OMGOMGOMG! "Featured Heartist"

       Ever get a compliment where you just feel like you might not be able to breathe? That's exactly what just happened to me!  There aren't even words, even after a few hours of staring at this, there still aren't words! I'm so incredibly blown away and feel so honored right now ❤❤❤ 

       It's not even April Fools Day! Anyways; I got this from #deviantHEART, an amazing group on devinatART.com. If you're on dA and you're not part of this group, you should seriously reconsider and click on that link up there and hit join!

Marshmallow Flower Cupcakes

What You'll Need

• frosted cupcakes 
• 1 bag of mini-marshmallows
• scissors
• colored sugar sprinkles 
• sandwich baggie
• & patience!

Instructions

1.  Fill first baggie with desired colored sugar sprinkles. 
2. Cut mini-marshmallows in half diagonally and place into bag. [you can also cut them into thirds, that is how I did the ones above, but it's much less frustrating to do halves.]
3. Shake the baggie until the sticky marshmallow side[s] are covered in the sugar.
4. Carefully [I suggest starting from the inside] place marshmallows in a circle 'spiralling' outwards.

NOTE: if you do multi-colored [like pictured], I suggest doing a large amount of petals [marshmallows] before hand so you don't have to keep making different colors. I also recommend doing a few of one color first, it's much easier to do and less time consuming. [also I personally like the look of the single colored ones better to be honest.]

Amtrak Residency

       If you're a writer and even just moderately like trains; this may adjust some of your life dreams as well. I read about this a couple weeks ago but didn't really get a chance to write about it. Since I'm finally sitting down for a few minutes; I have to share this with you.
       If you're an active writer on twitter, you may have seen the hashtag #AmtrakResidency, or at least I hope you have. If not perhaps you saw one or two articles such as:

• Amtrak to Offer Writers Residency Program from huffingtonpost.com
• Inside Amtrack's (Absolutely Awesome) Plan to Give Free Rides to Writers from TheWire.com
• Amtrak launches writers residency after authors request from latimes.com

       Okay; enough linking... for now; what am I talking about? I'm talking about taking a free to cheap trip on Amtrak for the pure and sole purpose of writing. If you're even the slightest bit like me you'll understand right now that a new writing atmosphere can be one of the greatest things/places your literary self finds. Not only does it offer peace and change; but an absolutely awesome life experience to go with some pen to paper action [or fingers to keys, whichever].
       NYC Writer Uses Twitter to Land the Best Workspace Ever when writer Jessica Gross tweeted Amtrak for residency trip for her writing; given that, Amtrak has just begun a residency for up to 24 writers to take long distance trains to work on their writing and will include accommodations of a sleeper car perfectly set for writers.
       If all of that sounds good to you, now is your chance to apply for one of these residencies

The Small Things.

       Saturday I took my daughter out for the night; we went to dinner followed by going to see the play Cinderella at the opera house. The opera house is probably one of the most beautiful buildings around here, and it just has this magical atmosphere to it, perfect for little girls. Anyway it was a wonderful evening with the little girl; and she had a lot of fun too.
        I curled her hair [or as she calls it made it "twirly"], we got all dressed up and she said "tonight we're classy"... I don't know where she learned that, but she was all about being classy for the night.
       The play was good, but the best part was her face and how it lit up as she watched it. I was a little nervous about taking a 4 year old to see a play, thinking she'd lose interest; but she loved the dancing, the singing and everything about it. She clapped and laughed like a natural.
       Afterwards when we got in the car I was buckling her in and she goes "Mom, this was the best day ever!". Honestly it made my heart melt, with the happiness I could see in her eyes and how excited she was about it. 
       Sunday I took my boys to see The Secret Case of Sherlock Homes at the high school; while it wasn't as prestigious as the opera house, they still enjoyed it and had a lot of fun watching it.

       It's doing little things like this with my kids that mean so much. Not just going and doing things, but when I set everything up for a paint session or they come home and see that I've baked cupcakes for them to decorate; they light up and we have so much fun. Days at the park, or sledding at the big hill. It's their bright, pure and happy smiles that make everything perfect. I can't imagine what it'd be like without that.
       People get so busy with other things; work, life, getting stuff done that sometimes they forget how important it is to spend these moments with their kids. By Monday my house was a wreck, laundry had piled up, dishes  needed tended and it was a small war zone of things scattered; thus making Monday a long day while they were at school and I was cleaning; but it was worth every second of folding laundry to see them enjoying their childhood and experiencing new parts of life.

Cake Bites

Normally I'd post a recipe; but I found theresahelmer's Cake Poppers on deviantART and decided I should just direct you to those instructions because they are soooo much easier. 

#DrawingAlongMarch

       I finally went out and got a sketchbook yesterday, I was uploading a sketch to twitter with the hashtag #drawing and the suggestion #DrawingAlongMarch popped up, which seemed like perfect timing. When I clicked the hashtag everything came up in Spanish so with the help of some translation I found out what #DrawingAlongMarch is, and discovered something even more wonderful beneath the surface!

        First of all; what is #DrawingAlongMarch? Translated straight from this gonzoo page:

"Beyond creating a single virtual meeting point , ' Drawing Along March ' aims to encourage the creativity of Spanish society , ignoring for a minute the issues and concerns of everyday life . " The main thing is having a good time . I think people should draw more . And reading, knitting , writing or cooking . Things that help us to disconnect from the world and be a little happier. All that activity must seek to fill us , "says Marta." We are all creative in varying degrees . In addition , spending five minutes a day to do a scribble we can find much better. It is a moment to unwind, to have focus , discover our capabilities ...are all advantages ! "Added Gemma continuing with the main idea of ​​your partner. Losing the fear is to face a blank sheet is one of the main goals pursued this cyber meeting.There are no restrictions to join the project . Both girls have this very clear paragraph , like all previous structuring the initiative : " Any person , animal or thing can participate. The idea is to make a drawing a day, no matter the technique, while you devote , if you color it , or if it's a doodle done in thirty seconds. It just has to be related to the proposed topic , "explained ."

        So while I'm not Spanish and I'm not terribly good at drawing something stood out "It's a moment to unwind, to have focus, discover..." these words struck out to me, this is what art is, should be.

Each day does have a theme to go along with; which I don't know Spanish well enough and I know the translate isn't translating it all correctly based on what I do know, so if you can translate it, awesome! If not; the idea is still amazingly wonderful ❤❤❤ I'm definitely gonna give it a try myself (=