Watercolor Painting 101

I've always had an interest in water colour painting, but have never thought that I would be very good at the actual painting part. The shading and gradients of colours and blending is all very intimidating to me. 

but I'm determined!

I j ust recently stumbled across this site that goes over each method of painting and breaks it down and gives you tips. 

and encourages practice, lots of practice (which I'll need!)

check it out, let me know what you think!

Watercolor Painting Tutorials

Weekly Goals: May 1st

1) Secret craft project/tutorial for ya'll

2) upload secret project

3) yoga, pilates and Zumba - all once.

4) organize spare room - finally. really truly this time.

5) purchase a new filter for the fishes before it's too late and they're...swimming..with the..fishes?

"Sunny Days, sweeping the blog away..."

the weather has been SO nice here lately.

BigMan and I got a little sunburnt. LittleMan looks like he's starting to tan on his arms.

The fence is up, the plants have been out. 

The dog's are tired from chasing the kids around the yard. 

and the cat? she's to scared to go outside, so she spends the day sitting on the window sills watching birds.

I've joined the "Quilting Is Murder" mystery club.

it's all paper piecing, which I've never done before.

and you get one week to find all the clues, and complete the block.

*crickets*

I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try.

I've got a couple other crafty ideas up my sleeve, I will share them once I've got them done!

and I've been photoshopping lately - but 99.9% are of the kids. They turned out great!

Hopefully more blogging will be done even though the weather is superb! but I'm sure you can understand!

Grandma's Recipes

I got a lovely letter in the mail from my Grandma awhile ago.

I had told her I was really getting into cooking now for awhile, and I was collecting a binder of recipes and had hoped that she would share some of her's with me. She has a wonderful chocolate cake that we would get each time we went to visit - and I got the recipe!!! They all seem interesting and easy to make and I'm looking forward to trying them out. I have one that I know I want to share, I haven't 

decided on the others yet. 

They're top secret, stay in the family kinda recipes.

okay not really. I just made that up on a whim.

but maybe I'd like them to be that way!

Photo Fun App's

Stephen and Chris did an episode this week that featured some neat photo ideas.

Now, I'm not so sure that they are broadcast in the states, so I thought I'd share the ideas with some of you that either A) don't have the option to watch there show, B) missed the episode or C) have never even heard of them. 

1) The ugly dance

Take a photo of a person, using just the head from the photo you attach it to another body (money, guy a suit) and make them do silly dances! You can also share it on facebook and twitter!

(disclaimer: i dont' actually know who's photo this is, i just pulled it off google images - so it was already on the web, im just using this as an example for the program)

2) Hipstamatic

 similar to poladroid, but as an app for your iPhone!

 

Description from the site:

"The Hipstamatic for iPhone is an application that brings back the look, feel, unpredictable beauty, and fun of plastic toy cameras from the past"

 

3) la photo cabine 

 

uses your computers web cam to take photo booth style photos! also available as an app for your iPhone

 

 photo disclaimer: same as above, these photos were already on google images, just using for demonstration purposes!

 

What photo app's do you use? let me know if you try these out and what you think!

Decorating Easter Eggs

LittleMan had his best friend, Little Lady, over yesterday to decorate some easter eggs.

I taped down a plastic backed table cloth to the kitchen floor, and off they went!

We used kits that you can find at your local walmart/grocery store, etc. 

 the kits came with stickers to add to the eggs as well.

 little mans eggs

little lady's eggs.

What have you been doing for easter activities? any plans for the weekend?

BigMans Quilt: Update

I forgot to upload this earlier, sorry!

2nd row completed!

 

I am in need of some more red FQ's so this will be put aside until I can get some more!

I'll be starting on a modified bento box quilt this weekend :)