playing picta-phone online!

I found something new online last week, and I just have to share this with y'all!

On my blog stats, one of the most-used search terms to find my blog is "pictaphone" game.  See, I wrote a post about a new game I learned at a party and posted a how-to guide.  The friends at the party just called it "the best game ever" but I called it "picta-phone" and apparently others do as well (or "drawing telephone" as a book I read dubbed it).  Check out my old post if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Well, now you can play it online!  With strangers!!  The site just launched last week, so they're still working out some bugs, but head on over to http://drawception.com/ and join in the fun!  You can just log in with your Twitter or FB account and start playing right away!

Here's a game I started and where it ended up:

Hilarious, amirite??

boy or girl? time to weigh in!

This Tuesday is our big 20-week ultrasound.  They measure the baby and make sure everything is going okay (we haven't had an ultrasound since the heartbeat confirmation at 10 weeks), but we also get to find out if Baby W is a boy or a girl!

It's really not that big of a deal, since we'd be happy with either, but it will make our life easier to know.  Have you ever tried shopping for baby shower stuff for someone who refuses to know?  It's tough!  I've had two dreams that it's a boy, and I think we have the full name picked out if it goes that way.  If it's a girl, we have some major work to do in the name department, but wardrobe will be set, thanks to my sister's baby girl.

In regards to that, I had a Groupon to one of those 'drinking and painting' studios that expired the day before our ultrasound.  I went last week to an Open Art Night, where you got to pick any one of 100 paintings to do.  I definitely wanted to paint something for Baby W's room, but of course needed it to be gender neutral.  But there were tons of pretty flowers for a girl's room!  (I guess I should point out how I didn't do so hot the last time I tried to paint a flower though.)  In the end, I went with this:

The teacher was great, and definitely helped me draw those fish!

Studio B in Gulf Breeze, thank you!

I have two different status updates going on FB where my friends can weigh in on what they think (or hope) it will be.  The plan is to pop the numbers into Excel and make a nice little pie graph to see (I'm a sucker for charts).

I've looked around online at some of the old wives' tales in regards to sex prediction.  Most either were too dumb for me to even try, or they were inconclusive.  There is a slight chance our baby won't reveal his or her "parts" to us, so that's a possibility as well.

So what do you think?  Boy or girl?  Or too shy to let us know?  I'll add your numbers to the pie chart and let you all know once we find out!

I suck at art

When I was in Georgia the other weekend, my sister and I decided to treat my mom to a late mother's day gift. We took her to one of those "drinking and painting" classes.  My sister had done one about a month earlier and really enjoyed it.  I'd been wanting to do one for a while (I even bought a Groupon to one down here that I still haven't used), so of course I was game.

I was quickly reminded just how much I don't know.  I haven't taken an art class since 5th grade, back when it was a "special."  Okay, I lie.  I actually took a graphic design/layout class my last semester in college.  But we used stock photos and were more concerned with fonts and kerning.

We did this very whimsical "Crazy Daisy" painting.  I changed the colors of my petals no less than ten times because I hadn't made a decision prior to painting (tip for myself next time: be decisive; have a vision).  After we were done painting, we had the option to use puff paint to make our painting even more crazy.  I thought everyone else's puffed paintings looked really cool with the added dimension, so I decided to try my hand at it.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm the most uncoordinated woman alive?  Yeah, that "C" in "C.W." should actually stand for CLUMSY.  That said, once I started doing my puff paint, all hell broke loose on my canvas.  The white paint I was using ran out/malfunctioned, so I picked up another one.  I then promptly DROPPED IT on top of my canvas, right on top of the paint I just put on so it mashed it down (making it not-puffy).  I'm a total perfectionist with my own pursuits, so yes, I started to get emotional about it.  (I also had felt rushed during the entire class, which didn't help.)  This also apparently was a good time for the instructor to take her requisite "class photo," and she made everyone get up on the stage where I was trying to fix my paint, so I was forced to join in.

My mother knows me well, having dealt with (and sometimes been the cause of) my perfectionism for most of my life.  She calmed me down and helped me fix the thing as much as I could.  I liked the way my sister went to town with her paint scribbles, and I thought it might detract from my mess ups but it sorta just made it worse because all the paints were running out at the point, globbing onto my painting.  I guess this one just wasn't in the cards for me.

What's a post about art without some pics though?

I like my sister's the best

 The stem area is where I dropped the tube of paint; it's pretty obvious.

I call my painting: "I got in a fight with puff paint and lost."

 If one good thing came out of this, other than the bonding time with Mom and sis, it's that I now have a pretty sweet artist mark:

If you haven't figured out my full name, here's your rebus.

I'll definitely be trying again at the studio down here, and I'll definitely share that one as well (good or bad).  Too bad I won't have my mommy with me though.

If you want to see some work from an artist with actual talent, check out Aisle to Aloha.  I don't follow a lot of art bloggers, but her stuff is awesome.

museum day, city art

Yesterday I convinced B that we should partake in Museum Day and go to the local museum in downtown Pensacola. I printed off our free ticket from the Smithsonian site, and we were off. Now, if you Google "Pensacola Historical Museum," it takes you to this site -- which sounds like the same thing but apparently isn't.  I thought we were saving $10 by getting the free ticket, but when we walked in we were informed that admission is free and always will be. Alllllright then.

It wasn't a very big museum. It was your typical small city museum with a few rooms featuring timelines about its founding and whatnot. The only thing we really learned were the actual five flags that make Pensacola the "City of Five Flags" (Spanish, French, British, Confederate, USA).  Oh, we also learned that it still costs the same amount of money ($1) to cross the bridge to Pensacola Beach that it did in the 1930's!  And here I've been complaining that it's too much!

We finished the museum in less than an hour and decided to wander around town a bit. We noticed some music coming from afar and larger throngs of people, so we walked toward that. Come to find out we ended up right in the midst of the annual Pensacola Seafood Festival! And while we weren't so hungry yet, we did enjoy walking around and seeing all the cool crafty things for sale.

Our biggest highlight of the day happened when we stopped to look at some art out for sale.  They were bright, fun cartoonish-looking prints of Pensacola landmarks as well as some kitschy things like a Waffle House and a Krispy Kreme.  BUT THEN, I went farther in the tent and immediately exclaimed "Doumar's!!"  The artist came up to me and asked if I knew of it, and I told him we just moved here from Norfolk.  He then showed me the rest of his collection of Norfolk/VB prints, and explained to me that he and his wife(?) do these digital drawings on an iMac.  And then I turned around and noticed all of his Georgia landmark ones - the Big Chicken, Fox Theatre, the Arch at my beloved UGA.  We didn't buy anything, but we did find him again and get a card.

Check out his site at City Art Market online.  He has a few Chicago prints as well, which seem to be some of his better sellers.  Maybe if this guy's at the next Gallery Night, I'll actually cave and buy something.  They really are neat, no?