JFlah's Blunders

"Blew By You" This song is funny. The first time I heard it, I laughed till I had tears in my eyes. It's worth checking out. Enjoy the laugh. And here's one more to show off their great harmonies: "Lucky Old Sun"

Bulletin front for March 16.  I saw this verse designed by someone else and thought I'd do one myself since we didn't get a sermon title on time to make it into the bulletin this week. Made background from several different photographs and a few filters. Enjoyed choosing fonts for this, though the more I worked on it the more I realized I need to start brushing up those skills. Here's another one from a week or two ago:

poem by Jennifer Fleming 2014 dark too dark i stick trembling hands out - they came back bloody last time do i dare hope? does hope even exist? a spark! the instant i dare believe in the possibility of hope, a light - just a pin prick of hope grows banishing the pitch blackness of despair - of death to shine boldly, illuminating the Way, the Truth, the Life i cringe hands tight against burning eyes i don't want to see how dirty i am, how incapable  of saving myself from the darkness but despite searing pain that light of Truth brings after such a long time in this self imposed darkness , I peek through gaps in my fingers - daring to focus on the face of Truth He smiles - stretches His scarred hand for mine the excruciating pain of seeing myself as He must see me - dirty, helpless, false - He forgives , breathes life where death once reside i gasp, taking in the first real breath my heart pumps life - abundant life though once i was dead, now i ...

My birthday is coming up next month and how better to celebrate than to sponsor my very first giveaway? I know I don't have many... er, "any" followers, but it would be fun to start doing this on a more regular basis if the response is good.   I've been making things from free patterns all winter so I have lots of them sitting around - probably more items than I may ever wear. One of them is a beautiful picot cowl from a pattern I found at Cre8tion Crochet (probably through pintrest ) and some great off-white chunky lion brand yarn. I've included three photographs. Would've taken a photo of someone wearing it but no one was around when I had access to a camera. Enter the Giveaway! Entries accepted from March 1-March 31 from residents of the continental United Sates. Winning entry will be chosen at midnight on March 31. Estimated retail value of Picot Cowl: $50 (+shipping)

This is the first one I put out. Had to leave one at work. I hope it brought a smile to the person who took it home. Here's the pile of hearts in my front seat before I left work. Only had about 30, but that's not bad for only a few hours of work. They went together quickly at less than ten minutes each even with the fuzzy embellishments.  So yeah, I had a blast giving out the hearts on Valentine's Day! I know I'm just one person and I didn't have many to give out, but to see the smiles these little things brought to people's faces - well, the time and effort was worth it. I prayed that God would use these little things to glorify Himself - that's why I made sure not to put my personal contact info on any of them, though I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a temptation. I've been attempting to live in a more open-handed (generous) way and God's been helping me with that - He's been opening my eyes to small opportunities t...

I'm about to run out into the town and bomb it with cute little crochet hearts that share the love of Christ on this day that a great number of people are miserable. Yep, So much fun! Am super excited. I'll update this post soon with photos of some of the bombs.

My sketch - scanned and digitized in Illustrator before bringing into Photoshop.  When I was making the announcement slides and such for True Love Waits this year I ran across a cute little vector drawing that inspired me to create one of my own that I could adapt for the announcements. ( Check out the inspiration at HD Wallpapers. ) I'm not sure I changed it enough to really say that it's mine now, but I can say that I really enjoyed sketching this little dude. I can say that the final ended up being a bit different from the sketch and I think it's better without thumbs and a shirt. Kind of reminds me of those cute little hugging salt/pepper shakers . Inspiration image This is the letterhead topper This is the announcement slide

Here's a plain one, ready for dropping off. I'm excited about Valentine's Day for the first time in my life. I'm going to do a small scale yarn bomb around town when I'm on my lunch break that day. Cute little crochet hearts here and there for people to find and smile about. Why yarn bomb on valentines (besides all of the people who are often sad on this holiday)? Last weekend a friend mentioned something about a blogger she follows doing something similar and it got my wheels turning. At work/church last year we did a " I Heart My Church " promotion that attempted to build our church's unity. I had hoped that instead of the narcissistic sounding "I love my church" thing we'd do something a bit more community focused this year but in lieu of having a pastor this February, we're not doing anything this month. Our logo tagline is "Seeking, Serving, Sharing" and I thought these hearts would be a pretty good way of shari...

 Ran across a blog called Cup O Doodle a while back. Members play a game I played as a child - scribble something on a page and then try to make it into a drawing. Always loved that game. Anyway, I have done a few sketches from their posted scribbles and this is one of the first attempts. The ones that get posted on the blog are way better than what I've had time to do since most of them are "finished" and colored, but their scribble game is a fun way to get the creative juices flowing. This is my sketch with the original scribble on top.

When I was in high school I did a lot of hand lettering, especially while I was listening to the teachers or while I was at lunch. I wish I had stuck with it. This example is a sad attempt to letter one of my favorite verses. What do you think? Maybe I just need to start using a ruler. That would probably clean up my lines enough to make this pretty.

Throne worthy? Preliminary idea sketch. I've been writing and making up stories for almost as long as I can remember. The above sketch is a preliminary idea for the throne or for a seat in the queen's study for a novel called "Curse of Royalty" that I've been working on for a very long time. This story has morphed so many times that I wonder if I'm ever going to get it done. I developed the germ of this particular story when I was 15, and it's been haunting me since then. I really want to "finish" this story and get it in print but there's a lot of work left on this monster project before it would be worthy of the paper it would be printed on. Anyhoo, this second sketch is of the royal chamber key. The queen keeps this in her pocket or gives it to an attendant during the day. This key could develop a nasty habit of falling out of pockets and thus causing trouble, though there's only one point in the story where this key is a cau...

Each week I get the privilege of whipping up something to use as a sermon title slide. I often only have a few hours to pull everything together so I have to take as many shortcuts as I can. They don't give me a budget for imagery so often I use things that are floating around in the creative commons copyright arena like the original image in the above sample. I added lots of added interest to what was already there, did some basic color correction and added textures and drips and such before thinking I had changed it enough to say that it was ok to use. My favorite part of this edit was drawing and shading the drips. it's been a while since I rendered water on a surface and it was fun, though quickly done. Wish I'd had more time to work on this... but I wish that most weeks. I just have to run with the first or second idea I come up with when doing these. I'm glad that the boss has allowed me to do whatever I want on these - and that he's approved the charges...

Brené Brown: Why Your Critics Aren’t the Ones Who Count There's some great wisdom in this lecture but if you don't have time to watch the whole thing, the best philosophy for addressing criticism is around 8:40 in the video.

Wood B Creations trade show setup This is one of my long time clients, a chainsaw carving sculptor, Burt Fleming... ok, ok; so that's my dad. Anyway, I've done several designs for him over the years but this is the first time he's gone to an official trade show and he needed some new more modern designs - business cards, postcards, the banner, ink pens and such. This is the redesigned card using the same dramatic action pose as the poster and postcards. He's wearing his "signature" art geek t shirt.

" Idolatry " by Full of Eyes (aka Action Jones ) Floated across more of ActionJones' artwork today and found that he has created a powerful Gospel Tract . If you haven't checked it out, you should take a few minutes to look at it. Not only is the message powerful ( just like his animated videos), but it's got some great artwork in it.

"A Snow-Minion Stole My Clothes" Despicable Me digital fan art by yours truly Deviantart.com had a contest - wish I'd seen the contest earlier because I had to rush this one along to make deadline. Challenge was to show minions in an original "situation." I have been wanting to do a snowman digital sketch like I do every year and decided to combine the challenge with my desire to draw a snowman. The rascally minions are such that I suddenly realized that it would be funny to have one of them make a snow-minion using his own clothing.

Cautious Chickadee by Carol Marine Carol Marine does beautiful paintings. I've been following her work for a few months now and am always awed by her color choices and the freedom of her brush work. I've always suffered from a tendency to make everything I do kind of tight but I've always admired these kinds of works.

Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue Test Evey once in a while I wonder if I'm seeing things - I mean, seeing colors in their correct hue. Well, I took the Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue Test at Pantone this evening and got a perfect score. Yipee!

Jen's Nativity Vector - a freebie by yours truly available at creationswap.com I drew this last year in Illustrator for use in an event logo. I've made it available as a freebie at creation swap. Download my free Nativity vector . There are no copyright issues to worry about since this is from a sketch I did - it's free for personal and commercial use. If you do use it, I'd love to see it.

Sand, Shoes & Hat on the Faux Beach - JFleming 2013 A few weeks ago I went to Orange Beach - it was a great trip. I haven't laughed like that in ages, nor have I enjoyed a vacation quite as much as I did that one. Anyway, on the last day of the trip, I got some plastic containers so I could take home some of the sand with me. I know this is a little strange, but I wanted the sand so I could put my feet in it when I was wanting to go back to the beach. If I worked in a different environment, I'd probably take the sand containers with me to work and put my feet in them while I'm there, but as it is, I've been putting my feet in the containers while I'm at home. Originally, I thought I'd make a sand box for that purpose, but having the sand be in containers that I can actually lift is nice too. It's been great to immerse myself in that faux beach by putting my feet in the sand. Those dollar store containers are just big enough for a foot to wriggle ar...