Weekly Diary – April 13 2014

Just a few photos from this week:

The boys like to play Stratego.

and I like watching them.

especially when there’s laughter

we also made our own ice cream sandwich cake.

the little boy made some magnet creations.

while I worked.

then we visited david at school where the 3rd graders presented their nonfiction books. David’s was on quantum physics.


then it was family photo time.

and tickle time!


and here we go. so grateful for my life. i hope your week was lovely, too.


Weekly Diary is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

Nathaniel Reads to Mommy – Week 7


Nathaniel Reads to Mommy is a project for 2014 that I am doing with my 4.5-year-old son. You can read more about it here.

Today I Know – Week 14

This week’s inspiration also comes from this pin. I started drawing this while I was on the plane and so it’s a bit wobbly but so be it.

I drew this page and then colored it using Faber Castell qrt pencils and some watercolor pencils and peerless watercolors. Then I went over it with my pitt pen to make it darker. I colored the background with watercolor pencils.

prompt says: today i know that i am hungry for

I wrote about how i am hungry for knowing what i makes me come alive.


Today I Know is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

What Lies Within

Today’s quote is:

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I like that this is not as much about the present moment as it is about being you. I like the idea of thinking about what lies within me. And also what lies within the people I love. It makes me curious about what lies within each of us. I wish we talked about that more.

When we’re kids this question comes up all the time. What do you want to be? What do you like to do? What makes you happy? But as we get older, it’s as if these questions are no longer relevant.

Maybe we just assume that the career/path we picked must be the one we wanted. Or maybe others assume that. Either way, I don’t see this question come up in conversations. I can’t remember the last time anyone asked me any of these. Nor can I remember asking an adult myself.

So maybe this is a good time as any. I’ll start and maybe you can share, too.

  • I don’t know what I want to be anymore. I am a bit confused and lost.
  • I feel inspired by art more than anything else at the moment but I am not sure I have any deep desire to be an artist for a living. However I know I don’t want to stop doing art or learning art.
  • I also love learning in general. I’ve been on duolingo a lot with David for Spanish and also practicing my Italian. I love it and feel excited when I do it.
  • I love reading and listening to books. They make me happy.
  • Teaching my kids, explaining something i know, seeing someone else “get it” makes me happy.
  • Nature makes me happy. 
  • Volunteering makes me happy
  • What lies within me is a deep desire to make people’s lives better, to be of use, and to fully come into my own.

And there we go. This is my short list as of this moment. I wish we regularly asked people around us:

What lies within you?

Monthly Projects – March – Fashion Figures

After completely skipping February, for March, I decided to draw a fashion figure every day for my Monthly Drawing Projects. I discovered this awesome blog called paper fashion and fell completely in love. I then obsessively pinned and drew all month. I ended up with thirty women.

For the last set, I started using actual watercolor paper. I like these so much more.

None of these are original to me. All of the figures come from artists in this pinterest board.

I will now post every single one so you can see them larger. Feel free to skip since it’s 30 of them.

There we are. I was very tempted to continue with this for April, too, but I think I will take a break and I have an idea for April, so we’ll see how that goes. I will most likely do another month of these figures later this year.


You can read more about my monthly projects in 2014 here.

Stitching Circles – Week 14

This week’s stitching also comes from urban threads. I love this sketch, isn’t it so cute? I used stem stitch and back stitch on this one. The little word is joy. This one made me think of Calvin and Hobbes for some reason.


Stitching Circles is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

Words to Live By

This is a layout I made for My Mind’s Eye.

I wanted to tell you a little bit about how I came to make this page. In the middle of last year, I started making 6×12 pages just so try something new. I wasn’t sure if I would love it or loathe it, but I wanted to be willing to stretch.

As it turned out, I loved it. I loved it so much that I continued to make only 6x12s for the rest of the year.

After a few months, I had this idea of making two side by side 6×12 pages where one side would just be long journaling. I sat on this idea for months. I even mentioned it during one of the Paperclipping Roundtable episodes but even saying it out loud wasn’t enough to get me to do it. I just kept thinking about it.

So when I sat down to make my first layout for 2014, I decided it was time. I wanted to try it out and see how it would look. I look a long blog post I wrote a while ago about how I would like to treat people and the kind of person I want to be. After I wrote it all out, I bought myself a ring with the words kind, present, listen. So I took photos of my ring and coupled it with my journaling.

And here’s what I ended up with:

Even though it’s made to go together, these are two separate 6×12 layout pages. I plan to store them in a 12×12 page protector and the fact that they will move in there doesn’t bother me. If it bothers you, you can tape them together or to a 12×12 piece of paper.

The nice thing about using a 6×12 page of journaling is that you can put it through a normal printer and do not need an oversized one. If you want to read the whole journaling, you can read it here

I mixed the beautiful new shimmering Lost and Found lines with the bold blacks of the Chalk Studio line and some enamel dots from Cupid’s Arrow.
If you haven’t seen the Lost and Found record it! lines in person, I cannot tell you how beautiful all the glittered papers are:

I created my layout such that the right side is a full layout that could stand on its own, so I gave it a title and all the finishing touches of a complete 6×12 layout.

but then to make sure the two pages did work together, I made it so the photos spilled over a bit, I added the decorative tape border around the 12×12 area, and I added a glittered piece with a black chipboard piece and enamel dot on opposing ends of each page to frame it even more. A full round of stitching and my page was done.

I am so glad that after months of pondering it, I finally sat down and made this page. I love the asymmetry of the words on one side and the embellishments on the other. I love that I got to tell a long story and didn’t feel any pressure to write less. I would like to take the time and space to tell some longer stories and I love that this format allows me to do that without worrying about how I can make the design and journaling work together. It feels like I am not compromising on anything.

The Way Out

And today’s quote:

The best way out is always through. -Robert Frost

Robert Frost has always been one of my favorite poets. I’ve written his Nothing Gold Can Stay on many diaries in my childhood. When I saw this it spoke to me and I started thinking about where I am in my life, how I feel, what I would like “out” of and what “through” might mean for those situations.

I am not sure I know the answer.

I think the point of this quote is that there are no shortcuts, no work arounds. You have to do the hard work it takes to move out of a situation that’s not working. And when you do, that’s when the reward comes. None of us come out the same on the other side. We’ve grown, learned, conquered and made it through.

I don’t even think through has to mean hard. It just means we didn’t take a shortcut. Or that’s what I am making it mean. (what do you think?)

And looking at my situation(s) with that lens, I am trying to put together what through would mean. How do I find my way out? What would out even look like?

I don’t know the answers but sometimes the first step starts with more questions.

A Book a Week – The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P was another Amazon recommendation. It’s always interesting when writing crosses gender boundaries. And I think this female author did a good job of writing a book from a man’s perspective.

But the character was so unlikeable to me that I didn’t care how realistic it was.

It made me remember all the things I didn’t like about NYC and my twenties. Things I didn’t like about others. Meh.

If you’re interested in NYC and are similar to some of the characters in this book, you’ll like it. Or if you’re like me, maybe you’ll remember these people and how much you didn’t like them.

Savor Project – 2014 – Spread Eleven

This week’s about making healthier choices and doing art with the kids. I love having our family photos each week, too.

so grateful.


Savor Project is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

Changing the World

So today’s quote is:

You must be the change you want to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

In 2003, when I had my Teach For America training, on the very last night they had a celebration and they blasted Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson. Which is one of my favorites of his. I remember going back to my dorm room that night and calling Jake and telling him that this work was so important and worthwhile that I didn’t know why more people wouldn’t want to do it.

I learned the answer to that over the next year but that’s another conversation for another time.

I’ve been thinking about what this means for where I am today in my life and what I want. I am a firm believer that the only person we can fundamentally change is ourselves. And that if we want others to do/behave/feel differently, we have to start with ourselves. This is the same as role modeling for your children. It’s easy to tell them no to lie but much harder to never lie ourselves.

If we want to see a kind world, we can start by being kinder ourselves. If we want to see more people helping others, we can help others ourselves. This applies to everything I can think of.

Which makes me think, well what do I want?

I want to be kind. I want others to be kind. Open, accepting. I want to be present and I want all of us to be more present. I think our attention span is not what it was. I think it’s easy to work/surf 24/7 now and I want to be present. I want to be with others who are present. I want to take care of nature because it gives me so much peace to be in nature. I want to eat well and move away from processed food. I want all of us to eat more naturally. I want us to be willing to be vulnerable with each other and work together. I want everyone to shine their own light. Step into who they are and embrace that wholeheartedly.

And it needs to start with me.

And you. What do you want?

Remember This – Week 14

Week seven’s Life Book assignment was by the amazing Jane Davenport and it was to pick three of your positive qualities and create a pop-up.

The first thing I did was to pick my three qualities and draw three girls that symbolized them. I used the amazing Willow Tree statues as my examples and drew one girl reading, one girl holding a heart, and one girl with a bird. I first did rough sketches with pencil leaving a half of an inch in the bottom to fold over:

then I went over each of them with a micron 0.005 pen.

I then used watercolors to color my girls:

The next thing I did was to use the same paper in the same size (4×6 in this case) and create three flaps. I then painted the flaps and adhered them to my blank page:

here they are open:

Now it was time to make my page. I took all the 3×4 and 4×6 cards from the Record It! line from My Mind’s Eye and pulled out a bunch of them that spoke to me at that moment. I layered them all over my page without thinking too hard about it. I regularly reminded myself not to think too hard. Here’s what I had by that point:

I then took them all off and covered the page with Mod Podge and adhered them all down. At this point, I moved stuff around mostly because I couldn’t remember where I had originally put them. I also cut some of the cards. For example, I cut out the love circle and the words out of some of the cards and the see through white heart, etc. I added a few bits and pieces of washi tape and layer one was done. The next task was to cut out the flaps I’d adhered. I used an exacto knife to find the seams and cut them. It wasn’t super-easy but it also wasn’t super-hard. At this point, it looked like this:

Here’s a side view so you can see the flaps:

The next thing I did was to glue my girls inside the flaps. At this point, I realized I hadn’t thought this through really well and I needed the bottoms of the girls to be longer, so I adhered some more paper to them and painted it black. I journaled all over the background of each flap on why this quality was important to me. Then I added some paint to the cover page and I was pretty much done. Here is a look with the girls in there:

and a look at each girl popped up. Authentic, holding the bird:

Curious, holding the book:

Kind, holding a heart:

and here’s a look with the journaling when the girl is laying down:

And a final look at the page closed.

And that’s it. The girls aren’t popping up as smoothly as I’d like but I still loved this assignment. It challenged me and I was able to sketch, watercolor, acrylic paint, and collage all in one page!


Remember This is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.