summer is in full swing and i am excited to spend a lot of time in the studio!  i'm taking an online class this summer with sarah ahearn called "pages and paint."  so far, we've created an inspiration board (above) and collected supplies (below).

just the sight of art supplies makes me happy!  so many possibilities.  what will i create?

getting my studio organized again after the big move!  it's so nice to have a space of my own again.  i love my new studio.  lots of light, space and room for all my stuff!

what summer dreams do you hope to accomplish this summer (art related or other)?  i plan to spend as much time as i can painting and making artsy messes.  i'm also looking forward to our family's first camping trip!  i envision taking a little portable art bag with JUST the essentials.

if you could only take 5 art supplies with you (not including the substrate, ie: canvas, journal, etc) what would they be?

Spring cleaning, new projects & vintage goodies

I spent all weekend cleaning my "studio" (aka our dining room) and organizing everything. It looks great (well, better than before!) and it feels good to see the floor again! My oldest watched the baby so I could really get some uninterrupted clean-up time. I am so ready for the rain to end and the sun to shine! And what better way to start off a new season than with a clean and organized art space. I was even able to get a few projects started. This mini basket was inspired by Artful Thursdays with Julie Collings (see the tutorial here).


I keep a basket full of spring themed items out for display to keep me inspired and ready to create when inspiration strike (or when the baby goes down for a nap!). It makes clean-up easy (just put everything back into the basket for later!) and it's a great way to keep me inspired and excited about current projects or ideas.


Even my middle daughter got in on the fun and started a few mini Easter baskets of her own. So cute!


I love the butterfly and paper lace punches by Martha Stewart! We used the paper lace strips and fuzzy pipe cleaners for the handles of the little baskets and she filled up her baskets with butterfly cut-outs. Precious!


On a whim last Friday, I attended an estate sale and found a few fun and interesting items. Perfect for spring themed projects! Vintage books, bags of ribbon...love it!

I love this tattered and worn children's book. The illustrations are sweet. I know I'll be able to recycle it into another project. And below is a sweet card that is filled with spring-themed poems and illustrations of birds. Lovely!


And Etsy always provides a wonderful assortment of vintage goodies, too!

The studio is clean, my basket of spring-themed materials is ready...all of this is just in time for starting an artistic journey. I joined the Artistic Mothers Group, hosted by Trudy Callahan. Everyone is welcome to join. The group is based on the book, "The Artistic Mother" by Shona Cole. Each week we'll be working on projects from the book and posting our progress along the way. I can't wait to get started and to see everyone's creative process!

A Nice Life

Baby is sleepin'...just waiting for her to wake up for the next feeding so I thought I'd post a few photos of what we've been up to lately.


My little one is very outdoorsy, like her mama. We both prefer fresh air and open space to the indoors. And with summer on it's way out, I worry about how we're going to get our sunshine fix each day!


Every day from about 2pm until sometimes as late as 7pm, we hang out in the front yard on a large picnic blanket. She'll nap and play and eat and fuss and in between the napping and playing and eating and fussing, I've been doing quite a bit of art in my journals.


I keep a large canvas bag stuffed with the "essentials" and drag it out on the lawn every chance I get. My neighbors must think I'm a loon, out there with my baby and paint and paper and pens all sprawled out before me. Sometimes she'll be fussing and I'm just finishing something up before I'll pick her up and tend to her (all mama's know the difference between their babies' cries and when it's just fussing or when it's urgent) and I wonder if I look like the world's worst mother. I imagine my neighbors thinking, "why isn't she picking up that baby? is she hungry/cold/tired/etc?" But mostly I just think to myself how lucky I am to be out in the sunshine with my beautiful baby and my big bag of art supplies. And how this time around, I know I don't have to jump every time my baby makes a little fuss. I can let her try to work out her frustration for a few minutes while I get some art done. Good therapy for me! A happy mom is a good mom. And happy moms raise happy babies!


My neighbor came by the other day to drop Maya off after a playdate with her daughter. She held Sureya while I packed up everything to take inside. We chatted a bit and she looked at some of the art I was making and she said something that has stuck in my mind since. She said, "You have a nice life, Nicole. A nice life."

So true.

And I am very thankful.

My Studio/Art Space

I was up until two in the morning last night caught in one of the rarest of all artistic moments--I cleaned up my studio! (Raul refers to these nocturnal bouts of energy as "hamster mode", after his childhood pet hamsters Nietzsche and Einstein who would suddenly decide in the wee hours of the night that it was the perfect time to shuffle their shredded paper and woodchips from one end of the cage to the other) I wish I had "before" pictures, but I think I'll make the clean studio the "before" and then take some pictures a few weeks later after an artistic episode and that will be the "after." :)

I'm really proud of my studio. It's a small room in the back of our old craftsman home--I think this room must've been added on years later or it was once a sun porch or utility room. It's kind of lopsided and two of the walls consist solely of windows. When we first moved in, I claimed it as our room and the kids were in the front two rooms. I like having windows for walls. It's actually something I had wished for once! (More proof wishes come true!) Later, everyone switched rooms and Zach ended up in the back and the girls shared the middle room. After Brielle moved to Washington to live with her mom, I had another major cleaning/re-organization frenzy and moved Maya into our room, Zach to the middle room (where he started off) and the back room was cleared out and used as a storage room for my art stuff. Target had a sale that week on storage items (coincidence???) and I picked up two 3x3 cube-like bookshelves, colorful storage bins, and smaller drawers to keep the little things in.


The next week I started wishing for a large drafting table or work table and, like magic, my friend down the street had a whole bunch of extra tables sitting in her garage and let me pick TWO out to take home! :) One of them was a very large, very nice drafting table that I use as my workspace. The other was a long table I use as my "office" area. The drafting table even came with a very comfy, tall swivel chair. Awesome.


As soon as I started moving art stuff into the room, my daughter, Maya was right there, asking questions, offering opinions ("I think the table would look good over there, mom. It would maximize your exposure to the afternoon light."), and encouragement. After everything was in place, I moved her special table and chair (a gift from Grandma Jo and Grandpa Cort) into the studio and arranged all her art supplies at Maya-height. She loves her own special art space and you can often find us in there working side by side on our own little projects. This totally keeps me sane, too, because if there's one thing an artist mom knows, is that it is almost next to impossible to get anything done with a toddler/small child around...unless they have their own art studio to play in! :) (Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses DVD works, too.)


The lighting in the back room is great. It goes through all kinds of different phases throughout the day. The afternoon is when it gets the best light, and the view couldn't be better--ok, it could be of the ocean, but let's not get picky--(or spoiled! Wishes take time...I'll have the ocean view soon!) I really do believe wishes come true. Some people call it praying or asking the universe or putting intentions out there to achieve some goal or realize a dream. I believe it's all of those. If you have a dream or goal start small and big things will start to happen. It sounds totally cheezy, but I think it's true. My art studio was there all along. I just had to start thinking of it as a reality and I made it happen. I don't know what we'll do once Maya gets too big to share a room with us...My wish is that we'll have our own house by then. But if we don't, I'll find a new artspace. It's all there right in front of me.