Choo Choo! Someone's Turning Two!

I can not believe in just a few weeks, my little baby boy will be two years old.

Where has the time gone!?

I really wanted to make his birthday invitation and now that I finally have a scanner and photoshop, I had no excuse not to!

Alex is obsessed with trains, so his birthday is going to be train themed.

He's going to be sooo excited!

I made a rough little doodle then searched around for tutorials on how to color in photoshop.

It's been quite awhile that I've really been able to play with photoshop.

(I use it everyday at work, but that's different!)

This was the first time in a loooong time I've colored anything in photoshop

(and I'm pretty sure the first time I've ever completed a picture in photoshop, heh.)

I still have a lot to learn, but I'm pretty happy with it for my first attempt!

And then the invitation!

(I blacked out the address and phone numbers...sorry! Don't want any surprise people showing up! Haha!)

I'm no graphic designer or anything, but I'm quite proud of how it turned out!

By the way...everytime I've had the picture pulled up on my screen to work on it,

Alex will run by, laugh, and say "Choo choo! Yay!"

So he approves and that's all that matters!

School's Out! Shew!

No, I'm not in school anymore, but my work revolves around the school year.

I work in a professional photo lab and we print pictures for schools...

so the past month has been SO busy.

There's always a huge push before the kids get out for christmas break

and then another before they get out for summer.

Plus, my co-worker is out on maternity leave so I've been painfully busy.

I haven't had much time for anything at all...

there's a sad little furry monster sitting on my table begging to be finished.

Now that things are finally slowing down, you guys should be seeing him soon!

In dolly news, a lovely new friend decided to join the gang around here.

She's my first MSD and was made by ResinSoul.

I finally had a few minutes to spare the other day

and was able to take her out and play with my camera.

She was a blast to photograph...and isn't she lovely?

I still want to darken the makeup around her eyes a bit,

but after the painfully fiddly work of putting her glass eyes in, I think it can wait awhile.

For once, poor Scribble wasn't included in the photo session...hopefully she'll forgive me. ;)

A Doll Called Regret Gets a New Name

I mentioned before how this past month has been rather sad.

At the beginning of March,

I learned that my grandmother had taken a turn for the worse.

I'd known for about six months or so that she had cancer.

Unfortunately, the time had come for us to go say goodbye to her.

When I was a little girl, I thought my grandmother was the greatest person in the world.

Unfortunately, I never was able to have the relationship with her that I dreamed of...

or really, any relationship with her at all (this was not by my choice).

Hearing that I had to go say goodbye to her was really difficult for me.

I guess there's always been a little girl locked away inside,

hoping that one day things would magically change.

My first response was one that I'm sure many of you can relate to...

I threw myself into crafting in order to work through my feelings.

That is how Regret came to be.

I worked on her almost nonstop and filled her with all my regrets.

I shed quite a few tears as I stitched her together.

When the time came to paint her face, my first thought was to make her sad.

She had other plans...

As I was working on her face, the lyrics to the song "Smile" came to mind

(which was odd...I hadn't heard that song in forever!)

"Smile, though your heart is aching
Smile, even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by...
If you smile."

I realized something very important while working on Regret.

While my grandmother and I were never able to have the relationship I had dreamed of, she did have a major influence on me.

She was the one that really inspired me to create things like dolls in the first place.

I may not have had many memories with my grandmother,

but the ones I do have are all happy.

As I made the final touches on Regret, she requested I give her a new name...

And that is how the doll called Regret became known as Memory.

Funny what one can learn from a little doll, huh?

In Loving Memory :)

Sad News

I woke up Sunday to an absolutely beautiful day.

I was making Alex's breakfast and planning our day together when I got a phone call.

My boss lost his twenty year old daughter in a car accident the night before.

Police showed up at his door at 3 in the morning to give him the news.

Isn't it scary how our entire lives can change in just a moment?

Her death has reminded me to hug my loved ones a little tighter and appreciate everyone in my life a little bit more.

I came home last night after a ten hour work day to find my son in a grumpy, whiny mood. My first reaction would be to sigh and become frustrated, but I stopped myself and just hugged my little guy close and did the best I could to make him happy.

Why?

Because I know my boss would give anything in the world right now to come home and find his daughter there...even if she were in the worst of moods.

Will you guys do me a favor this week?

Tell someone you love how much you love them...or give them a hug...or a kiss.

Anything!

Just make sure they know how much you care about them.

Anyway, it's been pretty sad around here the past few weeks.

March has been one of those months that brought a new piece of sad news every single week.

And this piece of news has probably been the most heartbreaking of all.

It has certainly made getting anything creative done very difficult.

I am so hoping things will get brighter after this!

I think I need some happy in my life right about now.

The Case of the Missing Pie

I woke up the other morning and decided it was a morning that chocolate pie would make a perfectly acceptable breakfast.

(I, being female, believe I have the right to make that decision on certain days.)

Scribble, was very quick to agree and grabbed a fork and plate.

Imagine my surprise when I removed the foil only to discover someone had eaten the filling out of the entire pie! All that was left was a sad little pie crust....and a very guilty fork, covered in chocolate.

Scribble found this to be quite amusing.

I was not nearly as pleased.

(Hell hath no fury like a woman denied her chocolate.)

Scribble, being her typical helpful little self, decided to question a few of the residents to see if they knew what had happened to the pie.

First, she asked Moth.

Moth gave a little gasp and claimed she couldn't image anyone she knows would do anything so awful.

Scribble thought she'd ask Blush to see if she saw anything...

...but Blush just blushed shyly and promised she hadn't seen a thing.

I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and went to our resident fairy.

Fairies, after all, typically make it their business to know everything that goes on in the house.

Trinket happily perched on my finger and giggled at me

(her typical first response when I ask her a question she feels is silly.)

 

She then pointed out that I should very well know who ate the pie. After all, only one person in the house is known for getting midnight snacks...

 

Luckily for my husband, Scribble quickly saved the day by jumping into my hand with a very special surprise.

(I told my husband of my morning dilemma and he just laughed and laughed.

I still did not find it nearly as amusing!)

In other news, I am almost done with my next doll.

I'm still working on my furry friend, but had to take a break from him to complete this doll. Now that the time has changed, I should be able to have enough daylight to photograph her when I get home from work during the week!

A Week of House Sitting

Well, this week has been busy busy and not in the way that I would have hoped!

We spent the entire week at my mom's,

taking care of her dogs while she was out of town. It's nice being at her house

(it's bigger than ours so it gives us all more room to stretch out), but packing up stuff for two adults, one baby, and two dogs for a week makes it feel like we were moving!

Unfortunately, I didn't really pack my sewing stuff

so I was very unproductive this week.

 I did, however, spend some time with my sketchbook.

It's sad...I look through all my old sketchbooks at my mom's and think about the days when I drew picture after picture of crazy fantastic creatures.

Sometimes I feel like I've lost my magic.

(I've faced a depressing amount of tragedies over the past ten years...not to mention a traumatizing art school experience that left me giving up on art completely for two years...so I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself.)

Anyway, I'm trying to commit to reconnecting with my old self.

I miss my creative side that could see the dragons lurking behind the trees and

the fairies flitting by in the wind.

I'm happy to say I'm now back home and happily working on my newest project.

This will be my first time working with faux fur...and it's pretty interesting so far!

Since I don't have any pictures of my progress,

you get to play peek-a-boo with Scribble!

Hope you guys have a great week!

Blush

I can't wait until the time changes back!

It seems like during the week, I'm never home when there's daylight!

Anyway, I finally took pictures of my latest doll

...and she's my very favorite I've made so far. :)

Painting has always been a first love in art for me

so I've been wanting to combine making plushies with my painting for awhile now.

I'm so happy with how she came out

and I just can't wait to start on my next project now!

(I already have a sketch of him too ;) )

This is Blush...

Blush is a quiet girl and tends to be quite shy around new people.

If you take the time to get to know her though, she's actually quite wonderful. :)

She's 9.5" tall while sitting, handsewn and handpainted.

(And yet another yay for me for figuring out how to add her yarn hair!)

It's going to be a beautiful weekend here!

I'm off to enjoy this unexpected spring weather...hope you guys have a great weekend!