CALENDAR TIME!!! HURRY!!!

Gosh, I'm almost embarrassed to blog today, I have been such a slug lately!  No explaining it, don't understand it, hoping for motivation soon!

In the meantime, I just wanted to share a good deal with you from Blitsy.  Blank calendars available for the next three days, or while supplies last...so HURRY!!! There are several sizes, I got the 8.5x11 for only $3.50!  I have everything I need to make these myself (including the spiral binding) but it is just so much easier and maybe even cheaper to order it... so I did. (click on picture to access online)

  I bought THREE of them last night because one of my favorite journaling styles found on Pinterest is doodling on calendars

<>I'll stop now, you get the point.

Learning the Hard Way...

Still taking Candice's class and I'm here to tell you that SHE IS AWESOME!!!  One of the most giving folks I've met in a while.  Not to mention she is just so good at this watercolor thing.  And I so AM NOT!  She makes "doodling" look so effortless, seriously, it just happens with her... I'm going to hope that that will come with practice because it IS NOT so easy for me!  I'm only going to show you my pitiful attempt at this because she really wants to see what students are doing.

Now, first, in my defense, I was silly enough to try to do watercolor on canvas!  DUMB! DUMB! DUMB!  EVERYTHING acts differently on canvas!  Honestly, watercolors should only be done on watercolor paper in my opinion...then you kinda know what to expect!  Seriously, I used a waterproof black pen that ran!  And a non-waterproof pen that I THOUGHT I would be able to blend out to the next color... NOT! Colors were darker than I wanted and just sat there until they dried, no soaking at all so instead of pretty transitions it was blobby....UGH!!!   Almost everything on this mess is an attempt to fix the last mess I made!  

And then of course, add to that the tactical errors I made color wise, put colors next to other colors that should never have been.... I'm sorry Candice, I promise to do better .....   

BUT, practice makes perfect right???

It's a Blue and Orange Christmas! REALLY???

I KNOW! I KNOW! Blue and orange for Christmas, REALLY???  What can I say, it just kinda took on a life of its own!  

OH! WELL!

Lazy Man's Doodling

I have decided to start calling my blog the LAZY MAN DOODLE BLOG!  I have just not been in the doodling mood lately.  Not too sure what is up with that but I haven't wanted to do much of anything. So, today's doodle is brought to you by my PC and CorelDraw! 

ANYWAY, this morning I got the strangest email from Google that someone wanted me to share a .pdf file with them....OK...talk about have to DIG DEEP to figure out what the heck!?  Well, 2.5 years ago I found a free online tool called Tartan Designer ...COOL TOOL!!  You can make a BAGILLION different plaids... if plaids float your boat.  Well, way back then I offered a free plaid alphabet on my other blog and that's what the person was asking for!  GO FIGURE!

Today, I went back to the site and played a bit more and made some purple and gold in honor of all my family back in Louisiana.

 

OH!  And, I have been meaning to mention that I LOVE to learn so I'm taking yet another online class. This one is from Candice Dillhoff

I don't usually share when I take a class because they are usually NOT WORTH THE MONEY!  I think some people get a little bit greedy and I don't try to sell their stuff for them.  But, today I share Candice's because it is just $25 for 12 lessons, 2 a week for 6 weeks.  We got our first lesson today...three separate videos with exercises to go with the last two.  Heck, just the printables make the class worth the money, I think.  So, if you have $25 to spare, come join the fun! Not to worry, it is self paced so you won't be too late.

PC Doodies Puzzle Card

A sweet friend turned 80 this weekend so I found myself in need of a quick birthday card.  She LOVES putting jigsaw puzzles together so I made one for her as her card.  This was the picture I used: (can you guess her favorite color?)

And this is the die I used to cut the puzzle.  I bought it to make puzzles for small children to occupy them while in a restaurant.  I thought I'd have some in my purse and when they started getting restless I would give them one.

It was a really quick task.

• Make the picture in CorelDraw
• Print it onto 8.5x11 label paper
• Stick that down onto book board
• Run through die cut
• DONE!

I then put the pieces in a small paper bag and decorated it with washi tape and a paper flower I had sitting close by.

OH MY GOODNESS!  You would have thought I had given her the moon!  Thrilled.  I also gave her a gift card to her favorite store and a hat with a flower.  I wish now I would have taken a picture because she was too cute in that hat!

The Inchies Just Had To Come Out!

I couldn't stand it, I just had to make inches...

I had to do something with my color blend practice!

 

Playing With Watercolor Blends

Playing with watercolor blending...love all the color!

I started with a grid that I printed onto a white piece of watercolor paper.  At first I chose colors to blend on purpose then I decided that the only way to ever remember what colors I was using was to number each color and write the number in each corner.  As I was numbering the few that I had already done I decided to just randomly number each square without looking at the color the numbers represent thus making the blend colors completely random, blends I may never have tried on purpose.....better.  After I finished I filled in all the background with a black, broad tip, sharpie.

I'm thinking there are inches in there somewhere just crying to come out.

White Lace On Black - Isaiah 48-17

Truth be told, the main reason I wanted to come up with a border font was so I could get the look of white lace on a black background...sorta like this:

SAMPLER:

I'm not too sure why I wanted the lacy look because there is absolutely NOTHING about me that says "lacy"... except, I do like lace and I really appreciate the work that goes into making it... But, you won't find any lace in my home or on my person! For sure!

Well heck!  Nothing makes a mistake "POP" like posting it on the internet!  Can you spot it?  Arrrrgh!

MFH Border Bits and Pieces Font

This past week  I decided that I wanted to do a border font. As in, every letter is a different part of a border so that if a letter is repeated it creates a border....OR use combinations of letters. See what I mean below: 

Here is what I have so far:

I'm sure I'll make it available soon but it has been a lot of work and before I spend much more time on it I would rather see if there is any interest because I can live without fixing the things I know would have to be fixed if I sell it... Like more corners and such. 

This one will probably cost $15 because the combinations are limitless!  

Anyone interested?

Psalm 118:8... Printer/Watercolor Test

Today I decided to do a test.  First I tore a couple of 8.5" x 11" pages from a 22" x 30" sheet of watercolor paper.  I wanted to see if I could print something using my Epson printer onto the paper then watercolor it without the ink spreading when I added water.

SUCCESS!!!

Below is like the original file that I printed (I closed it without saving it so I had to recreate it to share with you)  Everything but the text was added by hand:

The large font is one I have available under the "My Font Store" in the menu above called MFH Stitches. (the "e" is different now because after I saw it printed on my original I decided to change it).

You are welcome to download the black and white version as soon as I can figure out how to do it!  I use to use Google Docs but I don't think that exists anymore???  All I could find was Picasa so I downloaded that and it has been loading every picture on my PC forever now!!!  I have 1000s!!!  I'm hoping it will also help me see what I have where.  We shall see!  You can try right clicking and saving it that way, I'm just not sure of the .dpi.

Let Go and Let God

It feels kinda weird having "God" be polka dot... But, I was trying to cover up a mistake :-/

Two testimonies:

If you wait long enough God will bring help...and from the most unexpected places!

Last week someone broke my mailbox in half! Literally, I went out and the actual mailbox was on the ground! Awwwww man! (Said with a Whiny voice)...  Who the heck do you get to install a new mailbox??? OK add that to changing tires making two reasons to be married.   Though my ex wasn't all that great at tire changing....  

Anyway, anyway...  I decided to check out Angie's List.  Did you know that you have to PAY for that?!  It was going to be $29 just to be able to find a handy man!! So, I decided to think about it.  The very next morning I got an .email from them offering a 25% discount!  OK, so that makes it a little better.... Not only that, if you pay using PayPal there is an additional 20% (i think) off.   ...always my preferred payment choice anyway....  Soooo, instead of paying $29 I paid something like $14!!! 

Would you believe that during the night someone had temporarily fixed the broken one!  Several days later the guy across the street came over and confessed...someone had backed out of his driveway and broken it...he was going to replace it over the weekend with a whole new one!  DONE!  I now have a brand new box...AND... He noticed the blue tarp on my roof (used to cover a 6" hole made by a falling tree branch almost TWO years ago!  It was too expensive for me to fix then so it was now on my Angie's Fix it List.  He offered to fix that too!!  FOR FREE!  GOD is so AMAZING!  "Let Go and Let God"

Side story...  His house is up a hill....one day about 11 years ago, just one month after my "fire destroyed" house was replaced with a brand new one I was sitting in my dining room and heard this gosh awful crash.  I went downstairs to investigate and found the tail end of a truck INSIDE my shower!!!  Their daughter had not put the emergency break on and the empty truck had rolled down their driveway and ended up in my bathroom!!  It was the most bazaar thing because the truck had to go past 4 trees and other bushes to get to my house and not one branch, leaf even, was touched!!...but I got ANOTHER brand new bathroom!  I think that is the only other time he and I have ever talked before the mailbox thing.  We aren't a "get to know your neighbor" kind of neighborhood for sure!  I have lived here 30 years and don't even know any of my neighbors last names.... PITIFUL!

 

 

Be Creative! What can YOU DO in addition to praying?

I have thought about prayer a lot this week because I have a friend that just had MAJOR heart surgery at the age of 80 (in a few months) and I started seeing TONS and TONS of offers for prayers.  

Cool! 

Everybody's praying... but.... 

- where are they?  

- what else are they doing? 

- is anyone actually DOING anything to help?  

Because let's face it .... 

And you can't just say "Be sure and call me if you need ANYTHING".... knowing full well that the person will never call and ask for help!

I know my friend, ANY offer of help would be immediately answered with "Oh honey, that is so sweet, but I am fine, really." She "wouldn't want to put anyone out". But I also KNOW that there are things that she needs help with!  

- Who is running the errands that need running?  

- Who is taking care of the pets?

- Who is vacuuming the carpet?  

- Who is giving the care giver a break?

Don't just offer to help, INSIST on it!  JUST DO IT!!!  

Don't ask "what?",  you need to be creative ... AND JUST DO IT!!!!   

Heck!  EVERYBODY could use some help of some kind!  OF COURSE someone that is going through something that requires your prayer could also use YOUR HELP!

Galatians 6:10

New International Version (NIV)

10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

....there, I feel better now....

Flowers and Vines (19 doodled .pngs for sale)

Last week Jeanne purchased my MFH Polly Wolly Doodle Font then asked if she could also purchase the flowers that are used in some of the examples found throughout the site.  Unfortunately, I had hand drawn all of those and hadn't done any digitized version of them so I decided to give it a go and create something.

These are the 19 .pngs that are now available for purchase:

Flowers and Vines (19 .png files zipped, will be emailed) $6.50..........

I made them so that, if you have a graphics package like PSE, you can combine, resize, and color adjust, if you know how.   They will definitely require some knowledge on how to manipulate .pngs so if you don't know how please don't purchase.  They will come as a .zip file containing 19 separate .png files.  

Below are a few examples of how they can be used:

Thanks for the challenge Jeanne!  I hope this is what you meant!

Psalm 112:5

Well! Today was one of those days when I really wish I had more of an idea of where I  going BEFORE I took off in full trot!!

All I had in mind when I started today's doodle was a scripture (Psalm 112:5) and a flower.  Scripture made it, the flower didn't.  But that isn't where the trouble started.  If you have been around for a while you may have noticed that I like frames....and I like for things to hang over and out of the frame...today that went all wrong.  See the picture below... The inside/outside got "off" with the word "GOOD". Had I been thinking ahead that heavy black frame around the word should have been drawn BEFORE I watercolored anything....then I would have done that box a different color.... But, I drew it after the fact in an attempt to "fix" my mess...FAIL!

 

 

So, I spent the next hour working on it, with several options not working :-(.  Believe me, this was one of those times when much less time would have been spent starting over...but, nooooooo, I am way too bull headed for that!   I tend to get more and more determined to make it ok.

I ended up with this:

Unfortunately, you can't see what I see... The "GOOD" is actually gold glitter and it looks kinda good.  :-). It sparkles!  I love sparkle!

I do wish I had the "want-to" to do it again "right" because there is a lot about it that I would change..... But, I over it, no do-overs today.  

Oh, here is something I doodled last night while watching a movie...on one of the 5000 (?) index cards I bought at Staples this week .... they were having a sale :-/

 

 

 

Value the Differences

There have been several times in my life that The Lord had me in a position to see people treat others with a superior attitude because they "knew" something that the other folks didn't know.  They thought the other people were stupid and had little value because the others didn't know what they knew..

I spent 13 years at AT&T working with programmers as the "voice"/designer (aka: Human Factors Engineer) for end-users, the people that had to use the software that was developed.  I would sit in meetings listening to the progammers call the users stupid!!!  That would make me crazy and I'd have to jump to their defense!  "Just because a person doesn't know what YOU know doesn't make them stupid!!!  I guarantee that person can do something that you can't do!"  It is all about training!  Not SMART!  And God designed us differently, for different purposes :

Romans 12:6   "We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.... " 

Value the Differences

I was married to a brilliant man for 17 years and I can't tell you how often he would get angry because I didn't know everything he knew!  What?!  Perceived Value = Zero.  It didn't matter that I knew things he didn't know, I was stupid in his eyes.

You have probably heard all your life, like I have, if everyone agrees then someone is not necessary.  You NEED people that know different things and/or have different skills to get things done and/or to come up with the best solution to a problem!  If we are all alike there is a hole somewhere!

Value the Differences

I wished that I had said something different on top of the puzzle pieces but it was too late.  Something more along the lines of "You might miss out of God's best plan for your life"...

The Real Heart Test

 

Guess who did that yesterday!  Me, with four different people, all giving the wrong answers!!!  Ya know.... I really do consider myself a nice person, but honestly, NOTHING brings out the yuck in me like trying to get a helpful answer from a phone support person in any country, but magnify the issues when fighting the language barrier!!  So much time is spent saying, repeating and spelling!   

NOT PRETTY!

Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE people from other countries, its just I am usually already on edge because I have already tried everything, doing my best to avoid he dreaded call, (including reading and watching YouTube videos).  Then I call and spend the first 30 minutes answering, repeating and spelling answers to questions that have NOTHING to do with the issue... And when I  finally get to the actual question I have, I find out I am talking to the wrong person!!! .... And there I go, into endless support-line-hell-loop!

Forgive me Lord, please.

 

2 Timothy 3:2-5

I woke up at about 4:00 AM this morning thinking about a conversation I had with a friend Sunday night.  She was very upset with her brother and said that she probably would never see him again because she is so mad at him.  He lives only about 6 hours away but their father died last month and he hadn't bothered trying to come when "the call" was made to hurry.  And she didn't like the way he had treated their mom when he did finally bother to come about 3 days after his dad died.

Everything about the conversation screamed 2 Timothy 3 to me where human behavior in "the last days" is described.  The "all-about-me", disrespecting of parents generation.  We are smack dab in the middle of it (or the last of the last, I'm hoping)

ANYWAY, I had referenced the verses in our conversation, but, as usual, I had said, "you know, somewhere, it says something like ...."

Ya know, I use to be better at quoting scriptures but with all the new versions available these days it is almost impossible to quote verses!  for me anyway....  I really wish I had stuck with the King James and I would be much further along... that's what I learned growing up.... BUT .... 

So, I decided I wanted to memorize 2 Timothy 3:2-5 and I got up and started by lining three different versions of the Bible up, side by side.... easy enough to do with Biblegateway....  I had the NIV, King James and The Amplified.  But, even side by side they were hard to compare because the Amplified uses so many extra words that they don't stay lined up for long.  I decided to make a chart to help me see each characteristic more clearly.  I had no intention of making a "doodle' out of it... I just wanted to study and learn.  And that's what I did between 4:00 and 6:00 this morning.

I did the chart on the only tablet that was handy, one of my art journals, so as I was looking at it a little while ago I couldn't help myself, there was, after all an inch between the two sections!!  Oh the sections are there because that's how much paper was required for the list...the list goes down then jumps to the right for the rest of the verses.

Anyway, anyway, here it is after I got done "doodling"

 

More Of The Same, Only Different

Yesterday I started this page....the top part only....then I got kinda bored and stopped....

Yesterday I punched out the oval from a piece of cardstock and used the hole as a template to draw the oval onto the watercolor paper with pencil.  NOT the best answer!  After I drew and painted everything inside the ovals I filled in the black background and I did a really lousy job of going around the ovals with the black marker!  So, today I did it differently.  I used the piece that was punched out and drew around it with the marker first, then did all the drawing and painting.  WAY better!

And that's why we practice right?

 

Just Killin' Time

Draw some ovals and fill them...then color black a background.

 

Let Nothing Go to Waste

I just played with hearts today.  There was a strip of a page about 2.5" in one of watercolor journals so I filled it up....

And then I took a picture and cropped it so you wouldn't see the page underneath.

And while I had it in ArtRage I covered up some of that white on the hearts because it was too white!  That's the problem with Sakura's White glaze pen,,, it goes on clear then gets whiter and whiter as it dries... Love that, but it is a surprise sometimes!

Better.

Philippians 1:6

This was today's scripture from Biblegateway.... just for me ... :-)  I can not tell a lie, my whole life I have expected The Lord to return at any moment.... and I was afraid that I might be one of those bridesmaids that grew weary in waiting and missed the call.  See, not only do I want to be part of the marriage feast of the Lamb,  I DO NOT want to go through the tribulation period!  IT IS NOT going to be pretty!  And, seeing all the things that are happening DAILY making all those awful prophecies do-able... TODAY, I stay on the edge of my seat!

Anyway, I needed THIS scripture today.  THANK YOU Father God!  

American Sins

....just to name a few!!

I have to say, I get a little crazy when people ask the question WHY?.....   Really?

 

And, the Rest Of the Story....

I finally decided to commit it to paper...

 Galatians 6:9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 

It is easy to lose focus on what the ultimate end goal is with so many distractions in life.

Actually, it can be ANY promise you are standing on at the moment, that just happens to be my favorite.

Today I Played With the Real Thing Again

See, the thing is, yesterday I got a large box of watercolor paper delivered and I couldn't resist, I just had to play.  Gotta say, I honestly don't think there is anything better than Inktense Watercolor pencils!  I LOVE using them! I'm just sad that there aren't anymore colors to buy :-(.  

Anyway,  now I'm waiting on the next step....what to do with it ... Do I add more dots? Or, cut it apart and use the pieces on something else?  Or add words?  .... Waiting .....

I mention cutting it apart because I did another one and that's what I did because I wasn't happy with it.  So it, or some part of it, will become a part of something else??

Oh, today it is July 4th, Independence Day.... And it has rained ALL day! But,that doesn't stop the fireworks, there is a display somewhere around here, I can hear them...but unfortunately that it, I can't see a thing ...too many trees.   But, I love my trees so no complaints here!   

Hope you all had a great 4th!

The next day..........

Aaaaaaaaa.....the iPad magic....test it before you commit!   

Ima Crow

I promised a friend, Barb, that I would doodle a crow for her blog so here is my first watercolor go at it.  Her last name is Crow and this is Ima Crow, get it?  It is waiting for change requests so we shall see.... And, yes the purse is significant ....

Well heck, I did the one below on my ipad last week and it actually looks more like a crow that the one above...heck....now, seeing the two together the top one looks more like a black bird than a crow... Or, is it just me because the bottom looks like she would be Heckle and Jeckle's mom.  Anyone out there even know who I' m talking about?

Hummmm,.... Getting old.....

 

 

Cool Note Taking App!

Much has happened since last I wrote..... And now starts my list of excuses for not posting in a while....

- I took a little mini vacation to a friend's house

- My iPad stopped charging!!! so I had to go to the apple store for diagnosis since they wanted to charge me $70 for a phone call consult!!!  NOT!!  Thankfully, it is still under warranty so the replacement charger cable was free.

- I have been trying more new apps out... My app Drawing Folder now looks like this!  So many choices, how does one choose just one?

My Top 5 Favorite Doodle Apps

.

Someone asked me today what apps I use to doodle on my iPad.  If you have followed me through this learning process you know that my favorites have changed over time AND, it just depends on what I want to do that day.

I might use 2 or 3 different apps to create one thing.  If there is going to be a lot of text that I don't feel like drawing, I will type it in iDraw and do the rest of the picture in another app then combine the two.

I have numbered the favorites but really, it just depends.  

I wish I could have shown the prices for each but that disappears once you buy it so I don't know what they cost now.  I think the most expensive one was iDraw ($7.99)... which REALLY blows me away because it acts so much like CorelDraw which is a $500 package!  CRAZY!

IMPORTANT NOTE!

Please know that I am NOT an artist!  I suspect that a real artist can make all of these apps sing.  I know I've seen some drawings that are amazing.  I have just been playing with any package that someone said that they like, to see why...  and then I formed my own conclusions based on what I found useful and what I felt was a total waste....FOR ME.  Someone else might love them.  

I also included a few that I wouldn't use to create anything with but I think they are FUN to play with, just because. 

  Like - 

- Sumo Paint, that one is just WILD! and I think it was free so its worth a look.  

- I don't use Page 53 anymore (I think it was the first doodle app I tried) but I just love their "Journal" layout so I keep it loaded.  

- Scribble Press is another one that I won't use but I think is SO CLEVER FOR KIDS!  They can draw something then send it in to be published!

One more package that I use with almost everything I doodle on the iPad is SnapSeed.  I use it to crop, for some reason none of the other packages have cropping!  ???  Unless I just haven't figured a way to ???

I Can Be Some Dumb At Times

Yesterday I was watching my little "Thing Maker" video again and couldn't believe I had been so dumb!  I sat there and drew the shadow behind each letter!  I NEVER DO THAT!  Well, except on paper, but never digitally.  DER!

What I normally do is

1. Write the word or draw the shape

2. Duplicate that layer 

3. Change the bottom layer to black

4. Move the object on that lay over and down a bit

Done

WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!

I am a little bit panic stricken, after I did the above I LOST the plastic tip on my Jot Pro Stylus
!!! OMGoodness!!! Talk about dependent on a tool.  My iPad doodles are on hold until I get a new one....I actually ordered six new ones (I don't like being in this position). Hoping for a fast delivery.  I didn't realize how much more I like digital doodling over pen-and-paper doodling until now.

Moral of that story: PUT THE CAP BACK ON!!!

Pinterest Inspired Doodling

Yesterday I wanted to play with the "record" function of my new iPad app, Sketch Club.  But, rather than try and think of something to draw I went back to the Pinterest Doodle Book I created last year.

If you watch the video you will see I didn't spend a lot of time fixing things, some, but not a lot... because it wasn't about the finish as much as the "Let's see how this works".  That is, by the way, the story of my life.  I want to LEARN and move on, after I get to the "OK, I can do that." phase of learning anything I am ready to move on to the next thing.... unfortunately, I never excel in anything :-(

... This doodle blog is the longest I have spent doing any one thing, but if you look back over the entire time I have been all over the place with what and how I doodle!

And then I did this one: (sorry I don't have the original from Pinterest to show)

Then:

Yesterday:

Sorry this next video is so small, you may want to zoom in to see it better.

There is an option to see all the different menu functions I used to do each step but there is a WHOLE LOT of flashing, fast screens that hurt just to watch.  I think I MIGHT could slow things down a bit if I use a different software package here on my desktop.  That might be my next test.

Work In Progress