it takes a village...

hi all!

did everyone have a fabulous christmas???  we certainly did - probably one of the most perfect christmases ever except for the fact that we did not get to see my oldest boy.  we did our family-present-unwrapping-big christmas breakfast time on christmas eve so we could spend christmas day at the in-laws.  my youngest boy came over and played with pezza and ate and napped and ate and napped.  we got several inches of snow for even more fun play time.  pezza loved all of her gifts - we didn't go overboard and instead picked a few really good ones and it worked out perfectly.  she loved her stuff and was not overwhelmed and flinging things aside to be forgotten.  christmas day we headed to my in-laws for lunch and more gifts and everyone had a good time.  hubby and i said no gifts for each other since we are both pretty spoiled and get whatever we want throughout the year but OF COURSE he broke the rules and got me something anyway - a docking station speaker for my ipod which i have been wanting so i was quite pleased!  i am a HORRIBLE gift getter.  i WANT to get perfect gifts but i am completely terrible at it.  but i have something in mind to get him with next year...just gotta see if i can pull it off...!  i think the nicest thing about this year was that i did not overdue it and i took it easy on myself.  not everything on my wish list got done but i decided i am done trying to set impossible goals for myself and killing myself trying to reach them.

so i am fascinated by whimsical houses - ok let's be honest - i am fascinated by whimsical anything but i LOVE houses as a subject matter.  a few weeks ago pezza and i were relaxing in starbucks and started doodling a little village together on one of our bags.  i LOVE how she is SO much freer with her doodling - years of conditioning on what is "right" are totally absent when you are only 6 years old!  then last week i came across a post on Cathy Michaels Design and knew i needed to start bringing our little village to life.  not only was i IN AWE of her work - and ALL of her posts are seriously awe-inspiring - but i loved her method of couch potato art.  i do something similar in the summer when we head out to camp - i can't bring my whole craft room so i gather a few items to bring with and make do with what i have!

and so i started a page in my studio and got the basics down and then i grabbed some rubons, zig pens, neocolor crayons, gel pens and a water brush and headed to bed.  yes bed not the couch.  pezza wanted to do mommy bedtime which basically means she gets to hang out in mom's bed and fall asleep with me instead of having to go to bed in her own bed.  here is the end result:

my background consists of washes of watered down Luminarte Silks Acrylic glaze - LOADS of shimmer even with the additional water.  I added a bit of stenciling with straight Silks too.

i gathered some papers - a french book page, music pages, scrapbook papers and cut out some basic house shapes, added washes of watered down Silks on each of those and glued those on with my tape runner. then i sponged on some cream and white paints very lightly across the whole thing.

i sprayed the whole thing with workable fixative before moving on.  i knew i would be using more wet media and the silks are water soluable so i wanted to "set" them and prevent them from running.

and then i just doodles and colored and doodled some more.  and learned some things.  some of my doodles i liked.  others i did not.  i LOVE the way the neocolors "behave" on the workable fixative surface.  i am NEVER very good with the gel pens.  and the rubons are perfect additions - especially the ones that are actually double sided adhesive that you rub the foil on top of!  i am going to need some more of those!  i never really used rubons for anything before now!  i think i will be doing some more of this!