Giant Budgie Painting and My Birthday Reflections

I'm going to give myself credit for the things I have already accomplished, not grief for what I haven't.

This past couple of weeks has been so many things. I'll just toss some adjectives: Refreshing. Heartwarming. Contemplative. Fun. Needed.

I spent the last ten days or so down in Orlando at my sister's house along with all my immediate family plus spouses and kiddos. It was awesome. Probably one of the best birthdays I've had in a long time.

Festivities included a KIDLESS Wizarding World of Harry Potter day followed by a massive delicious Harry Potter feast and RPG prepared by my brother and his amazing wife. I also got to hang out with my sister a lot at Downtown Disney, now called Disney Springs. New name, more exciting sights and smells. I got my Disney Pin Trading fix and snagged some cute tsum tsum pins, also got to indulge at IKEA and a huge Oriental Supermarket. Also a top highlight: BLACK MARKET MINERALS. Yeah. You read that right. One of my fondest old jobs from the springtime of my youth. Visiting the Florida store was nostalgic and delightful. 

The coolest thing I got to bring home was a big canvas that everyone in the family worked on. Even the little grandbabies got to paint/scribble and contribute. We started with a yellow acrylic base and I added paint drops, swirls and extra layers and color, then everyone kept going throughout the week with doodles with markers.

By the end of the week, the canvas had an awesome multi layered look to it and we were ready to paint over top with my favorite: a Giant Budgie that I drew. Here's me and my bro starting to paint the bird.

More progress being made by my sister and me. 

I added finishing touches and a bit of a white wash in areas to make the budgie stand out just a little bit more. We got this guy home to Alabama and he now has a very prominent place in my art studio.

I love it. I love that it's special and that it'll be a memento of this awesome vacation, birthday and reunion that I got to experience.

So now I'm going to get back to that whole "contemplative" thing that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I had a lot of time on this trip where I didn't have to be constantly paying mind to my beautiful boys. I also didn't check my phone more than 2-3 times per day. It did something for my mind that I haven't been able to achieve in uh.... almost four years, since Buddy was born. 

I had a breakthrough of sorts. Finally accepting this season of my life and being okay with it. I've always been focused and ambitious, and driven to accomplish. 

I've known somewhere in this brain of mine that for happiness, my focus needs to be on 1. self care, 2. my marriage and 3. my kids. I have been trying to convince myself that I can continue to nurse my ambitions and business goals in addition to the aforementioned big three. There just isn't enough of my attention to go around and I've been suffering for it. I haven't been happy. I haven't been functioning properly. 

So I finally made a decision. I'm throwing Etsy, YouTube Videos, FaceBook, Insta, marketing, new product creation etc. into the back seat for a couple more years and I'm not going to feel guilty about it. I'm gonna blog for fun when I feel like it. I'm going to learn new things because I want to. Just like the good old days. No more feeling bad about what I think I should be able to earn or do with my precious waking hours. No more. I'll wade a little deeper once the kids get into school.

But for now, I'm going to get my mental and physical health straight. I'm going to be present for my husband and kids and not use my phone as a form of escapism from this at-times overwhelming season. I'm going to simplify my life. I'm going to create and share for the joy of it. 

I'm going to give myself credit for the things I have already accomplished, not grief for what I haven't. 

I hope I can continue to remind myself of this decision, because it's an important one. I want to start enjoying my life every single day. I've got my eye on making my 32nd my best year yet.

Mixed Media Winged Heart and Tiny House Magnets

I'm excited to finally be able to share this project, since I've been sitting on the photos for a while.

It's a two-sided winged heart ornament for the Mixed Media Valentine Swap over on Craftster. 

 First I drew out the shape on paper, then scanned it into the computer and worked the image into a cut file. Here's a pic of the shapes being cut out on the laser out of 1/4" birch plywood. Having a laser is amazing.... I can make whatever wood shapes I want. It's easily the coolest thing I have.

The piece is 3 layers glued together, and has the lil shrine cutout in the front as well as the back. I just clamped the three pieces together with wood glue, then coated it in gesso to make sure the paint and stuff would stick and be vibrant. I guess it's like primering....It might have sucked up a lot of paint if I didn't gesso it first.

So here is the first side.... It's covered in a gelliprinted bookpage and then painted on a bit more. Then I drew the wings with paint pen and filled them in randomly with pearl pink and mint green. The middle has a quartz crystal druzy, for sparkliness...

This is the other side and it has a totally different feel.

Dot painted, with a coral and navy blue color scheme... The pendant over the shrine hole made the perfect window. I'd had that little metal thing for years in my stash and I'm glad I finally found a good use for it.

And at the end, there were little house-shaped scraps from where the shrine fronts had been cut out, so I made some wee tiny house magnets for my swap partner, and for funsies, a little altered clothespin magnet, too.

She was happy with the package! The heart was pretty tough to send away, but that's the magic of swapping: trading art and making other people smile.

Naruto Fixation and Budgie Rock Lee

Soooo, I rarely get to watch any TV that isn't Elmo or The Wiggles or Curious George, or whatever else toddler-friendly show that I can stand at the moment... My boys will so innocently click the button on our smart tv to exit out of our streaming app if there's something they don't want to watch on the TV. It makes me crazy. So I'd rather just relax and go ahead and chill with cookie monster.

BUT.... When the lights go out, I watch Naruto Shippuden and it's like TV heaven. I love it. Fullmetal Alchemist is still my favorite anime (Kip's middle name is Elric for goodness sake), but after finishing 220 episodes of Naruto Shonen Jump and 2 Seasons into Shippuden, I'd say I'm fully invested in the Naruto franchise. I've got like 7 seasons left and there's still a new one every week. So that's freaking sweet. It's like a binge-watcher's wildest dream, and I haven't gotten tired of it. It's all I watch,

That being said, here are a couple of Naruto things. First is Rock Lee, in the form of a budgie. It's a things-I-love mashup. So weird, but I'm incredibly happy with it. I'm going to have it tattooed on my bum. (Kidding, that space is reserved for Picolas Cage)

And this is a picture of Kippymon, making his pretend "ANGRY FACE" and then I doodled some rough Naruto regalia on him on my phone. It's my favorite. We joke that someday, we're going to cosplay as a family. Kip will be Naruto, Buddy will be Sasuke, Bobby will be Jiraiya and I'll be Sakura. 

Anyway, until next time. Go watch some Naruto.