on it. I love being the type of person who isn't really picky and can always find a way to make something in my cupboards or fridge work.

Tomorrow will be a new story, I'm now out of tortillas.

What things have you done in desperation?

First painting...

I've been into art on and off my whole life. I was really hooked for about the first 12 years of it, until I made the unfortunate choice to focus on playing volleyball (I was terrible at it.) It wasn't until I was 19 or so that I started taking art classes again, but was quickly intimated and quit. Just this past year I have started taking art classes again. I love art classes but I've really struggled feeling I may just not ever be a good artist. Yet for once in my life, I'm pushing forward and am trying really hard to understand that I am just a beginner, and as with anything I am going to have to practice.  I've recently gone on a facebook ban and am using that time to try and do more creative things and also draw every night.

For my nephew's second birthday I wanted to paint him a little illustration of a bear. It will be my first ever completed painting. The past couple days I have been brainstorming and sketching and came up with a cute little cartoon bear but wasn't satisfied. Last night I sketched out a few more bears and then it came to me, I knew exactly what I wanted the theme to be. Even though I had lots of homework today I hard to start on my painting. Here it is in very rough form.

It's got quite a bit of painting to go, but I'm pretty happy with the circus/birthday bear.

Bottom Half Christmas Tree

I'm really excited to write this post, I know it is a little late but my friend just sent the pictures. This is the story of the Bottom Half Christmas Tree.



December 21st night.... I see a friend post on facebook "free Christmas trees on Steiner and Grove." Even though I had no intention of getting a Christmas tree, this post sparked an interest and I set my alarm for six the next morning. I rushed to get ready, hopped in my car and drove to where the free Christmas trees were supposed to be. To my surprise, there were hundreds of beautiful Christmas trees laying on the side walk. I wanted to take one so bad, but they were all 7 or 8 feet trees, and I had no way of dragging that size tree to my car or even worse I had no way of  getting that large of a Christmas tree into my little car. I dug through all these trees searching for a little Charlie Brown tree, I dug and dug but with no such luck. Then I saw it, a tree way smaller than the rest. Perfect! A tree I could carry! And just as fast as I got excited, I got disappointed, this wasn't just a little tree but rather just the bottom half a tree, a tree someone had chopped in half and kept the top half. At this point I started to get panicky, I had about five minutes to get to work, what was I going to do? I grabbed the tree tossed it in my car and drove to work. All I could think about at work was the little (but very stout) bottom half Christmas tree sitting in my car.

When I finally got off work, I picked my friend Liz up, grabbed some food, borrowed a saw and headed home for a night of pruning, ornament making and decorating. For about an hour Liz and I sawed and sawed this bottom half Christmas tree in attempt to give it shape to look like a real tree. Finally we were satisfied.

After pruning the tree...

Dirty hands along with BHCT

We set up the Bottom Half Tree and added some lights.

But sadly, it looked just like a tree missing it's top half. At this point we were in brainstorming mode, we needed a topper that would follow the form of the Christmas tree but we also needed to start crafting some ornaments. We popped open a bottle of champagne and started some intense ornament making and tree decorating. 

 Paper Source crafts = great ornaments

Bottom Half Tree and I 

elf paper ornament.

We made lots of elf ornaments, snowflake garland and most importantly a giant snowflake for the top! At some point through the evening my friends Grant and Patrick showed up to help in the decorating  festivities.

admiring our work 

ornaments, tinsel, garland oh my!

having fun with the tinsel

the only ornament I bought this year

So happy with the Bottom Half Tree

TA DA! bottom half christmas tree

My favorite part of the story is that I was able to reuse something from nature. I'm so glad I was able to  make something beautiful out of someone else's leftover.  Most people wouldn't take a Bottom Half Christmas tree but I couldn't be any happier with mine. 

Thanks Liz, Grant and PK for making such a great and memorable evening for me. 

Flashback Friday- Wetting my pants in second grade.

I'm still new at this whole blogging thing, but I have seen people do flashback friday posts that are pretty neat. Each Friday, I will attempt to post a photo and also include an old memory from my childhood. These stories will be my little attempt to share the events that shaped me. And here is my first flashback friday.

My dog growing up (Breezy) and I.

Since I posted this photo, I feel inclined to tell the story of when I wet the pants in elementary schol. I was wearing these exact shorts and belt about twenty years ago. I remember having to go to the bathroom really bad, but having to wait until a classmate of mine came back before I could go. The wait seemed like eternity, finally my classmate came back and I was able to rush out of the room. I ran all the way down the elementary second grade halls and into the bathroom. I thought I was safe, I in fact had made it to the privacy of my own stall. Then something terrible happened, my little 7 year old arms didn't have enough arm strength to undo the belt. I tugged and tugged to no avail. I didn't know what to do, I wanted to run and get help but who was I going to ask. I was in shock, how could this be happening? Then it started, I started peeing, I couldn't stop. I kept yanking at my belt while the pee kept streaming down my leg, I attempted to pull up the side of my shorts and sit on the toilet but I couldn't prevent the pee from getting everywhere. I sat on the toilet and cried for a bit, but knowing I would get in trouble for being gone too long, I untucked my shirt and went back to class. I spent the next few hours sitting in pee shorts.

Lino cuts and life...

Even though this lino cut has a long way to go, I thought I would share it with you. It is for my first project in my fine arts print making class. The assignment is to make a bookplate. Eventually my bookplate will have "from the library of Lindsey" on it (as it is required in the assignment.) This was just hand printed with relief ink to give me an idea of wear my carving in the linoleum was taking me. It is not as clean as I would like but for a complete newbie, I am pretty content with it.

Of course I'm going to make the face more defined and have already cleaned up a lot of the lines on it. I might actually make a new lino cut of the whole image for when we start printing on the presses. I was thinking that I might just frame this original print though, because I always think it's good to see where you started and where you've gone. 

I made a stop  at Amoeba records this weekend to pick up a few cds and dvds. New music (or at least new to me) worth mentioning:

1. Jenny and Johnny - I'm Having Fun Now

2. Neil Young- Harvest

3. Carter Family- Can The Circle Be Unbroken 

Also I am on a facebook breakup. I let someone I know change the password to my account so I wouldn't be able to waste the countless hours on it that I have. I told the person I wasn't allowed back on for a month, but now that I have gone a week, I'd really like to delete my account. Facebook has become an unhealthy obsession with me, I truly feel I am in a relationship with it. I love spying on people and later feeling down about myself because of it. Why? why would a person torture his/her self like this ? I don't know and that is why I'm breaking up with FB. I live in a great city and I need to enjoy it more 

This photo was taken from my iphone (yes this photo is real) on my way to class last week. So for at least the next month (and hopefully longer) I will be crafting, painting, running, laughing, blogging and living more. 

Have a nice night. 

Felt Owl and future felt sea creatures projects.

I made this felt owl awhile back and really enjoyed making him. Little projects like this are fun because you can take them to work with you and where ever else you might go. My best friend is pregnant right now and due in the beginning of the summer. I really want to make her a mobile. I asked her what theme she would like for her baby gift (but didn't tell her what I was planning) and she said sea creatures. I was hoping that she would pick forest animals but am thankful to be forced onto something new. So in the coming weeks be prepared for felt sea creatures blog updates.

Also, does anyone have any good felt creation inspirations that they would like to share or advice?

Does anyone else get super nervous to make crafts for other people? I can make things for myself but when it is for someone else I feel my work is not good enough?