Bloglovin and a New Fall Watercolor

Have you heard of Bloglovin?

You make an account and then you type the name of all your favorite blogs into the search engine and when you find it, click Follow. You can even categorize your blogs (art, photography, mommy, etc). When you logn to Bloglovin and you land on your homepage you see all of the most recent blog posts from your favorites!

Say goodbye to searching for your favorite blogs in your web browser's favorites and being disappointed when you check up on a blog and they haven't updated. All you do is scroll down your Bloglovin home page and you are ready to go!

You can also add me to your blog reads by typing in Lady Poppins and you can follow me and what blogs I read by clicking on this:

You can follow my blog with Bloglovin

In other news, here is a new painting I have done for Fall!

Autumn Leaves Please Fall by Me...

It is officially Fall this coming Sunday...and it is in the high 90s.

I remember watching Casper (the one with Christina Ricci and super-cute-at-the-time Devon Sawa) and wishing that when school started leaves would be bright colors of green, yellow, orange, and red.

My home still looks and FEELS like Summer. And what makes me really confused is seeing all of the seasonal décor at Michael's and Target. Or worse---the coats and scarves! As if! It's like as if we live in Alaska and the sun just keeps on shining so you have to pretend that it is night and just go to bed. Here we have to pretend it's a crisp Autumn, but really we are just baking like crisp bacon.

In honor of the rest of you glorious season-changing states and countries I give you my own watercolor clip art of fall leaves, pumpkins, and flowers:

And then here is a new one:

Here are two free leaf PNG / clip art images for you :) The blue one is not part of my set in the shop, but the green one is.

Here is a picture of Clara nearly 3 years ago! These were taken at the end of November and she was only a month old...I am a horrible mother and put her down on the grass amidst fall leaves in our front yard. But only for the sake of the cutest fall pictures ever!! I can't believe my little girl will be a big THREE year old next month!

Let's Get Digital

Sooooo, after being urged by a family member and also a friend, I have decided to sink my toes into creating digital clip art.



Here is my first set:

And I am giving you a freebie! This is a PNG image of a teal butterfly resting on a pink flower. If you click on it you can save it. It is in 300 dpi, so it is a nice quality. You may use this for personal use only. Understandably, you are not allowed to resale this image or use it to make product to sell.

This set is super cute and girly. It has pink, mint, teal, and green going on. Here is the rest of it in the shop.   

Meanwhile I have been busy planning a top secret, super exciting project. I can't wait to tell everyone about it! And after that I have two more special projects to work on. This girl is so happy to be busy!

Here is a little saying I made using the clip art: Be Grateful. I think we need to be saying thank you for our blessings all the time.

On the home front Calvin started kindergarten. He LOVES it. He just adores his teacher and is excited every morning to go to school.

Here he is on his first day with Dusty the airplane backpack, Kermit the Frog lunchbox, and a huge smile :) Oh, and Velcro shoes because Kindergarten teachers spend a third of their day tying shoelaces.

When I get the chance to edit a few more pictures I am going to have to do a post about our summer vacation. We took a family road trip (2 grown ups, a 5 year old and 2 year old!) from SoCal up to Oregon within one week. Yikes! It was fun, but there are some stories to be told!! This picture above is from Solvang, California. It was the cutest little town EVER. I wish we could move there. It is enchanting.

I hope everyone is adjusting to Summer being over. I have a feeling Fall is going to go by too fast and before you know it Christmas will be here!!

DIY Overhead Phone Mount

I had a huge dilemma.

I am starting a new and exciting project where having an overhead mount is essential. BUT my best option for making a video is my cell phone! I love how awesome cell phones are nowadays. My nice camera is old, so the video abilities of it are of a different era.

But how to mount my phone ABOVE my workspace for my video? I saw one where they attached it to a bendable lamp, but of course the two I have were too short. So what's a girl to do?

Um, take your DIY light saber from Pinterest (a pool noodle cut in half with duct tape and electrical tape on it) and attach it to your camera tripod with rubber bands and string. VOILA!!!!

Yes, I have my phone attached to the top part with rubberbands.

I apologize for how excited I am about this, but I solved my problem all by myself! I hope it helps other people, especially for people who want to make instructional YouTube videos or online class videos.

SUPPLIES:

1. Camera tripod (or you can get creative like me and find something around the house that will suffice)
2. 4 rubberbands
3. Half a Pool Noodle from the Dollar Tree
4. 1 piece of string
5. Your phone

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Put the phone on the end of the noodle with rubberbands
2. Fiddle with the amount of noodle that needs to be attached to something solid till you get the phone to lay horizontally
3. Tie down the noodle with string and/or rubberbands

P.S. To use the tripod for my phone when I wanted to film myself, I mounted it to the place you normally put the camera and just used the rubberbands to strap it down.

UPDATE:
When my husband came home that night I showed him this post. He laughed at my creativity and then said, "Why didn't you just use my mic stand in the garage?"

OMG. 

I scavenged the whole house for this solution and it was sitting the garage the whole time!! Well, if your husband isn't a musician with a microphone stand that you can loop some rubber bands onto, then try my pool noodle/tripod approach ;) But I must say, I love using the mic stand because I can easily adjust it to different heights.

Mommy and the Half Truths

So my little girl is almost three... I really wanted to take pictures of her in front of a special quilt passed down from my Nana, but she really wasn't in the mood to take pictures. She would rather read Olivia (above) or hide behind her bed (below).

In order to get the one good picture of her with her babies I had to hold the camera in my lap and snap a photo in secret while I read her a Santa Claus story. Just one of the many tricks I use while parenting.

For example, I have told Calvin not to answer the door while I take showers because it might be a monster.

He was so excited to turn 5 that when he started to act up, I told him I would use my super mom powers and stop time. He would not turn 5 if the behavior continued.

"Mommy, how does Space Mountain work?" My husband was stumped. Does he tell him the mechanics of it and ruin the magical illusion? Nah, just ask me. My answer? Mickey Mouse uses his magic. Done. Everyone is happy.

Also, little boys and girls only get balloons at Disneyland if it is your birthday. So let's be happy for them!

You know, half truths.

And the fun is just beginning, because Clara is talking in sentences and really understanding things. So inevitably the mommy tricks will continue. I will have to write them down to help all you other moms out. And I hope you are doing the same for the rest of us ;)

My mom: my best friend.

I LOVE my Mom.

 

She is my best friend.

My role model.

She is just simply THE BEST.

No matter how old I get she still calls me her little girl.
She still spoils me with love.
I can tell her anything.
I am always comforted by her presence.

My mom loves with her whole heart and with complete selflessness.

Example:

My mom is an AMAZING artist. As a child she was a natural, always sketching and creating. In high school her art was published in their yearbook and won awards at fairs. As she got older she enjoyed trying new mediums from drawing, watercolors, acrylics, oils, ceramics, to crafting. She is never afraid to try new things and when she starts to get into something she cannot stop. She almost becomes obsessed. She will constantly work on perfecting her art and her standards are high. She will throw away creations that anyone would claim to be a masterpiece, but if it does not satisfy her, she would rather just be done with it.

So here I was, her first baby, and caught the art bug. My dream as a little girl was to be a schoolteacher, a writer, and an illustrator. But watching my mom made me self conscious. I didn't want to show this master my elementary drawings (which they were! I was in elementary school). She decided that she didn't want me to ever feel that way and put away the pencils. She packed up the paintbrushes. She said goodbye to something she loved so that I could flourish. I makes me teary eyed just to think about how much she loves me and how hard that act must have been.

And thus:

All that I am, or hope to be,

I owe to my angel mother.

 

Abraham Lincoln

 

She started to dabble in art again when I started performing in school plays. She volunteered her artistic abilities to painting breathtaking and realistic sets. Before every show she was backstage in the dressing rooms, head of the makeup. I'm sure her makeup rivaled the Broadway greats with her realistic Cowardly Lion and faces of the like.

 

But she still wasn't painting. I was in college and decided to take a beginning painting class. I would bring home my work and my mom was interested in playing with paints again. So we would sit side by side and oil paint. When we got bored with a piece or stuck we would just switch! She would see things in paintings that I hadn't and vice versa. We had SO much FUN!

 

It motivated her to redecorate the house with her own paintings. Before I knew it my mom had a FULL on art gallery in her house. Which, of course, motivated me to make my own creations since my husband and I were renting our first home.

 

And now, all these years later my mom is back being a fine artist. She went on a watercolor binge the other year and made at least one watercolor a day, if not more. She had so many she would give them away to family, friends, and even strangers.

 

Currently she is mixing it up and doing acrylics, oils, and watercolors. I even set up a little shop for her on Etsy. She decided to name it Now and Forever More, art by Denise Iverson. You should check it out! I have only posted the original watercolors because they are so easy to ship (versus stapled canvas--ugh, I'm still figuring that out myself).  

 

Here are some of her watercolors that are posted:

 

 

 

And now I am thinking I should do a house tour...so you can see her personal art gallery!

 

So maybe that will be a future post. :)

 

Vintage Style Airplane Painting for a Baby Boy Nursery

My friend Aaron is the sweetest and girliest girl I know.

She is in love with pink, vintage, and feminine things. What do you know she is expecting a baby and found out it is a....BOY! Oh, the irony! I can completely relate though, because I am girly and all I wanted was a girl the first time I got pregnant. Then came the ultrasound where we found out Calvin was a boy...and I cried. The ultrasound technician probably thought they were tears of joy, but I'll be honest--I was disappointed. My husband knew immediately and tried to cheer me up in the hospital parking lot.

I was hopeful that perhaps the ultrasound was wrong, so I tried to keep the tags on most of the baby clothes till after the baby was born. And then Calvin was born.

And he stole my heart.

No girl could ever take his place. As much as I dreamed of having a girl, he was perfect and irreplaceable.

I have a feeling it will be the same way for my friend. I know her style pretty well because she has the most fabulous instagram feed and a beautiful blog. AMAZING. This girl has style and an eye for beautiful things. She travels all over the world because her and her boyfriend work in the aviation industry and also fly planes. She takes pictures of pretty things in foreign places and even brings some home. I am going to do another post in the near future with pictures of her home and collection. Your jaw will drop. I promise.

So I knew she was decorating the nursery with airplanes and her style is vintage...so this is what I came up with! It is a large square canvas and it was painted with acrylics.

First I painted the background a muted tan color and then I went over it with a dry brush in blue for the sky. For the clouds I kept on layering the white until I came up with a consistency I was happy with.

I love how acrylics dry really fast. I was able to do some last minute touch ups before I even got in the car to go to the shower and I didn't have to worry about paint getting all over my car.

I just ordered a test print so it will be available in my shop soon. These are the pictures I will include with my listing:

An artsy survey for you...

 

Soooooooooooo, I have a problem.

I have A.A.D.D.

Artist Attention Deficit Disorder.

But to be fair, I think most artistic people tend to be this way. We can't help it--the ideas just come from tons of different places and we get excited so we will stop in the middle of one project and start another.

So here's the problem (and I don't even know if this really is a problem): I'm not sure which style of art I should be focusing on.

I have acrylic and oil landscapes, canvas children paintings, and feminine watercolors (and lots of prints) stocked up in the shop. The watercolors seem to get the most attention, but then I was wondering if maybe it was because I didn't have more in the other categories.

So would you mind hitting a button for me for a second, pretty please with a cherry on top? I am just really curious and would love some input! From friends and from people just stopping by--it would be greatly appreciated :)

Just click on this link and it will send you to a new page really quick. I already tried it out and it is easy as pie. Thanks!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6VW7LPJ

A Realization

A close up of my newest watercolor, already sold to an old friend, but prints will be made :)

Trying out my mom's set of Derwent Aquatone Watercolor Woodless Pencils. They are awesome!! I want some now!

I love to read blogs. Most of all, I love ones that are creative and personal.

Once upon a time I started a family blog. I had just gotten married and we were expecting our first baby within our first year of being married and I wanted to document it. It was fun to write and it was personal.

But then I stopped...

It made sense at the time. I began to question whether or not I really wanted my life to be exposed to people I didn't know (and even to one I did know!). I wondered if it was narcissistic. Was it even safe?

So I moved my blog to another site, made it unsearchable, and then wrote a few more posts and I was done. And now I am sad I did that! I have such wonderful documentation of our sweet little family life for my stepson and little boy, but my baby girl has a big chunk of documentation missing! All I have are a few random Facebook posts, but no other effort was put in. I never thought I would slack that much on a second child, but I am guilty. The poor kid doesn't even have a first year scrapbook (Calvin has two :/ ).

I tried to keep my arts and crafts separate from my personal life, but alas, I have found them intertwined. The proof lies in this blog! I hardly post, because what else is there to say except, "Look at what I made?" There are stories behind everything and I have omitted them to be safe.

And now I feel like my blog is lacking heart.

I want to change that! I want a space to show that I am a real person and to be honest.

So I hope you don't mind...because I really want to try this out. I don't know who is listening (or if any one is for that matter!) but I'm going to start putting more heart into my blog :)

Christmas in July Sale on Etsy 2013

Christmas in July?!

What is this blasphemy you say?


Well, it's not as bad as you think it is. It's not trying to get you to start stocking up on ornaments and garlands. It is a time for Etsy shops to clear out inventory so they can add new items for the Fall season. Also, it's a great time to get fabulous discounts and deals.

To see what stores are participating, type in CIJ or christmasinjuly into the Etsy search.

Lady Poppins is also participating at www.ladypoppins.etsy.com

A coupon for 30% off your entire purchase (you may purchase as many items or as many times as you please) from July 11th till July 21st, 2013.

Just use the coupon code CIJ30 at checkout.

Perhaps it's time to treat yourself to some watercolor originals or prints :)