52 Lists for 2010 - List 43

Appropriate for this week, my list is favourite Halloween memories.

This is a TH embossing folder, on white cardstock. I used a variety of distress inks and sponges to add colour. The skeleton, which picked up too many dark colours for my liking, got a bit of brightness from a white shimmery dabber. This image was attached to a piece of scrap cardboard, gessoed black.

Originally, I was going to list all of the costumes I had worn over my many Halloweens, but I could only recall those from childhood of which photos exist. An Indian! But I do have many memories of Halloweens past. Trudging through snow over many Halloweens, stuffing grey sweatsuits with muscle material to be Hans, Franz and Bonz, with Bonnie and Tracey. Photos exist of that also. Somewhere.

Even though I can't remember as many details as I would like, I remember Halloween always being fun!

52 Lists for 2010 - List 42

Things I would change about myself.

Yet another piece of cardboard from MM packaging. The flowery paper is from a bag I got at a shop last week. I picked up a sweater at a store I don't usually shop at, after lunch with friends. As soon as I saw the bag, I knew I would add it to my recycle/repurpose stash. Pretty. The flower is from HS, buttons SU, tissue tape strip TH, and most of the letters are Webster's Pages, except the last two words, which are MM.

 My list today. I was thinking about how much this list might have changed over the years, had I started it way back when. Priorities change, people change.  Following our own evolution is fun!

Fabulous Giveaway!

Check out this amazing givewaway of Life. Camera. Actions. on Simple As That!  Rebecca Cooper

52 Lists for 2010 - List 41

Sometimes, Mondays don't play out the way you plan. Both Nick and Gaby were home sick yesterday. Gaby's symptoms were more like those of a cold, while Nick's were both cold and flu-like. Gaby had actually been feeling poorly all weekend. She managed to play the 3 games of her soccer tournament, but did little else. Especially Sunday. So Monday was for babying my babies. Gaby at least! Nick preferred to spend most of his day in his bed, while Gaby opted for the couch.

Both kids returned to school today, so I got busy with my list for the week. My list of favourite home made foods.

Another piece of cardboard saved from Amazon packaging. Gessoed first, then black and gold acrylic paint.  The winged heart is a TM Sizzix die, using 7Gypsies paper. 6X6 pads -- the pattern is smaller and great for smaller projects. For my 'title', I punched the shape using an SU punch, from a tag I had made for another project. A black fine point BIC permanent marker, and the brown is a Copic sparkly marker (can't recall the exact name) Did I mention that I love corrugated cardboard? I think it's rather obvious!

I've been doing Becky Higgin's Project Life this year. While the idea behind it is to document everyday life with a picture a day, and the product is set up for that, you can obviously use it however you choose. I jumped on the bandwagon a bit late, but had enough photos to start back at the beginning of 2010, with a two page spread every week. Not necessarily a photo for each day, but rather, photos for each week. I'll have to share more about that with another post. The reason I brought it up is because last week, one of the photos I took was my favourite pasta, heck my favourite meal. Has been for years -- 20 I'd say. It's evolved ever so slightly over the years, the biggest change being the whole wheat pasta. The uncooked sauce is chopped tomatoes, grated parmesan, chili garlic sauce, olive oil, salt, pepper, at least 5 cloves of garlic, cubed jack cheese, and chopped cilantro. Mixing the sauce with the warm pasta makes the cheese melty and the rest of the sauce warm. It's oh so yummy, and I cannot believe I'm the only one in the family who likes it. Kids aren't fond of it and Marc doesn't care for it either. Though for Marc, I think it's more the garlic breath he doesn't like. Both mine and his!

So the only real benefit of having a husband who travels frequently is in the kitchen. Meal preparation is generally more simple when he's away, and I prepare dishes like this one, that he doesn't like. But I'd really rather have him home!

The other meal I mentioned, the chorizno corn chowder, is my second favourite, and also something that only I enjoy. But this can be frozen, so I usually make a pot of it and freeze it for my solo lunches during the day. No garlic in this recipe, so I can eat this when Marc's home!

My Mom makes yummy meatballs and gravy. Always has. I think this falls under the comfort food category, as I craved it with both pregnancies.Being 2400 km away when I was pregnant with Gaby, I had to make my own, which just didn't cut it!

The lasagna I mention is one that Marc finally made, the day of my surgery in May. He may have made it once before for me -- don't recall. But I hope he doesn't wait as long to make it a second time. It was delicious.

I also enjoy my homemade veggie pizza -- lots of roasted garlic. And Marc will eat this with me. Roasted garlic is much milder. It's not that Marc doesn't like garlic. He just doesn't like walking around with garlic breath for 3 days. The steak chili is great too -- a Crazy Plates recipe.

And I think my favourite dessert has to be the tiramisu that my neighbor Sue makes. She is so sweet. She knows I love it, so not only did she share the recipe, someimes when she makes it she'll either share a few pieces or make a little one for us. Just one of the many reasons they're our favourite neighbors!

Kal's Idea 7

Recycle/Repurpose. I LOVED this exercise.  A required trip to a coffee shop -- I visited three over 2 days to get a variety of cups. Did an equal amount of sipping, but more observing at some than others. More parking lot observing, actually!

Enjoy the coffee. Save the cup.Create. So I did.

I have a small stockpile of sleeves from various coffee shops. They're saved for future projects, and this fit the bill nicely. I cut up three coffee cups for flower petals, then decided the fleur was too full. Two of those petals were made into leaves. A cup bottom for the centre of the flower, Sleeves for the pot, the stamen (?) and the unrolled rim (rrrrrrolll up the rrrrrrrrimmm to win!) for the stem. Added some shimmer and shine with a variety of glimmer mist colours and backed it with a piece of cardboard that came with my 2011 kitchen calendar that had just arrived in the mail.
 

I took this photo indoors, with a flash. The glimmer mist is much more obvious.

Not sure what I'm going to do with this. I do like it!

The other thing we did for Idea 7 was to paint with tea or coffee. Brew 2 cups at home. One for drinking, one for painting. The cup. It was suggested to first draw the cup and use the tea to add shades and tones.

This was fun too, but I ran out of steam by the time I got around to it. Had I put forth more effort, I would like the result better, I'm sure.

More Bulletproof Goodness

Tomorrow will be four weeks of Kal's Nurture Your Creativity & Be Bulletproof. Every Friday and Tuesday she posts a new video, and challenge(s)  I don't think I've shared anything since that first Friday.

I'm still a little bit behind, though this past Tuesday's is writing. Not typing. She was very specific about that. So I wouldn't be sharing that anyway.

The second Idea was contemplating a Bulletproof Attitude. Among other things, we were supposed to find a tool that scares us and create, expressing this attitude. I thought I would try doodling, something that certainly does scare me. I see the work of other doodlers, and they make it look so easy. Just doesn't happen for me.

I didn't doodle the background. This was just acrylic paint on a piece of cardboard from an Amazon shipment. The background was the easy part. I'm not happy with the supposed doodle part, but I did get my message across.

Idea 3 was Your Space. First, taking inventory. I photographed my space, but it was in transition at the time. I was waiting on a desk I had ordered, so was kind of between spaces. Some of my supplies and tools were set up in the area of the desk, but the rest were still in the dining room, and I was still creating at the dining room table. 

Then came the tools. We were supposed to illustrate our favourite ones, anyway we liked. Kal did a fabulous line drawing, as did several others. I decided to instead list them all, including one of my all time favourite and most used: my hands.

Obviously paper, and piecing paper, is a favourite medium for me.

Idea 4 was play, and among other things, we were encouraged to play with pastels or crayons and just scribble our hearts free.

I thought all of the pastels we owned were oil. Truthfully, that's all I've ever used, so imagine my surprise when the box of pastels I found weren't oil, but rather, much like chalk. Just not as much fun to work with. I missed that smell. I missed the smudges on the side of my left hand -- south paw here. It was still fun, but just not as satisfying.

Idea 5 was Re-inventing your wheel. First thing we did was a literal self portrait. Words. Those we believe to be an accurate description of who we are. The part 2 of this was to add words we'd like to see on our list. Let the reinvention begin!

I have this thing for corrugated cardboard. The mail was delivered just after I wrote my list, and the Amazon package had, of course, a piece of corrugated cardboard stabilizing the shipment. I NEVER toss or recycle those. I used a knife to open the package, and just kept going, making a heart shape.  And created my version of a literal self portrait.

Acrylic paint, tissue paper, mod podge, black sharpie paint pen. The attached list is the words I want to see on my list, my desired reinvention.

This was a busy one. Next we did something Kal called Switched & Swift self portrait. Set up in front of a mirror, using the opposite hand, we drew mini self potraits, with a time limit. 25 seconds, at the most. Using a pen, so we couldn't erase.

Gaby thought they were pretty funny! Me too.

Next, a serious self portrait, using our comfortable drawing hand. This one is a bit better.

Not having to draw hair is a bit of a time saver!

The little extra for this idea was to take a bunch of self portraits, different faces, different expressions. While I did something similar for Jasmine's monthly photo challenge , I didn't do it for this one.

Idea 6. Reroute.

Mind mapping. Start with one word. Blue. Add ten thought bubbles. Pick one of those. Add ten to that. And one more time. Something like this:

Next, the famous upside down Picasso drawing. Turn the image upside down, and draw it upside down. Took me a while just to figure out where to start. Once I got going it wasn't too bad. It's kind of a creepy picture, so not a real pleasure to draw. But an interesting effort.

See. Kinda creepy. At least the way I draw it.

52 Lists for 2010 - List 40

One of those tough to make lists for this week. Best things about me.

The background is part of a Fiskars set of henna images. Bird, branches and ME letters are all Sizzix dies. Bitty MM letters, an AC journaling sticker and 7gypsies gaffer tape at the bottom. The patterned papers are all 7 gypsies also.

As usual, I drew a bit of a blank making up this week's list, and now, have thought of more things. Initially, I just used a list I had made up for Kal's online class that I'm in the midst of. Since I have room I can add things. I love to cook, love to travel, what else? I can fit a couple more!