What I've been up to!

I failed at my crafty/creative thing a day resolution...well at least the posting part of it. My deadline got the best of me and I had to work, work, work...color, color, color to get it done. See some of them:

So now that I'm done with that it's back to my regular grind for a little bit. I'm cooking up some really creative ideas for my artist proofs of the line art cards, hopefully some really unique stuff the collectors and other will like to see.

Besides that I've been busy with other things as well. I've come up with a new wonton wrapper recipe. An absolutely delicious dessert one I might add.

Any ideas what that is in the picture to the left? Hmm...looks yummy no? Well on that wonton wrapper is a spread of nutella and some chopped up strawberries. O.O I know nutella and strawberries...to die for. Well wait till you bake it in a wonton wrapper. Just spread some nutella in the middle, add a couple of chopped up strawberries, lightly wet the edges of the wonton, fold it over, and press it closed. Place them on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray and bake at 350°F for about 5-10 min. You'll know when they are done, trust me I heard sizzling because one of mine popped open. Let them cool! Molten nutella and strawberries will burn your mouth.

The strawberries in mine melted (I never realized strawberries could melt but they did.) They were so good I made them the next night for the kids for dessert only one kid doesn't like strawberries so I used some chopped up banana and that was amazing too. Reminded me of a warm monkey tail. Yummmm. (Talking about this will probably lead to me making more tonight, they are that addicting.)

What else have I been up to...getting goodies in boxes from Mr. UPS and Mr. FedEx man. :D

New things to work on some new book ideas and other really cool ideas, some gold shepard's hook bookmarks and some really pretty silver floral and butterfly shepard's hooks. Oh and don't forget the new set of colored pencils. I think I'm in love with my new set of colored pencils.

These are Cretacolor colored pencils. They are amazing. I loved my Design Spectracolor pencils. (Well okay maybe they are actually hubby's and not mine but I use them more.) I love the feel of the Design when you use them. They're not really hard leaded, they are more on the softer side and they blend well, not really waxy, just great colored pencils. Sad thing is that Design doesn't exist anymore and Specracolor pencils go for a small fortune on e-bay so I've been searching for colored pencils I like just as much. I gave Prismacolor colored pencils a try but they just don't feel the same. Heck you can get 2 Prismacolor pencils in the same color sharpen them and use them side by side and they won't actually be the same color. They also seem to have a much harder lead, at least to me anyway. Hubby came across a deal on Dick Blick for the Cretacolor pencils and we go them dirt cheap. I tried them and I love them. I think I might actually like them more than the Design ones. They are smooth and soft, not really waxy, blend really well, and you can go over them lots of time with no blooming or big waxy build up. They are my new favorite pencil and will eventually replace my Design ones.

Day 55 - Altered book

Today was an interesting day. Started out with a delay for the kids which I never look forward to, it just throws my whole day way off. Once the kiddos were off I had to head to the post office to ship an order and then to the grocery store. Want to know just how fast gas prices are rising out here? Well I drove by the gas station on my way to the store it was $3.849. I did my shopping and started to head over to McDonald's to grab my one and only shamrock shake of the season and the price was $3.899. That means it went up five whole cents in a half an hour. I refuse to buy gas in my state, I go to the next state over where it's at least thirty cents cheaper. But I digress. It's ridiculous just how fast they are rising. Everyday the gas station raises it's prices.

Anyway, I drove by the gas station (with my eyes bulging out of my head in surprise at the jump in price) and headed to the drive thou at McDonald's. I figured I'd spend my extra points on this shake and only limit it to one for the season. I love the shamrock shake so I'm sad that I only get one but one is better than none. I paid for the order and the cashier gave me back my change. As we pulled away something wasn't right. I looked at my change. The ten dollar bill didn't seem right. We pulled into a parking space and examined it more closely. It was off and something was wrong, it was smaller than my other bills. So we took the bill to the bank. They tested it with all their tests but couldn't find anything wrong except....get this... the whole image was shrunk about 1/8". Well what the hell? If you lined up one border the one on the opposite side was short by about an eight of an inch. Lovely. Now what the heck am I suppose to do with this? The bank didn't offer me a new one to replace this one they just said..you know there have been counterfeit bills circulating in the area lately but the serial numbers don't match those you should be fine but you could take it down to the police and have them look at it. Sigh. (It's already been a long day but I don't want to risk the bill being a counterfeit.) We call the police who come and take my ten dollars. (now I'm broke..sigh) They said that it will be sent to the secret service (pretty darn cool) to be analyzed and if it's real I'll get my ten dollars back and if not I'm out the ten dollars. (OMG! Are you kidding me? I didn't ask to be handed this bill...I better get ten dollars in the mail!) Then he sent us on our merry way.

It's just been one of those days...So I decided to do some painting and playing with medium.

Day 53 & 54 - Photo and work

This running around is gonna kill me. So darn busy, it's insane. It needs to slow down soon.

So I came across this tree on day 53 in a parking lot I was in while I was out and I saw something in it. I snapped the picture took it home and drew what I saw on the tree in Photoshop. Now it's not the greatest drawing, I could have done better if I broke out the Wacom and took my time, but you'll get the point. It's kind of silly but it stood out the second I saw it.

So outside of running around, I've been busy working on a deadline. This brings us to day 54 and work. I've been color my butt off.. Coloring what? you ask. Well this:

Vampirella line art trading cards for Breygent Marketing is what I've been busy coloring. While it is work, it's still creative to come up with how to color the cards and different ways to color cards that have the same art on them to make them look different. I'll post a picture of some done ones when I can.

Day 52 - A Day of Food

Today I enlisted the help of the kids to make some cavatelli like my hubby's grandma use to, similar to Nana's video below. Though my pasta dough this time was 2/3 white flour and 1/3 wheat flour.
It took the kids awhile to get the rolling down right but they eventually did. I had them make about a pound of it before hubby and I took the rest of the pasta dough and made ravioli with it. The ravioli was interesting to make. It was my first time making it. I use a mixture of ricotta and seasoning for the filling. I first started off by making a sheet of dough, putting spoons of filling on it and covering it with another sheet of pasta before cutting them. Then I realized it was much easier to make a sheet, place the spoons of filling just off center and fold it over to make half round ravioli. You'll see in my picture some of each and in one of the pictures you can see the bag of cavatelli, my pasta machine, the bowl of filling and misc. goodies. It was a fun experience. We froze all the pasta but 12 ravioli, which we made for dinner. We had them in a brown butter and sage sauce, with a Montreal encrusted fillet....So good.

Days 49,50, & 51 - So far behind

So I haven't had much time for blogging the past few days. It's been absolutely craziness. Non-stop going, and I have still been doing my creative day thing every day even if I didn't post it. I'm going to take today's post to catch back up on everything.

Day 49 - My creative thing for the day was deciding to try to make something else with wonton wrappers. Yep I'm going try to fill them with everything I possibly can. Today was for a late night movie snack with the hubby. We wanted something spicy so..wonton wrapper jalapeno poppers it was. They came out really good, so good I'll be making them again very soon. Here is what I did:

You need: 3 oz of cream cheese
                  about 5 diced pickled jalapeno rings
                  1/2 tsp of sour cream
Mix it all together in a small bowl or ramekin till everything is together. I took the cream cheese mix and put about a half a tsp - one tsp in the middle of the wonton wrapper, wet the edges with a little water and folded it into a triangle pressing the edges together. Bake at 350°F for about 10 - 15 minutes until they start to brown.

Day 50 - Today I made a musical ornament. Not musical in the sense that it plays music but musical in the sense that it has to do with music..sheet music. I took a wood ornament painted it, decoupaged on some musical paper, added some musical notes, painted the edge with some gold dust and viola:

Day 51 - Today was all about the kids. I helped the oldest finish up her painting for the art show. Taught her how to make "snow" on the top of the mountains using a white marker. I then framed them and attached some hanging wire to them and took them to the gallery so they could be hung for the kids show. :) I love that my kids like art and I'm proud that their art will be shown in a gallery at such young ages. <3