Worthy of a talent show....

Does your child's art ever pile up over months and months? You don't have the space or money to frame every piece and hang it up, but you don't have the heart to throw it away? Well here is an inexpensive and space economical idea that my daughter and I came up with.

We bought a large canvas on sale at our local craft store and I let her just go at it painting shapes on it with regular old bottled acrylics. She had a blast and the only rule was to not leave any white.

Then she chose which art pieces that she wanted to 'display' on the canvas. We cut them all out and decoupaged them directly onto the painted canvas. To finish it off, since mod podge tends to be a bit tacky (and sometimes collects a lot of dust) we covered it with a coat of clear semi-gloss lacquer.

She is so proud of her masterpiece and is going to display it at a church talent show this weekend.

The bonus for me is that I have a new LARGE piece of art for my kids 'art wall' in my office, and it didn't break the bank!!

I am going to link this up to Frugal Friday at the Shabby Nest.

a Facelift...

As you may have noticed my blog has recently had a new (and long overdue) face lift, thanks to Jenna at q.a.design. I was so over the old appearance of my blog but wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do with it, so I called in a master of design..............Jenna is refreshingly creative and her designs are beautiful and whimsical, yet still clean and simple!! Plus, she is easy and fun to work with. So if you are in need of some inspiration for a new design contact Jenna. Thank You Jenna,...I Love, Love, Love my new layout!

Stories,...two sad,...one happy..................

Sad Story..............

One girl (me) went to Lego Land with her husband, and her kiddos, and her sister, and her sisters husband, and her sisters kiddos. While at Lego Land this same girl LOST her camera with seven months of memory card in it that she had not downloaded. This girl was lamenting the fact that she had lost two of her children's birthdays, four holidays, one haircut for locks of love, two karate belt ceremonies, and countless other wonderful memories worth of pictures. Needless to say that this girl learned a lesson the hard way to DOWNLOAD her pictures more often then twice a year.............duh!!!!

Another sad story................

One girl (me) who had recently lost her camera, hunted through her house for her old dinosaur 4 mega pixel camera that she used to use. She found it and started using it. (It's definitely better than nothing, right?)  This same girl went to Arizona with some friends. While taking some photos this girl dropped her camera and broke it beyond repair. (Seriously don't know how that little fall did so much damage, but the poor camera was totalled.) This same girl pouted and declared that maybe she shouldn't be allowed to own any more cameras!!!

A Happy Story...............

One girls husband (mine), took all four of their kiddos to Lego Land while she was in Arizona. What a brave and crazy man. :) When his wife text-ed him with her sad news he felt her pain. (Or maybe his own since his wives habit of breaking and losing cameras was becoming an expensive past-time.) Later this same girls husband called her to tell her that he had FOUND her camera. Some wonderfully honest person had turned it in at Lego Land, memory card and all. 605 pictures to be exact. This same girl smiled all of the way back home!   -The End

Yay!!! I can finally blog again. (With photos that is.)