Crazeeeeeeee…

UGH!!! It has been so crazy around here I have not had time to write. My dear daughter has been gone all week and I have been busy preparing for an art show coming up. I am sooo excited. It is my first ever SHOW and so I am totally flipping out hoping that my stuff is good enough. I guess if the jury said yes, then it must be… hehe….

The actual show is not until July, so I still have time to prepare stuff, but I have been getting into the studio each day and working away. I will post all of the goodies once I have a chance to get them all scanned and sized for the website.

More good news… I weighed in this week and have lost more weight. I am now down 12 full pounds!!! YAHOO!!! The meetings are such a blast and my coach is sooo awesome and funny. I can tell a huge difference in the way I feel and that is the most important part for me.

We just attended my little nieces 6th birthday party and we got there a little early because I wanted to visit with the kids as I have not seen them in awhile. Anna is 8, Lizzy just turned 6, and Will is going to be 3 soon. So when I arrived they were playing with clay. My daughter made a catepillar and then Anna says, "Oh, lets create the life stages of the butterfly." OMG!!! So she created a larvae and a cocoon. Then of course you have Emily's catepillar. And the kids said, "Aunt Tia has to make the butterfly." So I did. Here is what we ended up with… We were on limited time by then, so it was quick, but we had a blast. 🙂 Click for a larger pic…

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I Bruise Easily…

I heard this song the other day while running around in my car and I was in tears!!! I cannot figure out how to download a video or anything to this blog, but here is a link to the video… Before you watch it though, just read the lyrics:

I Bruise Easily by Natasha Beddingfield:

My skin is like a map, of where my heart has been And I can't hide the marks, but it's not a negative thing
So I let down my guard, drop my defences, down by my clothes
I'm learning to fall, with no safety net, to cushion the blow

I bruise easily, so be gentle when you handle me
There's a mark you leave, like a love heart carved on a tree
I bruise easily, can't scratch the surface without moving me
Underneath I bruise easily, I bruise easily

I found your finger prints on a glass of wine
Do you know your leaving them all over this heart of mine too
If I never take this leap of faith I'll never know
So I'm learning to fall with no safety net to cushion the blow

I bruise easily, so be gentle when you handle me
There's a mark you leave, like a love heart carved on a tree
I bruise easily, can't scratch the surface without moving me
Underneath I bruise easily, I bruise easily

Anyone who, can touch you, can hurt you, or heal you
Anyone who, can reach you, can love you, or leave you

So be gentle
So be gentle
So be gentle
So be gentle

I bruise easily, so be gentle when you handle me
There's a mark you leave, like a love heart carved on a tree
I bruise easily, can't scratch the surface without moving me
Underneath I bruise easily, I bruise easily

I bruise easily, so be gentle when you handle me
There's a mark you leave, like a love heart carved on a tree
I bruise easily, can't scratch the surface without moving me
Underneath I bruise easily, I bruise easily

I bruise easily
I bruise easily

…and here is the video link: http://www.streaming-clips.com/videoclips/2382/Natasha-Bedingfield/I-bruise-easily.php

I was so inspired by it, I had to create a piece. The heart part is not done drying yet, it should be clear when it is done. But here is a pic for you to see… just click on the little thumbnail below…

And here are the thumbs two other pieces I created this weekend as well.  Please leave feedback.  I would love to hear what you think.

 

Mothers Day full of Fairies & Fun…

   What a beautiful Mothers Day.  Not only was it my day, it was my daughters birthday!!!  Thirtheen years ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who is now a beautiful young woman!  WOW!!! Time flies!!!  It was  a great day.  We woke up and went to breakfast / lunch as a family and then came back to the house.  There I discovered a couple of nice green packages with beautiful green ribbons.  Those I have come to recognize as Amazon.com gift wrap.  hehe I open the first one and it is "Fairie-ality" from the House of Ellwand.  If you have not seen this book, it is a must!!!  This man, David Ellwand, has taken all of these items from nature and turned them into fairy clothing.  OMG!!! IT IS GORGEOUS!!! Then to top it all off, David has a new book out called "Cinderlily" and I got that one too.  Attached were the cutest little cards and a pic from the book… The cards read:  "For that extra flight of fancy" and "To the sprite in my life"… AWWW!!!!  Needless to say, I was just in awe.  I hope all of my "mommy" friends had a beautiful day. Here are a few off the top of my head:

Izabella and her beautiful children

Becky and her beautiful children,

Stacie and her big boy Scout (love the wagon picture)

Kim and her son AJ 

and Mary and her son…

God Bless all the mothers out there… including my own. 🙂  Love you, Mom!!! 

 

 

Artwords Entry #1 INDULGENCE

Well, I am still kinda fuzzy around the brain so I have not done much other than play in my Art Journal and watch a movie,  "Rumor Has It" with Jennifer Aniston.  My sweet friend Izabella sent me a little note saying she was sorry to hear I was down. Thank you!!!  So I went to read her blog today and WOW!!! She has been doing the coolest stuff in her art journal.  Sooo awesome.  While there I found a little linky to a cool little site called artwords. I love the idea of playing with words.  And then hubby had said last night… yeah go figure your journaling about coffee… your favorite indulgence. Besides the 74 oz of water I am chugging everyday.  Check out my WW updates coming soon.  I have my first official weigh-in this FRIDAY!!!

So here is my little INDULGENCE journal entry…

Take My Breath Away…

Well, it started off with Emily coughing up a storm Friday.  Then by Saturday evening I was coughing.  By Sunday, her and I were both totally miserable.  So yesterday we went to the doctor and were diagnosed with VIRAL PNEUMONIA!!!  Yuck!!!  Then the pharmacy took forever to get our prescriptions filled.  Finally we were back home and I was still "freezing".  I crawled under the covers and stayed there the rest of the night.  I was in and out of sleep until hubby came home.  He offered to go get some din din.  Then I turned on the TV after eating and saw the David Blaine special coming on.  As if I needed more to take my breath away!!! I lay there snuggled up in the covers watching him in the water globe and I was nearly holding my own breath doing so.  He did not make his 9 minutes as he had planned, but he did reach over 7 minutes!!! I don't care what anyone says, in or out of the water this man makes me hold my breath anyway.  Just look at those eyes!!! 

 

Tra-la-la-la-la… Sing a happy song!!!

No, its not the antidepressants that have me so high…although with my awesome doc I think I finally have a pretty good combination of medications to balance me out. But the main reason I am bouncing off the walls today is because… (drum roll please)… I joined Weight Watchers today. Now I know for some people this may not seem like a big ta-doo. But for me… it is. I have been fighting my weight ever since my teen years. And for the 4 years that I have been married, it has only gotten worse. I have gained 10… yes I said 10… pounds per year!!! A few days ago I stepped on the scale and the number was the highest I had ever seen in my life. I had always said to myself, "I will NEVER reach THAT weight. I would rather DIE first." Well, I stepped on there and it read (I am only sharing this with you because you know I have to be honest with myself too) 312 lbs. I could not believe it!!! I just started bawling. See, hubby got me something for Christmas 2005 that I had been asking for, a Y membership. And have I been taking advantage of that? No… only about once a month have I been going to swim. Well, what good does that do??? So the reality of all of this hit me the other day. I have been thinking of gastric bypass or the lap band, but I know that it does no good if I am not psychologically ready for it. And the fact that I am an EMOTIONAL eater as well as a BOREDOM eater… Well, that certainly says NO NO NO!!! The surgery would not work for you. Now pull your head out of your @$$ and do something about it.

So I looked up meeting times and there was only a 10 am here today and one later in the evening, like 5:30 here in my town. Well, I had to go then otherwise I may find some other way to PROCASTINATE!!! So I looked up Norman and drove to their 12pm meeting. It was sort of chaotic at first and I was soooo nervous being in there. I had filled out my info for them and was standing there while the others got weighed in and this and that. Finally, I got up there and gave her my info and all that. She told me about the plans and I knew I wanted to do the 12 week plan so that it actually comes out cheaper for me in the end.

The funny thing was at the meeting… my "coach" Shelly put up a quote on the board at the end of the meeting. And oddly enough it was:

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.

I found this slightly amusing considering the type of art that I do is "altered" art. Now I just need to ALTER myself. 🙂 Sounds good to me. Maybe I should collage myself too… at least then I would never have to pay for clothes again. Hmmm…. what a concept. Okay… I am getting goofy now. Better head for beddy bye… Niter nites peeps.

Self Portrait Tuesday…

Todays Self Portrait Challenge is to introduce myself. Hmmm… I am not very good at talking about myself. Let's see… I am a 35 year old female, mother, wife, artist, owner of thingamajigz.com. I live in the Oklahoma City area. I guess the main thing about me is that I love art!!! I grew up doing theatre and writing poetry, but was never what I would call artistic in the sense that I could put pencil to paper and make something. Yet everytime I took one of those "What should you be when you grow up?" tests, it always pointed to the artistic side. In 2002 I married my long lost love. We had met when I was 14 and had lost contact over all these years (since 1984) when he was sent to England. In November 2001 I decided to search one more time for him by going thru his best friend. Within 2 hours of emailing his best friend, I also had a response from Chris. He proposed 3 days later and we (my then 8 year old daughter and myself) moved to Oklahoma. In 2003, I began taking college courses in graphic design. I did not know that these classes would lead me in a totally different direction. But they have. I had to find out about collage for a Photoshop class I was taking. Hmm… I came home and googled collage and got lost in all of the wonderful art of altered books, artist trading cards, and more.
I had a few people who had seen my images I was using and suggested I start designing collage sheets and so began thingamajigz.com. Why thingamajigz (pronounced THING UH MUH JIGZ)??? Well, my dear mother called everything a thingamajig when I was growing up. I had always told her, "If I ever own my own company or anything like that, I am going to call it thingamajigz." How appropriate to describe the many many things that we use in collage and altered arts!!!

So… I guess that is pretty much me in a nutshell. Heres my mugshot. hehe

 

Had A Good Day…

This morning I journaled again, a drawing. I guess it was kind of what I was feeling, because I call her Serene. She is somewhat of a Mother Nature, Goddess, healer… just soft and beautiful. I tried drawing hands, but am not quite there yet. So here she is… Click to see the full pic.

…and then here is the pic I drew tonight while hubby was trying to teach me how to draw hands. He kept posing for me and telling me to actually look at the hand and then close my eyes and visualize it. Then draw it. Well, at one point, I opened my eyes and this is what I saw hime doing. LOL Click for larger view…
 

Treasures & Tornados

So here is how my day went… spent the morning packaging and shipping and knew I was going to meet my friend Adrianne to go check out that awesome little shop where she got the buttons for me (see April 11). Had some time to spare so I began working on some wishing wands that I had seen and thought were so cool I just had to create some myself.Finally 245 pm comes and Emily and I leave to go meet Adrianne. Had to stop at Taco Hell because I was having caffiene withdrawls and she had the after school munchies. Opens her taco in the car and spills everything out of the taco. Sour cream all over the cute little black skirt. Wants to run home because she cannot be seen this way. Mommy finds water bottle in back of car and gives it to Emily to clean her skirt off with. Suck it up. We gotta run.

Arrive at AWESOME ANTIQUE PLACE a little after 3 and think Adrianne has given up on me because I do not see her car anywhere. Oh NO!!! But she calls and says she is on her way. Phew!!! She arrives wearing awesome boiler hat and new leather boots she just got in New Orleans with skull buckles on them. Sooooo awesome!!! So we step in and it is rather warm inside but bearable (at first). I could not believe all of the STUFF in here. Here are a few of the things that really caught my eye…

a giant bullfrog in a jar, looked as though he had been pickled there way back when

a Susie Homemaker stove from the 1950's I am guessing, still had the cloth plug and all

a life size goose with its wings spread wide. Considered it for the studio until I saw the price ($123)… plus, where would I put it

a bag full of something that appeared interesting at first… I opened it to find fur pellets (I guess that what you would call them, fur attached to some sort of material). I was thinking rabbit fur and then I turned it over and it said CAT. OMG!!! I was freaking out!!!

tons and tons more goodies that I cannot even begin to name. I am going to have to go again some day when I have the time to just browse around without Emily saying Look over here Mom. hehe.

However, Mommy did manage to find a few little treasures. Here they are. Here is the Birdseye Flash Camera. I have no idea of the age of this thing nor what I will do with it yet… but it is still awesome!!! Brought it home and hubby says… "I wonder if there is flash in it." I thought OH WOW… How awesome would that be. He opened it and no such luck. But it is in excellent condition and appears to just need a bit of cleaning. And uses 260 film I think he said. Not that I plan to take photos with it. It will probably go into one of my assemblage pieces.

Next is a little bronzed shoe I found. It has the number 1577 on it. I can tell it was once a real childs shoe by the fact that the bronzing has worn off on the top and you can see the "cloth" or leather of the actual shoe. Wonderful little $1.00 item!!!

And lastly is a beautiful hairpin I found in this basket of jewelry. It has 2 poodles kissing. So cute and so feminine. Another $1.00 item!!!

 

and here is a detailed view of the poodles…
 

 So all in all… yes it was a fabu day. Then… I got home. UH OH!!! Felt this weird sensation in the air all the way home and began thinking about tornadoes. I am not ready for another tornado. I have only been in one in the 4 years I have been here and it was not pleasant at all. I was scared to death. If you know anything about Moore, Oklahoma… you know it is TORNADO ALLEY. So we have this deal right now where I am teaching Emily to cook. She made tuna casserole tonight and then we were all outside playing with the dogs. Suddenly darkness begins looming over us. Here is a pic of what I was looking at

Looks kind of pretty until you realize a tornado could be just behind it. Well, we were lucky tonight. It ended up just being severe thunderstorms for us. But other areas did get hit. 😦 Its so scary.

Heartaches to Relieve the Headaches…

aarrgghh!!! My head is pounding. I think its nearly 90 degrees or more!!! Drove over to Norman today and did an inventory of Michaels. Found a few cute little things. Wanted some scroll rubberstamps but did nto find the ones I want until I got to the "childrens" stamps. 99c a piece!!! WOO HOO!!! So here are the 2 pieces I did last weekend. Finally found my camera and took the pics. Yes I do tend to lose things. hehe…I am just putting a thumbnail here, but if you click you can see the BIG PICTURE.

If Only…

The Burden
Also, I got the most gorgeous ACEO prints from my friend "Izabella"

She does some of the most gorgeous work on Ebay!!! Check her out!