Music Art Journal + Scat in the Dark

I've been taking a class in art journaling that combines music with art journaling from the lovely Kara. Note I said "taking" and not "participating". I hope to finish the simple five day class sometime before September. It's been really cool to see the prompts and spend time thinking about them (when I should be studying) and to see everyone else's awesome work. When I finally finish I'll post all of them.

This is the day 5 prompt for nonlyrical music. I cheated and used music with lyrics, but they are all in Japanese so I have no idea what she's actually saying, so this is still my interpretation of how the music feels without guidance from understanding of words. I think this is the happiest music I've ever heard. It makes me think of young love, sunshine, butterflies, puppy dogs and raindrops on my face.







(You can click to make the picture bigger)

Photobooth Picture from Gallery Party

Our friends who had their CD release party last week had a photobooth at the event and the pictures were awesome and hilarious.




Check out Trevor Ray Thompson, the photographer here

Quilt Project Sneak Peek

I'd been wanting to replace the duvet cover on our guest bed forever, but I never like anything in the stores. I got this idea, drew it out, got it approved by Alec and the two of us knocked out the top for it this weekend. Hopefully, Alec's mom can help us get it quilted, bound, and finished!

Here are some of the detail fabrics (They're not really crooked, I took the picture from an angle):

Here is the top for the quilt thrown on the bed:

Stewart Joined The Army

So my brother has 4 kids. When it was time to find a new home for their dog because their new house did not have any yard to speak of for this large dog to frolic in, he had a hard time explaining to the kids where Stewart (the dog) had gone. He told the truth at first, that his friend had taken in the dog to live at his house. When the kids kept begging daily to go visit Stewart, he finally told them that Stewart had joined the army so they couldn't visit him anymore. The army. Ah, parenting.

Alec and I thought this was hysterical and had intended to photoshop a photograph of Stewart in the army that he actually could show the kids. Well, I think a whole year went by and we never did that. Then recently I ran across this fantastic photography project: Fallen Princesses by Dina Goldstein I love her project for many reasons not limited to my feared repercussions of how growing up with tons of fairy tale input without anything to balance that leads to disappointment with real life.

So I jokingly sent this picture to Alec, saying this might be the perfect photo to put Stewart in for my brother and of course then he had to do it. Probably not the best picture to show the kids, but hilarious for the adults who can appreciate that the dog is not in any real danger.

Biliary Tree

These are the kinds of arts and crafts I'm up to these days. I make internal body structures out of play-doh, photograph them, and label them. Alec helped me with labels. Yes, I'm a huge dork.

Red and Turquoise Kitchen

I already have a couple red and turquoise kitchen items, some of which are vintage pyrex handed down from my Mom. I want more though! I love this kitchen and these other pyrex items I found on etsy.

photo credit

photo credit

The above item was from etsy, but it sold so I can't find the link for the seller.

photo from etsy

Summer Playlist

Happy Independence Day

We're celebrating independence at our house primarily through sugar. I got Alec a super yummy and beautiful cake as a surprise. It is rich chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream and crumbled Reeses cups. It’s iced in vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream and vanilla fondant, and the accents are in tinted vanilla fondant. Wicked Cakes did such a great job, and I want to eat it at every meal.

I have also been making these Vanilla Raspberry Sundaes from the Martha Stewart magazine's most recent issue. I think I can get behind anything that has to do with sugar lately.

More Improvements on the Home Front

We forgot to take actual "before" picture for this specific purpose, but I did happen to take a random shot of the living room when we first moved in. Please note the horrible TV stand/entertainment center made of black yuck and glass. I hate furniture made of black yuck and glass. It screams to me of Nagel's art and I feel like I should feather out my hair and wear neon colors.

In addition to the aesthetic issues the stand has it is also a bit more unstable that I think reasonable for an electronics geek husband to own. I was more than a little shocked when I found out the details.

We happen to have a wood working expert in the family who was happy to lend a hand and all of his tools. The picture below is the unit before Alec did any staining or added the "feet".

Finally, you can see the brand new, finished, and crafted totally by hand entertainment center. Ray and Alec did a fantastic job! Yay!

We still have some more furniture projects in the works so the living room won't be "finished" for quite some time.