I received a request from an agency that I am really excited about today. Jeff Herman wrote the books that made this process doable to me. So, not only would I love to work with him, but I also have some (slightly weird) desire to impress him in a strangely paternal way. hehe. I also have a request from Sarah Jane Freymann who looks like someone I would really like to have as a friend, let alone agent. I am so anxious to get my proposal back from an editor friend and off to these two. I have really needed a optimism refresher for this whole book process and here it is. Hooray!

This month was even crazier than last month. (And with even more exciting stuff.) I’ll start with the biggest event first: (yay!)

Brent & Katie

(Oh, it is so sad. This really deserves its own post. I am a blogging looser.) My little brother in law got hitched. (I just have to say I feel free to gush like this because I know the Jensens don’t tend to read my blog. Anyway,) Brent is pretty much the greatest guy ever. Not only is he a hunky soccer star, but he is a wicked smart actuary in training (that’s some serious math, people), plus he is just super sweet and cute. Okay, I will stop. Anyway, we wondered if there really could be a girl out there who is worthy of Mr. All-Around-Wonderful and (drumroll) there is! Katie is AWESOME! There just isn’t a better word to describe her. She is this super sweet, very funny, crepe makin’, soccer-playin’, girl with a plethera of kick-butt hobbies and skills. Not to mention, totally gorgeous. For the few that have made it this far in this post, I will just finish by saying: I am so excited that I am going to get to hang out with her for-well, basically- ever. My favorite moments in the wedding festivities were the great advice from P. Christensen at the wedding and seeing the dozen little girls in their darling dresses. Mmm, and Teressa’s excellent cakes. (Wish I had gotten a picture of those. The grooms cake was choc. with cherries piled up on each tier and the wedding cake was darling white with limes and kiwis ringing the tiers. You Flegal women are seriously creative!)

We went to Idaho to play with the Schwendimans again…so fun! What more can I say? We had our first four-wheeler outing. We could easily see being addicted. Actually, we could even see moving to Idaho. I know. We can’t spend any more weekends up there until we are firmly planted down here and past the temptation. (;-D)

We also went camping the weekends before and after the wedding. I have to say Jensen camping trips are one of the things we really look forward to each summer. These 2 certainly didn’t dissapoint. The bonus this year was that the girls are old enough that they could play with less supervision, which made it easy for me to kick back and enjoy too. Look at these pictures, you can see how fun it is! (For some reason, I can’t seem to get these 2 images to post full size. So click on them if you are interested in seeing our camping bliss.)

Finally, last Sunday was Megan’s Birthday! We had a princess party on Saturday with Megan’s darling little friends. It was so fun to watch all of the little princesses making crowns and bracelets and just being girly together. We have sort of been celebrating the rest of the week to make up for the cancelled family party on Sunday. We decided to take a little trip to the ER instead. (Oh joy of joys.) Well, I guess I could more acurately say that my heart decided we should take an ER trip. Everything is okay, I am on a medication to slow my heart down until we can get things taken care of. It leaves me very tired; which means I am not gettign as much done as I’d like to lately. However, life goes on. This blog post will have to end though. So here are a few more pictures. (Notice no empty promises about blogging more often. As it is almost midnight, I am more interested in sleep than keeping up with online buddies. At this point, I am not even guaranteeing that this will make sense. hehe.)

Was there any suprise? Thanks Kristine for the fun quiz. She is my favorite heroine. Who are you?

Take the Quiz here!

So, stupidity first:

I think the picture pretty much sums it up. Why varnish something when you can spray paint over it? I guess I get to try again with this little project! Oh brother!

Now for the cuteness. We were finishing up dinner tonight and Megan and Emily were enjoying a little sword play with their straws. At one point, Megan said “You’re dead!” Emily replied “No, I am Mommy!” (Then turned to Mike and said) “You’re Dad!”

And finally: There is a ton of good stuff to blog about. We have been busy! But I don’t have time tonight, so I will leave you with some pics of our fun day at the zoo with Jenn and Lauren.

What? Collage is about scissors and glue, right? Yes it is, but any collage would be enhanced with a little treatment to the paper before the typical steps. This will need to be a 2-day (or morning and afternoon) project. I know you have time, since it is summer.

Materials:

paper (I used white, but colored paper would look nice with acrylics)

paint (watercolor or acrylic will work great. I would avoid tempera, as it tends to flake.)

paintbrushes

scissors

glue

Not necessary, but  recommended:

poster board

Foam tape (to create different heights)

Directions:

1. Paint on the paper, it’s pretty simple. Any design will work, since you are going to be cutting it up, it’s not necessary to get too detailed. I did swirls in a a few different shades  of each main color, then topped it with some Jackson Pollack paint dripping. Paint the background onto another piece of paper or the poster board.

2. After the paintings have dried, flip them over and sketch out the basic shapes for your picture. Then cut them out. To get the crinkled look I used, wet the paper down and gently wad it up; then smooth it out again as much as desired. Let it dry and it will hold that form.

3. Now glue the shapes onto the background. If you are using foam tape, layer different amounts of tape to make the objects in the scene stand out. (For example, I used on piece of tape on one tree. On the tree next to it, I layered 3 pieces of tape, then 2 on another, and 4 on a different tree; so that each tree was a different height above the paper.)

4. Pretty simple. Now try experimenting. You and your little artist can come up with some really amazing work.

We really have been nuts this summer. (I mean scheduling-wise, we are always a little mentally nuts.) I thought I would share a quick (well, sort of) run-down of the highlights for the last month or so.

Oregon (aka blissful homecoming)

We drove 2167.5 miles (which equates to 40 hours, 20 min. of in-car time) on our 4 day trip. It felt so good to be there-a little hot and sticky as we hit a record heat wave-but still good. We played on the beach and Megan couldn’t get enough of the water. She just giggled-almost hysterically-as she sat on the sand and let the waves lap over her.

We took 101 up from where we stayed in Depot Bay to Tillamook (mmm…ice cream…) and over to Portland to meet Amy. (yay!) I am kicking myself that I didn’t get a picture of her. We spent the night hanging out and talking, which was just as fun as when were in high school. I know I am treading towards annoying gushiness here, but she is such a fun friend. It is amazing how we can not talk for months and then get together and feel just like being back in high school. (Only better, because we don’t have to be in high school.) She great to confide in and has deep insights on so many things. I am going to stop now and just say that I had a great time with you Amy.

On Saturday we headed down to Salem to watch Brent play the Salem Surge (or something). As you can see it was fun. We were all a little wilted from the heat, but some icees perked us up, as well giving us nicely colored tongues. Other highlights: driving too fast down Croissian Creek Rd., past my old house, Sprague and Hylo Rd. I can’t help but sigh just thinking about it. We also wandered around Silver Falls. (Which I always thought was Silver Creek Falls, huh.) Either way, the place is gorgeous! Several beautiful falls that are easy to hike to and closely situated. I highly recommend it!

Idaho

We went to the Idaho Falls area to support my cute nephews for their mission homecoming (Jordan) and farewell (Jake). We also got to visit the super-cool Schwendimans and their AWESOME potato farm. I loved climbing up on the potato mountain in the potato cellar. (Yes, it was a lot of potatoes.) The Schwendimans are so much fun, that we are going to head back in a couple of weeks. It was an action packed 33 hours, I tell you what!

misc. joys

The 4th of July was just as much fun as always, here are the kids in their shirts. We loved your bee outfits, Wrights/Hinckleys! Also beloved, are summer dinners in the Jensen’s backyard.  And the nieces and

nephews’ many sporting victories. Among them Weston’s baseball team taking the State tittle. Way to go Wes!

Here is Mike’s new baby. It was the summer of Mike (what with his motor and mountain bike purchases.) His old baby, the Jeep is going to live on the Shwendiman’s farm; where it will have lots of room to run around. (Bye bye, last little shred of coolness. Don’t worry about me, I’ve got my minivan to get around in.)

Next month should be even more fun with Brent and Katie’s wedding and a couple of camping trips on the calendar. Also exciting, I finally finished my proposal for my art idea book! Thank you, Thank you, please no applause. Yes, I feel like it was an accomplishment. You can see it at www.ArtAllYear.com. Please note the site I designed and Eddie laboriously coded for me. I will be posting about the joys of collage soon (featuring the very seasonal trees you see on the site.) If you’re still with me, congrats on your blog endurance capabilities. I’ll try to be more frequent and brief in August. ;-D

Emily accessorizing again!

Sidewalk is a definite staple of summer. The ideal medium for creating roads in your driveway is also used for fine art. Let your artist try fleshing out this fun activity a little. while you’re at it, why don’t you try it too? ;-D Here are some tips for doing sidewalk art:

~Experiment with different pressures to create shading. This can be accomplished by going over the area several times to make it darker. Then use your fingers to blend the chalk powder in. This will give you a more solid covering.

~Try using brushes to spread the chalk dust and create blending and shading.

~Dip your chalk in water before drawing, the application is more paste like and very dramatic.

~You can also try wetting the cement and then drawing on it for a different look.

~Now try coloring (with dry chalk) and then dipping your brush in water and highlighting areas with it.

~If you child loves this, you may want to supplement the usual chunky chalk with colored chalk (for chalkboards) or even pastels to give them a broader range of colors and texture.

~Like other types of art; you just need to play around for a while and pretty soon you will have some great new techniques!

Megan wanted to draw one of her favorite subjects: her beloved cousin Abby and her playing. Here they are surfing, woa daddy!

This project is as fun as it is tasty. It really doesn’t have an age limit as older kids will love creating puffy paintings using paintbrushes and the tinies will go nuts over finger-painting with it. Extremely versatile and super easy–what more can you ask for?

Materials:

1 large tub of Cool Whip

Several small packages of Jello (however many colors you want)

Black or other dark colored paper

Brushes

Directions:

1. Scoop the Cool Whip into as many bowls as you want different colors and stir a tablespoon or so of the Jello mix into each. I used Raspberry for red, Lemon for yellow, Lime for green, and Orange for orange. (I later wished that I had grabbed a Berry Blue for some blue.) Add more powder if needed, the more you use, the brigher your colors will be.

2. Now use your fingers or a brush to scoop and shape your paint into the desired picture. Keep in mind that you want to apply it thickly for good color. Make sure to do a little tasting.

3. Set aside finished pictures to dry. They will stay puffy and smell great!

Michael and I went for post-dinner walk last night and bumped into a few friends who have school aged kids. They were talking about how long the first day of summer (as in “school’s out” summer) was. I thought this would be a perfect time for a project that is bound to take up a few days for the kids… puppets. They are fun to make and fun to play with. And one of the best parts about puppet-making is that there are so many ways to do it! Most people are already familiar with the sock and paper bag methods, which are classics for a reason, but there is no need for me to cover them again. Last summer my art classes made their puppets out of something a little more creative. I guess we could call them found art puppets. Take a look though your kitchen drawers and start collecting paper towel rolls for these theatrical cuties.

Materials:

Toilet paper and paper towel rolls

Items from your art box:

Felt

Cotton balls

Yarn

Beads

Craft sticks, bamboo skewers, or other sticks

Flowers

There are lots of other possibilities-Use your imagination!

Craft glue (I like Aleene’s tacky glue)

Directions:

1. Really, this is a project that you can just go crazy with. But here are the steps for the ones shown:

Opera Singer

1. Place a toilet paper tube inside a paper towel tube and sketch where you want the mouth, then cut the lips.

2. Cut the paper towel tube to the desired legnth.

3. Paint the skin color and the base color for the clothes.

4. Once the paint is dry (about 15 min.) sketch out details and paint (Make sure to pull the toilet paper roll so that the mouth is all the way open and paint all of that as well as making sure the lips line up when they are closed.)

5. Make eyes by gluing a bead onto a cotton ball. Then cut an eyelid shape from felt (and lashes if desired, which are glued just under the edge of the eyelid) and glue over the cotton ball.

6. Make hair by wrapping yarn around your hand several times. Tie another piece of yarn around the wound yarn in one place (Which will hold the threads together.)

7. Trim the hair as desired and glue to the top of the paper towel roll.

8. Tape a stick to the bottom inside of the toilet paper roll. (This is what you will pull to make the puppet talk.)

9. Tape another stick to the inside back to the paper towel roll. (This is what you will hold to hold the puppet up.)

Kitchen Utensil Puppets

Here are a few tips:

Wrap with felt for clothes.

Silk flowers make great skirts.

Salad forks make great royalty. Paint the tongs with gold or silver paint and then embellish.

Whisks make great crazy creatures or aliens. You can tie or wrap fabric or pipe cleaners through the spokes to make hair.

Have fun!

This post is dedicated to my cute friend who has resorted to tattooing her 2 year-old legs for entertainment while they wait for all of their stuff to be delivered to their new home. Here are a few activities that they can do with a trip to the grocery store. By this point in the summer, we all can use a few quick and easy activities.

Peanut Butter Playdough