It Works! Wrap Test

So a few months ago I started a new job that I could do from home (and just about everywhere else). I loved the products and I figured if I could share it with others that loved it just as much or more than me that would really great!

But there were a few products that I was a little skeptical about!

Can you blame me? Put a wrap that has a gel on it on your body (anywhere) and in as little as 45min you would have tighter, toner, and smoother skin?? Well, I tried it. I did the 4 wraps for a full treatment and I was amazed! I am am 4 months postpartum from my second child and my body is used and abused lol. But in just under 2 weeks my belly is smaller! My shirts look better on me, my jeans fit a little nicer, it is fantastic! I am starting to work-out more at home with a pull-up bar, treadmill, and bike riding but I know that when I lose more weight I am going to wrap again and firm up all that loose skin!!

I love this job because it is helping me to reach my goals, and I have the chance to help others as well. These wraps feel good when using them and they continue to work afterwards. I did the wraps about 2 months ago and my results have stayed. I want to continue this process of wrapping, eating healthy, and exercising regularly so that I can be one of those hot mamas and not a frumpy mom!

#SayNoToTheFrump

Cupcake CoverTops by Lily Rubio

 I recently hosted a party for a new friend of mine Lily Rubio to showcase her cute and fabulous covertops that will make any LDS girl drool and have plenty of other women in the world wanting a collection for those outfits they wish covered a little more skin.

Here are some of those pretty ladies who could make it that evening - minus me (who took the picture) and my pant-less toddler who joined us that evening.

I thought I would share these with you since I have not come across anything like this with such great quality before  and they really are just great.

I love mine! Especially being pregnant I feel like I already have quite enough sitting on my belly and these are fantastic because they end right under the bust! So many shirts and dresses are low cut or just leave me feeling a little too revealed and these are great to give me coverage without bulk.

Lily had this great idea floating around for a while before acting on it and once she decided to make it happen things got moving with time. Now there is more than just the half-cami, there are cap sleeved and 3/4 sleeved covers in a small range of convenient colors.

They are available for purchase from her personally if you happen to live in the South Florida area, otherwise you may purchase them through her website cupcakecovertops.com

You can also follow Lily on Facebook for updates, watch some cute videos of Lily's on Youtube, or follow her on Instagram.

All images in this post are taken from the Instagram of Lily Rubio as well as the cupcakecovertops website.

Blog Revamp

As I am sure anyone who has been here before over the years you may have noticed that the image of this blog has changed drastically. In order to better serve my readers I have changed to a more bright and appealing layout and have also added social media share buttons to the bottom of each post! I used this page to do so if anyone else is wondering how to do it. I am not the most teach savvy person around so it took me a few tries and about 1hr to get this right. Who knew I would have so much trouble!? 

So I hope that you like the new and improved blog! 

Some other improvements I plan on making are:

Updating a little more frequently

sharing more artwork with specific themes

Etsy seller spotlights

My own photography

In relation to my own photography, I started this blog right out of high school pretty much. I did not fully comprehend the importance of citing my sources for photos and other things. After growing up a bit and learning more about the business world I have learned that it is VERY important to cite my sources and to get away from borrowing peoples photos for my artwork as well. 

I love working from a photo since I can work on it for months at a time if need be, but I know I need to start doing work that is completely my own. So I am going to take a big step and begin doing this consistently. 

Part of doing this is to do artwork with themes so I can do work that only I have taken photos of. I plan on drawing more cars - starting with a '99 Cobra Mustang. I also plan on drawing more fruits and vegetables - still life's! 

Wish me luck, and thank you for being a part of this blogs and my own personal growth over the years. And welcome to any newcomers, I am always improving.

Kiwi Drawing - Process

It has been nearly a year since I have done a drawing and probably about that long or longer since I have done an art blog update. It has been interesting and fun getting used to being a mom and fitting in the things that I like to do in my small amount of free time. I do go on walks and visit parks a bit more now but that quiet time I need for art is a little few and far between those moments. 

So I have had this drawing about 75% of the way finished for more than 6 months! I also have about 2 others that are the same way. I just didn't feel like drawing for a little while as well. Anyways, I decided to take pictures during the process as well. 

 I usually do a light sketch to work with. And I almost always use a photo to work from since I tend to take FOREVER to finish a drawing. It can be nearly impossible to do a still life for me.

 I also skip around with where I am working on it at the time.

 Half of the drawing is sometimes much more close to being finished than the other and sometimes the whole thing is moving along nicely in a cohesive project.

 And then comes the final product that I still sometimes do a touch up on white space that you can see in this one has some smudges.

I get photos to work from primarily from Deviantart stock, and HERE is the exact stock I used for this one.

I also post my work to my Facebook fan page.

And lastly I do sell my artwork on an Etsy page that I have for a few years now.

Beard Beanies

 It's been months now and I just realized that I completely forgot to do this post! I have not even made an update in this blog for months and it's about time that I get back into this. About four months ago my husband and I had our first baby and for kicks and giggles we decided to get some fun shots. In order to do this we needed a beard for me and my son so that the whole family could match!

WithLoveByCole makes all sorts of cute beanies to sell on her Etsy shop. I could not resist ordering these! I am a little particular about some things and I felt that our beards must match my husband so I asked if she could find yarn in that color. She did just that. They turned out fantastic and gave us some hilarious pictures. Our little guy looks like a cute little smurf here. We will have many more great pictures in the future with these I am sure.

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.