New Year

So it has come to the year 2013! And without all that drama from the movie 2012. Thank goodness for that huh?

When I was younger I thought that new years resolutions were a good idea and I always tried to put together a list of 10 things to accomplish or do better during the year. Then I realized that I do not work that way, and I figure more other people don't either. So, what I do is keep in mind each month of the year what it is that I can accomplish for that month or something that I really need to buckle down and work hard on.

So for January I already have a couple of small things that I need to accomplish and two of those things are drawings that I have been working on for over a month now but have not completed!!

So lame, I know. 

So, today I am sitting in front of the computer with those two drawings sitting right in front of me, mocking me for being such a slacker. If I really took the time to work on them I could finish them both today! Will I? Probably not, there are too many cool things to find on Pinterest and StumbleUpon.

I also don't want to make any long term resolutions because in just a few short months I am going to be a mother! I am super excited but I am not going to fool myself into thinking that things will be the same afterwards, so I am not going to make any concrete plans this year. Smart huh? Maybe. But I hope I can find things to do to keep me from getting bored at home - that seems to be the big issue right now since I am trying my hand at not being employed (ha).

Todays Etsy Share:

I added these to my recent Treasury Spring is Coming because quite frankly they are great looking and I wish I had some! The item can be viewed here. There are so many great things on Etsy it just amazes me sometimes, and it sure has grown over the past few years.

Pumpkins Drawing

I have finally gotten around to finishing another drawing. It took me a while since there was a lot going on with events, people visiting, I got sick, yada yada yada.
Anyways, I am happy to have finished this one because it is a seasonal drawing! I don't know why it took me so long to figure out that doing seasonal drawings was a good thing but I did and I have started to put together some work to do.

Like most drawings I find the picture I want first, then I do a light sketch of it . . . Followed by the first layers of color on whatever item(s) I will color first.

 Then I will add some shading into the darker areas.

 Because I am a little crazy I will jump around on some of my work. Some of the pumpkins are closer to being done while others need more work. But I started to work on the white pumpkins in this one bellow.

 For pumpkins it is an interesting process. All the dark's are done first, then I add white to areas that are "brighter". I leave the stems for last as well as the final shading. After it looks just about done I add in Indigo blue in a lot of the darker areas so that they have a deeper look and also to give those lighter areas a nice pop.

In the final product I usually put a small RS in the bottom right corner - at least I have started to do that these days. I kind of forgot to take a couple pictures while I was working on this but I will try to go better next time.

I am fairly pleased with the outcome. I got the original photo from a stock image on Deviantart - redwolf518stock.

Jack-O-Lantern

Since it is Halloween tomorrow I decided that I should carve a pumpkin to put on my front porch. It has been about 8+ years since I have actually carved a pumpkin. I wanted to do something new and cool - to kind of make up for the slow and lame night I will have tomorrow night; I don't think that I will be going anywhere.

I started off by buying the pumpkin - Target has them for $3.99. I figured they were probably getting a little old but I would do it anyways since they are cheap. And of course there was the ride home to worry about. Pumpkins are prone to rolling around in a moving vehicle, Safety First!

 And then I had it on my kitchen counter for about a week before I even touched it. I had an idea in my head but the follow through was much harder to get to. Plus, I figured that it would be difficult to carve a pumpkin with a kitchen knife.

So! I cut the top off and found some grayish gooey gunk on the inside. Gross. It smelled as bad at it looked. But, I cleaned it out and drew my outline with a colored pencil. It worked pretty well actually.

 After getting the gunk out of it I set to the task of carving my image. It was not all that easy but it worked and here is the final project!

Next year I will be sure to get a pumpkin earlier.

More to come: A Fall drawing of pumpkins :)

Autumn Art

I realized today that I do not have a lot of Autumn art. In fact, I have only one piece!

That is going to change, I have been looking up images to give me some inspiration and I have been pinning anything that looks like a good idea.

The one piece I have is a pile of Gourds.

The original is slightly cut down to fit a frame I bought. It is hanging in my dinning room. It adds a nice bit of color and kind of makes me hungry - but not for gourds thank goodness.

Since I have the original and it is not going anywhere, I do sell prints on Etsy.
A little background about this piece is that I was taking a college art class and the assignment was to draw some gourds. I found a picture, loved it, and drew it. It was one of the first times that I had drawn a type of food or edible subject.

Anyways, it is one of my favorites and now I want to draw more items that for the Autumn Season!

Another Great Aldi Trip!

So I went to Aldi again today for a smallish trip. I took pictures of what I bought and scanned my receipt this time so you can really see what there is available there.

I was needing a lot of breakfast items and so I got lots of those, and then for the most part I bought things to supplement what I already have at home.

(Click for larger view)
Some of the items are incredibly cheap, I am very pleased with this store. I have already gotten my friend to love it and I am convincing my parents to start shopping there as well.

After saving money on all this food I feel like I need a better organization system in my pantry for all of it. I am getting some inspiration from Delightful Order blog. There are SO many amazing ideas for organizing things, and they are so simple I wonder what's wrong with me that I can't come up with these things on my own. I am in desperate need to organize all my art things since I have so much stuff and I am going to be doing more art soon (Which I will be posting here with step-by-step process of drawing).

That's all the rant I have in me for now about Aldi and organization.

Lot's of Yard Work

It has been one of my projects to make the front yard less ugly since I started living in my house. So far I think I have done a decent job, there is a ton of things that I have done to the yard.
First, here is a picture of the front yard around the time that i moved in.

Already I had trimmed the bushes, pulled weeds, and actually removed 5 bushes that were behind that low wall.
There were still some things that I pretty much hated though. The small palm to the right is hideous and prickly and full of bugs, and there is too much open space in that area as well.

The changes I have made was to remove the ugly palm, add a couple of bushes into the empty space, trim the other bushes so they could fill in nicely, add mulch, and I am in the process of adding bougainvillea behind the low wall and also thinking about other things to add there. The bushes have turned a nice green since I trimmed them (they were dying and ugly before). I cut them down so much I thought that might obliterate them completely but they have grown pretty well again.

I have always wanted a pretty yard and now I am working on it. Adding plants and mulch is coming out to cost about $85. 

Thrifting

I used to LOVE going out thrift shopping for just about anything, and then life came along and I got busy with school, love, work, and so on. So I naturally did what was easiest and shopped at Wal-Mart, Target, JCPenny, and other stores. I like to think that I am pretty good at being thrifty by sticking to sale items or sales racks but recently I decided I would give some extra thought into cutting down on spending. I did some research and found a few places that I would check out and also some old places I would start to visit more often.

Since it has been about a year to a year-and-a-half since I have updated my wardrobe a bit (plus I ruined quite a few items this summer) I needed a place to go for clothes that was cheap but still had a few nice things. What I found was Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Plato's Closet. Goodwill is pretty awesome but I find that it's harder to find things in my size that aren't ripped or stained. Salvation Army has a ton of neat things and lot of vintage items! And Plato's Closet is Da Bomb!

At Plato's Closet their inventory comes in part from people who sell them their clothing that is new and gently used. Brand names abound there and everything seems to be in really good condition. I got so many things and all of the items are barely used and a couple even had the original tag on it; such as my $80 Guess jeans that I purchased for $15. I was VERY pleased with the selection and I cannot wait to go back (although I will wait until I my wardrobe gets depleted again).

Plato's Closet

Besides needing so save on clothing I also decided that I wanted to save more money on groceries. There is a place called Aldi that a coworker told me about before and I never got around to looking into it, but, it turns out that it is a really good place to save on groceries. I went in to check it out and came out with a ton of things for only $47. There are some items that the savings are not astronomical compared to general item prices but for others there is definitely a benefit to buying from Aldi. 

(Image is from somewhere online)
Some notable items were the canned veggies or soups that were as low as 59 or 69 cents each. There is not a huge selection of items, but I think it is safe to say that the bulk of your shopping can be done at Aldi and you can purchase the rest of your items anywhere else you usually buy from.
Some significant things to know about Aldi is:
1. You need 25cents to use the shopping carts (A lock mechanism is on them - you get your quarter back)
2. You must bring your own bags from home (Plastic bags can be purchased for use at Aldi)
3. You bag your own items (Sounds rough but this makes the check out line go SUPER fast)

All in all I am pleased with the store and will definitely be going there again and again to save on groceries.

 

Insanity Workout

Work has been keeping me busy these past few weeks, I haven't even had much time to do some drawing. I did decide to start working out though and unfortunately for me my husband chose to Insanity Workouts of Sean T.

I am on day 2 of 60 and I don't really feel like doing it today lol. I am one of those people to HAS to see results fast to really appreciate a workout. Maybe I will post some pictures up later on. . . I don't think anyone wants to see me so maybe not. Kidding, but I am curious to see if this workout actually does anything good for me, supposedly it will give you endurance and get you into really great shape.

I have seen so many commercials on other workout videos that it seems like Sean T is everywhere, and for a while I think he was indeed everywhere. In the meantime before I start todays 30 minute exercise I think I will get some pork stew made and play around on the computer. I have tons of pork in my freezer still from that hunt and I am constantly trying to find new interesting recipes to make with it.

I won't bore you all with anymore of that exercise junk. Crazy news is that I might not stay in Florida for too much longer; the husband is looking for a better job and if he gets something then we will be out of here. I can't wait! It will open many opportunities for art that I do not have here in Florida, lots of different scenery that is. Anyways, that's all I've got for today.

Cooking Club - White Trash

Every month there is a small local group of women that get together to eat some grub. These dinners are for cooking club . . . a theme is chosen as well as a location. One month I agreed to do the meeting at my house and I chose the theme based on a topic of discussion the previous night. White trash.
It took me a little while to figure out what to make since I didn't really know any white trash dishes except maybe mac n' cheese with hot dogs in it. But, I came up with kebobs.

For the kebobs I chose to use cheap hot dogs, fish sticks, pineapple, and tater tots. They actually turned out pretty good since I grilled them! There was an assortment of other foods such as hostess cakes, potato salad, hot dogs, beans, and my personal favorite for the night - homemade twinkies!

A good friend of mine made these from scratch and they were AMAZING! I do not even really like twinkies but they were really really good. Everyone was so surprised to see them and they all liked them as well.
For the evening I pulled all my lawn chairs in doors after wiping them off a tad, and I used a mismatch set of plastic forks, paper plates, and cheap napkins. It was a fun night with new experiences.
I can't wait to go again next month, I will have to look for some strange and new recipes to try out.

In the meantime I am hard at work finishing up school, working part-time, and drawing like a mad woman. There will be plenty of posts to come with art.

German Pancakes

Sometimes my husband and I have eaten German pancakes twice in a week! Both times it was not breakfast either. The first time I ever went to Utah my boyfriend's mother made these for breakfast on Sunday. I had never had them before and I was pretty impressed. Since then I have had them many times. I love that it is so simple to make but it tastes great and there is plenty of it to fill my belly.



What you need first is a blender and your 9x13 pan.
In the 9x13 pan put the butter in there and put it into the oven to melt.
Everything else goes into the blender.
Once the butter it melted and your mixture has the crud blended out of it you dump the contents into the buttery dish.
Put back into now heated oven and bake.
Remove and smother with syrup!

Super easy and a great breakfast.

German Pancakes Recipe
(for 9x13 pan)
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Flour
5 Eggs
6 TBSP Melted Butter
1/2 tsp Salt

450 degrees for 15-20 minutes. For half the recipe use 3 eggs.
The mix will rise up in funky bubbles in the oven and shrink down when removed from the oven.