Gatlinburg Tennessee

What a weekend!  Thursday we packed up and headed to Gatlinburg for a few days of fun and family.  I had never been to Gatlinburg before-but any chance to see people I love and experience new things, I'm there!  The view from our cabin was unreal, so beautiful.  It's like we were just hanging off of the side of the mountain.  Which we kinda were, so.....

Friday we drove through town and out into the country to this place called The Forbidden Caves.  It was a full out cave in the middle of the Smokey Mountains, and it was so beautiful!  My daughter Lorelei was SO excited to go inside the cave and she did such a good job and was such a brave little girl!  (even when they turned the lights off!) 

Saturday we did a lot of just hanging around the cabin talking and relaxing.

That afternoon we all headed into the city of Gatlinburg, it was a lot more crowded and touristy than I was expecting.  My little family spent some time exploring while everyone else went to a show in Pigeon Forge (we didn't think the kids could sit through a show so we opted to hang back)  As we were walking down the street we came across a little side street that lead to a super quaint, super low key part of town.  This was GREAT!  Perfect for just strolling the kiddos around and looking in unique shops.

 

We also walked a little farther down and walked onto the campus of the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts!  I have always heard about this school but didn't realize it was in Gatilinburg.  You can go here and take all kinds of classes in traditional arts and crafts (weaving, pottery, painting, ect)  Classes can last a weekend, a week, a month, or you can even be an artist in residence for an entire year!   I would love to go and take a weaving class or something, anything!

It really was an amazing weekend of staying up too late, getting up too early, and having the best time with some really amazing people.

The day is saved!

The scene.  Kids are happy.  Wanting to play with play-doh.  We grab the bag that holds the doh and all the doh accessories (cookie cutters, rolling pins, spaghetti makers, worm makers...you get the idea).  Dump it out.  And....NO PLAY-DOH!!!!!  So what's a mom to do, um google "how to make play-doh" and pray you have the ingredients!  I found an awesome recipe here.  

First what you need: 

2 cups flour

2 cups warm water

1 cup salt

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon cream of tartar

Food Coloring (optional)

Essential Oil (optional)

1. Mix all the ingredients in a large skillet. Except the food coloring and essential oil

 

2. Stir the mix until it clumps up and looks like, well, dough!  If it is sticky, keep stirring.

3. Once it is all clumped and looks like dough, plop it out on your counter.  Let is get cool enough so you can kneed it.  Kneed it until it is smooth.  Here is where you can add the food coloring and oils.  I made a little birds nest type shape, dropped the colors in the center and folded the dough over so it didn't get too much on our hands.  Kneed until the color is totally mixed in! (*note I did not use any essential oils, let me know if you do...I want to know how that is!)

4.  The kids totally helped me with this part and were super excited to see the colors appear!

5. Done!

The day is saved!!!! 

(*second note, I only made a half batch and that was more than enough for my two kids)

Never too old to color!

Have you gotten the coloring bug yet??  I have been seeing these adult coloring books everywhere!  I've got two young kids and whenever they color I just can't help myself and grab a crayon and dig in with them, but as much as I love coloring Elmo or Curious George sometimes it does get a tad-wah wah.  But now, when my kids sit down to color I can pull out my very own coloring book!  There are a ton of options out there it seems, but I opted for Johanna Basford's Enchanted Garden, she also has Secret Garden (out now) and Lost Ocean (out October 2015).  

 All of her books are beyond beautiful with out the color and with very intricate designs.  I'm not gonna lie it takes me forever to color one page-but apparently I am a very focused colorer (or so says my hubs).  In any case it has been fun to be creative and not think just color!  Have you tried one of these yet??  Which would you choose?

Flutter of Emotions

What a perfect title for this post.  I am a flutter of emotions!  Did you know I was an artist?  No probably not, but I am.  It has been far too long since I have stretched my artistic muscles.  My true artistic muscles.  I have a degree in Art with an emphasis in fiber arts (weaving, sewing, dying, crocheting, knitting, embroidery...) and digital media (Photoshop, digital photography, web design).  I guess over the years things get busy, bills need to get paid, we started our family; and my art took a back seat.  After our summer traveling and this past week chatting with one of my most dear friends from college I realized how much I missed creating.  My friend-seriously-she is inspiring!  She has been working toward her own creative goals for the past few years and honestly I was jealous!  Art is such an important part of my life and I had just let that part of me get buried.  With all that being said-I have started flexing the right side of my brain and creating again.  My same dear friend sent me a link to a tshirt contest, design a tshirt inspired by the movie Inside Out.  The perfect place to dive back into the world that I love so much.  So here is my design...what do you think?  

 

I didn't go literal and draw the characters.  (although I did sketch this cutie as a warm up)  I took it a little more abstract.  The butterfly symbolizes (as it usually does in life) growth and development.  The wings-the colors and designs come from each of the emotions from Inside Out.  Joy, Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Disgust.  Our emotions are a part of who we are.  Sometimes they stay neatly in their lines, but sometimes they don't, sometimes they our emotions our so big and strong they leak out of their lines, sometimes they explode out of their lines!  Whether they are inside the lines our outside the lines, they make us who we are and we are beautiful because of them.

Here is a bit of the process, I sketched one side of the butterfly in my sketchbook.  Scanned in put it into Photoshop, colored one side, then doubled the image.  I used the paint brush tool, 40% opacity, and the blur tool to create the colors bleeding out side the lines of the butterfly.

I have entered my design in the Threadless tshirt contest, I would love to know what you rate it, 1-5 (5 being the best).  Head over to Threadless give it a score, and pre-order a shirt if you love love love it!  (if it wins they will print it!)

https://www.threadless.com/designs/flutter-of-emotions

I'm feeling a little fearful and excited about this new journey I'm taking!  

What emotions are you feeling this week?

Post Card Art

This past weekend we spent some much needed time over at my Mom and Dad's house.  With our busy summer running all over the place (3 states in 2 months!) we didn't see them very much.  So when I called to see what their plan was for the weekend my Dad sweetly said that of course we could come over, but "only if you wear your work clothes!"  Mom and Dad have been working really hard doing some really neat updates to their house.  So we loaded up with our work clothes on and headed to their house for the day!  

One project I helped mom with is framing post cards!  This is a really easy project that takes no time at all.  You can either frame post cards that people have sent you, or on your next adventure grab a few for yourself, or hit up a flea market or antique store and find some vintage ones.  You will also need frames.  We used frames that were all glass so you could still read the messages!

Honestly the hardest part of this project is figuring out where you're going to hang them!  Once you decide your spot grab a nail and a hammer and hang them.  (we used a small nail because our frames were very light.  Mom and I are eyeballers with it comes to hanging things-maybe not the best technique but hey for most things it works!  If a slightly off picture would drive you nuts, grab a level and a ruler.)

Voila!  Dress up your space with something that is personal and makes you think of the adventures you've had and the people you love.