June Adventures

I can't believe June has come and gone by already. 

I think I will start with my sun/sky photos that I took this month. It has been really hot and humid here in Florida already this summer. It is so uncomfortably hot out. I was able to get a couple good sun pictures this month.

I was super excited to be a backer for the LightSail Kickstarter campaign:

The campaign is over now, but there are ways you can still support it find out more here. I will share more on this later when I get my little gifts for my support.

My little area held its own first annual Comic Con. It was small but definitely fun and entertaining. I took more pictures but they didn't come out very well. I should have taken the DSLR camera with me to get better pictures. There were a few celebrities there, we sat in on a few of the panels. Spencer Wilding was very charming and interesting to hear what projects he worked on and tell stories about working on certain sets. Sebastian Roche was a total nutcase. He came out and just turned the place into a huge party. He had kids up on the stage dancing and singing. It was pretty crazy. Then Natalija Nogulich who was best known for being Admiral Alynna Nechayev on Star Trek: Next Generation. She was so down to earth and had very interesting stories of working with other actors.

Here are the few pictures that actually came out ok:

There were some food truck outside the convention. We ate at a truck called Phatz Chicken, and had the most amazing chicken and waffles.

I saw a couple interesting movies this month.

First was a little animated movie from Ireland called Song of the Sea. This movie was one of the most beautifully written and artistic movies I have seen in a long time. The whole movie looked like a huge watercolor painting. There were times the story made me laugh and then cry. If you like beautifully animated movies and are interested in Celtic Mythologies/Folkstories, you need to see this movie.

The second movie was Jurassic World, which was great and full of adventure. If you liked any of the other Jurassic Park movies you will like this one. Plus it has Chris Pratt in it!

I was excited to finally finish the LifeBook lesson I was working on, you can read more about that here.

I do have another lesson finished for this and will post about that next week.

I finished the third book of the Outlander series. This story was by far my favorite so far. So much suspense, anticipation, adventure, and action in this one. I have moved on to the fourth book and that was is starting out a little slower for me but I am sure it will move along soon.

I have been on pinterest a lot lately and that recipe for Smores Dip kept popping up in my feed. I just had to try it. I went and bought one of the tiny dutch oven pots. I broke up a hershey bar on the bottom, then put as many small marshmallows on top that would fit. I put it in the oven on 450 for about 5 minutes. Then dip graham crackers and enjoy. It was amazing!!!

The last exciting thing that happened this month is I finalized the paperwork to have my master bathroom remodeled. They are not going to start work until the beginning of August, but I am super excited to get that room all fixed. I plan on taking before and after pictures.

I think that is about it for this month. I would like to wish everybody a wonderful Fourth of July!

LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 12 ~ Tangled

This was a mixed media collage project that was taught by Finnabair. I have to admit when the lesson first came through my email and I saw it I didn't feel called to the lesson. Now remember I am way behind on these lessons, but I am trying to go through them as best I can. As it got closer for me to start thinking about this lesson and especially after I watched the video. I thought it would be a great tribute to my Mom and Siblings. Then as the idea came to me, I knew my siblings would not allow me to just make one for myself so I ended up making three of them. Here is the finished piece.

I did decide to take some progress photos. Here is a picture of all the found objects glued down. Some of the pieces I chose for a reason and others either made me think of Mom or they were just for decoration. The few pieces I chose with meaning are: the bottle cap - it is from Guinness bottles (one of Mom's favorite beers), the little clock - to remind us that time is short and to live it to the fullest, the little lock is a heart and the key - they represent my Mom holding the key to my heart because she means the world to me. The items that just reminded me of Mom are: the shamrocks (because you can't do anything representing my Mom without shamrocks), the butterflies, birds, and flowers (because anything with nature reminds my of Mom).

After everything was glued down, I covered everything in gesso. I ended up doing a few layers of this.

I then took some shimmering spray inks and sprayed them down.

It took me a bit to find the frames that I wanted at an affordable price. I ended up purchasing them from an Etsy shop called Scruffyrumpkins. I wasn't sure what color I wanted them, so I just purchased them in white. I then painted them with this shimmery powder type paint.

I then added a layer of antique gold.

Then I glued down the photos and added some highlighted details to the rest of the piece.

Here are all three of them side by side.

After completing this project I fell in love with the process and already have ideas for more projects.

Technology Tradeshow Banner Design

This is a banner I designed for a tradeshow that my company exhibited at. We attend quite a few of these education tradeshows every year. This show in particular was for promoting technology in classrooms. We have several of these programs to help with reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary.

May Adventures

Well May started out with a bang! We ended up meeting the boyfriends brother and family up in Orlando and went to Universal Studios. You can read about that here. 

I had planned on getting this posted on Tuesday but last week I updated my computer and found out that it replaced iPhoto with a new program just called Photos. It doesn't allow you to edit in an external application anymore so I had to figure out the best way to go about editing my photos. I finally figured it out though!

I decided to change my profile picture for May to a throw back image of me and my Mom. May is Mother's Day and also my Mom's Birthday. When I look back at old pictures there are so many of me right by my Mom's side. She is still in a nursing home in a minimal state, and I miss being able to ask her advice on things. She is my best friend and the only person who completely understands me.

We ended up down south and finally made it to the Cheesecake Factory. Oh My Gods this thing was amazing! It is a Toasted Marshmallow Smores Cheesecake. I couldn't eat it all in one sitting.

This is the sunset from our ride back home from the Cheesecake Factory.

This was a sunrise on my way to the gym one morning. I loved the tall clouds with the yellow of the sun coming up behind them.

We went to the local winery a couple of weekends in a row. The first was Memorial Day weekend and they had a jazz band playing. They played a couple old patriotic songs. Then we found that they had this Hard Root Beer. This tasted just like Root Beer and you don't realize there is alcohol in it at all.

The next weekend we ended up out there they had their house band playing. They play mostly country and southern rock. I really enjoy seeing them play.

I have started the next lesson for my LifeBook 2014 classes. I know I am so behind still on these. I was hoping to finish them this year but I am not so sure that is going to happen. I get frustrated sometimes, because I wish I had more time to work on them and my own projects. Here are some work in progress photos from this Week 12 lesson. I have been hiding parts of the project because I don't want my sister or brother to see it just yet. I will write a full blog post on this as soon as I finish it.

I hope May was wonderful for all of you and looking forward to a busy creative June!

The Adventures of Stanky and Amazing Gracie Book Design

I was able to work on this fun little book a few months back. It is about a little girl who still loves her blankie and uses it as as her superhero cape. The book follows her on her adventures to find out what her superpowers are. The story is super cute!

I designed the Cover and did the page layout for this book. The best part of working on this book was seeing the illustrations come in. I was truly amazed that the illustrations for this book were done by a 15 year old artist.

To find out more about this book and how to purchase a copy go to Pigsfly Publishing's website. To follow the progress of the story you can follow the Facebook page for The Adventures of Stanky and Amazing Gracie.

Universal's Diagon Alley Adventures

We went to Universal Studios a couple of weekends ago, to see the new Harry Potter section, Diagon Alley. I was so excited to see this new part. I had seen the first section Hogsmeade at Islands of Adventure about 5 years ago.

We ended up staying at The Fountains which is one of the Bluegreen Resorts. It was a beautiful resort. The beds were super comfy. We ended up in a 2 bedroom and asked a couple friends if they would like to come stay with us.

These carp were in the lake of the resort. They were huge!

We went to Universal the next morning. We did end up at both sides of the park but I didn't take pictures of Hogsmeade because I had already been there 5 years ago. I wish I would have taken pictures of the Train and during the ride over to Diagon Alley. When we got off the train in looked just like the Knight's Crossing Train Station. Before you get to the entrance of Diagon Alley you see the Knight Bus parked out there.

You can also see the outside of Grimmauld Place. If you look in the window you can see Kreacher peeking out at you.

The entrance to Diagon Alley was just like in the book and the movies. It was hidden behind a brick wall. When you enter the first thing you notice is the dragon on top of Gringotts.

We did ride the Escape from Gringotts ride. This ride was really fun, I liked it better than the Hogwart's Castle ride. While waiting in line you go through the bank and towards the vaults.

Here are a couple more shots of the dragon!

He also breathes fire every so often.

They had a store called The Money Exchange where you can exchange regular money for Gringott's Certificates that you can spend throughout the park. You can also buy little trinkets and a gift set of the coins. While you are waiting in line there is an interactive goblin that will answer questions while you wait. I asked him if he would smile so I could take his picture. This is his smile!

They also added Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. This store had all the candies mentioned in the stories, like Puking Pastilles, Nose Bleed Nougat, Fever Fudge, and Fainting Fancies. There were also a bunch of the jokes and gadgets from the stories. They also had the love potions and the pygmy puffs. They were so cute.

Here are some random shots from the area.

They now sell these interactive wands and have little interactive areas throughout the Harry Potter areas. There is a little plate that tells you the motion that you need to do with the want to get the interactive area to work. This one if you did the spell correctly the umbrella would rain.

They also had Knockturn Alley with Borgin and Burkes down in there. It is really dark down there but neat to check out.

This window of shrunken heads was down in Knockturn Alley. They were all talking to each other. Then I realized this was another one of the interactive things. When you get the spell correct they start singing!

I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I was so excited to see everything. I also enjoyed 2 Butterbeers while there, they are delicious.

As we were walking around the rest of the park, the boyfriend noticed they had people dressed up in Transformer costumes. We sat out there and watched them for a bit. They had Bumblebee and Megatron!

We had such a blast! I would love to go back in a smaller group when I know it isn't going to busy and get some better pictures. I took most of these with my iPhone but I would love to take the DSLR with me next time.