I have decided to completely change my blog. Instead of just doing doodles, my blog is just going to be about my life and the things i think and do, etc. I think it will be more fun for me this way, since I don't always have time to sit down and make a doodle anymore.

Today, I took an adventure in the realm of cooking! I have had little experience in this area, as I have been completely spoiled from being raised by grandparents most of my life. Well, lately I have been experimenting! My lovely and wonderful aunt Suzanne told me about a FANTASTIC cooking blog called Smitten Kitchen! Go there, you will LOVE it! I browsed through the recipes for a long time "Ooh"ing and "Aah"ing and finally decided to go with the Baked Rigatoni with Tiny Meatballs. I changed a couple of things, though. I made my meatballs bigger, and I used rotini noodles instead of rigatoni noodles, since that's what I had. It took about an hour to make, but turned out completely delicious!



So that is my triumph of the day!

I am also planning on going job hunting today. My work study hours at the college were lowered due to some bizarre faulty paper-handling at the business office. So now I am on the hunt for a second job. I am thinking places such as Starbucks, or Barnes & Noble might be nice. I am going to drive around and check out different places. We will see what happens.

Also, if you have not watched this cat video, you should because it cracks me up every time :)

Sorry I haven't had anything new up here in months...it's just so hard to update while busy with college work, etc. Anyway, I have some new things to show you, all of which were Christmas presents I made for my family this year!

I bought several of those little paper mache boxes from Hobby Lobby and painted them with acrylics. Some have little things on top of them, such as the deer, or the mario. Those are shrinky-dinks. You can buy shrinky dink paper at hobby lobby as well. It's about 7 dollars for 10 sheets of paper. Get the frosted if you want to use colored pencils. Basically, you color a large picture, cut it out, put it in the oven for 3 minutes (while watching it to make sure everything goes ok) and then it shrinks, hardens, and thickens! It really is the most magical thing! And you can do so much with it!


This box says "Always Remember To Love". I had the "Always Remember To" stickers, and then i just wrote on the "Love" with a pen. All The rest is acrylic paint. I painted the black edges of the lid with acrylic glitter glaze, too..so it's sparkly :)

This is a little box I did for my uncle. The deer is a shrinky dink. Most of the images on the lid behind the deer are rub on transfers (also available at Hobby Lobby)


This one I did for my boyfriend Todd's parents. The cross is a shrinky dink glued to the top. For the box, I first painted it black, then did a layer of shiny gold paint on top giving it that "old" look. For some added decoration, I used gel pen on top.


This is my favorite! It's a box I did for my two friends Jesse and Jo (they're married). Mario is a shrinky dink and I painted the rest by hand...it took a long time but turned out awesome!



And that's it for now!

So I've been working super hard in my painting III class on this one painting. It's 2 by 5 feet i think. Anyway, I set up my own still life of fabric and mason jars and the mason jars have little fireflies in them! It wasn't very fun to paint at all...it was mostly work. But I already sold it to my professor for 100 dollars...it's the first work of art I've ever sold, so i'm pretty excited!

-Q

Here are some of the books I have been making in my Book Arts class!

That's it for now!

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted but things have been really crazy with school! Here are a few things I've been working on:

School has been completely exhausting and it's only the first week!!! However, we did make our first book in our book arts class. Tuesday, we are going to fill the inside papers with text, but the outside is finished! Here is what it looks like:

The papers on the inside were hand painted with liquid watercolors and large brushes. The cut out pattern in the front flap was cut out with itty bitty tiny scissors that made my fingers go numb haha! It wouldn't stay shut over top of the colored paper, so I had to be clever and think of something...I ended up sewing on the buttons and using them to wrap the string around to hold the cover shut...and it turned out awesome!

So, I've been trying to get some doodling in before school starts and life starts getting crazy. I have one class that is 3 hours long only on Tuesdays and I pretty much know for a fact that I am going to spend the whole class doing nothing but drawing...since that's what I usually do LOL! But anywho...here are the latest doodles! :)

And that's it for now! <3