Inspire Me Thursday - Goddess

Goddess of My Imagination

6 x 6 inches, Prismacolor pencils and ink on bristol board

The creative prompt this week over at Inspire Me Thursday is "Goddess". I wanted to think about this for a couple of days, so I spent most of the weekend immersed in Harry Potter (yes, I finished it, and all I will say right now is "Wow!" - don't want to spoil it for anyone). Every now and then I took a break from reading to get some gardening done, go to Erin's birthday party, and to contemplate art. So when I visited the IMT website earlier today, I was left speechless by all the beautiful goddesses everyone has been working on.

This is the Goddess of My Imagination, who sees color, movement, and life all around her. She started as a doodle in my sketchbook, and was supposed to be a quick, simple sketch, but became more complex as I worked with her. I think I may have also been influenced by all the violets I've been making in my cake decorating class!

I do love working with colored pencils. I think it's the child in me, who has always loved coloring books and big boxes of crayons. They're portable as well, so I can take them just about anywhere I might want to draw.

Daring Cardmakers - The Haberdashery Department

The dare this week at Daring Cardmakers:

"Your card can be any theme you like, just as long as it's got something you'd find in a Haberdashery Department on it."

Well, here in the southern U.S., "haberdashery" isn't something you hear very often, so I had to think about it for a moment. Back in the day, we bought supplies like this at the "dry goods store" in our small town, and now we just refer to such departments as the fabric or notions department.

I'm still in the middle of my Harry Potter re-readathon, which I must complete in the next few days, so I felt compelled to make this card as quickly as possible (my excuse for submitting such a basic card!). I'm also trying to use up some of my small paper and cardstock scraps, so that's what I did here. My haberdashery items are the snaps and the ribbon. I love using my snapsetter (although I rarely set them in clothing) -- it's an excuse to bring out the hammer and pound away!

Crackin' Up

I haven't spent much time the past few days doing creative work, because I've been trying to finish some books that were due back at the library today. I am not ashamed to admit that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, and I've been re-reading all the books so that everything will be fresh in my mind when The Deathly Hallows (Book 7) is finally out. I just returned Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire, and there were no copies of Order of the Phoenix at the library tonight, so I guess I'll be visiting another branch. Last night I was trying to finish up The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, but --- sometimes I've just gotta bake! So, during all the breaks while baking sugar cookies, I worked on finishing my book.

Now, this baking experience was very satisfying, not because I used a great recipe (it was just a packaged mix), but because I managed to crack an egg one-handed. I've always been a two-handed egg-cracker, probably because I want the yolks to stay perfectly intact, especially when I expect my breakfast eggs to be cooked easy-over (no hard yolks for me!). But a couple of weeks ago, when Erin and Tara baked my cake for my cake decorating class, Erin was cracking eggs, one-handed, like a pro. She told me how to do it with 5 simple words. "You just squeeze it here." Sounded simple enough, and looked pretty simple, and it really is! Yes, I do get excited about the smallest things. I'm not sure where Erin learned how to do it, but since she and Tara watch even more of the Food Network than I do, it was probably from Giada or Rachel, or maybe Bobby.

Tonight I went to a class on how to make natural bath and beauty products. I'll share a photo tomorrow.

Inspire Me Thursday - World Traveler

The prompt this week for Inspire Me Thursday was "world traveler". As a child, I traveled the world for free. Books took me anywhere I wanted to go. I can recall often trying to hide a book in my lap at the dinner table, because I just couldn't put it down! Even today, I can travel through time and across continents by reading. Since I enjoyed Typography so much in art school, I thought I'd take a typographic approach this week.