Hoot-whoo...

I absolutely adore this little sketch I found on our Mud Room Counter...

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"Wow! Who drew this?", I asked my boys.

Trevan timidly but teasingly replied, "Don't you mean 'Hoot-whoo' drew it, Mom?"

{Hee hee!}

Handsome, artistic and clever ...

I like that in a guy!

(Watch out First Grade ladies! This guy is a triple threat!)

More of Kade-o's work...

I promised a shot of Kaden's finished "Sports Balls" Image-Panel once it was finished and up on the wall. We finally got around to taking a quick shot of it...

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(By the way, he's decided he might try selling these prints ($30 per set of 3 8x8's), if anyone's interested... he's going to save up for BYU Football Camp...)

I also thought I'd give you a peek at another project he and I (mostly "I" on this one, though) have been working on his his room.

This is the East Wall in his Bedroom...

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which we decided to make into a funky 3-D Sports Collage, featuring... HIM!

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Since I am in LOVE with those Gallery-Wrapped Canvases lately, we made a few from some of our favorite shots of him in action.

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He helped me choose which pics he liked best and what monotone-shade to make them into.

We even got Dad involved, since he is the one who builds the frames and wraps the canvases for us... Thanks, Babe! You're a pro!

We just LOVE how this wall is turning out and plan to add to it and update it as he plays each different Season... something we can BOTH look forward to!

What a play-a!

Spotlight: Megan-angelo...

No special reason for this post...

just thought I'd give a shout out to my lovely and talented Sister-in-law, Megan,

who is (insert corny french accent) an a-MAZ-ing "Art-eest Extra-ordinaire"!

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Meg painted this Salt Lake Temple painting for me for Christmas 2 years ago,

and it is truly one of my favorite things in our entire house!

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It hangs on a shelf in the vault of our Master Bedroom, and is incredible!

Matt did some accent lighting to spotlight it, and you should see it at night!

Mmm... makes me happy just thinking of it!

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It's like the gift that keeps on giving! It brings me joy every time I look at it!

Anyway, Meg asked me FOREVER ago to please photograph it so she could include it on her website/blog. Well, I finally got around to it yesterday, so I thought I'd post the pics while I was e-mailing them to her.

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I wish the pictures could do it justice... her paintings are just gorgeous!

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She actually uses sheet rock mud in a frosting tube, so they are all chunky and full of awesome, rich texture... unlike anything else I've seen! I just love, love, LOVE her stuff!

If you want to check out MORE of her beautiful work, click here:

http://artwithdimension.blogspot.com/

She is sooooo very talented and we are so blessed to have her in our fam!

(Thanks, Meg... hopefully you'll get a few extra hits from this post!) :)

GW Canvases...

I've been in major Home Improvement Project mode for the last couple of weeks...

Should we call it nesting? I don't know, but I am just hoping to keep up the momentum!

So this was my big accomplishment today...

I FINALLY ordered my OWN set of Gallery Wrapped Canvases

from the Headshots I took of my boys just before Christmas!

(Sad that it has taken me this long... the curse of being a Photographer...)

These are my new FAVE thing to shoot in the Studio and they turn out sooo cool!

I love to shoot them Low-Key (like these, dark clothing on a dark background) and then desaturate them in Photoshop, adding a nice rich Sepia-tone color balance with a little bit of Hand-tinting... Mmm-wah!

If you've never seen a Gallery-Wrap, this is how they work...

The Portraits are printed on Canvas Giclee Paper (which is like a canvas fabric)

and then Matt builds a cutom-stretcher-frame for me and we actually "gallery-wrap" the photos around it, stapling the Canvas to the back, where you can't see it.

The finished Portrait hangs frame-less right on the wall, sort of like a shadow-box...

very cool, very simple, very contemporary.

(So what you see within the pinstripe area appears on the "face" of the Canvas and the outer edge wraps around the sides of the wooden frame... that's why the border looks so wide... the photo frames itself!) The extra white canvas around the very outer edge is just where we staple the canvas to the back of the frame. We cover this strip and the staples with felt, attach a couple of screw eyes, wire it for hanging... and wah-lah! Over-sized joy!)

I am soooo excited!

It always takes me way longer to get around to ordering and retouching my own stuff,

but I always love having them done! I can't wait to get them back, wrap them, and hang them up!

I will take a photo of the finished project once it is up on my wall this weekend!

On the ball!

Looky what my Kade-o did!

I've been wanting to create an Image Gallery in his Sports-themed Bedroom,

so I set him loose with my big camera.

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He had a "ball" being creative and only needed a little help here and there!

(I should have taken pictures of him taking the photos, but Matt had my other camera in St. George. Oh well...)

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We tweaked the Images in Photoshop to make them look "antiquey"

(which he thought was so cool), and plan to frame them together on his wall.

He can hardly wait for them to come back from the Lab!
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