Live Interior 3D

one year for my birthday (or for christmas, i can't remember now) my husband's brother and his wife bought me one of the most thoughtful gifts i've ever received, design software for mac where you can design homes and interiors called live interior 3D (standard edition).  it's a little dated, the finishes and furniture aren't current but with a little fiddling you can change the sizes of everything and paint it whatever colour and make it look great.
it's so much fun, it's my favourite thing to do if i have an hour here and there to fiddle around on the computer.  i've used it to virtually redecorate and rearrange furniture in our house (to help visualize it before doing any of the work), i used it when we were thinking of building a home and i turned a simple 2D website floor plan into a 3D model on my screen and plugged in all of our furniture to see if it would be a good layout and fit us and all of our things comfortably, and lastly (and my favourite) i've used it to come up with dream homes for me and my family, filled them up with furniture and made the colours and finishes everything we would love if we, say, won a lottery and could build a custom home some day.
here is my latest creation, a 3 bed + den 2.5 bath rancher, to give you a taste of what this program can do:

Front

Dining & Living Room

Open-concept Kitchen, Dining, Living Room

Side & Back Yard

Master Bedroom

it's a rancher but looks kinda like an open concept loft inside, we love exposed brick, large windows.  the pool was just an added day-dream because hey - why not?!  if someone gave us a million dollars today this is what we'd build.

now to go virtually build more!  it's so fun!

A Day In The Life

i am a stay-at-home-mom of 2.

yesterday i took photos of whatever the kids and i were doing every hour for 14 hours.

here is the photographic portrayal of a typical weekday in our house.

peruse pinterest in bed while waiting for the hubby to finish his shower

get ready for the day

breakfast with the kiddos & my morning cup'a joe

snack time picnic in the park

play-time, games time

load dishwasher with lunch dishes

one learns how to print numbers & letters while the other naps

relax in front of the tv with my sketchbook

wake-up from a short nap to play

a quick (and challenging, as you can see) game of hide-and-go-seek

delicious dinner at the in-laws

play-dough dentistry with grandma & grandpa

run an obstacle course

wind-down before bed with a relaxing game of zelda

Groomed

here he is on our wedding day in june of 2007, my best friend, my husband.

Day 5: Best Friend

because it's a more detailed piece and it's been a busy week, i took an extra couple of days to finish this one.  the 30 day drawing challenge will not be completed in 30 days unless i can rush a couple and catch up ;)

the one thing this challenge is missing is direction as far as style, media, getting me out of my pencil-drawing comfort zone, so every once in awhile i try a new way of drawing to see how it fits.  it bothers me to know it won't always work out but i'll post them anyway because a challenge is a challenge.

Hula With Me

Day 4: Favourite Place

today (a day late, this should have been yesterday's challenge) i decided to change up my style, add a little colour, add a whole lot of crosshatch.  i'm none to pleased with it but i'm okay with that.
this is the view from my favourite place in the world, the lanai of our beach front rental condo makani sands in maui, hawaii.  i've been twice and stayed here both times.  it was on the ocean, it had a pool, it was a short walk to shops and a short drive to lahaina where all the good shopping and restaurants are. holiday heaven.

Excuse Me While I Wipe The Drool From My Chin

Day 3: Favourite Food

how dare i be challenged to sit for an hour and draw my biggest culinary weakness.
i almost gave up after drawing 6 pieces of california roll but i decided to keep on going because i didn't feel like thinking of what else to draw.  yup, my laziness to find something new became determination to finish what i started.  it turned out okay though, i'm glad i finished it.
now, who's up for going out for sushi?

Meow

today's "draw your favourite animal" drawing challenge made me feel like i was doing a grade school project.  my favourite animal has always been cats.  "c-a-t" was the first word i learned how to spell, taught to me by my older sister and brother while sitting in our car in the church parking lot after church, waiting for my parents to finish their coffee and visits.

when i was still quite young my brother brought home a kitten after hanging out at a friends house one day, it needed a home and steve decided ours would be a good one.  somehow we also ended up with the kittens sister, too.  between the two of them they had a few batches of kittens that we raised and found good homes for, cats were a part of my life for a long time.  colin's, too.  i'm glad i married a man who shares my love of cats.

colin and i had a kitten just after we were married, but she ran out into the street and was hit by a car a few months before elliott was born.  it broke my heart, she had a very special place in my heart.

when elliott was 4 months old we bought another but he was way too rambunctious to keep at our house so my parents adopted him for us (thanks mom and dad!)

we visit the kittens at the pet store all the time, elliott tries to get them to lick his fingers and molly giggles and talks to them like they're babies.  i don't think she's old enough to know not to carry them around by their tail and avoid stepping on them, so for now we'll hold off.  perhaps in another year or so, i think she'll be a little wiser at 2 1/2.

anyway, without further adieu, kittens:

Day 2: Favourite Animal

30 Day Drawing Challenge

i came across this 30 day drawing challenge while browsing pinterest yesterday afternoon and got excited.  i did the 30 day photography challenge a couple of months ago and had so much fun but still don't feel like i really have the knack for photography i should, but drawing is something i've always been passionate about and haven't done nearly as much as i'd like to, mainly because i haven't been inspired to do so.  i don't just sit down and start drawing, i need a topic, a direction, some kind of push.  and here it is!
i'm pretty excited about it!

i started today with my first challenge: myself.  sheesh, this again?  i had a really hard time doing this in the photography challenge, but at least this time i could copy a photo i already like of myself ;)

Day 1: Yourself

here it is, straight from my scanner.
it sorta looks like me, right?  sorta?

Hairstyle Upon Hairstyle Upon Hairstyle

this tumblr page resource for a gazillion photos of hair: inspirationalhair.tumbler/archive.

boy oh boy, i could spend hours in there!