Out of Focus

I started a little project a couple of days ago. I'm trying to document my painting process from the making of the canvases to the finished piece. Every time I set the shot up and try to get a picture, though, my camera has trouble focusing on the subject. I've identified some of the specific problems that occur with each shot.

Problem #1 - The "I want to play with you right now" shot. This tends to occur when you go outside and proceed to sit on the ground and your furry friend mistakes this gesture as an invitation to play.

Problem # 2 - The "I'm posing so you better take my picture" shot. If any of you have a kid who's been subjected to family paparazzi photo frenzies since birth, you are probably familiar with such dilemmas. Problem #3 - The "Mom....

...take a picture.....

...of my foot" shot. These types of problems arise when you have a toddler who thinks anything is photo worthy.And lastly, Problem #4 - The "look, I'm smiling" shot. I'm sure we've all encountered something of this nature. When a camera is pulled out, it's grounds for shouting "cheeeeeeeese," to which the camera then focuses on an unintended subject.

(In this case the subject did not shout 'cheese,' if you were wondering.)

I'm not sure on how to go about remedying these problems. I don't think they can be fixed. I'm just going to have to live with an out of focus camera....

and a lot of extra pictures! :)

xo

ND

IF: Instinct

Just in case.

ND

Weekend Celebration

Today is my husband's grandma's birthday. Happy birthday, Nana! Over the weekend, we (meaning just the ladies) celebrated hers, as well as my mother-in-law, Christy's, and cousin Abbey's birthdays by travelling to the Lost Pines resort in Bastrop for a night. If anyone ever makes there way to the area, I highly recommend this place...it's pretty nice. We had a good time talking, laughing, sharing stories, squeezing Baby Gavin, and eating of course. Now, if anyone knows how to throw a party, it's these ladies. They came prepared with balloons, party favors, fresh flowers and enough food to feed an army. If you don't believe me, here's the luggage rack that made its way to our room (which didn't even include my stuff):

Did I mention that we only stayed one night?

We were all kind of tired from the previous week, or month, or since having children, but we managed to stay up until midnight telling stories.

This chair was just sitting in random hallway at the resort. I want it. I wonder if they'll even notice it's gone. hmm.

Had fun with you ladies! Let's do it again soon. Is next weekend good for everyone?

;)

Nessa Dee

Latest Work

A couple of new illustrations I (quickly) completed recently. For some reason, my scanner is not scanning well and ends up blurring portions of the paintings (maybe I need to clean it!). Oh well, I'll put it on my "to do" list.

ND

The Secret Lives of Kids

My daughter's Sunday School class recently handed them a small questionnaire to show that different people have things in common. Here's Audrie's answers:

You probably noticed the creative spelling, "Aberham Linkon." She's a pretty good speller, but has always been a little fancy when it comes to names. What can I say.... we got a little creative ourselves when it came to spelling her name! But the thing that really caught my eye was the answer to that last question, "Something about you..."

I love it! It cracked me up! Aren't kids just great? I love the ambition and confidence that exudes from such a simple statement. It's little things like this that I love so much about being a parent. They creep into the everyday and make you smile.

xo

Nessa Dee

Crayon Cupcakes

Ingredients:

-old cupcake tray (that you don't mind ruining) fun shapes preferable

-as many broken crayons as you can muster

_____________________________________________________________

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 250degrees

Step 2: tear off any paper that's on the crayons.

Step 3: Place broken crayons in the tray. You can sort them into like colors as we did, or randomly place different colors in each form to create a color conglomerate.

Step 4: Put the tray into the oven and melt the crayons. This can take anywhere from 10-20 minutes.

Step 5: Remove tray from the oven when crayons have become liquid. Allow them to cool for at least 3 hours.

Step 6: Remove crayons from the tray and start coloring.

Step 7: Tell your son that the crayons are not edible even though you put them in a cupcake tray and baked them in the oven.

Step 8: Admire your efforts and pat yourself on the back for doing a small part to help our earth by recycling whilst being creative with your kids.

**Just a couple of notes, these trays we used were meant for water only, but since I dropped a whole 2 bucks on them, I thought I'd take a gamble. Luckily, they didn't melt, but if you want to avoid any such thing from occurring, I'd stick with an oven safe product. Also, we tried making crayons out of the following fish shape, but we broke all but one removing them from the tray. The crayon was too weak where the tail met the body and cracked with slight pressure, so choose your shapes wisely.

Have fun!

Nessa Dee

IF: Celebrate

celebrate spring

More Finnanigans

Finn got an ant bite the other day and insisted I take a picture. This is how it went down:

"Mom, (whimper, whimper) I dot an ant bite (whimper, whimper) put some stuff on it (whimper, whimper) take a picture of it (whimper, whimper). Can I see the picture?"

The dirty fingernails were a result of digging in the flowerbeds, as was the ant bite.

He's milking this thing for all it's worth.

Of course you have to blow on it.

And then, kiss it. That's where the magic happens. After a kiss (from Mom), it's all better.

~And now for history a la Finn.~

Audrie takes great pride in teaching Finn a lot of random facts and then asking me to come quiz him for the answers. The most recent round of questions occurred last night.

Me: Who was the first president of the United States?

Finn: Of Amerita!

Me: Yes, who was the first president of the United States of America?

Finn: George Washington!

Me: Good! Who invented the telephone?

Finn: Alexander.

Me: Alright. Who took the first flight on a plane?

Finn: The Wright Brorers.

Me: Great! Who invented the light bulb?

Finn: Thomas the choo choo train.

Me: Okay, close enough. What president lived in a log cabin and is on the penny.

Finn: Ham Linker!

xo

ND

Love Birds

These little guys flew in just to wish everyone Happy Valentine's Day! They are new in the shop.

Have a lovely day!

XOXO

Nessa Dee

IF: Time

Time to run!

I had a little problem with the whiskers and they need to be fixed, but I wanted to submit something this week.

ND

Always look on the bright side of life....

whistle-whistle-whistle-whistle-whistle-whistle.

(I don't know how to spell a whistling noise.)

I wasn't going to post more nitty gritty life stuff, but this is getting a little silly. I had about 3 hours of sleep last night, collectively. Finn 's still in the thick of things. He seems to be fine during the day, eats, drinks, plays, but the virus shows its ugly face again each night. Audrie joined in the fun last night and the poor thing didn't get much more sleep than I. I found myself doing laundry at 1:00AM, and the three of us ended up sleeping in the living room. My dining room is still a mess. To top things off, I went to put my glasses on this morning and they broke. (I'm starting to think the eye doctor did a little more than adjust them at my last visit.) And where's Jonathan in the midst of all this? He's living it up in Vegas. Actually, he's there for a conference and is supposed to be speaking tomorrow, so we're praying he doesn't catch this stuff!

So, what's the bright side of all of this? Here are some thoughts that have been keeping my spirits up:

-I'm fortunate to live in a place where I can hop in my car and drive to the nearest store a minute away to pick up necessary fluids and medication.

-I'm just steps away from a washing machine and can do laundry as needed...even at 1 in the morning.

-I have a fridge full of the caffeine necessary to make it through the rest of the day.

-I have a comfortable bed to sleep in, and if that doesn't work, I still have a cushy couch that I can curl up on to catch some shut eye.

-I have an excuse to wear my pj's and watch movies all day.

-I'm just a phone call away from a nurse who can advise me on how to best care for my kids.

-I can take a nice hot bath to relax after a long night.

-If need be, I can load the kids up and drive 15 minutes to the doctor to get them checked out.

-I finally get to buy a new pair of glasses, or take up soldering.

This whole situation has made me really appreciate the luxuries we have. I don't ever like my babies to be sick, but I'm thankful that we have access to help and comforts that make these situations more tolerable. We are very blessed.

And, because I'm a very visual person and like pictures to accompany words, I'm posting a few pics just for the sake of visual stimuli. Plus, they make me smile.

Batman stew.

Audrie's homemade Eve (from WALL-E) costume.

I just like this one.

Okay, this one makes me laugh. This is Jonathan sporting the 70's stache I talked him into wearing on his first day back at work this year. I can't believe he actually did it. It was quite hilarious.

Hopefully things will start getting back to normal real soon....I've got some artwork and shop news to share!

A very sleepy Nessa Dee

Hidden Treasures

When my mom and I decided to have a quilt theme for our ladies weekend, my Gangy let us rummage through boxes of material left over from her quilting days. To my surprise, the boxes were filled with so much more than I had expected. I was in quilt heaven. There were tons of fabric scraps. Some brought back memories of handmade clothes sewn by Gangy and Granny. I recognized other materials that often filled the scrap box in their quilting room, materials my brother and I rummaged through to make our own quilted creations.

There were also beautiful buttons...

a box full of trim...an old Sucrets container with pins....

And then, I found quilt blocks...

a lot of them...

much more than these pictures show...

some pieced by my grandmother's grandmother...

some small and delicate...

some bright and bold....others waiting to be pieced together.

this box contains mine and my cousin's quilt...

and this is my dog, enjoying my quilt.

This quilt was the one adorning the table at our retreat. It was pieced by my great-great-grandmother.

It caught my eye. I love the colors, the bright reds, turquoise blues, hot pinks, and lime greens. I'm already redecorating Audrie's room (in my mind) around this quilt top, and it seems to be inspiring some of my latest pieces of art. (which will be showing up in my shop soon, by the way)

I'm by no means a quilter, but I have love for fabric and an appreciation for old quilts. All of the quilt blocks in these pictures were put together using the materials on hand at the time. They weren't purposefully pieced and planned out with designer materials. These were the "use what you got" kind of quilts. There's a lot of warmth in them. There's a lot of sentimental value. I do want to finish some of these quilts one day. (I'll have to get Gangy to teach me how!) I hope to be able to give a quilt to my daughter with her knowing it was pieced by multiple generations of women from this family. What a treasure that would be!

ND