25

So this coming Tuesday is my birthday and I'm stumped about what to do. I tend to get all caught up with Christmas that I forget I even have a birthday!

What to do, what to do?

Tis the Season

As always, it has been a long time since I've last blogged. I just realized today that when I sell my magnets through Etsy, that I hand out my business cards with my blog site! So I better get cookin' and keep up!

So... good news... FINALLY!!! We bought a house :) Not any of the other houses that I mentioned previously, but it's a house and we love it! I will post more pictures of the house as we progress with painting and settling in.

Our house the day we moved in.

On Etsy news... the season has been good to me! They're not exactly selling like hot cakes, but they are selling much better than ever before! It's a hobby that I really enjoy too. I find myself wanting to work on these more than painting most days. Not sure if that's a good thing or not- leaning more towards the not. I have a show coming up with Paul's art teacher (from his school) this summer. It seems like a long ways off, but I know it will come up faster that I think!

the Later Gator $4

And then here is the final product of my Vermeer copy. I'm pretty happy with it. I eventually had to just walk away because I can always find something that I need to change. It's enough to drive anyone crazy!

Girl with a Pearl Earring

I promise I'll be back sooner than later this time around!

it's been awhile... again

Here we go...

1) We lost the house on Taft St. Yup, they really accepted our offer and then took it away because they're jerks. Anyways, we're over it and onto another house. Not really a 'new' house per say, but remember our FAVORITE house... the other one they took away from us... well now they're offering it back to us. We were able to resurrect our offer. So we're waiting on that one AGAIN. The final day of waiting is October 16th. We hope we hear back from them sooner because I really don't know if I can wait that long. Talk about holding out 'til the last minute to get the $8,000 credit! BAH!

2) Etsy sales have been going relatively well!! 'Well' for me is more than 3 sales a year :) I've had quite a few within the last week, so that feels pretty good! My "I carried a watermelon" magnet seems to be quite a hit!

3) Wedding plans are starting to move along. I got a wedding dress!!!!! (I won't tell you which one, but the designer is Judd Waddell... love him.) I spent way more than a pretty penny (which was not the plan) but I absolutely love it! In fact, I've been dreaming about it. I cannot wait to wear it again. We also have the design of the wedding invites and save the date magnets done. They just need to be plugged into the Adobe programs and printed. Now I've just been on the hunt for the perfect centerpieces!

So that's been my life in three bullet points.

quite a week...

It's been awhile since I've posted and so many cool things have happened since then!  First off we had our first couch surfers.  Paul had been bugging me about letting people surf on our couch for awhile now.  I only said yes because I thought... 'who the heck would want to stop in Stoughton?!'  But only three days after we 'opened our couch' on the website, three girls asked to surf it.  I was a little nervous, but said yes.  And am I glad we did!!!  It was so awesome!!!  Couch surfing is a great way to meet new people and here about all of their crazy experiences.  These girls are biking through Madison to the Twin Cities, then taking a train to Portland, OR... hanging out, then biking down to Northern California!!  Amazing.... I look up to them for doing this and I wish them the best of luck!!

Our three couch surfers: Robin, Kim, and Alison

I've also been busy working on my etsy site.  I'm trying to up my magnet count and then get really active on the site.  Hopefully that will also up my sales!!  Great Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah gifts!!!  (Hint, hint, nudge, nudge)

Here are a few newbies:

Yay Dirty Dancing :)

My new favorite... 'An Elephant Never Forgets'  ..Get it? 

In more exciting news... WE GOT A HOUSE!  A PURPLE house, but a house!  The former owners really had no sense of decor, so we got the house at a pretty good price.  The neighborhood is aaaaamazing.... hence why we put an offer in on the house in the first place.  The house is pretty much a box, but hopefully with love, time, and money (lots of it all) the house will be pretty nice.  It's not a place we'll stay too long, but its a great start!

The purple front door.  Also, they painted the faux rock metallic purple, blue and silver... wow. 

Kid you not, the whole house has gems and metallic paint throughout!

The living room is the room were most excited about.  Good warm feeling with pretty hardwood floors.  Needs some greenery and a piano :)

So yay for good news all around!!  Also, had a great hike today through the Lake Kegonsa State Park in search of a Letterbox.  It's a pretty cool thing... kind of like geocaching, but not.  More of a scavenger hunt.  Check out the website and it will explain better than I can :)  

another one bites the dust

So if you hadn't already heard... we lost that house of our dreams.  That's three down.  I don't know if the house hunting process could get much more infuriating!  But anyhow, we got back up on the horse and put an offer in on another house.  This one is not very exciting but it's in a great neighborhood.  So the plan is to flip it within 3-5 years and hopefully make a nice return on it.  I will post pictures if we actually get it... here we go again!

I will make an art post soon :)

vacation 2009

Paul and I went to Door County for our official/unofficial summer vacation.  It was kind of a last minute decision, but a good one indeed!  We had an awesome time and packed our four day weekend full of adventures.  

On Friday night we went to the Peninsula Players Theater and saw 'Is He Dead?'.  The play was written by Mark Twain and is about an artist (Jean-Francois Millet) who wants to pay off his girlfriends debts so he can marry her... only problem is he's an artist!  And as the old saying goes, the only way to make money as an artist is to be dead.  Very, very funny play and so well acted!  The theater is also amazing... it's an outdoor venue nestled in the woods and right next to the water.  

Paul and I also spent a lot of time geocaching.  If you've never heard of it- try it!!  It's pretty much a treasure hunt for adults.  You can pretty much find a geocache anywhere you go in the world!  Just in Stoughton, WI there are over 50 caches to hunt down! 

At this geocache site, Paul had to get down to his skivvies and go swimming.  The coordinates led us to a beautiful, hidden park where the path ended on a giant rock hanging over the water.  However, the GPS told us to keep walking another 30 ft to find the cache... so Paul just kept going!  But poor Paul, we never found it!

This was a goodie that we found in our first ever geocache find!

We also got to get in some quality fishing time!  However, this was the only thing that either of us caught!!  

A few other things we did:  camped at Peninsula State Park (got an awesome site with last minute reservations!), had lunch with the goats on the roof at Al Johnson's, had ice cream at the legendary Wilsons, and went raspberry picking at a huge farm just outside of Fish Creek. Unfortunately we only made it as far as Sister Bay on the peninsula, so we will just have to go back soon to see the rest!

the Etsy Everything show

Last night was my first ever Etsy trunk show.  Etsy is pretty much the ultimate online 24/7 craft show. So it was fun to meet some sellers face to face and make some good connections with the Madison area crafters.  The show was held at another Etsy seller's house here in Stoughton.  Her shop name is The Painted Daisy and she makes AMAZING skirts and purses.  I ended up spending double the amount on her skirts than I made at the show!  

Below are some examples of what I was selling at the show.  The rest you can find (for sale!) at my Etsy site TheLittleRedRibbon.

Little Hydrangea magnets ($2 each)

the Funny Farm ($4)

Hug a Tree ($4)

on the home front!

I think we may have another winner!  Good thing there are so many fishies in the sea :)  So, we looked at a beautiful 2 story victorian home yesterday, and then again today.  We are going to look at it one more time tomorrow (ya know- third times a charm!) and then possibly sign some papers to put in an offer!  But, we've been here before, so we're trying not to get our hopes up... but definitely keeping our fingers crossed!

here is the 2nd bedroom... I think I see a very well lit studio!! :)

This is the master bedroom.  It has a set of super cute little french doors that lead out to the roof of the seasonal porch downstairs. 

 A very promising little porch for the master bedroom!

And now on to the art... My friend Katy and I have decided to challenge each other to paint more.  We went through the painting/drawing program together at UWOshkosh, but now that we're away from school it has been hard to get motivated.  The name of the game is famous painters... mostly portraits since we love them the most.  Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' was the first challenge.  

As you can see, it is still a challenge for me!!  I have yet to finish it... the end product will be posted when all is done.  For me there is a challenge within the challenge- for some reason I get very anxious when copying a master work.  I think it's because I know that I am no where near as talented and there for the end product will never compare.  So it makes it hard for me to finish a piece like this, maybe because I'm afraid of what it will look like in the end?  So this is me taking my sweet, sweet time.  It holds a resemblance... but really, it's no Vermeer. :)

about 1/2 way there...

bummer...

Paul and I are in the process of house hunting.  It started out being very exciting and has recently turned out to be frustrating and stressful.  We put an offer in on a house last week and after waiting for what seemed like forever- the sellers pulled the house from the market!  It's exhausting when you've already mentally moved into house with all of your belongings and started 'renovating'.  Blah... back to square one.   :(

TAKE 2

I've always been truly bad at keeping record of things.  Diaries lasted maybe a month, portfolios showed sparse at the end of a semester, and the last blog lasted a whole 15 minutes while I wrote the first (and only) entry.  It's not that I don't do anything worth keeping record of, it's just that when I'm done- I'm really done.  Then paintings and drawings go to homes without first taking a photo or end up in the back of a closet. Since I graduated last May (over a year ago!!) I've barely touched a paintbrush.  I think that I have only good intentions, but the follow through is terrible.  

My fiancee, Paul, always says: "You are what you do everyday."

Side note: This is Paul. We are getting married in August of 2010. He normally doesn't wear his facial hair like this. But I like the photo. :)

So, this blog will be a true and honest approach at keeping track of everything that I create.  I also hope that this will motivate me to keep up and create more. To play a little catch up, here are a few things I've worked on in the last year and also a few inspirations:

A few wedding portraits...

My good friend, and fellow artist, Katy and I went on a day trip to Chicago.  There is inspiration in every corner that you look.  We of course hit up a few art museums, but I think that the landscape and aquarium were just as inspiring.

Katy and myself

A few friends we met along the way.  They LOVED the camera!

This gigantic statue was just a couple blocks away from our hotel.  You can never escape the American Gothic father/daughter duo.

This beautiful landscape is what greeted us after our short train ride to Chicago.  They are trying to impress the Olympic picker-outer people.

So I know that there was not too much of my own art on this posting... but I promise that more will come.  Time to go paint!!