Easter Weekend

Here are a few "non-traditional" photos in honor of a "non-traditional" Easter Sunday of sorts. Actually, we did get to go over to Aunt Ellen's for a yummy lunch with ham, turkey, green beans and many other treats, but our Littles* are so much older and the New Littles** couldn't be there this time......so, since McKenna is in the "I'm probably too old to hunt Easter Eggs, but it's still a lot of fun" stage, I hid eggs for her in the front of our yard. Turns out Andrea is in the same "stage" and hunted eggs with her. It was fun to watch them.
*Our Littles were first Logan and Dalton, Andrea and McKenna, then Emily
**New Littles are Nicholas and Layla and now new little Aydan....who'll be ready for next year :o)



Fortunately for us, Easter Weekend included Good Friday which also meant an extra day off of school. A three day weekend allowed me a long overdue chance to just play in the studio. Artist (that I adore) Donna Downey encourages us to "just play" in our Inspiration Journal at least once a week....so I caught up on 5 weeks worth!

Okay, if I really was any kind of a "real artist" it would have occurred to me that I could use watercolor and acrylic paint together with the acrylic resisting the watercolor. So I played....
Liked the flowers until I added the black marker, but liked playing with the green and blue watercolor.....green was too high, but still fun.....it's just play :o)

I was still struggling w/ stems, but I liked this one okay. It is still only the first layer and is ready for more when the inspiration hits me.

With this one, the background had been done earlier....waiting for inspiration. I was very happy with these colors and the stems are better......I did do the marker first this time.

The red fabric was left over from a previous play date, but I totally had lots of fun with the stems this time....in fact, so much fun I used the same technique to make the grass. I started with green card stock, stamped it with a text stamp using StazOn and then watercolored that with 2 to 3 different shades of green......again, lots of fun on that......did the watercolor in the background and got the right height for the green this time.

And finally, this was my favorite and my last piece of the weekend. The hand is all wrong and it's not an original idea, I saw something similar in a magazine, but I still love it. The blue and green watercolor in the background was just right; I stamped the flowers; used acrylic in the flowers; I watercolored on the cut flowers; stamped on the paper for the dress; and used pink tissue paper for the dress ruffle......This had several layers and that's the way I like it.
Here's to another play date in the future!
Love,
Melle

Another successful Arts in the Park!

Thank you friends and loved ones for your continued patience and understanding during this time of year.....weeks to prepare for the student show, days to hang it up, hour to take it all down....
but I am all done.
{imagine big smile on my face}
Enjoy.

Miscellaneous

1. With the rapid rise of gasoline prices, thought I'd share this little gas saving tip someone shared with me: When parking, try to pull through when you park. Backing up to pull out of a parking space uses more gas. It may seem small, but every little bit helps, right?

2. While wanting to take McKenna to a walk-in clinic, or to a "doc in a box" this week, we first visited a place called "Urgent Care", only to find it closed at 5 pm.....good thing it wasn't "urgent". Then we went on to a second place. It was called, "Express Care", two hours later, we left with prescriptions in hand for her earache.....good thing we weren't in a hurry.

3. After lots and lots of hours of work, the student art show is up!
Woohoo!
So, kindergarten's evening will be Wednesday and first grade's evening will be Thursday.
It's nice that we will have Friday off. :o)

4. I bought a new top and a new skirt today....mmmm, new clothes feel wonderful.....but the new skirt also needed a new slip and new shoes......mmmm, that wasn't as much fun....

5. And thanks to Scott's decisiveness looks like I'll be going to NYC with him in June to attend his friend's wedding. It's only a four day trip....he wants a ball game, I want Lion King, with the bachelor party on Friday night, I wonder which we'll choose.

Love to all,
hopefully many more photos on my next post....
Melle

Uneventful.....

Thankfully, we've had a little break from all of our activities.....
For Andrea, tennis is all done;
For McKenna, she had one short performance after school with her school choir;

And I have shorted through each one of my students' piles of art work; matted and labeled and will be ready to hang the student art show in 5 days.....
uneventful (for us) indeed. :o)

Things I am looking forward to:
Friday, April 22nd, the day after the student show is done!
Friday, April 22nd, Disney's movie African Cats comes out!
Saturday, May 21st, Karen Russell Photography workshop!
Tuesday, June 7th, I'll be on summer vacation!
Friday and Saturday, June 17 & 18 Donna Downey will be at She Scrapbooks!

Love to all! Thanks for the comments last week :o)
Melle

There's no place like home.....

As I sit here tonight, cuddled up in my bed, I can happily say "there's no place like home"....
We have returned from Oz and I feel as if I walked the yellow brick road myself!
The high school students put together a great show! Four shows in 3 days to be exact and McKenna was fortunate enough to be among 14 of the elementary students who were invited to be part of the show. They had three parts: the Munchkin Landers, helped in Emerald City and the Jitter-bugs, who were used by the witch to capture Dorothy. The addition of the little ones was a big hit!



Our Dorothy was AMAZING and oh so sweet to all the little ones.

Although not looking this way, McKenna is the fourth from the left. The little ones got to come out and take their bow first.

McKenna with Andrea

McKenna with one proud mommy!!