Gilbert, Arizona Temple Painting

Last year we got to visit the Gilbert Arizona Temple Open House with all the kiddos. What a neat experience to walk through with our children. Our oldest will be 12 soon and get to do baptisms for the dead, but so far they've just been able to walk around the outside (I guess some of them walked through the Redlands and Newport Temples but they were too young to remember). Gilbert Temple is so big and I love how each temple is unique and inspired by the area it is built in. I'm glad that my husband and I were married in the temple and set that example for our children. No matter which one you go to is a beautiful, peaceful, sacred place

Pilates and Strength Training Exercise Sheets

I love to exercise regularly but not for hours a day. I like to exercise for 30-45 minutes a day, sometimes up to an hour, but definitely not an hour every day. I love doing pilates and I love exercising in my own home. I love getting it done first thing and not having to drive somewhere to exercise. I started doing pilates by watching workout DVDs, but I got bored fast. I started muting the TV and listening to the radio or podcasts instead of the sound coming from the TV. I like to get my workout done as quickly as possible (especially when I have a baby to workout around) so I had the idea to just draw a few pictures to help remind me of the moves without having to watch the DVD over and over again, and have to wait around at times while they explained things. 

I also like to do some strength training exercises in between. I know the value of not doing the same exercises every time, so I rotate those strength training moves. I really like to use the exercise sheets from magazines because I like the variety. One day my baby ripped a few of my favorites up, so I decided to also draw those. I love to be able to glance at a picture to remind me of a move. But I don't like doing exercises that I feel are uneffective, and I like to do a balance of muscles. For example I don't like doing 6 different exercises in one day for one muscle group. So I created my own routines from several different exercise sheets. 

Usually I will do Pilates and Strength Training  twice a week. Each day I do them, I switch my Strength Training page. For one month I rotate through 3 pages of strength training exercises. The next month I have a different set, but I haven't drawn those yet! Here is Month 1. These are great because they don't use up too much ink, and if they get torn, you can easily print out another one. I keep mine in a sheet protector with the Pilates page on one side and the Strength Training sheets facing the other side. If you want to print these out, just right click and Print!

I love combination moves where you are doing an exercise for your legs and arms at the same time, I feel like I'm getting more out of my workout and like I'm being more efficient with my time. Also, I don't like doing sets, for example 3 sets of 12 reps. I am not very motivated to go back and do the same exercise again. So instead I just do 50 reps of one exercise and I'm done with that one (or 25 on each side). I like to use 5 or 10 pound dumbbells. Whenever I was pregnant I'd switch to 2.5 pound dumbbells.

Articles of Faith Mega Kit

I was asked about my Articles of Faith Kit, so I've uploaded it to be available to purchase on the blog. This is a great kit to use to illustrate and understand the Articles of Faith. You can learn more HERE about them.

This mega kit illustrates the Articles of Faith #1-13. This kit contains 24 papers and 34 elements. The elements include 18 hand drawn pastel stickers. The stickers illustrate baptism, Christ, a church, a crown, a dove, the earth, a gavel, Heavenly Father, Jesus' atonement, paints, a flower, priesthood, a prophet, revelation, scriptures, a tree, a violin, and a vision. The other elements include: 3 bling brads, 2 bling circles, 1 border stamp, 1 braid, 1 doodle stamp, 1 fabric, 2 flowers, 1 frame, 1 rose, 2 scrolls, and 1 string.

Articles of Faith Mega Kit

Redlands Temple and Flowers

Here is a painting I worked on recently. I've tried taking pictures of the Redlands Temple several times with flowers in the foreground, but I was never happy with them until I took the reference shot for this painting. I love the negative space shapes in this view of the temple.

100 Acre Friends

I've created these 100 Acre Friends Elements based off of the song, "Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood" from Winnie the Pooh. These are extracted with the same technique as my "Little Witch" Freebie, with a rough edge. These aren't very good elements to use with a drop shadow. They look better if they look like they are drawn right on the paper. These are great elements to use for Disneyland or Disney World trips, little babies or kids that like Winnie the Pooh, or any stuffed animals similar.

100 Acre Friends Elements

Enjoying a book Painting

Here's a painting I worked on recently. I'm trying for a more painterly style. This is of my second child when he was little. My kids love books and I love that they love to read!

Little Witch Freebie

I finally figured out a quick way to extract my pastel drawings. This is very exciting for me, because I love the rough looking edges that come with using pastels. I made this little witch for a game I played in primary filling in for our chorister. Let me know how you like Little Witch Freebie. This not a good element to use a drop shadow with, I like it to look like it was drawn right on the paper.

 Download HERE!