Artistic Camp

This morning I stumbled upon a blog post about a girls' camp someone put together for their daughter and her friends. ~Camp Avonlea~Artistic Camp for Young Ladies looks amazing and so inspiring. These girls got to sleep in a lovely white tent in the garden and do art. *I* want to go!

Here is a link to more photos.

This struck a chord with me and made me start thinking about my big barn. What kind of cool "camps" could we have out there? I could certainly see a "Little House on the Prairie" themed camp. All I need to do is clear out the clutter out there and it opens up a myriad of possibilities.

Speaking of clutter...I have decided that clutter is my mortal enemy. I need to declare an all out war, but struggle with knowing how to attack it. Sadly, I was born with the "pack-rat gene." I am a saver. I can see value in pieces of trash. I don't want to be like this and I fight it constantly. It actually pains me to go through stuff and give-away or pitch it. I am emotionally exhausted after cleaning out a closet. Once the excess is completely gone, I usually feel really good about it, but every once in a while I will feel pangs of loss for something that is gone.

I recognize, though, that clutter strangles the joy out of life. Clutter often steals my creativity and it makes small tasks seem overwhelming. The "barn camp" idea is a perfect example of this. My mind races into gear, filling with fun ideas, but the stopper is that I have a barn full of junk that needs to be gone through. Nothing can happen until that is done.

So, I realize that I need to change. I cannot be the person that God created me to be if I am buried under piles of stuff. I also realize the I can't change myself. I have tried throughout most of my adult life and failed miserably. I have to let go and let God be in control. He is gonna have to guide me though this. I can't wait!

Ugh! It has been a busy week - not the fun kind of busy, either. I have had to do lots of running around every day. I manage apartments and there have been many things to deal with. This is not really how I would choose to spend my days. I would rather be at home with my kids and getting things done there.

Today, I have more errands, too. At least not all are apartment related. Next week is the county 4-H fair and my kids' projects are due this weekend. Of course, there are always last minute details to take care of to get them done. I am also planning on entering some photos in the open class division.

Between the heat, the running, and the pregnancy, I am feeling whooped. I keep starting blog posts only to get interrupted and then lose my train of thought. Hopefully I can get through this one. Ü

I leave you with another piece of worship art I created for framing (like the "Wisdom" one below). Hope you enjoy!

The Wood Prince

Meet my little wood prince. I had so much fun creating this piece of art that I just had to try my hand at another one. This time I chose my son and I just didn't have the heart to turn him into a fairy. Someone commented at Scrapbook Graphics that he was a Wood Prince and I love that. He has a crown of leaves and a wheat sceptor. Credits for all of the goodies included in this can be found here along with a before and after picture.

A bit of fun photo tweakery

I was perusing the gallery at The Digital Scrapbook Place earlier this week and found some unique pages that caught my eye. I discovered that they were done as part of a stylelift challenge. I wasn't even familiar with a "stylelift" which is to copy the style of a particular artist. This month's stylelift is based on the altered art of Jessica Dittmer called Wish You Wells. Unfamiliar with her, I checked out her site and was immediately in love with it. She plays with photos and gives them this combination of an old photo and a drawing. Then she adds goodies like crowns, buttons, and pixie wings along with some sort of verse. Well, I decided that I really wanted to be able to do that! You can see my attempt here. It is close, but not exactly Jessica's look. It was incredibly fun to do, though! I have also shown a before and after shot because the difference is pretty dramatic. Credits for the goodies I used can be found here.

This was so much fun, that I will probably do this again. Shoot, after seeing how much one of these custom art pieces costs on the Wish You Wells site, I am thinking that I am in the wrong line of work. Anyone want to buy one? I'll cut you a great deal!