100 Things If You Had Unlimited Resources...

My artist friend Alice (From Aliki's Art House) gave me this idea for a journal entry. She told me to write down the question "If I had unlimited resources, money, time... etc... I would..." You are supposed to write down your answers with your left hand. I was not so good at this. I am very particular about my printing, I become obsessed with the way it looks and have written things over numerously until perfecting it, including previous journal entries. I love writing with pen and paper, I love the way ink looks on a fresh sheet. Strange I know, I mean I salivate when I get a new pen!
After this entry I learned so much about myself and what I would do, what my desires were and how my longing to serve God is so much greater than my longing to serve the world. I also learned that I have to be okay with not being and having everything perfect. The world see's how much I have given up to come closer to God and my heavenly future and providing ways for my family to look to God and all of our futures, but I do not see it as giving up anything that I want to keep. I have given up vanity and pride and anger, lust and self seeking, self centeredness; to me these are not things that I want to have or be. This was a great exercise in learning about what is on my heart.
The different colors helped me to think about each answer as I was writing it down. It really helped me to focus on my answers.

Making Mosaics With my Boys

The other night I was sitting at my desk finishing some details on an art piece when you youngest son came up to me and said, "Mama, I want to do something with you?" He had this mischievious look on his face and I asked, "What is it that you want to do with me baby?" (Please don't mention to anyone that my ten year old still calls me Mama - he would hate it and would stop calling me that and then I would have to kill you! lol.) Anywho... He opened up his hands and had four shiny coloured rocks - one clear, one blue, one red, and one brown. He has made a game out of his little collection sort of like rock, paper, scissors. Each rock is either water, air, fire or earth and one more powerful than the other. He has an incredible imagination. However, I didn't feel like playing that game again... so instead I took out my bag of tiny pebbles that I had just purchased from Michael's (two bags actually). I was going to use them to make a pebble mosaic for our house... however, I found a much better use for them; quality time with my sons. Ben and I started sorting the pebbles into colours and before we knew it Josh started in on the sorting. After all that was done, we all began to make little mosaics on the floor. Josh wanted to keep his so he asked his dad to cut him a board to fit his mosaic on and Randy (my hubby) covered it with drywall putty (I think) and he began to place his mosaic on the board. Ben shortly followed with his same request of Daddy and put his brain to work on a piece of his own. The pictures above are the results of their hard work that night. Ben's is the sword and Josh made a lizard surrounded by rocks. I however, did not have enough rocks left over to make my own though I certainly enjoyed watching their creative minds at work. Thank you God for this special time that I was able to have with my sons. We are so very blessed.

Glamour Girl

I was feeling kind of blah and wanted to draw something different, something with color that stood out. I started drawing from a picture of myself trying to get my eyes, nose and mouth in a relatively similar comparison to mine... then I thought that was boring so I added a shape that I found on one of my husbands drafting ruler thingy's (I'm sure there's a name to it- I just don't know it!) So... that shape became my hair and I just kept going and going (like the energizer bunny - lol) Then I added some bling and some color and hence my creation of "Bad Hair Day Glamour Girl" came to be.
Let me know what you think. Happy Creating!

Creating A New Banner - Out With The Old...

I wanted to change the look of my blog but I wasn't quite sure how to go about it. Here I am with this new Adobe Photoshop program (well it's new to me anyway!) and I hear such great things about it regarding creating banners for blogs, new websites etc., Soooooooo... my brain keeps thinking... tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock as I stare aimlessly at the walls of my living room (which are now amber orange thanks to our new renovations)... what do I do when I don't know how to do something? My fingers scale over my keyboard (effortlessly I might add) searching for ways to add banners using my Adobe Photoshop (older addition - yet surprisingly still "upbeat"... sorry for my humor if you have not seen "How to lose a guy in 10 days")... anywho... B-I-N-G-O! I have found a tutorial! I follow the steps even though they are meant for Adobe Photoshop 7.whatever! I am thrilled to see that I can find the tools mentioned in the tutorial and slowly piece together my new creation... A banner made just for me! (Insert barf here!) In this blogger program through Google I simply chose the "dashboard", "layout" then the "Edit" option of my "header" and inserted the image that I "Saved for Web" in GIF Format. And just like that I have a new header for my blog. How sweet is that?
If you are like moi and do not know (did not know) how to create a banner for your blog just follow the oh-so-simple instructions (okay not-completely-simple) and you will have your banner! Go to http://getit.rutgers.edu/tutorials/banner/index10.html If it does not take you right there send me an e-mail and I will find it for you and get back to you! ksun_1999@yahoo.com Happy Creating!

Creating Artistic Photography

The other day my oldest son and I were playing around with my digital camera and taking pictures of our eyes (because we have the same eyes). My son didn't believe that we have the same eyes so I needed to prove myself... let me explain further. When I was born I had blue eyes, okay same as Josh... however when I started into my teen years they began to change color eventually changing to all green by the time I was 17. Josh's eyes are in the process of changing and he has one greenish blue eye and one almost all green. He believes they are going to stay like that. Okay... now I have proof. After gathering up this proof I went further... I took pictures of my youngest son and of my husband, their eyes are very similar as well. I found this to be not only an experiment to prove how right I was (lol), but I began to put an artistic photogpragh together. I put them all into my Adobe photoshop and put them on the same page (for some reason the file is too large to actually show you)(so you have only the cropped shots). If you use your imagination you can line them up and see what I am doing. I am going to frame it and put it on our wall as "The Watts Family Eyes". It was such a cool experiment. I love how we can see ourselves in our children. I don't know how anyone cannot acknowledge God when you can so clearly see Him in our children and in all creation. He is so amazing. Well that's my bit for today... maybe you can give it a try. Need instructions? Just contact me at my e-mail address or leave a comment here and I will put them on here. ksun_1999@yahoo.com Happy creating!

More Stained Glass Mosaics of my Journal Entries

I am loving this stained glass mosaic filter!

Journal Page Made Into a Mosaic

I took one of my favorite journal entries and put it into Adobe Photoshop and used the Filter once again. This time I made it into a mosaic. I am extremely pleased with the results, it makes me feel like purchasing mosaic tiles and actually sitting down in the lengthy process and making this full mosaic piece.

True Worship

I wanted to draw what true worship was and this is what came out. God is so good to me I pray that I give Him the glory in every aspect of my life.

New Journal Entry

I was looking through my links and I really enjoyed looking at Violette's Journal Pages. I decided to try to journal like she does, not as great as her's but fun still the same. I am a stickler for detail and I really enjoyed drawing, watercoloring and writing this entry. On her site she talked about using Twinkling H20's (watercolors), they look really cool and I would love a set. I didn't have those but I did have my watercolor crayons from Staedtler. One day I will purchase the H20's but until then I will dabble with the crayons.

Sneak Peek Of Some of Our Renovations

We are so excited to have one (small room) completely finished in our renovations. This is just a sneak peek as I am waiting until everything is completely finished to reveal what the rest of the house is going to look like. Still waiting on kitchen cabinets, countertops for kitchen, railings for stairwell etc., but all things will be done in God's timing not our own. I really love the dark copper color of the bathroom and that the cabinets go so nicely with it. Please see my previous posts of my 3D Garden to see the two pieces of artwork I made for this room. My husband did all the work! Thank you Lord that I married a handyman! (See previous blogs for a picture of him at work - not exactly happy that I was taking a picture- lol)
Anyway, stay tuned for more pictures as we finish more of our renos. I love before and after shots don't you?

Tree of Life - Revelations Painting

I finished my second 'real painting'. The Lord gave me this image a long time ago and I was finally able to capture it on a canvas. I love reading Revelations and the visuals it gives me. One of them is this one, The Tree of Life, The streams of living water flowing through it, the many different fruit on one tree. It is so flourishing and abundant and full. I was frustrated at first and then I prayed and then gave this painting to the Lord that I might finish it for His glory. I pray that it does so. Please let me know what you think.

My 2nd 3D Garden For My New Bathroom

I am finished with the pictures for the bathroom. I created a 2nd paper Quill with a darker orange flower to accent the walls. We are going rather bold in our colors as we renovate our home. Oranges/Camels and Rusts. I am certain it will look absolutely stunning when we are finished. Right now, being in the middle of things is a little difficult to live with but we are very blessed to be able to take on this project and do it ourselves. The second picture is of my hubby painting the front closet. He wasn't happy I was taking pictures. Funny guss.
We have chosen rich colors to blend in with the warmth of our home. We are making our home so that we can fellowship with others and be good hosts to all. I will be (hopefully) painting some paintings for our dining room but am a little frustrated as I work with the more expensive acrylic paints than I am used to. I am going from kids murals to actual paintings so it is a difficult process. I might just need a lesson or two in acrylic paints. Oy vay. Well, happy creating!

Provoke Me Lord! Entry

When I wrote this poem I was feeling trapped by the world, led astray and far away from God. I desperately needed God to stir up my spirit within me so that I could feel His glorious presence in my life. Sometimes the world seems to close in all around us and it is so hard to feel God in our lives. We get so busy we lose track of our first love, God. I like the image I put with this poem because it portrays my feelings at the time of the poem. God has used poetry as such a gift of healing in my life as well as a time of renewal and restoration of my relationship with Him. I thank God that He is in my life and allows me to vent in this way.

Experimenting with Basic Grey Papers

I was at my girlfriend Nancy's house the other day and she showed me her new scrapbooking papers she got from her girlfriend. The papers were from Basic Grey ( www.basicgrey.com ) and what they do is make a number of designs that go together and are grouped according to name. The selection I liked the best was called Pheobe. The colors and designs on this paper were mouthwatering, they instantly made me want to draw them. Although Nancy doesn't scrapbook she does make cards and she couldn't resist the entire new collection from Basic Grey. When I looked at all the designs they made me want to add them in some way to my journal. I am looking forward to working with more of this brand of paper. It is not only beautiful but is an excellent quality of paper too.