How To Paint on Canvas

There have been two additional Wine and Canvas events that I've attended but have not yet blogged about. I know you are all very sad! The second one I attended (which is the first in this blog) was at the Stone Creek in Greenwood. Our artist was a guy named Greg and we were painting flowers in the field. Can I say easy? However, you would never know it because Greg was not a good teacher. He didn't have much of a presence, and I felt myself often moving ahead or doing my own thing. One plus was that I won the raffle they had during the break. Yeah, a free appetizer at Stone Creek!

flowers in the field

My third trip was on a Saturday with Katherine (Al's mom). I was a little nervous about the painting we were doing because it was super detailed. Then when I found out we would have the same artist that we had last time, I got really nervous. Additionally, we were sitting on stools. That's right, no backs on the chairs for three hours. I'm a weakling! The crowd was also very different from the crowd on the southside. They were louder and more annoying! It was nice to spend some time with Katherine. However, we are going to have to do an easier painting the next time, so we actually have time to visit. I was too involved with this painting and how it looked that I was beginning to get stressed. So, no more difficult, detailed paintings for me. Here's how it turned out:

New Orleans at night

I must also say a big thank you to Alex for making me feel better about it. I was beating myself up about how it turned out, but he thinks it's a little abstract, which he prefers. Katherine's, on the other hand, was awesome! I wish I took my camera with me so I could have taken a picture of her painting and you could compare the greatness with the amateur. 

Until I paint again!

--Am

How To Be Martha Stewart on a Whim

I love time to myself. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with Alex, family, and friends, but sometimes I like to be alone. It gives me a chance to catch up on my tv shows that Al won't watch and to be lazy. Monday night, I had the opportunity to do whatever I pleased. Al headed to my parent's house to give dad a tutorial on the iPhone. After reading the chapters for our bible study this Wednesday, I turned on the tv and decided to indulge in House. Since I can't just sit and watch tv, I decided I would be crafty.

Al had asked me if I was ever going to complete the shoes I had started that had taken up residence in the corner of our kitchen. He always knows how to give me motivation to finish what I started. Thanks honey! Needless to say, I started with the shoes. With lack of creativity, I covered the remainder of the shoes in silver and the bow in gold glitter. No idea where the heck I would wear this to, so maybe I can build a Halloween costume around them. Any thoughts?

 

the silver shoes...glittered and glossed

After completing the shoes and making a huge glitter mess, the creative spirit took hold of me. I got this bag full of goodies that I had purchased on a trip to Michaels. Among other things, this contained feathers, bobby pins, and thin wire. I started out easy by taking a pre-made feathered piece and gluing bobby pins on the back. It made for a pretty extravagant hairpiece.

feathers

Next I grabbed the wire and started playing around with it. I'm not that creative, so I couldn't quite figure out what to do with it. I cut some off, molded it, folded it, twisted it. Nothing. I had made the start of a necklace and gave up on it because it wasn't doing what I wanted. So, back to the bag. That's when I found the butterflies. Originally, I wanted these to be hairpins, but decided that was too seventh grade. Fortunately, they weren't terribly hard to string onto the wire. And the wire curved at just the right point that I could make it a floating necklace of sorts. I was very proud with how it laid and the overall look. I wish I would have gotten a full body picture of this with the original outfit because it looked amazing!

the floating butterflies

Oh, but I'm still not done! I still didn't know what do with the wire I cut originally. I curled it and twisted it until I decided to make it a bracelet. But a plain wire bracelet is boring! I had to add some sort of detail. I covered up the end pieces with an old tank top strap (this way the cut ends wouldn't scratch my delicate skin). Still not enough. Then I found the bag of feathers. I started looping them in and out of wires. When I tried it on as a bracelet, I realized that every time it would come off and go back on that I would lose feathers. That's when it hit me that I should make it a "pendant" for a necklace. I grabbed an old chain and added the feathered circle.

feathered mess

All in all it was a pretty successful evening with not having anything planned. Oh how I do enjoy attempting to be Martha Stewart!

Accessorize away!

--Am

the three pieces

How To Make a Baby Shower Diaper Invitation

Most of you know, my sister's expecting. Her friend Brie is throwing her a couples baby shower, and I am lending a helping hand. Since I've gotten crafty lately, I offered my skills for the invitations. I researched baby shower invitations and one of the first pictures that popped up was of a diaper invitation. I had to do that! I searched around for templates, cut some examples, and had my coworkers choose the best looking style. It was hands-down the more classic-looking diaper as opposed to the boxy, modern-looking diaper.

Upon returning home from work, I dragged Alex out to Hobby Lobby for the supplies. I grabbed baby blue card stock for the diaper, white paper with blue polka dots for the info card, and safety pins. Mind you, we walked around the store about 30 minutes just to get this stuff (and a picture frame for Alex's Paramedic certificate--I'm so proud of him!). I was glad Alex wasn't rushing me along, but actually helped me make decisions. Sometimes I need that!

Home again, I start on the computer typing out the card insert. It takes a minute to get the wording right and make sure I make the cards the correct size, then I can print. I always print on scratch paper before I use the real thing. However, be it my luck that I screwed up and didn't put enough scratch paper in there, so one of my good pieces of paper was jacked up. Good thing I kept that invitation for myself and had just enough for the rest.

Onto the diaper, all the templates I found were either too small or the wrong style. So, I had to freehand it. Not usually a good idea on my part, but it worked. Of course, I tried it out on a spare piece of paper, and then it was off to the races. Outlining, cutting, folding, inserting. The outline looks kind of like a martini glass.

diaper template--aka martini glass

After it's cut, the bottom is folded to the top and the triangle sides are folded in. It's not hard. I mean, if I can do it…you know the rest. Once folded, the info card was inserted. Then it was on to hole punching and putting on the safety pins.

I enlisted the help of Alex because it was taking me forever to cut the info cards to size and fold the diapers. He was fabulous by helping cut some martini glasses and by hole punching the tops and inserting the safety pins (which he thankfully spray painted white). He's just AWESOME!  Thanks honey!

I must say that's I'm pretty proud of the finished product! Anybody want me to make invites for them? I'm getting pretty crafty. :)

Invite Away!
--Am

the finished product

the insert card--you can slightly tell it's a little imperfect

How To Lounge and Gamble Away a Saturday

As I sit down to watch Nanny McPhee Returns, I think that I should probably complete the financial statements for my,upcoming audit. However, I'd much rather write about my day yesterday, when I also should have been doing some work. Instead, I spent my day doing anything but something productive. That's not entirely true.

I woke up pretty early for a Saturday, say 7:30, to take the dogs out. Since Alex has to get up so early during the week, it's only right that I be the first one up to let them out on the weekends. But once I'm up, I'm up and can't go back to bed. So, I coddled Diego for a little while as he was in pain from his surgery on Friday, then I ran on the treadmill to an episode of Angel. Yeah, I'm like ten years behind, but I love it!

Once I was showered and Al was up and going, we made our way to run our few errands for the day. Stopped by the vet for meds, perused the Indy Winter Farmers Market, and made a spur of the moment decision to head to Sam's Club for lunch and chicken treats for the dogs...geez, are they spoiled! On a side note, I had the location of the IWFM wrong, which put Alex in a mood. Or maybe he was already in a mood because I wouldn't let him buy the iPhone then. Who knows? When we finally made it to IWFM, I picked up my yummy marshmallows from 240sweet.com and we basically ran through the rest of the stops because Al wasn't interested in anything there. Anyone ever want to go, just let me know because Al is no fun at those kinds of things!

me with my marshmallows--one of them

(I came home with 7 bags)

Upon returning home, I did absolutely nothing. Watched tv and played stupid computer games. But it was oh, so nice! After lounging for approx four hours, we decided it was time to get ready for dinner. We had dinner plans at Maker's Mark at Indiana Live! Casino with my parents and Em & Tony to celebrate Em and Al's birthdays. Dinner was pretty good! I consumed the lobster tail (and was ridiculed by Al for eating the meat from the fins--see How To Eat a Lobster Blog), while everyone else had steak. It was slightly on the pricey side and in the middle of a casino, but it was still tasty.

Afterward, we walked around the casino and probably gambled about $150 between the six us of (Al only lost $10 and I only played with my dad's winnings). I have a hard time understanding how people can sit, press a button, lose money, and call it fun. Not what I call fun. And it's crazy the kind of people there. Lots of old people, white trash and (with fear of sounding racist), blacks. I figured there'd be lots of hillbilly types there, but not the rest. I also couldn't believe the older people that were walking around with masks on. Seriously?! You enjoy this so much that you'd risk your health to sit in a stinky, smokey casino? What is wrong with people? I guess that's why they call it an addiction. Doesn't seem worth it to me. When it was time to go, we snapped some pictures and piled in a five seater car to take me and Al back to our car. It was a tight squeeze, but we made it work.

 al & am at casino

tight squeeze

On the drive home, we decided to hit up redbox and partake in some movie watching. Don't know what I was thinking because I was knocked out tired. I didn't even make it through half of The Town. All in all, it was a nice, relaxing day that was topped off with some good food and company!

Lounge away another day!
--Am

How To Cover Your Clothes in Animal Fur

No, I'm not talking about a fur coat made of minx, rabbit, or fox. I'm talking about a coat made of synthetic materials that is littered with domestic animal fur. This is really easy to do…just get three dogs and a cat. Really only one dog or one cat would suffice, as it just gets worse with multiples. Alex often complains about eating fur with every meal consumed at the breakfast bar. I can't disagree with him as the fur is EVERYWHERE! When we clean, the space is re-furred in ten minutes. It's hopeless.

Once it's in our living space, it's on our clothes and in our cars. It's probably all over my office and my coworkers and now their homes and our parents' homes and well, the world. Sorry to all of you for that!

No matter how much we vacuum the floors, wipe down the counters, or lint roll our jackets, it will never be fur-less. Here are some pics of my coat after it's been lint-rolled using at least four of the tapes:

up close and personal of the fur covered black jacket 

the back of the black jacket--see the little white lines? 

yep, that's the fur. 

sleeve with more fur

In case you can't see how bad it is, let me give you a little story. I was once at lunch at Pita Pit (yum) with my friend Leslie when the guy at the table next to us felt the need to interrupt our conversation. He stated his name as Jared and commented on Leslie's coloring and my earrings and outfit. While talking about my outfit, he mentioned my coat (which at this time was my long, three button, tie-around-the-waist, cobalt blue coat). It went something like this, "I just have to say that your outfit is great. The jacket, although it looks like you rolled around in dog hair in it, with the earrings, is just fabulous." He proceeded to give us the name of his friend's blog, to which he sometimes contributes (see circlecitystyle.blogspot.com). It was awesome how he called me out on my fur covered coat, and somehow managed to compliment me at the same time. 

However, it's still not enough for me to care to have it de-furred. I'm just too lazy for that, unless there's something really important I need to attend or there's someone I need to impress. That's not very often and not many people. Sorry if that offends anyone who sees my fur-ridden coat day after day.  

Furry tales to all!

--Am 

culprit #1: Hallie 

culprits #2, #3, & #4: (from left) Dodger, Daisie, and Diego

How To Use Skype

If someone could teach me (and some of my cohorts) how to appropriately use Skype, it would be much appreciated. We just spent fifteen minutes trying to get four of us to conference in. Since Adam didn't have a mic, he was going to join via chat, while the remaining three (Ray, Kristi, me) would talk.

Here's how it went: Adam could hear me (and Alex having a discussion about taxes), but I couldn't hear him (no mic as mentioned above). Adam could hear Ray.  Kristi was having mic problems and Adam was the only one that could hear her at one point. Great! This skype thing is really working for us...NOT!

Ray had to restart his computer a couple of times. Kristi was a little late in joining, while I was way early. It was probably about 5 minutes into when the call should have started that it was actually started. Since nothing was really working, I started playing around with my settings and thought maybe I needed external speakers. Alex to the rescue! He had a headset that consisted of earphones and a microphone, so I looked like a telemarketer or phone-in customer service rep. Very stylish! But hey, it worked. With this in, I could hear Ray. A small step for some new Skypers.

 the headset (please don't mind my make-up-less face)

Since Ray and I could now chat, Adam would call me and I would put him on speaker and Kristi would call Ray and put her on speaker. BAD IDEA! There was lots of echos, similar to when you stand between two mirrors and it looks like you go on forever. It was like that only with sound. Does that make sense? After 30 seconds of that and realizing it was not going to work, we decided to scrap using skype and just meet first thing tomorrow morning. Whew!

Although it didn't work out, Ray and I were able to video chat with each other after it ended and he got to see little Diego. I hope that made his day!

Happy Skyping! 

--Am