When our daughter was small, we read her the Maisy the mouse books by Lucy Cousins.
In one of them, Maisy has a train.
Somewhere in the text it reads, “Tooty-toot, Maisy!” whenever the train blows it’s whistle.
So now, whenever someone is gassy, we all yell “Tooty-Toot, Maisy!”
Gabriel, a very typical seven-year-old boy, who just finished a bowl of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, is sitting in the large Lazy-boy with his little brother Rainier.
From way over there, I heard the very distinct sounds that send little boys (and their siblings) into gales of laughter.
I told him, “I heard that!”
Gabriel then said, “Imagine if You made a sound like that!”
Our youngest, Rainier, is a very late bloomer in the vocabulary department. He’s just starting to take to the idea that words are for describing things, conveying ideas, thoughts and feelings.
His latest and greatest words are “banana, poop and meatball.“ He loves the reaction he gets from everyone when he actually uses words to describe things, and especially the not-so-positive reaction he gets when he combines unlike words and concepts like “banana” and “poop.” We hear this combo used to describe Everything All. Day. Long. Then he goes off in gales of giggles at the silliness of it.
We’ve tried so hard for so long to get him to use language, and now that he’s actually using it, albeit the wrong way, we are loath to try and shut him up, so we don’t circumvent the great progress he’s made. We’ve been dying for him to be able to speak, but now that he’s starting to, we are kind of wishing he’d wouldn’t…at least, not so much.
He and his older brother, Bubby, like to play tanks on the Wii. There are two little tanks on a field on the tv screen, and the boys shoot each other’s tank and blow each other up. They love it. They get really mad, too, when the other one blows HIS tank up.
Rainier says “Me!” when he’s saying it’s His tank, and he’s blowing Bubby up, and says “Bo” when he’s talking about what Bubby’s tank is doing, and if he blows it up. He also puts them together and says “Me-Bo!”
He says this all the time, so much so that he sounds like he’s calling Bubby a “Meatball.”
Just for fun, I told Bubby we‘re just start going to start calling him that, since that’s what he’s called all the time anyway.
At that, he scowled, then grumpily and frimly declared, “I am Not a Meatball!”
At this, Rainier immediately burst into peals of giggles and yelled, “Meatball!”
Do you love scrapbooking, cardmaking, journaling, planners, papercrafting or anything else that involves pretty patterned pieces of paper, scissors, embellishments, ribbons, adhesives, buttons, pens, etc?
Or do you just like to buy awesome papercrafting supplies, put them on a shelf so they look nice and admire them?
If so, you are welcome to join my brand-spankin new Facebook group Paper People!
Everyone has a favorite time of year, and SPRING is mine!
I live in Indiana, home of cold, weird snow-piled Midwest winters. We’ve all got cabin fever from being stuck inside thanks to the crazy winter and recent sub-zero temperatures.
Pretty soon….no more gloves, hats, scarves, heavy bulky coats or long undies! Yee-haw!
I grew up in Southern California and spent most of my time as a kid running around in my bathing suit and bare feet. I only put more clothing on when I was absolutely forced to. I loved swimming, pools and going to the beach. It’s common when you live near the beach or desert, places I grew up, to go everywhere in just a swimsuit and flip flops.
And, even better than Spring is….Easter!
I created this very special image which you can color and use as an adult coloring page, digital page or clip art in your diy creative scrapbooking, cardmaking or papercrafting projects.
Adult coloring can be a very expensive hobby. A less pricey alternative would be to download an art app onto your mobile device or pc, download images from online sources and color in the art app.
As a coloring book and digital stamp artist, and children’s book illustrator, I needed to find the best art apps on a very limited budget….free. I’ve tried most of the following free art apps on my IPad Pro and Samsung Galaxy NotePro. I’ve made a list of the ones that are fairly easy to just jump in and use.
Flowers, butterflies, hearts, bows, pink…. Frilly pink head-bands with bows and flowers, pink dresses with ruffles and roses buds, girly shoes with flowers and bows and the toes and socks to match. From the top of her darling curly head to the tips of her tiny feminine feet….we love dressing our baby girls in the cutest girly stuff we can get our hands on.
So, in spite of all of the extremely obvious cues when we take our little darlings out in public, do some people insist on saying, “Oh, what a cute baby! Is it a GIRL?” (Or BOY)
A New Friend, Adora-Babies, Sherry West, SherryWestArt, 2019
Or, if you are a boy mom, and he has short hair, or no hair and is as bald as an egg, is wearing blue-as-blue-can-get from head to toe, complete with as many bright boy-colored stripes as you can possibly squeeze onto him in order to avoid this most annoying, aggravating, head-smacking (yours and theirs) and head-scratching of questions….WHY, then, do people STILL insist on asking this ridiculous question?
I’ve even been aggravated and frustrated enough after getting this silly question so many times with my daughter and both of my sons, enough to deliberately dress then from head to toe in the popularly (and extremely obvious and virtually impossible to mistake) recognizable colors, patterns and styles specific to their gender before taking them out in public.
If you have the answer, I surely would love to hear it, or about your own personal head-smacking experience. Post in the comments below!😀
*Adora-Babies are now available in my Etsy shop for your adorable crafting, papercrafting, scrapbooking projects and more! https://www.etsy.com/shop/SherryWestArt/
Coming up with an extremely appealing facial design is probably the number one aspect of designing a doll, paperdoll, coloring page, digital or rubber stamp or character. You want something that is universally appealing to all ages, genders, nationalities, so that’s a daunting task. Plus, it’s not easy to create beautiful designs that haven’t been used before and don’t look like something else that’s already out on the market. So, when you create one that works, you keep it and use it!As an eBay doll seller/redesigner, I’ve learned that doll companies use the same basic face style on each of their doll models. So, following that well-established tradition, I’m doing the same with the current crop of images I’ve been drawing. You can use the same basic face (as long as it’s an appealing design), tweak the features a bit and have an entirely new creation! Plus, it makes it much easier, faster and cheaper for the designers and companies. All of the well-established doll companies do this: Madame Alexander, Mattel, Kish, Tonner, etc.
PINK ROSES, Sherry West, SherryWestArt, 2019
As the old saying goes…it‘s all in the eyes. The eyes are the number one part of the figure that have to be right. If they are off in any way, nothing else works. It is through the eyes that the viewer is drawn to the image, so they need to be beautiful and engaging. Creating the hair style, body, clothing, accessories, color palette and details fall into place fairly quickly and easily once the eyes and face are set.
Roses, Sherry West, SherryWestArt, 2018
I‘m still learning how to design a good coloring image (and stamps) and am learning it might look easy but it isnt! So many things go into designing an image – composition, balance, line style, direction, line width, subject matter, and more!
Someday I would love to design paper dolls, figurines and dolls. I love modern dolls produced by Madame Alexander, Kish, Tonner, Maggie Iacono and others. I collect and am knowledgeable about hard plastic, composition and vinyl dolls from the late 1930s to the early 1960s. My love for dolls strongly influences my designs on paper.
HAPPY ART FOR A HAPPY HEART! 