2009

Hi everyone, had a good Christmas, I'll be posting pics soon. We had three great warm days, all our snow and ice had melted....and now we have more snow today! Err...Happy New Year? I am stuck at home for another boring PA New Year's. There was talk of the YSA having a mystery dinner but there wasn't enough support to make it worthwhile. Where did '08 go?? It went really fast. I'll be honest, I kinda hate New Year's- it just rubs it in that you're not where you want to be in life.

All I want is a pretty dress at a pretty dance...but that's not happening this year. I missed the "New Year's" dance in Ohio (it was nerd themed!?) cause we were celebrating my dad's bday (Marley and Me is a way cute movie). I had last had fun on New Year's when '06 became '07...I went to the Black & White Ball in Seattle with my good friends and there were 1000 people at this huge semi-formal dance in Seattle. Good times. I miss things like that.

On the docket for '09:

• beoming healthier
• getting organized
• seeing my grma for her 80th bday in March
• getting a craft room
• exercising after school
• surviving math next semester
• getting the YW room done
• Getting more YW to come
• improving my creativity/mind

and the list goes on.......

I really hope '09 is a good one!

Merry Christmas

"We all enjoy giving and receiving presents. But there is a difference between presents and gifts. The true gifts may be part of ourselves--giving of the riches of the heart and mind--and therefore more enduring and of far greater worth than presents bought at the store."

-James E. Faust

I love this time of year and I hope the best for you and yours.

Wishing you the merriest,

Liz

Traditions

I thought I'd post what our family does for the holidays. I think that family traditions are really neat and I'd love to hear about yours!

Our family traditions:

• There is a legend about animals speaking at midnight when Christ was born...when I was a kid, my family would go say goodnight to all our critters and probably the neighbor's critters, too. I thought that was fun when I was a kid.
• We always get our tree together as a family
• We don't open presents on Christmas Eve, just Christmas. We open presents first, then stockings.
• We always have cinnamon rolls for breakfast- I did even on my mission, though they were out of a can!
• We hang Santa letters on the tree
• Laura and I are big kids, and there are no grandkids, so we still have to be the "kids", so we still put cookies and milk out for Santa (and carrots for the reindeer!).
• Mom and I collect nativity sets, we enjoy putting them out each year.
• My grandma used to play Nat King Cole's record LOUD to wake up my mom and her sisters when they were kids, now we play "Happiest Christmas Tree" to walk out to the tree to.
• We read the Christmas bible verses together as a family on Christmas eve before we go to bed.
• We like to shop at the mall together as a family one evening before Christmas. We usually see a movie around the holidays (this year we'll go see Marley!).
• I have a dvd of a fire in a fireplace with cheesy music...we play it while we hang up stockings on Christmas Eve.
• We meet in Mom and Dad's room and walk out to the tree as a family.
• Dad usually goes out of town in Dec- he just got back yesterday after a week in Texas!

We had to figure out how to do things in our new house last Christmas...where do you put the tree, etc?

Hope everyone has a great Christmas! Happy New Year!

Love Liz

Favorites

I wish I could post more since it's such a fun time of year, but I thought I'd post about what holiday movies and music me and my family like. I'd love to hear what your family does!

Favorite Movies:

• A Christmas Story (there are so many quotable lines from this movie! We have seen it a million times and always laugh!)
• A Muppet Christmas Carol (definitely my favorite version!)
• Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas (Also done by Jim Henson & the Muppets, it's really cute but less well known)
• Prancer (a girl finds what could be Santa's reindeer...gotta love Abe Vigoda as a curmudgeon veterinarian)
• White Christmas (We love old movies and it's got some good songs and dance numbers)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas (We have gotten so many Charlie Brown Christmas trees over the years!)

Favorite TV episodes:

• The Raven Christmas episode from Northern Exposure (They do a raven pageant- the raven brought light to the world)
• "Refrigerator Day" from the tv show Dinosaurs (Remember it from the early 90's? Another Muppet creation. Are we sensing a theme?) The Dinosaurs celebrate Refrigerator Day as a Christmas-like holiday (they decorate their fridge!) celebrating when dinosaurs invented refrigerators and didn't have to wander anymore. The analogy is that because of Christ, we don't have to wander anymore. I even went so far as to make my dad a Happy Refrigerator Day card! Try to watch this show if you can- it's out on DVD now and hilarious.

Music:

• God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen/We 3 Kings Medley by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan
• Winter Wonderland by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
• Happiest Christmas Tree by Nat King Cole
• Sleigh Ride by the Andrews Sisters
• The Merriest by June Christy
• Ring Those Christmas Bells by Peggy Lee
• Winter Wonderland by Tony Bennett
• Carol of the Birds by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
• We 3 Kings by Mitch Miller and the Gang
• Wizards in Winter by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra
• Little Drummer Boy by Johhny Cash (Johnny Cash? Christmas music? It's a strange but good combo)
• Do You Hear What I Hear by Jonny Mathis
• Sleigh Ride by Steve & Edie
• Stop the Cavalry by the Cory Band
• Silent Night by Jose Feliciano
• Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt (not Madonna!)

And the best ever:

O Holy Night by Perry Como

I like a lot of obscure music, can't you tell?

Stay tuned for Christmas traditions!

Drawing Final

The last thing that we learned in drawing class before the semester ended was how to do ink-wash drawings (paintings?). You take india ink and dilute it with water to get the shade you are looking for. It's easiest to first create a 2 tone drawing (1 shade of ink plus the white of your paper) and then go in with your darker tones. The final assignment was to do an ink-wash study after doing 4 small gesture (loose, quick) studies. Then you got to sit one on one with the teacher and discuss your work. I decided to do a still life, you had to create something interesting and dynamic looking and not get caught up in too much detail. That wasn't too hard since you are painting with a big fat bamboo brush! I'd never done these before this class so it was kinda neat to do.
Here's the still life I set up:

Here it is in black and white:

And here's my finished piece. This isn't the greatest photo:

Sometimes being a B&W photographer comes in really handy- after years of taking pictures I can pretty much look at anything and know what it will look like in B&W. I was able to look at the still life and guesstimate what tones to use more easily than the other kids. My critique went well, my teacher liked what I turned in. I was all done with finals last Friday and it feels pretty great.

Jen's page

My cousin Jennifer had Baby Cashew, aka Raegan in October and since I know she loves to scrapbook but has no time cause of the baby, I made a baby shower layout using the pics my aunt sent us:

My cousin is doing a jungle theme in Raegan's room, so hence the critters:

I only glued the large pic on three sides, creating a pocket for a tabbed card that holds all the gift info on it. Even if this is in a page protector, you can still grab it out from the top (I hate it when people make interactive page elements that you can't access through a page protector!).

What do we learn from this? Save your scraps! This layout was dirt cheap because I didn't buy anything for it- all the animal pieces are cut from cardstock scraps. I designed the animals myself, but you could find animal or other shapes online to trace or even trace cookie cutters. I pre-poked holes in the cardstock before stitching with embroidery floss (which is pretty stinkin' cheap) so that sewing was easier. When sewing on cardstock, you have to be careful that you don't pull too hard or you'll rip through your paper. You don't even have to have knots on the back- I secured the ends of the thread with a little adhesive. I used ric-rac for the alligator's teeth- I love glue dots for attaching things like that on pages. I used my smaller scalloped scissors on the big pic and my huge scalloped scissors on the smaller pic.

Another trick on this page was the collage of all the shower pics- I scanned the pics, then created the collage in Photoshop Elements (I made sure it was 8x10) and then got it printed as an 8x10 enlargement at Walmart. Much cheaper than getting a bunch of little wallets printed (which is what I had to do before I had Photoshop at my house!). With most pictures, you don't need to see them big, you just need them to get a sense of what took place.

I haven't made a page for awhile, it felt good to do so. I liked it alot, it was hard to mail away!

Pattern

I was going through my mom's box of old patterns this weekend- most were ugly clothes patterns from the 70's and 80's, but I found this gem. It was made in 1963! One of these days I'll make me a bag...and if it turns out well enough this could be an Etsy item!

Blue Foam

Ode to Blue Foam

by Elizabeth Chaney

Blue Foam is everywhere

In my nose,

In my hair...

Yes even in my underwear!

Blue Foam is everywhere. (cough)

I've spent the past few weeks working on my final project for 3-D art- an abstract sculpture carved from dense insulation foam. All the little bits of foam stick to you, no matter what you do! After class I looked the abominable snow-woman! The room looked like a snowglobe! I would shed blue foam wherever I went. I'm so glad I don't have to breathe it in anymore and that this project is over! It was hard coming up with an interesting abstract sculpture and I think mine was fine but maybe now I'd tweak it. It was interesting to learn a new building technique- now I can make anything I want!

The maquette:

You laminate pieces of foam together with spray adhesive:

Then carve with a small saw and files:

Then I pegged the appendages on and covered it with Durham's- a dry putty mix that you mix with water to create a hard skin:

Here is my turkey-stegosaurus-bunny ear-cat whisker-melted peep:

(I got so many funny comments as to what it looked like!)

Don't ask why I gravitated to BRIGHT yellow- I don't know!

Here are a few that I liked alot from my classmates:


And here's some not-so-hot ones, unfortunately two of the worst offenders took off with their project before I could snap a picture:
Boring shapes, boring color, boring assembly



A Renaissance Yoda Mermaid?

A shrimp? A fetus? And not well carved or painted at that. That kink in the tail is terrible!

My friend Mike did this one...not bad but he needed more dintinct shading. It looks like it could be in a park! We joked about it needing some graffiti!

The shape is pretty interesting, but the paint does nothing for me! The muddy gray just makes it blah and takes away from the shape. (below)

Everyone in class really gravitated towards this one...but not me. I think they were all distracted by the fact that it was covered in candy....if it was just painted would they find it as interesting??? I think not.

Here's D's bug (or an antelope? I don't know):

D (the girl who couldn't see the carousel horse in my cardboard project) made an ugly bug thing (above) and I was so tempted to walk over to her and say..."You know what I see in your project? If I look real close it looks like...hmmm...a bug!" But I guess I had some class for a moment or two. I liked the bug's body shape before she put a head on it and I don't think the painting goes with the hard edges on the body.

I am getting tired of bailing out crappy slacker art students...I was nice the other day and let a guy from sculpture borrow my leftover spray adhesive...and he thought I gave it to him! And then he walked off with my leftover Durham's cause he thought I said yes to that too. When did I become the supply fairy?? Buy your own! Those cost $16! I probably wouldn't use the leftovers much, but I'm the one who bought them!! And now I'm kicking myself about the Durham's- I got the idea to make little foam ladybugs too late. I guess one of these days I'll buy some more and make some smaller sculptures out of foam leftovers.

Which leads to the question....what do I do with this sculpture now?? It's kinda big (2.5x2.5 ft) to keep but I spent so much time on it to throw it out!

Q&A- Scanning

My friend Megan asked me this question:

Q: What is the best way to get QUALITY digital copies of photos when all I have are the actual printed photos?

A: Well, Megan, sounds like you need a good scanner! There's a lot of great scanners out there and I love how technology is getting cheaper and cheaper. Right now I use the crummy scanner at school but all I'm doing right now is scanning photos that go on the web so quality isn't a huge issue. Santa is bringing me an Epson Perfection V300 for Christmas and I can't wait. It has a lot of great features for being only $99!

Now the experts recommend scanning negatives (you always get better clarity from the source than a copy) over prints but you can still get good digital images from your prints.

Ask yourself: Where is this photo going? If you are wanting to make a print from your scan, you'll want to scan at a higher resolution (like 300 dpi) than if the pic is only going on the web (you'll only need a 72 dpi). You'll want a high resolution especially if you want the print to be enlarged.

Make sure your photo and your scanner bed are clean and free of dust and fingerprints. Some scanners come with dust-fixing software, but it's still important to reduce problems in the first place. You can crop and tweak your photos with photo editing software- I enjoy Photoshop Elements cause it's pretty easy to do what I want.

Both Kodak machines and Wal-Mart 1 hour machines have a scanner attached to them, but I don't know how well they work (and who can guarantee that they'll be clean?). You could test it out and see if that works ok for you. You can make prints or cds (or both!) with those machines.

You can visit www.scantips.com for more info on scanning.

A word about photo printing: I HATE Kodak picture machines with a passion but many people use them- I always find their printouts to be really low quality and the color is terrible. Do yourself a favor and use the Wal-Mart 1 hour photo processing instead- they do real good quality and I prefer the matte paper that they use. And they're inexpensive! Your scanned/printed images can look better or worse depending on where you get them printed.

Megan, I hope that answered your question. Let me know if you need any more help.

-Liz

Thanks

I wanted to say thanks for everyone who responded to my last post- I am glad to say that I am doing better now. A break from school, talking to friends and having a nice holiday with my family did wonders.

We usually just spend Thanksgiving with just the four of us as we rarely have family in the same state as us! We had a nice relaxing day and a real good meal!

Mom, Dad and Laura

Me, Dad and LauraWhich one's the turkey?

Laura always makes a turkey centerpiece out of food. We had a hard time finding baby corn!

I found flowers for $1.99 and put them in Mom's little pitchers for a cute centerpiece.
"Mom, I'll help you clean up the turkey!"- Hank

I find that I do better if I focus on my blessings and try to show more gratitude to the Lord for what I have (go figure).

I am thankful for:

• My family
• My friends
• The gospel
• My talents
• School
• A nice home
• Good people at church
• My calling in YW
• Computers
• 4 wheel drive!
• my family has what we need
• Our critters
• My camera
• Having been a missionary
• My trip to WA in June
• A good YSA group

And the list goes on...