Happy PPF and Sneak Peek Friday!

I hope you've all had a great week, and I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to!! I didn't have time to post or participate last week, so I am thrilled to be back this week! YAY!

I had an exciting week!! Since the car accident/shoulder dislocation/broken arm/2 surgeries issues spanning the last 2.5 years, I haven't been able to sew (which has always been my go to artistic form). It was tough to adjust to at first, but it led me to try painting! SO, who am I to complain? A girl can't have too many artistic endeavors, right?

Well, as it happens, I had several days sans drugs this week (I can't tell you how wonderful that is), and I decided to give a simple sewing project a whirl! My poor machine had a thick layer of dust from 2+ years of neglect. I wasn't sure the old girl would work without a serious servicing. I crossed my fingers, blew her off, and turned her on (were I a man, I think this post would be starting to sound inappropriate right about now).

Anyway, I took a deep breath, and started to sew. I limited my time to 10 minutes - which is all I really needed anyway. And - miracles of miracles I CAN SEW!!!!!! WOOOHOOO!!!!!! Sewing may not sound exciting, but imagine if someone told you weren't allowed to sketch or paint for the past 2 years, and then being given the gift of doing it again! Trust me, it would be amazing!

I sewed for 3 days - which is why I didn't have much time to paint - which is why I'm telling you all of this in the first place. SO, capitalizing on my sewing success, I decided to give resin a try.

Resin you ask? How in the world does resin tie into painting? Well, I had a couple of small bird house shaped pendant trays which I had hand formed prior to the afore mentioned shoulder issues, which had been laying around for...well...ever. I had intended to solder them, but I had nerve damage in my hand (again from that shoulder thing) and the idea of holding a 700+ degree soldering iron in a hand that tended to drop things seemed like a good reason to put it off. Don't you think?

So, they sat, and sat, and sat some more. I moved them around, stared at them longingly, rearranged them in different stacks, and stared at them some more. Until this week....

I doodled a few sketches, added some paint, played with the composition, and then, it was time to pour the resin! I was excited! I was stoked! I was dying to finally crack open the Ice Resin that had been sitting in my studio for SOOO long!

I got all prepped.

Cover surface - check!

Light to help them cure - check!

Little mixing cups and stir sticks - check!

Bottle of Resin and Bottle of Hardner - check!

I opened the bottle of resin, only to discover, it WAS AS HARD AS...WELL...RESIN! WHAAAAAT?!!! How could my resin be hard in the bottle that had never opened? It's still a mystery, but it was useless!

Thankfully, thankfully, I had some Ranger Glossy accents which works sort of like resin. Apparently, it doesn't play well with pan pastels or permanent black ink though and it caused some blueing - but that's okay! It was a good first try, and I am happy with the outcome. Unfortunately, my little painted bird and cage did not dry in time for this post - so the most you get here is doodly painting. Sorry :( Stay tuned for next week....

Without further adieu....

Fate is the Key!

The words seemed appropriate for this post!

And now, for your Friday funny. Conversations with Mackenzie (age 5) - who has been torturing her older brother (and by extension, her mother) ALLLLL week! If I didn't know better, I would swear someone had given her a road map to my last nerve!

She came out of the shower all nice and relaxed, turned the corner to go upstairs, and her brother jumped out and yelled "BOO!" which scared the be-jesus out of her! She had it coming though. He has the nail and bite marks to prove it. After she calmed down, she said "Jack, you really shouldn't do that. It's very disrespectful to me!". That's how your 5 year old speaks, right?

Happy Friday everyone!