Monday's Treasury: Slate Blue

Today's treasury is based on my favorite color, slate blue.  It's a mix of items from jewelry to pottery, I would love for you to take a look!  Etsy is such a wonderful place, full of such diversity and incredible artists.  Since none of the items in the treasury are my own, I can't include a picture, but I'm working on my own image for the Monday's Treasury spot, should have that done for next week.  In the meantime, please click the link below to see this collection of slate blue items.

Slate Blue Treasury

Welcome 2012!

This is going to be THE year! Isn't that what everyone says? From being THE year to lose weight, THE year to start saving more, THE year to do whatever, how many resolutions actually stay with us?  I have so many of these that I don't even feel like making a resolution because I know I won't stick with it. 

2012 is already beginning with changes for me: the biggest being I start a new, full-time job on Wednesday.  The boys will be going to full days at school, four days a week.  And seeing that M is having a full blown tantrum on the kitchen floor as I write this (over not being able to hold the Polar Express DVD box) you would think I'm chomping at the bit for this change.  While I'm certainly not dreading it, I wouldn't say I'm super excited about it either.  It's going to be hard, especially with not having the relatively free and flexible schedule of a SAHM anymore.  But it will be nice to be with adults again and know that the boys are having fun in a place they know and enjoy.  And they should be together in the afternoons, I think, so that should help them out too.

All that being said, I am hoping this year to grow Striped Turtle Studio and possibly expand into a sister shop selling handmade soaps.  On the immediate horizon is a new look and two fun little mascots for the etsy shop, facebook page and this blog.  I plan on being much more active on all three sites.  And to begin this, I'm introducing "Monday's Treasury" a weekly self-curated Etsy Treasury.  I'm hoping to have a regular blogging schedule, but for now I'm starting slow... after all, too many changes at once isn't a good thing.

With all the new changes on the horizon, I'm excited, nervous, anxious and a touch overwhelmed.  But I'm looking forward to this year being a good one, cheers!

IF: Shadow

Another Illustration Friday post! This week is "shadow" and my immediate thought whenever I hear the word shadow is of my former shadow, Dragon. She's my tiny little black cat and she used to follow me wherever I went. Nowadays, she's much happier to wait until nighttime to be with me, when there are no little hands trying to grab her tail or little heads trying to use her as a pillow. Instead, she sleeps upstairs during the day, maybe appearing once or twice to eat or use the litter box.

So here's my little shadow, sleeping on the arm chair in our bedroom last night. This is my first attempt at sketching, scanning in the sketch, redrawing with illustrator and painting with photoshop. I kept it all very simple, but I really like the effect.

Logo and "Mascot" Characters

I'm working on a new logo and a couple of little characters for Striped Turtle Studio! It's a little slow-going since I don't get a lot of design time on the "good" computer these days. It's in the basement and since there are two little monsters running around the house most days who can't be contained down there, it's hard to get into the basement to do anything productive.

I did get some progress done this morning while Babyman was at school and Tinyman cooperated by playing somewhat quietly and non-destructively. Then he decided he wanted to sit in my lap at the computer and play on the keyboard, so that ended computer time fairly effectively.

So sorry, but I can't give any sneak peeks until the new designs are done. But I think they're going to be really cute - I'm loving them already!

IF: Asleep

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Asleep." (Can you believe it? I'm finally doing an IF entry! Woohoo!)

When I saw the topic, my immediate thought was of my little guys sleeping. It's always such a wonderful thing when they sleep, whether it's a nap (rare) or at bedtime (when Mommy and Daddy sigh in relief). I have tons of pictures of them sleeping since it's the only time they are still enough to get the perfect shot easily, plus they're just too adorable when they are all peaceful.

So I decided to create two images for the topic, one of each of my guys. Both are digital photos that I played around with in Photoshop Express and PSCS5. My PSE is super simple, on my iPad, so I played around to see what it could do. I liked the results, but they weren't exactly right. So I brought them into CS5 to go a little further. I love playing with the artistic filters, it was neat seeing the effects I got on top of the PSE files.

So, without further ado, here are my sleeping angels. Just for the record, that's probably the only time I'll call them angels, when they're sleeping. ;)

My little guy sleeping on Daddy's arm, where he falls asleep almost every night.

My big guy with his multiple bedtime friends. One of these days he's going to end up looking like ET in Elliot's closet of stuffed animals.

Click the pictures to see them full size - the details are much better full size.

Pre Madonna

Nope, I'm not referring to the era of music just before "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin" hit MTV (back when MTV actually played music). I'm actually referring to the latest (and possibly the best) malapropism I've seen in a long time. Facebook tends to be good for that kind of thing and today was no disappointment.

In referring to one of the NY Housewives (Ramona, I believe), someone stated in the comments section that on their Morocco trip she was being a "real pre Madonna." I'm pretty sure they meant to say "primadonna." Now I have to admit that one of my biggest pet peeves is misuse of grammar and incorrect spelling, though I'm not one of those people to correct a friend or acquaintance (my kids and husband are a different story, lol). In fact, most of the time it makes me laugh, especially on Facebook. And "pre Madonna" definitely made me laugh!

Crayons!

I've been learning the ins and outs of molding crayons, and I'm really enjoying it! It's a lot of fun finally using all my chocolate molds for something other than candy that no one is going to eat. I made a whole bunch of different sets of crayons, with more in the works, but for right now here are a few of the current sets available for sale in the shop.

Party Planning

My focus over the past few weeks (months?) has been my little guy's 3rd birthday party. I still can't believe he's 3 years old now. 3! Craziness.

So after we decided on a theme - Dinosaur Train - I got to work on the invitations. Next up were the goody bags.


Then t-shirt decals. And cupcake toppers.


The cupcakes were inspired by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen and were sooooooo good!

I also printed a bunch of coloring sheets for the kids and set up our Crayola table and chairs in the kitchen to the kids could color and play with Play Doh.

We finished off the decorations by keeping it simple - green and orange balloons, streamers, paper plates and napkins. Green and orange because Buddy, the main character on Dinosaur Train, is an orange T-Rex with green markings.

Babyman LOVED it! He was so excited about his "Dino Train" party. My only wish is that the weather had been a touch better and we could have dug for dinosaurs too - I bought small dinosaur toys that we were going to bury in the boys' sand table and let the kids go to town with the sand toys, "digging for dinosaurs." But no one was the wiser (nor did anyone realize that there were a few more items I had planned to make as favors and goody bag items, but just didn't have the time) and the party was a lot of fun.

I'm hoping to add some fun items inspired by the party to the shop - cupcake toppers and goody bag decals, maybe even the iron-on t-shirt decals too. But first up is getting a bunch of crayons molded and packaged.

Next big project coming up: planning Tiny's 2nd birthday party!

The Voice of Color

A friend of mine had this color test on her blog and I just had to give it a try. I agree 100% with my result: Water Beads.

Heavy Fog

Driving down to Cape May this morning, I just barely caught a glimpse of a sign through the fog. It said, "Caution: Heavy Fog."

Plush available in shop!

My original design plush owls and snowman (more to come) are in the Striped Turtle Studio shop on etsy! Please take a look and order one, two or even three! Let me know if you like something you see but would love it in a different color/fabric - I'm always happy to do custom orders.

Welcome to Striped Turtle Studio blog!

It's taken a while to get this blog going and there is still plenty more to do. But I wanted to say welcome and I hope you enjoy the ride! We've imported all the posts from Simplify and combined the two blogs so that all updates will be done here from now.

Costumes

With Halloween approaching this is such a perfect little article at Quilting Arts! I LOVE the fish costumes, but really they all are so super creative and clever.

I do have to admit that I bought the boys' costumes this year, I don't know if I'm quite ready for homemade costumes yet!

I'm back!

After a very long absence I am back, hopefully with a vengeance! It's been a crazy year and I'm not going to make all sorts of excuses for not blogging. I'm just going to pick up from the present and move forward.

I'm hoping to do some food posts since I'm slowly working my way through the Better Homes & Gardens new cook book binder, finding some real yumminess and some okayness that could be tweaked into yumminess.

I also have a goal for getting Striped Turtle Studio off the ground and running, more about that later.

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get pictures from my cell phone to Blogger easily. And finally, welcome back!

Hello Cupcake!

I received this book for Christmas and can't wait to try out a bunch of the ideas in it. I even found the cakes for both boys' birthdays this year! The website here is awesome too!

Liberation

It has been very liberating to realize the following: most people are so impressed with the fact that I have two children under two years old and I've gotten myself out of the house, that it really doesn't matter what I look like at that point.

Case in point: today at Storytime at the library one of the moms asked me how I do it with two under two. I didn't have an answer, I just do it. You do what you have to do.

2009 Recap & Welcome 2010!

1) Was 2009 a good year for you? There were a lot of ups and downs this year.
2) What was your favorite moment of the year? When we welcomed Tinyman to the world!
3) What was your least favorite moment of the year? The death of my great-aunt whom we lovingly called Keresztmama, my father's godmother.
4) Where were you when 2009 began? At home with E & Babyman - don't remember if Babyman was awake or not. Probably awake and being difficult about going to bed!
6) Where were you when 2009 ended? At home with E, Babyman & Tinyman, only this time Babyman was sleeping and Tiny was awake with us to watch the ball drop.
7) Who were you with when 2009 ended? E & Tinyman
8) Did you keep your new years resolution of 2009? No but I have a surprise pregnancy and a new addition to "blame" for that, lol! It's hard to simplify life when you add in a new little one, but it's been a fun challenge.
9) Do you have a new years resolution for 2010? A few so far… need to put them down on paper or blog them so they become real.
10) Did you fall in love in 2009? Nope, stayed in love
11) Do you regret it? I certainly don't regret staying in love, that would be silly!
12) Did you breakup with anyone in 2009? Nope
13) Did you make any new friends in 2009? Not really, unless you count my Tinyman, my new best friend.
14) Who are your favorite new friends? My Tinyman, lol.
15) What was your favorite month of 2009? September, when my Tinyman was born.
16) Did you travel outside of the US in 2009? Nope - not much travel this year at all.
17) How many different states did you travel to in 2009? New York and Pennsylvania, and I think that's it. Like I said, not much travel - it's a lot of work to travel with two babymen.
18) Did you lose anybody close to you in 2009? Yes, my great-aunt right before Thanksgiving.
19) Did you miss anybody in the past year? Friends from college and high school, keeping up with everyone via Facebook helps but it isn't the same.
20) What was your favorite movie that you saw in 2009? Twilight New Moon - love those wolves, but I'm Team Edward
21) What was your favorite song from 2009? Say Hey by Michael Franti (don't know if it was from 2009 but that's when I heard it)
22) What was your favorite record from 2009? I didn't really listen to any one record at all this year, lots of satellite radio instead.
23) How many concerts did you see in 2009? 0
24) Did you have a favorite concert in 2009? Hard to have a favorite when you didn't see any!
25) Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2009? nope
26) Did you do a lot of drugs in 2009? nope
27) How many people did you sleep with in 2009? Well lets see... Eric, of course; then Dragon and Jett sleep with me every night except now that there's a new baby in the room with us; Tiny sleeps a couple hours with me in the morning and Babyman took lots of naps with me while I was pregnant... lol!
28) Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year? Probably, but I must have blocked it.
29) Did you treat somebody badly in 2009? I hope not! Unless you ask my toddler who is verging on his terrible two's.
30) Did anyone treat you badly in 2009? Not that I can recall, probably blocked that one too!
31) How much money did you spend in 2009? Way too much as always
32) What was your proudest moment of 2009? Being brave through an emergency c-section, my first major surgery and something I really didn't want to happen.
33) What was your most embarrassing moment of 2009? I try to block those embarassing moments!
34) If you could go back in time to any moment of 2009 and change something what would it be? Trying to do more with Babyman during the summer, despite how uncomfortable I was when I was pregnant.
35) What are your plans for 2010? Spending time with my babymen, as much as possible. Getting my own business up and running so that I can stay home with those babymen!
Questions answered January 1, 2010.

Ethan is here!

A little late in posting, but Ethan Sumner was born on September 2 at 12:42pm via emergency c-section. Weighing in at 9 pounds, 8 ounces and measuring 21.5 inches, our little boy wasn't so little! Welcome baby boy!

My horoscope

I haven't read my horoscope in a really long time.  For some reason I decided to take a look at it today on my "My Yahoo" page.  This is what it said:

Someone interesting -- no, absolutely fascinating -- is right around the corner, just dying to meet you. You, of course, are always game for different folks -- especially the kinds who have brains. So when this new person arrives, you'll probably want to clear your schedule and make sure you have time to spend with them. Do it! Oh, and don't be surprised if this thing goes on well into the coming weekend, too. Enjoy!

Well tomorrow we'll be scheduling an induction for the new baby to be born.  I'd say that's a fascinating new person to meet who is also dying to me meet me, wouldn't you say?  

Missing In Action

My has it been a long time! You can tell things got rather busy around here, can't you? It all really started with baby man's birthday party invitations. Once those were done we moved into planning the party, then making the cake (which I think took about four days), then the party itself. Add on top of that a trip to Long Island, a weekend in Edison and Staten Island, a couple of visits to Monmouth Park, and mix in baby man music classes and trips to the park and the indoor playground at the mall and we've been busy! Of course that also takes into account the days of exhaustion surrounding all that activity.

The summer is going quickly, and while that's a good thing, I'm getting a bit stressed about being ready for the new baby. Our plan is to move things around in the basement (almost done) and then move my office to the basement (not started), then move E's office to my office (not started) and make E's office the new baby's room. And it hit me that this week we're 32 weeks along! That means 8 weeks left, if we go to term (which I don't expect to... just a gut feeling). Now it all would be a bit easier if baby man wasn't so clingy these days, but he just won't let us out of his sight, and even when we're still in his sight he needs to be in the same room. So he will stand and cry at the gate to my office. So the logical step would be to do things during nap time, right? Yeah, it would be if nap time happened regularly, lol. But sometimes nap time will only take place in the car, or (more likely these days) Mommy and baby man take a nap together. So that leaves night time, when he's in bed. Again that would work if he went to bed before 10pm and we weren't wiped out by the time he's asleep! Lol - it's all a challenge these days. Today was a huge exception to the rule - Baby Man fell asleep in my lap at 7:45 and didn't take too much prodding to fall back asleep when I got him up to his crib. Of course that was because his only nap of the day was about 45 minutes long, if that. I can't say what the night will bring because usually the night after a fairly nap-free day isn't usually a restful one.

Anywho, that's the very quick update in a nutshell of where I've been! Not much crafting has been taking place, in fact the last thing I created was the thank you card for Baby Man's birthday presents. All of which are still sitting, waiting to be written. Terrible, I know. I feel awful about it and will be working on them tonight as soon as I get off the computer. But I did feel the need to jump at the chance to have some computer time while Baby Man sleeps and E is out at wrestling. (Speaking of E - he just got home.)

So let's get to the good stuff.... some highlight pictures of the past few months! (Pictures to be added shortly)