Sympathy Card by Pezza

Hi all!

Quick post today for Pezza.  Her teacher missed the 2nd & 3rd week of school because her father died.  Pezza was very excited about her finally coming back and asked if she could make her a card so of course I agreed.

Pezza went through card sketches with me until she found one she liked.  Then she picked out the colors and the embossing folder she wanted to use.  I cut the papers for her but she did the rest, including drawing the picture herself!  I think she did a great job!

The Pezza Way

Hi all!

I know I know - I announce I got a new Cricut Explore and then drop RIGHT off the face of the earth and leave you all hanging!  I will be getting to that and some other new things too but right now I am in the middle of snow day hell!  We have had some brutally cold weather and some snow in our area (DC Metro) and it doesn't take much of that to shut the whole place down!  Pez went to school for ONE partial day in the last week so that makes for precious little mommy time.  Especially being special needs and extremely high maintenance!  Having raised the boys in MO I get a little frustrated with the seemingly needless closing of school when we were all perfectly able to go to school in the midwest and even got BLASTED on Facebook (on my own wall for God sakes - IS NOTHING SACRED?) for thinking kids should go to school when they can - apparently that makes me a bad mother but whatever.  It appears there are alot of parents in my area who simply cannot be bothered to take their walkers to school when the weather is bad - perhaps they shouldn't have had kids?  I guess it is part and parcel with the heavy sense of entitlement unique to this area.  I haven't seen it much in the other places I have lived and I have lived alot of places!  Anyway, I don't know why this one person got so angry with me, it really doesn't matter how any of us feel about snow days - we gotta do what we are told and no matter whether they cancel or don't a good half of the parents will get angry.  Luckily I don't let people get to me too much these days.  Perhaps they just needed a whipping post - meh.  I know my life is good and I am a good parent!

SO on the subject of snow days - I ave been doing all sorts of stuff to keep Pezza occupied and I even got her into the studio for awhile a couple days ago.  She is still a Tim Holtz girl at heart though she has grown alot since he put THIS VIDEO of her on his blog (she was 3 at the time).  Here is her latest page:

She began by layering on some Distress Inks - she has her own of the little cubes now but only a few colors so far.  She really wants me to get her a whole set of all of them so she doesn't have to use mommy's.  Next she wanted some shimmer mist in pink so I mixed some up using water, Gum Arabic and Pink Azalea ColourArte Primary Elements.

Next she smeared on some modeling paste through a stencil - this diamond stencil is one of the first ones I ever got from The Crafter's Workshop and it's still both our favorite!  While the paste was still wet she sprinkled on some red Distress Glitter and Pink Gala Glitz.

The two multi-heart shapes are a die she got at a show last year - the open heart one is paper with Distress Ink, the more solid one is red crafting foil and she wanted to leave all the small heart cut outs in so it was more of an embossed look.  The bottom 2 hearts are ones she made after reading the July 12 tags post on Tim's blog.  She did complete another project to enter for the July Tag HERE.  Sure wish I had the money to invest in all the Tim Holtz products like I used to!

She is entering her project in the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge - Think Pink.

Next up she is hoping to do Tim's current 12 tag challenge for Feb.

I am sneaking in wee bits of time in the studio here and there and hope to have some good stuff to post about this week including a DT announcement, a mixed media video (trying to get back to doing videos as my YouTube page still seems to be quite traveled....) and Cricut Explore info/updates.  I have several neighbors interested in scrapbooking together and we will be getting together for the first time tomorrow so I will get some things done then for sure!

Stay warm!

mixing it up - challenge 11!

seriously? i didn't write a single blog post last week????  EGADS!

last week was busy busy!  i started my after school mixed media class with some kids at pezza's school - CRAZINESS and MESS!  i am having them work on three boards over the course of 6 weeks.  we have 2 kindergartners, 2 first graders, 2 third graders and 1 fifth grader - 3 are boys and the rest girls plus pezza.  thank goodness we are having class in the art room BUT the art teacher was LESS than thrilled about us being in her space so i try very hard to make sure we leave no sign of ourselves after class!  if the class goes well i may do more.

we also had pezza's birthday party this weekend and i took her to the melting pot for dessert as her birthday treat.  melting pot did not impress me as much as i felt like it would - too much sweet i think!  i am not a huge chocolate person so that was my first problem BUT pez loved it and had lots of fun and it was a good mommy daughter outing.  then we had family and a few friends over for cake this weekend - of course i made her cake:

 our sunroom is a horrible setting for taking pictures - the cake was much brighter in person - just the thing for pezza!

daddy was in charge of balloons as usual and came back with a fabby bunch as usual!

now onto my projects for today - yep i have TWO!

we kick off a new challenge today on the mix it up group on Color Me Creative - we are using circles!  in addition i am entering this one in the Diva Zentangle challenge to do something mickey mouse/disney related.

i chose to use minnie mouse's bow to hold my doodles.  when i was done i used my twinkling H2Os to add some color and my charcoal pencil to add some shading.  i like doing the zentangles while i wait for pezza in gymnastics class - easily portable!  don't the twinks sparkle divinely?!?!?

this challenge pezza joined in too:

isn't it adorable!  she came up with this completely on her own!  we are going to use this for the front of her thank you cards :)

she began with some glass bead gel and green tea luminarte primary elements.  then she used some of her new fluorescent acrylic paints to paint the flowers on.  this is so HER!  in fact i may have to get some things made with this one over on Original Works!


we have THREE wonderful prizes up for grabs this month to one lucky winner!

 

$20 for Paper Temptress

 

gift certificate to Floppy Latte Digital Designs

 

FIVE jars of gorgeous shimmering Silks acrylic glaze paints from Dreaming In Color

ok now it's your turn!  what can YOU create using circles and more than one type of media?!?!!?  come join in the fun with us!

a pezza's way video!

hi everyone!

i have been super busy around here but with stuff i can't tell/show yet SO that leads to a serious lack of blog postings!!!

it's also summer time/pezza is home ALL day EVERY day with mommy time which leads to alot less work time for mommy :)  we spent yesterday morning watching the olympic gymnast trials - i took gymnastics as a kid but not the train for competition kind.  our elementary pe coach owned a gymnastics training gym and he did a serious gymnastics course every year at school which i LOVED.  he was forever trying to get me into his team at the gym but i was not allowed to take classes full time.  however i DO love to watch it!  and pezza did too.  she spent the rest of the day dancing and rolling and flipping across the house and we now have a makeshift duct tape balance beam across the living room floor. she is going to start classes in the fall.

we have had unbearable heat and humidity here which makes it tough to get out and do much.  even the pool sounds bad :P  but we may venture out to swim today.  i am hoping the crowds won't make it unbearable!

i have been doing a lot of filming lately and of course pezza wanted to get in on it too so i am posting her latest video for y'all.  she has a couple good lines in this one :)

i know she would love to read your comments!

a pezza page!

hi all!

what a GREAT day today!  i got alot done, took care of some super cute kitties at Petsmart and crafted with pezza!  she was so totally agreeable and adorable and easy today *knocks on wood* - maybe she is going to grow out of some of her insanity....

I also hooked up my Cricut to the new computer i got a couple months ago and it WORKED!  for the first time EVER i can cut stuff from Cricut Craft Room.  I am SO happy about that!  i was beginning to neglect my poor cricut!

i am off to bed soon so my post is quick - i have been staying up too late recently.  i wanted to show y'all the art journal page Pezza did for the Art Journal Cafe challenge that I talked about yesterday:

 didn't she do a great job!?!?!?  this is a far cry from the usual glitter glue piles she makes all over papers!  she sat next to me and used the same supplies while i was doing my own page and she just went to town from what she say me doing!

more art "the pezza way"

hi all!

as unreal as it sounds i STILL feel horrible.  how long can allergy reactions possibly last????  the last two days have been intense sinus headache no matter what i take.  thank goodness hubby is back in town so i can have some back up with pezza the wonder kid!

pezza is the focus of my post today too.  her artwork that is.  she has been in my craftroom while i work since birth so how could she not end up crafty and artsy right?  she made a piece alongside of me from a julie fei-fan balzer video and then jazzed it up like i did:

she started by adding a mix of things from around the house to her base with some gesso to get some fab texture going.  next she chose some luminarte primary elements and mixed up some gorgeous shimmery paints.  she was amazed at the way all of the different textures looked as she brushed paint over them - it was fun to watch her!  next she wanted to add some hearts.  now initially i thought - we'll just cut some hearts on my black cat.  but then i decided it would be much more HER if she drew them herself.  so she chose some perfect pearl shimmer mixes, mixed them up and sprayed them on a piece of brushed silver lustre cardstock from paper temptress.  then she drew hearts with a bic mark it.  i cut them out because she was getting stressed about it and i did not want it to become a not fun project.  she glued them on and chose some sparkly pink tulle to wrap around it.  this is for her best friend next door.  i think she did great don't you?!

i have been working on a little project myself.  the current Cloth Paper Scissors readers challenge is to make a USEABLE luggage tag.  at first i thought well there is no way i can do that.....but then my brain started going in spite of myself and an idea came to me so here is the beginning of my project.

i have a ways to go but it is coming along nicely!  anyone else read cloth paper scissors???  i love it!

cmc challenge pezza style

hi all!

quick post for Pezza - when i was making my card for the cmc challenge pezza wanted to join in and play too so she colored up a cute Pollycraft image and made this card for her best friend:

see those printed skittles?  i thought i was all out of them and she pulls this stash of them out from her craft area!  she did all of the designing - i just cut her paper for her!  she is well on her way to following in momma's footsteps :)

i hope to be back later with some more tim tag inspired cards for ya!