The Capital Wheel, Art Journaling, and Ugly Sweaters

The past couple of weeks have been insanely busy. It started out with heading to Baltimore for a professional development national conference that I was presenting at.  I began a bit ill with a stomach ailment but pushed through and am happy to report that my presentation was very well received. One national conference presentation down...one more to go.

While in Baltimore following dinner one evening my co-worker and I were walking around the area where are hotel was (which was on the Potomac) and we can across the Capital Wheel.  I guess it's king of like the US version of the London Eye.  Even though it was late and freezing out, we were told it was heated and impulsively decided to take a ride on the wheel.  It was pretty cool, but slightly disappointing in that the view wasn't the best. I thought we'd see more of D.C. as it was a clear night but that didn't happen. Oh well, it was a fun little adventure.

Upon getting back from this whirlwind trip I headed back to work for a busy week and right into a busy weekend.  I had decided back in December that I was going to throw an Ugly Sweater, Wine Tasting, Art Giveaway party before things got to crazy with the new semester.  My main goal was to do something fun with the wonderful people in my life and get rid of some artwork and art supplies (to avoid becoming hoarder). My mom was a great help as she came up for the weekend, helped clean, decorate and make food for the party. Plus she made a great ugly sweater for the party (which I'm still finding remnants of a week later).

I think everyone had a great time. I know I did. There was a ton of food (and lots of cheesy dishes) and some pretty ugly sweaters.  I made a gift bag full of homemade art and soaps for the winner of the ugly sweater contest. In addition, they received a dinosaur with an air plant that I made.  Neighbor Bob came over to assist in judging the ugly sweater competition (and I think enjoyed being around all us younger ladies). :)

Neighbor Bob, my mom and I were judges.

My wonderful supportive crew!

The winner of the ugly sweater.

 I also was doing really well up until I got back to work and school in creating in my little art journal fairly frequently.  I hope I can pick it up again in the near future.  Below is some of what I created.

Winter Break and Creating...

While on winter break vacation visiting my sister in South Carolina and having a house full of my family I still found some time to create. I made a pair of baby booties for a good friend of mine who is having a baby in January. I used smaller knitting needles this time and yet while my stitch is tighter my booties are still bigger than anticipated. :) I think I will need to look for a different pattern the next time around.

I also worked on starting a new small journal/sketchbook.  Since I discovered during last semester's art therapy groups that I enjoy creating on a smaller scale as I've found I'm more likely to find the time in my busy schedule to create if I'm working on a smaller scale with some easy/quick materials. I brought a package of new ink gel pens (which I ended up being slightly disappointed in the lack of color options in the package and the fact that the black pen stopped working after 3 images) with me because I wanted to have the quick materials at my disposable.  Using ink pens I created the following images. I seem to be in a reflective state lately. Perhaps it's the time of year...

So the arm knitting infinity scarves project planned with my mom, sister and me didn't go quite as planned. My sister had no interest in it. I created one and then started another one and did it along with my teaching my mom how to do one. She struggled a bit but eventually by the end caught on. The material we used was suppose to make 4 scarves but only made 3 with a little left over and that was combining all four yarns and mixing to make the third one.  We discovered that using only 4 stitches across would have worked the best and then ending them sooner even though they may have looked short because we think they will stretch. This might have then allowed us to make 4 scarves out of the material.

My nieces crib (a hand me down from her 3 cousins that have used the crib over the years) ended up breaking a bit in the rallying portion over the past couple of months. While my dad was down visiting  my sister he and my brother-in-law engineered a way to rig up the crib to be sturdy enough to hold my niece for the next 1.5 years. Of course it means it doesn't look the prettiest so my sister was wanted to buy a new one. Unfortunately cribs apparently are made to have railings that slide down anymore (due to a safety hazard- that I'm not in agreement about). So all new cribs don't slide down on the one side leaving it extremely difficult if you are short (like me) or have neck/back injuries (like my sister) to lift a baby up and down in the crib.  I volunteered to try and spruce up the new wood work on the crib with a one of the kind paint job. My sister and I headed to Michael's and got some art materials. I could have done something intricate but we didn't want me to spend the rest of the time during my visit working on it.  I finished it within about 2 hours worth of work. Suggestion- don't use paper/cardboard stencil letters! They stick and the paper peels off with them. Overall I think it turned out pretty cute and spiced up the crib.  If I had my way I would have sanded down the entire crib and done a cool antique/chalk like finish on the crib to begin with. But that would have had to have been done before my niece was born and no one thought of it then since the crib wasn't broken. The true test will be if my sister notifies us that she got a new crib within a month. ;)