**The Spark**

Oh my goodness I am so ridiculously excited!!! You have no idea!!! Three of the lovely ladies that I am taking the RVA online class with (Ashley, Laura, and Margot) have asked me to be part of their new project called The Spark!
Seriously, this is going to be awesome. I am an official Sparkler!!
The Spark will be a place where we will post art challenges that bloggers, artists, or whoever can participate in no matter what type of art they feel like making!
The Spark will be filled with interviews, inspiration, and of course the monthly art challenges.
The Spark officially goes live on April 6 (the day after my birthdy btw :D)
Click here to head over to the blog to read more about out!
I can NOT wait to get started.
My bio and picture shouls be going up later tonight since I am officially a Sparkler now :)
I will post again about it here when the first challenge takes place!
I'm already feeling inspired :)

Mexican Ocean Blue...

Oooooh my goodness! This past week on the cruise went by incredibly way too fast! I was a blur, but a beautiful blur :) I will be recapping the cruise later and all of the beautiful places and things that we saw but today I want to share my wedding pics with all of my blog friends :) There are soooo many beautiful pics but I just breezed through what I had (from whoever was taking pictures with my camera :D) and chose a few of my favorites!!!
The lovely Cozumel, Mexico (my wedding site)

Getting ready with the girls (sooooo fun!) Nicole did my hair, more perfect than I ever thought it would be:

Speaking of Nicole, ummmm America's Next Top Model anyone?? She is soooo gorgeous!!

Adam, my lovely groom, waiting for me:

My something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue (all safety pinned in my dress):

Me and my MOH, Nicole:

My sweet dad walking me down the sand to Adam:

You may now kiss the bride:

Me and my BFF of Honor:

My GORGEOUSLY FABULOUSLY BEAUTIFUL wedding party:

My family:

Our moms:

My most favorite group of women ever-"The Bags": (I feel so blessed that these ladies came on the cruise to share this day with Adam and I:

Nicole and her Boo, Matt (so happy that he could come!!!)

Other random favorites of Adam and I:



Wow, I only have about a thousand more favortites and I haven't even seen everyone elses pictures yet!!! What an amazing day. Soooo perfect. I am so grateful to everyone who traveled all the way to Cozumel, Mexico with us to celebrate. Adam's dad married us by the way. It was perfect!! He has married all four of his children now. How cool is that?
P.S. I <3 Cozumel :)

Feliz dia de San Patricio

A quick 55 cents a minute Happy St. Patrick's Day from Belize. I miss the blog world :(
Having fun and can not wait to re-cap the trip for you all.
loooooooves!

Super exciting visitor!

So, in case you are all dying to know who my super fun visitor was yesterday, you better sit down because it was...

ELSIE!!! (photo borrowed from her Flickr)

Oh yes, Elsie of the Love, Elsie Scrapbook line, of A Beautiful Mess of Red Velvet Art!!

.
Her art, her creativity, her passion and her drive have inspired me beyond anything that I could describe this past year :) She is so genuine and loving and sooooo super cool!
Well, I got to meet her, and hang out with her :)
Earlier this week I recieved an email from Elsie saying that she would like to deliver my recent purchases from Red Velvet Art PERSONALLY :) Who does that? So, yesterday Elsie drove 3 and half hours from Springfield to come hang out with me, my sister, and one of my new BFF's-Jodie :)
We met at Bubble Tea and then did some vintage clothes shopping and hit up some other fun little eclectic shops. Amazing. I am still smiling from it all!!
Since I had the coolest girl in the world with me (Elsie) and the world's greatest photog (Jodie), I decided we definitely had to be complete nerds and get our pictures taken with Elsie. I mean it's not everyday that you get to hang out with your Creativity Guru right??

Me and Elsie <3

Elsie and Nicole (this pic is my favorite :D)

Me, Elsie, and Jodie. Jodie totally wanted her picture with Elsie :) She made me jump in last minute though! Ha. Read about our day from Jodie's point of view here!

This is a picture of me trying on a hat at a lovely vintage shop. I think the owner must have had a bad day because this picture was taken right before she kicked us out for "treating her shop like a museum." Bummer.
So, I just want to conclude this post by saying that it is such a special treat to know that the blog world can help make impossibilities possible. Also, that someone as cool and as accomplished as Elsie Flannigan might just show their appreciation towards you in a completely unexpected unimaginable type of way :)
Great day :)
Another highlight of my day was being able to come home and hang the amazing painting that I ordered by Rachel Denbow. I almost got teary when I saw it. It is breathtaking and it is huge!!! Adam and I decided to completely re-do our entire craft/office space to revolve around that painting. It's lovely.
Thank you Rachel!!!
Thank you Elsie!
Thank you Jodie for the pics!
Thank you Nicole for being the best sister ever!
Thank you Adam for buying me the painting :)
Tomorrow we are driving almost 20 HOURS to Florida to catch the cruise ship. I am going to bring my Mac and hope that I can get wireless in our cabin. Who knows?! Look for updates though :)
I love you all and the craft swap items are all so amazing and beautiful!
Enjoy!
xoxox
janel

Give-a-way Winner :)

(photo credit: Rachel)

I used a random integer generator to choose the winner for the felt sunglasses holder give-a-way :) The winner is:

Commenter number 3, which is...HikerMama (aka my aunt)!
I am not even sure she knew she was entering a give-a-way when she left her comment :)
But...she won, and she definitely needs a sunglasses holder because she will be going on the cruise with us in a couple of DAYS!
So...Congratulations :)
Tomorrow I have a very special, surprise visitor coming to hang out with me in St. Louis. I am sure that I will have a lot to blog about after that. Talk to you all soon!
loves xoxo

More Sketch Love <3 and sleep masks!

Updated:  I also added pictures of the sleep masks that I made at the bottom of this post!!

Sketch #20: Sketch a project that you are currently working on :)

Sketch #21: Today was all about the...(What?)

Sketch #22:Divide your page into two parts. On one side, fill it with objects or words that describe you. On the other side, fill it in with objects or words that describe your partner:

Sketch #23: Sketch your most recent purchase.

Sketch #24: Who inspires you creatively?

Sketch #25: Fill the entire page of journal with doodles! :
(My page was inspired by this painting by Elsie :)

Wow!! Only, five more days left to complete that 30 day challenge. I loved every second of it :) This is how I like to journal now, with pictures and sketches as opposed to all writing. Three of my fifth grade girls even went out and bought moleskins to start doing a sketch challenge :) I love seeing my students get inspired!!

Last night, my dad informed me that he wanted me to make him a felt sleepmask for the flight Sunday morning.  Ummm...ok!  I love any chance that I get when it comes to playing with felt!!  I made when with eyelashes and it looked really girly so I ended up giving that one to my mom.  He then informed me that two fried eggs would look cool on his sleepmask for the eyes :)  Could my dad be any cuter??  That is exactly what I gave him.  Here he is modeling his sleepmask and me modeling the one that I made for my mom!  I love them and my parents are too adorable when they are wearing them :)

P.S. Don't forget to leave a comment in the post below for a give-a-way!

110th post= a give-a-way

And because I loved making that cutie pie felt sunglasses case (below)...I think that I will make another to give-a-way!!
I love give-a-ways because I love to send fun packages to my blogging friends.
Soooo, this will be a give-a-way that you can only win IF you are a "Follower" of this blog. If you are not following this blog, click on the link, start following, and enter to win by commenting here!!
So, click on the link in the sidebar------>become a follower and WIN!!
I will pick my winner on Wednesday night!!
Love it!
xoxo

Moving in <3

**Today, the husband moved in :) I literally have 10 trash bags full of clothes (most brand new) that I am garage sale-ing so that I can make room for my boo in my closets and drawers. It actually feels really good to purge. Especially when you are doing so to make room for your husband!! We cleaned all day, organized all day, and our place is still pretty wrecked. The bedroom is clean...that is about it (hmmm....the bedroom was the room I was in charge of!! coincidence??) I loved it.
Today is also my parent's 36th wedding anniversary!! They are still so much in love and I am so happy for them and thankful to have them as role models. Leave them some comment love, they read the blog and will love it!!!
**Today, I finished two RVA class projects:
1. The pillow is done. This is my nerd glasses painted pillow with rhinestone detail...


2. My felt sunglasses case!! I think this is my favorite project so far!!! I love it! I think it turned out really cute too. The colors are a little funky from the lighting in my room but it is an orange case with magenta embroidered nerd glasses and turquoise detail and border! Favorite!


**Today, I have a new best friend:

Her name is Bernie :)
**Today was the first time that one of my pictures was chosen to be in Explore on Flickr! Wicked awesome :)

All in all, today was great!! I have seen a couple of sneak peaks from my craft swap friends and you should all be very excited!!! Oh my goodness we have some super talented blog friends :) Have a great rest of your night!!
Monday, bring it on sucka!

Today=Cupcakes

Today was all about the cupcakes!! Yum!
Adam and I decided to have a fun day of driving around St. Louis and eating cupcakes.
I have been wanting to go to a cupcake bar forever.
Jilly's Cupcake Bar is one of the two cupcake bars we have in and around St. Louis.
Today, we decided to have lunch there and get some cupcakes to go!!
Fabulous!! I can honestly say I have never had cupcakes that delicious and beautiful. Here is what we tried.
1. The Carmelita: Chocolate devil’s food cake infused with chocolate syrup, stuffed with carmel, topped off with dark
chocolate ganache, carmel, white chocolate buttercream and a carmel kiss.

2. The Bee Sting: Madagascar vanilla cake infused with lemon and honey syrup, stuffed with a honey lemon curd and topped with lemon cream cheese, toasted almonds, lemon candy dust, a sugar bee and a white chocolate and lemon honeycomb bark.

3. The Turtle: Chocolate devil’s food cake infused with chocolate syrup, stuffed with marshmallow buttercream and topped with a chocolate ganache, drizzled with dulce de leche, praline pecans, a toasted marshmallow pretzel stick and a chocolate dipped graham cracker.

4. And the Missylicous: Madagascar vanilla cake infused with vanilla syrup and stuffed with vanilla whipped cream, topped with two shades of pink tinted Tahitian vanilla buttercream, a dollop of vanilla buttercream and two shades of pink and pink glitter.

All I wanted was to try their Twisted Red Velvet Cupcakes and NO JOKE, the girl in front of me took the last one :( It's ok though. These cupcakes were huge. Adam and I each had half of each cupcake (they are big). We still haven't eaten the Turtle cupcake though. Right now, by far, the Carmelita was the best :)
I am hoping that when we get back from the cruise, we will be able to check out The Cupcakery (the other cupcake bar). By looking at the website, their cupcakes seem cheaper and they have a wider variety. We shall see!!!
Well, I obviously have had wayyyyy too much sugar today so I am off to drink the biggest glass of water ever!
I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far!! One more week until we are off to cruise The Caribbean :)

More projects started...

and waiting to be completed :)
Here is my next try with the felt family art: Which is better?


One is a light green and the other is like a turquoise....I need your help. I love this project, but it is stressing me out!!!
Next. my jersey scarf made from grey jersey and then an old T-shirt that I got in Reynosa <3


And now paintied pillow...I did nerd glasses with some rhinestone detail! All I need now is for my sewing machine to start working so I can sew it up!! Soooo loving this class :)



Also, I decided to come up with my own prompts for the rest of the sketch a day challenge. Miss Holly Sarah has bought herself a new salon and has a lot of stuff going on with that!! So excited about that for her! So here are my next couple of sketch prompts:



yay!!! I can not stop sketching :) I love having a place where I can create daily!!!