Now that I'm in the mood for Valentine's Day, I thought I'd put this one up for sale in hopes that someone would buy it for their Valentine Sweetheart. I had actually taken it home to keep for myself because I really love it, but I have too much art in my house so I figured I should stop being so selfish and spread the LOVE.
Side-note: After I created this painting, Grady phoned me at work and told me that one of his clients was wearing a lulu lemon hoodie with the words "Love is the new Black" printed on it. He was wondering if that's where I got the idea and NO, it's not! I so thought I was being original and clever with this wording. Oh well, good for lulu lemon for capitalizing on my great idea. Ha. Love is the New Black | 12" x 12" | Acrylic and collage on canvas, resined surface | $99 | Available in the on-line Art Shop here or in person at Imagine Ink, Creston, BC
For Family Night this week and with Valentine's Day on it's way we decided to make an "I Love You Because..." Tree. What is that? Well, we totally make it up. Check it out...
We started off with a pot that we got at the Dollar Store and filled with foam. Then, the kids shoved some sticks in (which were spray painted silver)... Then, we filled the rest of the pot with heart candies to cover up the foam and make it look pretty and full of love. Then, the kids glue-gunned on some cute little clothespins with hearts on them (gotta love that Dollar Store!).... Then... we each wrote little cards to each person in the family. I wrote "Grady, I love you because...." "Kienna, I love you because..." "Keiryn, I love you because..." notes which were full of the reasons why each one of them are loved.
We all got a chance to write about everyone in the family and then we read them aloud. It was a nice chance to share the reasons why we all love each other by picking each of our best qualities and focusing on them. The kids were absolutely glowing when Grady and I read the reasons why we love them.
When we finished reading them we then put them on the tree and finished it off by hanging some other hearts that we had around the house.
And now, we have a very meaning-full "I Love you Because..." Tree on our coffee table to remind us of why each one of us are loved. The perfect Valentines decoration don't you think?
Remember a few weeks ago I posted about Gotye? You can read the post here. Anyway, I'm totally addicted to that song and look what I found: the coolest variation on that song EVER. There are FIVE people playing on ONE guitar. Super epic. The people in this world never cease to amaze me with their creativity and talent!
January had an emotionally rough start for me this year. I always feel with the start of a new year that I must come up with a resolution or a list of goals for the up and coming year and normally I can do that. But not this year. I struggled when January came. I started the year off in a total blue funk of not knowing where I am headed and I hate that. I'm a person that thrives on goals and it saddened me that I didn't have any. That's so not how I roll.
You see, 2011 was the most amazing year I've ever had. I was still able to run Imagine Ink (my graphic design and print shop) but I allowed myself to pull back a bit and explore my personal art journey a little more during my work day. I started off by teaching art classes and then ventured even further into making and selling my own art. It was more of an experiment than anything, and guess what? It worked! I loved both things. Teaching art to kids and making my own art are two things that feed my soul. I know that now. Awesome. Plus, aside from those two things feeding my soul, they were profitable as well. Even more awesome.
So, when 2012 came, I knew it was time to decide what I wanted. I tried the experiment, and it was successful. So now what? That stressed me out a bit because I knew it was time to take all of what I learned in 2011 and apply that somehow to my life. But how?
After an astronomical amount of time spent on getting my brain and thoughts sorted out, I think I've come up with a mind-blowing-ly amazing plan. I'm not sure if I can pull it off yet but I'm more excited than I ever have been in my life and if anything, I'm getting high off the adrenaline and that is how I roll.
A friend showed me this link. If you have twenty minutes, I would HIGHLY recommend that you watch this. It could be the motivating factor that you need to change your life dramatically. Worst case scenerio, you'll learn a thing or ten. I totally admire this woman because her philosophy is almost exactly like mine. She took the words right out of my mouth.
This is so cool. You go to this website called Beautiful Word Clouds and punch in your URL for your blog and it will take the words from your blog and create a random creation using your own text. The reason I'm sharing is because look at the word that is biggest in my cloud. DOG. Frig. I wish the universe would just leave me alone on this dog thing. I am sooo over getting a dog.
