Lets get creative!

I've been taking a great e-course that started this past week.  It already is helping me in so many ways and I've had wonderful opportunities to connect with like minded people.  I really feel that I stumbled across it at just the right moment.  One day weeks ago I found and bookmarked Hip Mountain Mama's blog because it looked so good but I didn't have time to read that day, so later (last weekend) I finally found time to go read, and This is what I found.  That led me to This and This and I felt the idea pulling me so I jumped in!

There have been assignments each day that really have made me dig into figuring out me, and getting back to being me.  And, happily, have gotten me back to art-ing.  I have had a fantastic time pulling out some art supplies that I haven't used in oh so long.  On this note, I've also taken something I read in The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule to heart and tried harder not to have a segregation of  "my" art stuff and "kid" art stuff.  We've long had these drawers of "kid" art stuff

The drawers aren't going anywhere.  I do like that everything in them is "on limits" to all the kids we often have at our house and they know where to find them.  So my stuff will stay separate because I want to be more 'present' when the kids are using my favorite things than is always possible when we have a houseful of kids going a billion directions.  But, to incorporate this idea that I like, I've let Spencer, Emily and Makaylyn "art" with me and a mix of all the kid stuff and 'grown up' stuff the last couple of days, and its been a blast!  I'm going to let the kids have access to all the supplies when I'm able to be near by.   So much creative going on all over the place!

See our fun creative mess?  The table got full so the kids started using the floor as workspace.

How much is Emmy my kind of gal?  I love love love that almost everything she makes has a peace sign here or there!~

And here is a little peek at one of my "assignments" and of the workspace I had going on Friday before the kids joined me.

It has felt so good to just play and get creative with no pressure!  And I am really loving the guided meditation.  I had let meditation fall away from my life for some reason and I feel much more balanced now that I'm making an effort to include it in my days again.

I so recommend this course to you.  Really, are you listening?  It is good stuff.  If you are ready to go there that is.

A little more done on these projects and a little more to do

Here are a few things that the fabric my Aunt Sheila gave me turned into.  The tote bag started with plans as a purse but I didn't quite like how it was going so it made its way into a giant (suitcase for the whole family size) bag.  Tall enough for my knitting needles so chances are that is what may live there.

The little bags will have big, colorful, fun buttons along the top and will be gifted to our nieces over the next few months as birthday gifts, some will hold art supplies, some make-up.  I'm sure they'll all have a chance at holding some girls' treasures. There actually ended up being enough fabric in this set to make my giant bag and 6 little ones for the girls.  

My sewing set up

I thought these were fun.  Here is a little peek into what kind of creators I, my mother and my aunt are today.  I've been able to join them for a couple of afternoons of sewing and I've quite loved this time spent feeling creative and connected to family.

Here is my little sewing station.  We'll call it a creative mess, shall we?  That seems to be how I work best, creatively speaking, all over the place, making much up as I go, often surprised by the outcome (usually happily surprised). 

Here is my Aunt's workspace.  Neat, tidy, efficient.  (Though she says her workspace at her home is much more messy).

And here is my mom's space, something in between.

Santa's gingerbread village~

Here is what our afternoon was all about.  How cute are these?  For our 4-H meeting today my mom volunteered to help the kids make gingerbread houses (ok, graham cracker houses).  Thanks to a bunch of great parents and grandparents we had all sorts of goodies to build and decorate with! 

The kids had non stop fun and ended up with wonderful cottages, and mansions!  One even had a garage!  What a funny, messy, silly good time we had!

Thanks, Mom, for your help!

Cute cute kids!

I just wanted to share a few of the pictures I took this weekend. We had a full full house for the 4 day weekend and it was crazy loud wild and fun, and I'm pretty proud of myself that amidst all the chaos I had 8 kids clean, hair combed, in clean clothes all at the same time for these pictures! It was too many kids to venture out anywhere to do pictures so I just moved all the furniture away from a wall in Spencer's room and took down all of his hunting posters for a day. I liked the lighting in that room and might have to do it again!

I have no clue how I got good pictures of all the kids but when I tried to add John and myself to the mix we had someone making faces in every picture (john):)

I'll post more later as the editing urge strikes me.

I love the ones of Mak and Natalie. 7 year old girls are so easy to get to look good!

More digital scrapbook pages

Here are more digital scrapbook pages. I think I'm getting the hang of it finally. I'm having fun with it at least, thats what matters right? What do you think?

The Elk growing up, by Spencer

I know today has been a day of many posts but I had to add just one more. This is word for word a story Spencer wrote last week. I wish my scanner worked just a tad better so you could see the great handwritten masterpiece in all of its glory but this will have to do. I am not going to 'fix' anything, the spelling and grammar are as his young mind sees fit.
Here you go:


A Elk groing up.
Once ther was a Elk he was only a Week old he coodnt open his eyes
yet. 3 years later he was big and strong. A bear senst him. he was doomd. the
bear grould he ran and the bear ran to the Elk. He made a fast turn a bear huntr
was coming the Elk was watching the huntr get ataked by the bear the elk went to his hurd, the end.

I think my favorite part is that he was "doomd". It also cracks me up that the bear hunter didn't save the day by hunting the bear but by being attacked by the bear himself!
I love Spencer's stories! He is having a great time writing them and drawing pictures to go with him. I think I am going to make a book of them, a literary masterpiece!

And to go with this tale, a picture of the Elk drawn on the driveway by Spencer.

Destrie the poet

My niece Destrie has been having a blast every time she is here making funny poems with my magnetic poetry set on the fridge. She's been wanting pictures of it for so long and finally today we got them taken! Here is her latest work of art and a few other pictures. I have so much fun with Destrie, she is so much fun! It is sometimes crazy to me that she is already 12, its been fun to watch her grow up and it is great to hang out with her and talk about all of her latest interests. She is exactly the kind of fun girl I would have been friends with when I was 12!