Lots of Updates...

Wow, I've been away from my blog for awhile...that sucks, but it's for a good reason! 

I recently decided I'm in desperate need of a career change.

Why?

Because I dislike my current job and it's now affecting my health. 

I get migraines daily.

The doctor told me my blood pressure is elevated (which has NEVER been the case before).

...and frankly, I'm miserable.
The job comes with far too much stress and frustration on a daily basis and I just can't deal with it anymore.  It's time for a change.

So, I thought long and hard about what I want to do, which is be an artist...

...however, it's a bit difficult to make a living and takes some time, so my second best option was to be in the health industry.  So I bounced back and forth between medical assistant and LVN (licensed vocational nurse) and decided to go after LVN. 

So now I am currently enrolled into the prereq course, which is Anatomy & Physiology, and as long as I pass that course I can enroll into the trade school I selected.  I'm excited, I hope I pass...then I have to figure out funding, which is sorta kinda figured out, but we'll see.  The course doesn't start until June, so I have some time to really iron things out.  For now, I've been focusing on the prereq and trying to memorize the various bones and muscle structures, lol.

In the meantime, even though I haven't blogged for a little while, I haven't been far from art.

Below are the items that have recently come in the mail....

These items I won through the OWOH funtastic blog hop...

 The below costume jewelry I won from Mollye at Fruit of the Spirit and I've had fun rifling through it and thinking of all the movies I've seen with actors/actresses in the 50's.
Makes me want to play dress up!

The below journal I won from Linda from Tortagialla. 

The leather is so soft to the touch, I can't wait to have some free time so I can doodle some ideas in this journal!

     

 The below pendant I actually won a month or so ago, but hadn't had a chance to blog about it.  

This pretty pendant came from Joyce at Little Lord Mars.  

The below items I won from Stella over at Ida.s Sketchbook.

The contest was actually for the monster original you see below, but she put a package together for the winners as an apology for the delay in getting them out.  When I heard that the delay was because her grandfather passed I urged her to take her time, I totally understood...but when I received the below package I was very pleased and pleasantly surprised.  I've admired her work for some time and love the gifts she sent. 

Huge Thank You to everyone that chose my name for the winnings!  I love all the items I've received!!

Below are items that have come in the mail through a group I joined. Over at Milliande's Ning site there is a group called RAAK.  It stands for Random ART Acts of Kindness ~ a group for sending and receiving Art Acts of Kindness.  Basically, you submit your mailing info and each member of the group can choose who they feel like sending a handmade gift to.  There are no expectations what so ever, just random acts of kindness.  I really loved the idea, so I joined.  Not soon after, I received the below items.  Super cool!  I haven't yet mailed mine, but I have selected a few people that I plan to send a little gift to.  :-)

The below ATCs came from Emily or Arty Em over at ET Studio .

  

The below postcard came in the mail and unfortunately I seem to have misplaced the envelope it came in, which means, I no longer know who sent it.  Darn it!  The signature is a little hard to make out, but I think it's from Karen...maybe?  I'm so sorry!  I have a sneaking suspicion my son walked off with it...he's been doing that a lot lately.

 

 

The below origami bird came from Ruth at Inspire Dailey.

She even included a bit about the Thousand Crane legend which was quite interesting!

Big huge Thank You to the members that have sent me RAAK items.  It was such a delight to see a package in the mail and see what arrived!  I look forward to sending out some of my own.  :-)

...and finally, other items that came in the mail, but these were ones that I purchased.

These 2 items came from  Cathy at Artsy Butterfly.

She's been having fun trying out some new techniques, one of which is altering her photographs.  I've enjoyed following her journey and purchased the print on the left and the original on the right.  Below is how I framed them and as soon as I have some spare time (more than 5min!) I plan to hang them at a window that is right by the top of our stairs.  I think it's a perfect spot for these beauties!  Especially since that window faces the side of the neighbors house...a bit of a boring view that I can now spice up!

   

Zorana had a sale in her Etsy shop to clear out some inventory, so when I saw her post over on her blog announcing the sale, I hopped over to her shop and snagged a few originals.  I absolutely love the 2 below that arrived in the mail and I can't wait to hang them!

 

She even included this little birdie that she painted...I've had a thing for birds and owls lately, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him and his inspirational quote.  He keeps me company at my computer and reminds me to stay focused when my mind starts to drift away from school studying. (Seriously, Anatomy is a tad boring...but I guess I should learn it if I want to take care of people, right?!?!  My ultimate goal is to weasel my way into the maternity dept.  How cool would that be to take care of newborns and their mommies all day?  I think I'd rather enjoy it, something different everyday...One day!)

 

The below print came from Vanessa at A Fanciful Twist.  I fell in love with her original, but alas, I could not afford it.  So I reached out to her to ask about a print and voila!  It now hangs on my wall.  

  

Now, the below original I received was actually a custom I requested. This was created by Micki at The Secret Hermit.  She had done another one that I randomly came across in her shop.  I reached out to her and asked if she'd be able to replicate, but switch the characters to my hubby and me.  I directed her to the post I had done of our wedding so she could see what we looked like and she whipped this one together.  I absolutely adore it and love that it's in her style.  I'm so pleased with this piece and plan to hang it in our room.  I showed hubby and even he likes it (and he's hard to please when it comes to art, lol.)

"Love Conquers All" 

Such a fitting phrase for 2 people that don't believe in divorce.  ;-)

Now, in other news...

I picked up a Bind - it - All...why?  Because I'm super frustrated with my current journal.  I've been using a moleskin, and it's great and all, the pages are cool...but it drives me nuts that the damn thing WILL NOT lay flat!  How do you guys paint in something that keeps flipping to another page?  So annoying.  So I decided, I may as well make my own, right?  Right.  The other thing that was bugging me about my moleskin is it's so stinkin tiny.  I got large thinking it would be bigger since it's 8in by whatever (I think 5"?)...but really, it's not that big.  So when I ordered the bind it all, I also ordered some 8 x 10 covers and spiral wire.  I've been playing with it and learning how to use it, so I think I can design an 8 x 10 journal with 8 x 10 WATERCOLOR sheets of paper so I can continue with mixed media like I want.  It will be spiral bound so I can open it up nice and wide.  I'm debating on portrait or landscape style...I'm thinking I want landscape...so I can work on the scenes in my head.  So that should be fun!

  Maybe one day I'll make some extras and add to the shop. 

Oh, and I've also worked on some different jewelry!

I had previously ordered some watch bodies and debated on what to do with them.  I wanted to work on birds nests, but didn't want to do what everyone else was doing, so voila.  Birds nests in the watch bodies...and the kicker is you have to really look at them and you'll see I managed to resin in some birds feathers underneath the nest.  I'm still working on the design, I really like the one on the upper right corner with the smaller nest and little silver eggs.

 

Ok, that's it for now...my super long update, and now I'm off to go study some more!

I'll be back in a bit, hope you're all doing well and enjoying creating art!

One World One Heart **WINNER**

WOW, I can't believe this event is actually over.  I had such a great time meeting new people and adding soooooo many more to my blogroll so I can follow their art.  I had a great time and I hope you did too!

A HUGE Thank you to Lisa over at A Whimsical Bohemian for coordinating all this.  I can't even imagine what a huge task it was and I'm so sad to see that this is the last year (albeit my 1st year of participating.)

BUT, guess what?  I read on some other blogs that something similar will be happening next year.  Did you guys know about that?  Head on over here to read up on "Our World Our Art" tour that will be happening in 2012.  I've already signed up for the newsletters so that I can participate, I hope to see you there next year.

I had so many commenters...340 to be exact.  I've never in my blogging life had so many comments on one post, but each one made me smile as my phone dinged and I checked my messages at work.  So a super huge thank you for everyone that commented, I really enjoyed reading your comments.  :-)

Before I announce the winner, I just wanted to quickly answer a few questions that people asked me.  

So here they are:

AZviaTx asked me what I think of Anne Rice's new books.  My answer to that is I don't read them.  I LOVED all her vampire books and pretty much read all of them.  Once she ventured in to new territory with her literary works, I got bored and moved on.  :-)

"MOI" Freubel  asked if I'd visit Holland while traveling Europe.  Indeed I did.  When I graduated college my cousin and I took off to travel a bit since it was one of those now or never moments.  We went through Bunac, which I highly recommend for anyone fresh out of college that wants to travel.  They got us set up so we could do work exchange, gave us the info we needed, helped us get our visa and basically guided us through the process.  Through their program we were able to work to travel, we paid very low taxes since we were students and basically we found temp office jobs that understood our needs and gave us room to come in to work, get paid enough so we could travel here and there.  I worked for some amazing people doing office work at social services, but it was a bit of "culture" shock, if you will, because they weren't used to someone that could multi-task as fast as I could.  Their first project was to reorganize a wall of files, something they thought would take me a week or 2 ended up taking me a couple days....so, they let me read and answer phones until they had more work for me, haha.  Anyway, we rented a room in a flat on a monthly basis and on the weekends or requested days off we checked out Paris, London, parts of England, Spain, Italy (we flew to Italy for under $30!!!  Can you believe that!), her boyfriend flew over and they went to Germany, and yes, we even visited Holland and blushed at the red light district and sex museums.  ;-)  It was truly an amazing experience and one I would do again in a heartbeat.  ...but taking off and traveling wasn't something new for us.  In our early 20's, we threw a dart at a map and decided to do a road trip, LOL!!  Man that was fun...driving to Colorado, her truck breaking down, getting it fixed, driving through country, and then down the coast back home to CA....that was our first experience of just taking off and being free...and in all that we got to see some amazing U.S. sites...and even fit in some White Water Rapids (the kind where they make you wear helmets...and good thing we did since we got slammed into a mountain side).  I love to just up and travel...a tad harder now that I have a 2 year old, but I still hope to be able to continue to see the world as money permits.  I actually just emailed the hubby the other day about saving up so we can go on our honeymoon as we have yet to take it.  We were considering a cruise...but really, I'm DYING to check out New Zealand...and since he hasn't traveled much, he's pretty open to wherever I want to go...so hopefully New Zealand it is!!

I can't wait!!!!

I'm still trying to convince him to go skydiving...but he won't take my bait.  Not like it's that scary...I did do it 10 years ago as a challenge from an Ex (who lost that bet!!!), but I'd love to go again.

Moving on...

jane p asked if my pendant contains an owl in the tree....yep, sure does!

artangel asked if I'd visited Manchester, England!  I'm sorry to say that no, I don't recall visiting Manchester, but who knows, we were on so many trains that I may have ridden past you!  hehe

Can I just say, I LOVE Europes transportation system? Wow...what a difference.  The buses arrived every 8 min.....ours are every hour, if that!  ...and the trains...so much easier than all the traffic we get stuck in where I grew up.  We have Bart as transportation (which is a train) but it's only in certain parts of the Bay Area and not available in Solano County where I live.  Big Boo!  Oh well.  Maybe one day.

Ok...I think I answered all the questions, so without further ado....

The winner of this pendant is:

Lezlei Ann Young from Breath of Art

Congratulations Lezlei!!  I hope you enjoy wearing your new pretty pendant.  I will be emailing you for your address. 

Thank you so much everyone for visiting and taking the time to comment.  

I hope to see you again soon.  :-)

xoxo

Leila

One World One Heart - So Nice to "Meet" You!

Did you know this is the 5th and final year of the One World One Heart event?

I've never participated, but I plan to this year.

It's available to all active bloggers and is a great way to meet new people :-)
You will want to click here to see all the participants: 2011 participants

This event starts at Midnight tonight, Jan 30th and ends on Feb 17th.
Be sure to follow the link if you want to participate or would like to read more info about the event.

Everyone participating provides a door prize...so my prize to one random winner that I will select on Feb 17th will be this pretty little pendant that I made:

(Click on the images for a larger view.)

For a chance to win this prize leave a comment on this post with a way for me to email you if you win.

That's it, super simple.  :-)

Now, for a little bit about me:

My name is Leila, I'll be 34 on June 15th, I have a 2 1/2 year old with my now hubby who I married last October, I live in California, and I absolutely LOVE art.

I had another blog where I used to blog about daily life, but it got tedious and I got bored with it and stopped blogging altogether for a couple years.

 About a year ago I was surfing the internet, came across a bunch of art blogs, came across challenge blogs, and a small fire lit inside me with the desire to get back to what I love.  Art. And creating.
Growing up, my mom, Aunt, and grandma would encourage us in our creative endeavors and my siblings and I would draw, paint, create...something.  In college I was a little lost, had no desire to wrap my mind around business or the sorts, so I fell back to where I was happiest and got my BA in art and multimedia.

After college I traveled Europe for 6 months, came back home, started a series of boring jobs and lost my way again until I met my now husband, who has encouraged me in everything I've tried.

Throughout this blog you will see mostly my digital creations but you will also see my journey into jewelry making, ATC creations, and my tentative journey into painting on canvas...although the canvas "paintings" are heading mostly into mixed media art at this point, I don't have much posted on those, but I will soon.

I'm very happy that I came across this event and I am eager to participate.

So, a big "Nice to meet you" to all of you, I look forward to getting to know you!
Thank you for visiting my little corner of this big world.

xoxo

Leila