Shopping in my own stash again

Finally used the pocket I saved from The Husband's old jeans. Whoo-hoo! It holds the ultrasound pictures, the congratulatory emails and a few other things. Oh, if you were wondering, no, TwoBoo no longer rocks the faux 'hawk. He had so much hair, the nurse had a little fun styling his hair right after they hauled him out of me.
And the stencils I found at the Sunday flea market.
Talk later.

Attack of the 50-foot baby

Bet you thought I'd never post again, didn't you?This one's a page about The Boy. (TwoBoo is still working on Item One on the above list.) Inspired by the moment I realized what hard work it is just to lift your head, if you've never done it before. I think I got that Chinese cartoon wrapping paper either from Paper Source or Paper Studio. I like using wrapping paper sometimes, because you get a lot more of it. It actually had little girls on it too, but I gessoed over them. They had the girls doing simply darling things, like cooking and cleaning. The yellow tissue paper toned down the cartoon paper at the same time that it highlighted the gesso sections.
I also painted over a clip art picture of water towers over city apartments. Slip slop slap -- a lot easier to do a building than a face. The last bit is a faint transfer of the baby picture that I wrote over, instead of making a little book or something to write the commentary.
I'm almost done with one for TwoBoo. Things are piling up around here, what with the inauguration and TwoBoo catching a stomach bug on his first day at day care. He's all right now -- I hope. Gotta run to an appointment.

It's not navel-gazing, it's art

I finished a couple more pages in the self-portraiture book I started in LK Ludwig's This is Me class from Artfest 2008.
I'd like to thank the people at the Overpriced Jeans Store for People Under 35 who sent me junk mail in a cool envelope. I had the "lucky few" graphic design sitting around for months and finally found a use for it.

Thanks also to the florist who wrapped up the flowers I got in the hospital -- that's where the see-through red paper came from. My in-laws always send flowers on Valentine's Day, so maybe I'll score some more free paper next month. Whoo-hoo!

The tarot paper cames from my stash. I think the strings were part of toy packaging.

You won't find me looking up my daily horoscope, but yeah, I've read far more astrology profiles than is healthy. The Husband occasionally voices an opinion about that -- "You actually believe that crap?" -- and I know it's ridiculous to think everyone born on a particular day exhibits the same personality traits. But it's the closest I get to understanding people like my brother, who apparently has six people living in his head and all fighting to control his mouth. (He's a Gemini.)
This page was one I finished about 90% of in class. I love transparencies, translucent and delicate papers -- I get a little buzz in the presence of lace paper -- and this technique was the coolest. You embed photos, other pieces of paper, whatever, within tissue paper and dress patterns. I attached it in the book with leftover 7 Gypsies gaffer tape. That reminded me of the sizing tape I saved from a pair of jeans long ago, so I added that for reinforcement. The picture was taken on the coastal shoreline of Washington state. (Sorry, but to me it doesn't quite qualify as a "beach" because you can't walk barefoot on that gravel they call sand. Zuma is a beach. Ocean Shores is not.)

More ideas -- just need to keep fitting the art into my schedule!

Why is it...

... that when we're burping TwoBoo, we're the ones who belch first?I'm just sayin'.

OMG, the decade is almost over!

Had you noticed that? We're practically ten years into this millennium. I mean, it wasn't all that long ago when we were told the end of the world was coming with the Y2K bug. Wonder what people did with all those Amish-type-no-electricity-required purchases. Must be a section of Craig's List devoted just to that stuff.

I'd tell you lots of deep, pithy lessons I've learned in the past nine years, but I'm nursing and my brain is still addled from the pregnancy hormones. So I'll tell you a couple of things I learned in this six weeks postpartum:

-- Doctors and books say "it's difficult to spot jaundice in babies of color." Well, duh! The hospital pediatrician showed me this neat, painless trick to figure it out.

Press the baby's skin briefly with your finger to watch the skin color change. (Like if you've been sunburned, and you press the reddened skin to see it turn white and then go back to red.) If the "white" looks yellowish, the baby has jaundice.

-- Fenugreek is quite the versatile herb. It's mostly recommended to boost milk production when you're nursing. It can also increase the effectiveness of diabetes medications (talk to your doctor before trying it, serious potential consequences). But DON'T TAKE IT WITHOUT FOOD. Um, it can have "a mild laxative effect."

As for 2010 -- wouldn't it be a trip if a monolith showed up that year? -- I'm looking forward to the next release of U.S. Census information. Currently, the most recent census available to genealogy researchers is the 1930 census. The reasoning is that this somewhat protects the privacy of people born after 1930, who are likely to be still alive.

And that's the closest I'll get to deep thoughts for the new year.