Recent covers.

Nook, e-reader covers that were commissioned for Christmas presents. I did a very different style with all of these because they were very personalized.

On growing up...

I have always believed that only grown ups drink real coffee. Coffee from a coffee maker, in your kitchen, that tastes like coffee and not like chocolate and sugar. I never liked that kind of big girl coffee so I never felt like I could be a real adult. The other thing "real" adults do is drink wine, that is something I will never do so I am still safe on the immature status.
This Christmas season I decided that I needed to stop spending $4 a cup on fancy peppermint mocha's, my true loves, and get an actual grown up coffee maker. I did it. I bought some fancy creamers, because I am not tough enough yet to drink black coffee, and I jumped in head first. Not bad, not bad at all.
The amount of energy I have gained is awe inspiring, the coming down is another thing. I can get alot more done during the day...if I want to. I wouldn't want to set everybody's expectations too high so I pace myself.
Now that I am all grown up and behave like an adult another problem presents itself, there are consequences to every action you know, I am getting addicted to my coffee. I can't function without it in the morning and in the evenings I feel as if I am coming down from my caffeine high...something I always wanted to avoid was addiction to anything.
My new best friend Coosi (it's given name is Cuisinart) tells me it's alright to be addicted to coffee. Everyone is doing it, it's normal, it's expected. It's legal. It shouldn't be!! Now that I am invested and my parents gave us some special organic, fair-trade coffee beans for Christmas...I think there is no looking back. I'm going headlong and ignoring the symptoms of my addiction. I am listening to the whisperings of "Coosi" telling me to not pay attention to anything negative, it's all good when I have my coffee.
This growing up thing is not as exciting as I imagined it would be but, I'm trying it on for size. If it's not a good fit I can always back out...right???
-A

Spring!

I have a great love for all the seasons, my favorite is definitely fall but that is not what I am writing about today.

There is something amazing about spring that cannot be denied.

After a long cold winter, just as you begin to consider how long it might take another person to realize you are missing and brave the elements to come and check on you only to find that you have passed on and left your body, pasty from sun deprivation with dark circles underneath your eyes from winter depression clutching a tropical picture, ripped out of a magazine, in your cold lifeless fingers... the first hint of spring peeks it's green head through the snow on the ground and there is hope. A sparkle begins in the corner of your eyes, you start to feel the edges of your mouth turn up at the corners in a smile that cracks the frown that has settled in for the last 3 months or so. Color returns to your cheeks.

I step outside in the morning, early, and breathe in deeply. The air smells green, don't ask me how a color can have a smell but it does. There are very few scents in the world that can compare to dewy green morning. The birds sing loudly and everything is waking up. The grass is wet but in a pleasant way. Walking through it first thing in the morning, you are the very first one to ever step on this fresh dew, makes me feel as though I am a part of something secret and just discovered. As if no other person has ever experience the morning that way, knowing this not to be true but the fresh beginning of every spring day can make you feel that way.

Sitting outside in the afternoon sun underneath a tree and staring up at through it, seeing the sun peeking in between the leaves that are barely rustling and spinning in the warm breeze. Every branch of the tree is bursting with green, like an explosion of budding leaves opening and peeking their fresh little faces out at the sunshine waking them up after a long winter's sleep.

I know there are people out there who use weed killer to get rid of sunflowers in their yards, I know they are weeds and tend to take over your grass if you don't deal with them accordingly. I just can't help myself, I LOVE them!! They are like little spots of sunshine all over the grass, and who hasn't picked one up after they turn into little puffs of white fuzz and blown the seeds, watching them float in all directions...

So get outside, enjoy the spring, feel the sunshine on your face and breathe in every fresh green smell, listen to all the noises of creatures waking from winter...

Finished painting...

The finished painting. The title is "Blue" and it has already been Sold.

I guess that makes me a professional artist??

More Journals...

This journal was made for my brother Zech's birthday present. I had a bit of a tough time figuring out what to do with it. Most of my journals have been more "girlish". He works with metal quite a bit so I decided to go a little more industrial and this is what I came up with...
This robot journal is a pocket size. My brother liked his full-size journal so much that he requested a smaller one. I hope that he decided he needed a smaller one so that he can take it with him everywhere he goes and bring it out for the whole world to see...
I had two "K" journals to make in the same month so I tried to make them as different as possible.

on a side note

I would really like a new name for my blog. I mentioned the name "Sweaty palms" to The Man and he greatly discouraged the idea. I figured it made sense now that I am trying to take pictures of my inspiration written down on my hands...he said that anyone hearing the name would think of something entirely different... I am open to suggestions from all of you clever and wise followers of mine.
Any ideas??

Man speak.

The other day my girlfriend, Rachel, and I were sitting at the coffee shop discussing all of the things that women discuss when there are no men around. I think that men must wonder what kind of strange and glorious secrets we of the fairer sex verbalize when they are not present. Well, I will not give away all of the mystery but I will tell you this, we discuss men. In my experience, when women are together talking, men always come into the conversation in some shape or form.

On this particular day we were tossing around the very curious question, which I am sure has plagued all women through the ages, of what language do men speak? It definitely in no way shape or form, resembles anything that women speak. Women can understand other women with a simple phrase, just a word, or sometimes even just a look. We know exactly what the other is thinking and where they are going with it... men on the other hand, we do not understand you! Oh, and I know that men do not understand women. But, what is it that men speak? We came to the conclusion that there needs to be a label or name for the way that they interract with others...

The conversation went a little bit like this,
Amber "They definitely do not speak the same language as we do."
Rachel "Definitely not, it is something completely different."
Amber "There should be a name for it, some sort of label."
Rachel "Caveman talk."
Amber *laughing*
Rachel "Testosterone"
Amber "Meat!!"
Ok, I do realize that the way I happened onto this word may not make sense to any normal person with a mind that functions outside of the gutter most of the time. Men are equated with eating meat (at least in my mind), men grill the meat, men are sometimes referred to as meat-heads, a man could be thought of as a nice piece of meat...not in my mind of course, and then my mind went downhill from there to darker, lower places where most people do not dwell...
Rachel *laughing heartily*
Amber "Testosterogna! Of course spelled like bologna because of the meat thing."...

And thus, the word was born. Now the complicated thought would be to put a name on the ever so complicated and mysterious language that women all over the world speak.