Two Thousand Fourteen

Well, it's been a while. sorry. again. I've even been on break from teaching for two and a half weeks and done nothing. I guess that's what break is for. I've decided to make sure I did something this last week of break. so I went to buy a new 2015 calendar, fill said calendar out with all the birthdays, anniversaries and upcoming weddings, and hopefully get some paintings done for the shop.

I also wanted to take a look back at 2014 and try to remember what we did. Here it goes!

warning: tons of pictures. that is all.

We started off the new year by camping in Yuma. Something we definitely don't do quite enough. In the future we have plans to camp at the Grand Canyon!

I traveled to Michigan at the beginning of February for my Grandmother's funeral. Obviously, not the most fun reason to travel, but I did get to see Vegas from the sky at night and I got my fill of real snow and cold weather in Michigan. I also got to spend time with all of my sisters!

A group from Yuma went to Big Bear, California to enjoy a ski/snowboarding weekend on the mountain. We made the best of it - even though the snow was more like slush during the day and ice at night. We really want to go to Colorado for some great skiing before we leave the west.

I think one of my favorite things to do is be a pit stop for people heading out to San Diego as they are PCSing. This year we had three friends stop by before finishing their cross country drives. We've been to San Diego many times since living in Yuma and it's truly a great escape especially during the hot summer months here. I traveled to San Diego for the NAEA Conference over Spring Break and was able to visit with some of my professors from JMU! 

I coordinated my first art show for the middle school students at the local library. The Spring 2015 art show will probably definitely be on the local news! One of the secretaries at our school said she could contact the local news channel and have them there at the show to interview students and such! 

In the spring and the fall, we celebrated lots of new babies in Yuma! Baby showers galore!

David promoted at the end of May - aka a day away from the crazy middle schoolers for me. ;)

I SURVIVED THRIVED TEACHING MY FIRST YEAR OF MIDDLE SCHOOL ART!
I seriously was in survival mode for a portion of that year. whoops. 

OPENED TULIPS&LACE!

TURNED 25! Hello quarter century. 

Celebrated our two year wedding anniversary & traveled to Jamaica! We went with our wonderful friends, the DeVines and really enjoyed time together. After Jamaica, we traveled home to Maryland so David could see everyone before he deployed at the end of June.

David headed out for deployment and then I headed to Minnesota for some cabin time with the Phillips Family.

Also EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO NOTE: 

I READ ALL OF THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS IN THREE WEEKS. 

Probably sat on my reading chair more than I slept in my bed over those weeks. #harrypotterforlife

While David was gone I went with our good friends, the Ices, to the Grand Canyon for a whirlwind weekend trip. #NanNans

Started teaching another year at RW Middle School (I wish it stood for Ron Weasley). Decided to take a trip to Utah mid October to visit the marvelous Noelle Ulman. Once I got back, we were in the home stretch of deployment being over.

David came back on Veterans Day and then a few days later we went to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball. I always love an excuse to actually dress up and take a day off of work ;)

Kathleen Payne Photography

My family traveled here from Maryland (and Uncle Buck Leo from Michigan) for Thanksgiving. We did the most touristy thing in Yuma aka seeing the territorial prison. Trekked up Telegraph Pass and ate lots of delicious food!

This December we've enjoyed weekends on the couch, the gorgeous warm weather and a great visit from Noelle right before Christmas.

Most importantly this year we've found a church family who truly has the word of God and the spirit flowing through them. We have both grown more in our relationship with Christ and can't wait to see what God has in store for us in 2015! We've truly seen that Jesus is better than anything we could ever have or want and we pray that God continues to use us for his glory this next year.

CHEERS TO TWO THOUSAND FIFTEEN!

A Gift for Baby Annie

My co-leader from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at James Madison University just had the most darling little girl! Annie was born in October (and shares a birthday with one of my college roommates ::cough::Rachel::cough::) and is super adorable.

I wanted to send Emilie and baby Annie a little useful gift that I hope gets some mad spit-up action. I mean - its a burp cloth so I don't see why it wouldn't. Babies just eat, poop/pee, sleep, spit up, repeat right?

My friend Robin and I had a little sewing day at her house back in early October and I was able to use her stunning embroidery attachment! Robin was so gracious to teach me how her machine worked and let me drool over it for a while. I have my own Husqvarna sewing machine (thanks mom!) but it is not even close to the beauty of Robin's machine. Smooth, slow, controlled stitches and an awesome attachment arm that lets you use your knee/thigh (some part of your leg) lift the presser foot. AH-MAH-ZING - as Penny Hartz would say. Happy Endings reference for those of you fortunate enough to see that beautiful sitcom. Thank you Ellen for introducing us to that show!

Tangents aside - here are some images of the little gift sent off to baby Annie. If you want to know the step-by-step of how I completed this project, feel free to comment below and I'll add it on!

I'm sure I'll make tons more of these in the future. I mean, who wants a boring burp cloth anyway?

New Mini-Magnets

Just want to drop by and let you all know about the 6 new mini magnets I'm listing in the shop today! Over Columbus Day weekend I was able to avoid the couch; I know, miracle, and instead I was able to create some new mini canvas magnets. Three of the magnets are more towards the abstract style I typically painted in college. I think I was afraid to attempt realistic paintings with oil paints in college, so I tried my hand in non-representational, abstract pieces and I must say I was pretty dang good at it. (Maybe in the future I'll post some pictures of my undergrad art show at James Madison University.) Anyway, here are a few pictures of what you can find in the shop!

You can find all of these new pieces over at Tulips&Lace Studio

Thanks for all of your support!

Stephanie

Tulips & Lace Studio: Custom Pieces

On Saturday morning I was a guest as the most darling vintage [double] baby shower ever. I wish I took actual pictures of the set-up, but I didn't bring my good camera and the phone just wouldn't do it justice.

Imagine a garden set up with lace-covered table tops and an eclectic collection of napkin rings all shaped like teapots. A hand crafted chandelier hung above the guests of honor's seat and vintage plates adorned the tables. The mother-daughter duo who created this garden escape are one amazing team. They had wonderful brunch quiches, french toast sticks accompanied with cups of syrup and delicious blueberry-lemon muffins topped with a lemon frosting. Not to mention a mouthwatering chai iced tea flowing from an adorable drink dispenser.

Deliciousness and entertaining conversations took place in that garden oasis.

Close to the end of the shower both moms-to-be set up to open gifts, which were placed in a vintage crib on the back patio. I wanted to gift these wonderful ladies with artwork for the nursery, so a little while ago, I asked them for their favorite Bible verses. Here are the two pieces I ended up framing and gifting. I created a first edition of the Psalm 127 piece, but my color choices were terrible so I started again. Live and learn. 

I'm planning on having a series of handwritten Bible verse pieces in Tulips&LaceStudio so be on the lookout for those! As I re-read the Psalm 139 verse below I can't help but be joyful that God didn't just make me, but he wonderfully made me. What a blessing to rest in that knowledge this week! 

 Have a wonderful week!

xoxo Stephanie

Art & Career

Okay, so it's clearly been quite some time since I've actually been on here [insert monkey covering mouth emoji]. oops. Let's just all agree that sometimes we get caught up in other things like baseball and wine working at home grading art projects.

I've also been slacking on Tulips&Lace Studio so my hope is to get some more pieces created and posted on the shop. I've been creating a few things, but I truly don't have a good excuse as to why I haven't been painting as often. Please keep encouraging me on that goal no matter how many sales I have or follows or whatever. I can't let my identity be placed in those things!

Made this poster because I am SERIOUSLY done
with seeing stick figures!

As for school, we are almost through the first quarter with only one week to go until the report cards go out! In no way what-so-ever did I think that I'd actually like going to work at this point. Let's just say that last year was a horrible year at school. Add together moving from elementary to middle school, disrespectful students whose parents don't care at all and not a Fairfax County Virginia art budget and you get a pretty miserable transition into middle school teaching. I honestly cried after school for at least two months and swore I would quit at the end of the school year - but that's a story for another time.

What I have to say is that I LOVE MY JOB. No, I don't get hugs everyday from Kindergarteners anymore, but I do have a huge impact on middle schoolers lives - even if they never tell me. I get to be really sarcastic and sassy (yes, sassy) to the students and they still like me. At parent-teacher conferences, one of my student's mother told me that she hears about me every day at the dinner table and that her daughter loves my class. Of course I will never hear that from the student, but man did that feel good to know I'm actually making a difference and leaving an impression on a student.

I wanted to share what my students have been up to! This year I started using Artsonia to display students work (also so parents actually see it… Last year I believe over half of my students just threw away their work. Thanks you lovely children.) Check out our gallery! All of our projects throughout the year will be posted online to the gallery so keep checking for updates. I've been making my TA's work their butts off to make Artsonia a success in my classroom.

Our Artsonia Gallery

Enjoy the students' work, their artist statements and feel free to leave comments! The kids would be so excited if they got extra comments on their work!

I feel like there's a billion other things I could tell you on here, but the most important thing right now is that the fabulous Orioles have had some BANGIN' 8th innings!

Also this handsome man comes home in a little more than month!

 Until later! xoxo

Shop Talk: A Custom Piece

Just wanted to share the first custom piece created in the shop! My dear friend Ellen requested a monogramed 2x2 magnet using her wedding colors.

The funny thing is that her request came in the most wonderful way. See, with David gone on deployment, I basically have become a part of Ellen's family (and her husband David). So Ellen & David went out of town for about ten days and prepared the most wonderful scavenger hunt for me! Every day they were out of town I would get a letter that told me where to find a treasure. So for one of the days, some cash money was hidden under one of my supply boxes and instruction were left in the letter as to what she wanted. It's always fun to create specific ideas for others. I'm excited for the next custom order to come in!

Here are just a few pictures of the final product. 

Then I wrapped it up in a cute little box!

If you would like to make a custom order feel free to message me Over at The Shop! I'd love to make something specifically for you!

The shop is open!

Tulips&LaceStudio is open for business!

Here's a direct link to the shop. I made it easy for you!

I've listed the magnets that I've been working on and finally took the shop off of "vacation mode". Feel free to take a look at the pieces I've been working on. I'd love feedback either way! I'll be adding more pieces as they are created!

Happy Thursday everyone!

Also just realized I used about 3x the amount of exclamation points as I did periods. oh well.

Porch Rehab

It's been about two weeks since David's been out of the country and I've been trying to keep myself busy. David and I [mostly me… okay all me] have been talking about getting rocking chairs for the front porch it's just that I didn't want ones that I had to assemble myself but the ones that were pre-assembled cost an arm and a leg. So after searching for a while I checked out Lowe's to see what they had. Snatched up two chairs that were 25% off! Found a few other things on clearance at Target and had a little DIY project to re-paint the ceramic stool.

I've also been busy making mini paintings for my Etsy Shop: Tulips&Lace so look out for some new listings hopefully by the end of this week! It's on vacation mode for now until I post my new products.

Here are a few pictures below of the before and after. Also, funny story or maybe pathetic, you decide. I felt really awkward taking pictures of our house when there are always so many people outside in our neighborhood. So I set my alarm for 5:45 in the morning in order to take the "after" pictures before anyone was outside. Crazy? Yes. Worth it? Yes. I mean, the lighting is worth it in itself.

Here are the before shots

And after shots

The bird poop on the planter full of succulents adds the slightest touch of class.

Before you go any further I must tell you about one of the sweetest things anyone has every done for me. See, I really wanted to have an American flag in front of the house. I mean, we're a Marine Corps family. I bought everything I needed to have a fabulous flag and then attempted to drill into the post which holds up the porch roof. Come to find out its some stucco/cement thing and it was not going to happen. So I asked my friend Rachel if I could borrow her husband and if he could help me. He came over and then told me I would have to get a 4x4 fence post, paint it the color of the house, dig a hole, place it in the hole and then attach the flag to that. No biggie. 

Later that same day Rachel texted me and asked if her husband could come over and put my flag pole together. He bought a post, bought paint, painted it and then came over and dug a hole in the ground while Rachel and I chilled on the rocking chairs. The absolute sweetest. I can't thank them enough.

Now I just need to wait for it not to be 115 degrees outside [I'm not exaggerating] so I can actually use these lovely chairs. I'll probably be sitting in them during the evenings while reading Harry Potter.