So it is Monday and so much has been happening in my life that I feel like I couldn’t even begin to explain it all.  Nothing bad, luckily.  It has all been good, just busy.  So busy that I’m tired even after two days off and a slow weekend.

Friday during school hours and then again during the night my kids had their variety show at their elementary school.  Having a back ground in theatre, and frankly a degree in that nonsense, I somehow got roped into that madness.  Things went well, but working with some forty kids ranging in age from 6 to 11, it is needless to say a little emotionally trying.  Kids have such crazy emotions.  And when they get scared, you feel it with them.  When they are elated you celebrate with them.  When they break down cause things got off the rails, you are right there with them fighting tears.  I don’t know how teachers of young children do it everyday, but I am grateful for those who do.

My son preformed in the show, singing a solo.  It was huge.  I mean HUGE.  Two years ago he couldn’t give an oral report in front of his classroom without falling apart.  Now, he sang and preformed in front of the entire student body.  It was a sight to see.  Needless to say I didn’t see it, since I bawling my eyes out like any mother would do, but I’ve since seen the videos.  Not only did he get up there, but he was entertaining.  He wasn’t afraid to engage with his audience.  He was a brilliant little man, and I’m a very proud mother.  Of course he thinks the whole thing was no big deal.  And his sisters were so proud, they are already planning their acts for next year.  Heaven help me.

I also taught an art lesson to two teachers and two students Friday between shows.  It is a long story how that all came about, but the short of it was that it was part of a fundraising thing for our school.  However it was pretty cool showing those four a bit of mixed media and how to build a canvas.  I think they all got a kick out of it.

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On that note, I’ve got a cool mix media card inspired by a monthly card challenge.  The designers over at The Mixed Media Card Challenge every month toss out a theme challenge and ask for no less then three different mediums, and this month was no exception.  This month the theme was reflections with an optional element of water.

I took the challenge of both the and the element and pulled out

my new (to me) crazy cat stamp from Tim Holtz and stamped it out on a piece of 110lb card stock.  I had a strange goal this month of doing a one layer card, so I ran with it and stamped out the strange little kitty.  Then using a bit of transparency as an experiment, I stamped the kitty again with some Archival ink and quickly rubbed the image under the original stamp to get a reflection of the cat.  It worked better then I hoped it would.  Taking my black stabilo pencil and sketched out a light line to mark the edge of the land.  Using shades of blue and grey gelato I created the water.  Using yellows and orange gelatos I did the same with the sky.  The kitty got colored in with my fantastix brush tip (a cool little pen that can pick up color and move it) and brown shades of Distress Ink.  Finally I added a blue shade of perfect pearls over the impression of a Deep Red bubble stamp.  I added the sentiment from Dylusions and called it a day.  I know the card ended up a little grungy, but it was in fact just one layer, and it makes me smile.  It made my kids laugh, so there was also that.

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The gurus of color over at Color Throwdown this week have tossed out a very pretty color palette with the shades of blush, rose, gray and white.  I loved the image of the bathtub, and figured that was the direction I wanted to head.  However, I did not have a serene stamp image so the one from Art Impressions was just going to have to work.

I colored the gals in with my Copics trying to stick to just the colors of the challenge.  I hope the skin colors of the gals fall into the blush category.  If those fall into the blush family, I think I did a really nice job coloring with in the borders of the challenge.  I trimmed out some blush and rose paper to highlight the card and added a sentiment from the same stamp pack with a bit of dimensional tape.  And for your information, the girls in this image is the woman I want to grow up to be.  They seem fun.

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The gals over at Freshly Made Sketches this week tossed out one of those sketches that has some many possibilities that you are kind of lost at what to do.

I have recently not been trying to take sketches so literally, but I

may have pushed the boundaries a little far, however, this time.  Instead of doing a literal line up the side of the card, I used the lines of this woman to do it.  I stamped out the Julie Nutting stamp and colored her in with my Copics, and adhered her to the card.  I stamped out a great sentiment from Riley & Company Funny Bones line and left the card at just that.  There is so much white left that I am going a little crazy, but yet, I really like how she ended up.  I just hope the gals over at FMS agree that the gal more or less makes a straight line.

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Finally today we have another color challenge from the queens of color.  This is a really bright challenge using the colors of melon mambo, tangerine tango, coastal cabana, midnight muse, and white.

Lately I have seen a lot of spotlight coloring, and really wanted to

try my hand at it.  I pulled out a floral stamp pack from Stampendous and stamped out a bunch of images over some card stock with some Paris Dusk Memento Ink  (I promise the images are blue, just really dark blue).  Then using a square die from My Favorite Things and cut out the center of the image.  I colored in the cut out images with some Copics, trying to create the green, orange and pink of the challenge.  I adhered the outer edge of the stamped image to the card, and added the colored portion with some dimensional tape.  I am not sure I nailed the spotlight coloring, but at least I knocked out my first try.  Next time it will go better.

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That’s all for today.  I am off to the post office to ship out a mixed media piece I just finished for a friend.  I’m hoping to snag lunch while I am out, but I may just get the parcel out and call it a day till it is time to get the kids.  Or who know…maybe something extraordinary will happen.  Till next time, take a moment to make something, even if it doesn’t end up being pretty.