When you were a kid, when you caught fireflies and put them in a jar. When you ran in the dark barefoot without any fear. When you never cared what you looked like...and if you thought you did you never really knew.
When your siblings were your besties; when your Mamma had to drag you in from the outdoors. When you always got soaked (hose or pool or water balloon or ocean or cup of ice water take your pick). When you loved to dance; when you smiled. And laughed at everything.

When you cried and ice cream made you feel better. When a band-aid with a cartoon face eased the pain. When staying up late was 10:00 p.m. When Saturday mornings were special because of pbs kids.




Your not so different now; your flowers in your hair might be a little more open than closed, and the fireflies might turn into starlight. The late day goes till 2, and your Mamma might have to drag you out rather than in. Your smile takes longer to dimple. And your favorite show comes on at 10:00.

But through all of this...your thankful. Because God always had and has his hand over it all.

Your life is just budding; and how beautiful it's been so far.
Without the thorns, what is a rose, and without pruning the next bud cannot bloom.

Do you remember when you used to catch fireflies?

Do you feel the need to be more thankful (I do)?

Are you from the perfectionist race?

Do you inspire others while being imperfect?

Somehow me and Mom ended up with an old kitchen cabinet.

It was dirty, so Mom got me a brush and some oxiclean...


....and the paint came off. IN CHUNKS. 
Literally just years and years (probably dating back to the 1930's-1950's somewhere) of paint layers, from the top coat of off-white to grey and then to black. 
I realized we had a mess on our hands, but at some point we took a step back, looked at it, and realized how Fixer-Upper like it could be. 

There really is potential in it, but we haven't gotten to finish (or start). 
A neighbor of mine is moving, and gave me all these acrylic paints. It's not like I have some great place to store a mini art studio, so I hauled 'em out to the screened in porch, loaded them into the old kitchen cabinet, and closed the doors.

Then I opened it again, and, it felt like celestial music was playing in the back round.

                      can you hear it?


Life is a bit like this chipped old cabinet.

It's got so many flaws, and ugly splotches, and a black beginning. The hinges might be a little awkward, the shelves have an odd scent, and, most people would probably ditch it in the dumpster a.s.a.p.

Yet...

The white makes it bright, the light makes it peaceful, and the chips are scars from old history and lessons now learned.
And inside?
there's enough paint to beautify 30 canvasses.
And somehow, a person can look at it, and think, "I love this ugly thing"

and smile.

...

And you know what, I'm that ugly thing.

And God is that person.

...

No matter how flawed, chipped, or dirty we are, if we have Jesus inside us, we are gloriously beautiful. Just like the expensive acrylics in the old cabinet.
So be beautiful, today, my friends.

Do you relate to the old kitchen cabinet?

We all know the struggle. Wanting to post picturesque, pinterest-looking pictures on our blog although we own a $25 camera.

I've owned the same General Electric, 10.1 megapixel camera since I was about 10 years old. And you know what, that's a pretty talented camera for it's size and price.
Matter fact, I've learned that almost any camera can give you the right picture your looking for, if (and if only) you know the right tricks.


Trick one is to use a solid backdrop. I normally use white poster board, because it's just plain huge (which equals lots of bumping into things...) and blinding white. But, you can actually use white paper to create you own aesthetic backdrop as well.

LIGHTING IS A BIG DEAL. Make sure you take the pictures in good light. Most household lights will give your pics a fuzzy, brownish-yellow hue that basically says 'unprofessional' and isn't good on quality.
The best places for me are either when light (not sunlight, mind) is coming through the living room windows about afternoon-ish time. Then again, our ceiling is white, and sometimes the saturation is just horribly cold, so I've learned to take a better picture, I should go into our porch which has a wood ceiling.
Watch your shadows as well; don't want to see your hand in the pic!


Here's my starting picture. Sorta dim...especially considering how bright the Prismacolor pencils I used were. They don't quite 'jump out' like they should.
Time to edit *smirks* *waits for program to load*

I use Canva, but you can also use Picmonkey or even Befunky depending on what your making; all have free modes.


I used their 'presentation' layout for it's sizes, but you can use whatever you wish. If you don't have a canva account, it's super easy to make; just sign up with your google account.
K, so after you pic your template, you can upload your pic.


After uploading, I drag + dropped it and stretched it to the widths of the square.



Here is the real editing; playing with brightness, contrast and blur. the brightness (I brought to 53) brings out that desired aesthetic backdrop, the contrast (which is at 37) the details and color, and finally, bringing the blur (-17) back makes the entire image sharper.




And ta-dah!!!! You can have complete freedom and change the levels till your satisfied *winks*. It really is up to you what your final image will look like; but now you know that almost any pic can look better in 5 minutes.



And there you have it. A little, 5-minute editing can change your pics from indistinguishable to aesthetic with almost any camera.

Do you use canva for blogging?

Lets talk blog tips-what are your go-to programs?

Last night, amidst the pouring rain, me and the familia traveled a half an hour to go see In Our Hands, the Battle for Jerusalem.
I've actually never been to a movie before...THAT WAS MY FIRST TIME IN A THEATER. How? Well, one reason is that we all are homebodies around this place and mostly prefer to eat our home made popcorn and watch stuff I pre-ordered from the library and waited 5 months for.

Dad was always telling me these stories about gum smashed everywhere and people  yelling down in front and such. I feel a little bad for him because when we got there, the seats were legit brand new soft an' cushy lean-back sorta seats.
I mean this whole place was brand new.

The movie was good, I thought, although it wasn't exactly a movie but a documentary-film of a sort. It was focused on-of course like the title says-the 6 Day War over Jerusalem. And by the end I thought it was very impacting...knowing how brave those men were and how big the Biblical significance of it was. Only a one-day showing, for that hour, for the day they reclaimed Jerusalem.

Besides going to the movies for the first time, I'm also sweating it because my school's dance recital is in 15 days and I've still got to perfect my pirouette and land it in fifth. 0_o

That's where the bullet journal comes in.
Because this summer, I really want to be working towards intermediate and step (or chaine, or chasse) away from beginner. So I'm laying individual goals out for individual moves, which, has already helped.



And then there's all that other stuff besides dance like life. I made a small layout for that too.


So that's what early summer break looks like for me.
Whether or not my landing was good, or my Dad believes me, I turned 3x in a pirouette the other day. While listening to NEEDTOBREATHE's Hard Love. Of course.
#tooexcitedtoquit

What are you doing for summer break ?

Did any of these layouts inspire you?

Did you hear about "in Our Hands"?

Ballet and watercolor are a marvelous pair. Both are fluent, elegant, and art.
Both are colorful. Both take talent to perfect.

My watercolor style often verges 'water-doodling'...but, yours will be whatever comes out of you.

When I touch the paintbrush, here's 4 things I'm going for.

#1 Simplicity and aesthetics 

#2 Adventurous letters

#3 Playing with color

#4 Go with Mistakes

5 of your art pointers?

Have you tried pointe shoes?

How did you show your teacher appreciation?

Some art projects need color; some, absent of different tones, are barely anything at all. Like a small sketch.
Do you know something crazy? We will never be able to imagine another color.

*BRAIN BLOWS*

I always like to think that in heaven, those colors we can never imagine are there.
When you think of that....it reminds you that earth, all that we know, it's beauty and peace, joy and life, are all a small sample of what's waiting for us.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

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Some fonts and doodles that were used: here





I used both pencil and Prismacolor pencils and some sharpie (which as you can see was a complete whaaaaaaat did i just do o my paintbrushes sorta moment). I intertwined both two quotes from draft 2 of Gift of the Sea and meaningful icons to make a page of full-blown noveliness.

I CHALLENGE YOU TO BULLET JOURNAL YOUR NOVEL. TODAY.

*go, and live your dream*

#wereyouinspired?

do you bullet journal?

What's your fave thing to doodle?

For Christmas my Dad bought me those Prismacolor pencils...the amazing ones in the cute commercials. He expected me to do some amazing stuff---so I ended up on Youtube. And for this one half side of a girl's face, I used three different tutorials. Eye, nose, and lips. THESE PEOPLE on Pinterest are AMAZING. I mean (whisper voice) *blown, a-way*.

To be honest, we all have like 5 different versions of drawing (alright okay some of us only know the stick figure) and that can range between realistic to cartoon. So this small post will summarize a piece of the growing styles, my personal faves, and easy ones to enjoy. Their worth a try.

Realistic Intricate

Rustic Sketch

I'm a doodler. My most frequent victim happens to be my lovely puppy, Sam. He just has such a cartoony-ness and extreme personality about him that makes his adorableness easy to translate into a sketch form. You all, this is definitely one of my the easiest styles of drawing because you NEED to go outside the lines. It has a rustic + vintage twang to it that's shabby and lovable. With this look you gotta keep it simple; the person who's observing fills in the blanks you made with little 'hints' of legs, eyes, etc.

Cartoons with Big Eyes & Blending

Ombre + Lettering

Bible Journaling

Were you inspired?

Have you tried any of these?

What is your fave drawing style?

Sooo...your favorite Irish blogger girl missed St. Patrick's Day. I had high hopes of green fashion and doing a Celtic knot in my hair.
Unfortunately, I came down with a head cold and came to the realistic point of a bobby pin with a green ponytail tied in a bow and stuck in my hair. Yeah. I know, sad.

I also missed my posting day, so here's to saying "Let's start over" with a bang. I CHANGED MY BLOG NAME. Don't feel lost, 'cause your still in the right place. This was Mic's Room.
Now?
The Wonderkept Life. Classy, cute, and o' so me, it defines my life in a sentence. I always seem to be 'Kept with Wonder' over something, some feeling, some amazing show of God's power. Wonderkept is a me-designed word for all the beauty I see in life--and everything pure and lovely comes from above. I had wanted to change my blog name almost from the moment I named it. 'Mic's Room' was bound to be temporary because it t'was not creative enough.

Well, now we've gotten creative. And why Wonderkept?? Because we are in wonder.

Do you all like my new blog name?

How did you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

When I scrub the floor I think of Cinderella's voice echoing; when I see a frying pan I think of Rapunzel (and Flynn); when I sweep I imagine some fantasy dwarf (or something of the such) having a good 'ol time dancing with the broom. Sometimes a normal chore is transformed into a dance number; sometimes an adventure is just around the river bend.


When exhausting things are lovely and lovely things are fantastic, what is there not to enjoy?? Sing a little more, dance a little more, SMILE a little more. Be thankful a little more, and all will come in tow. God has gifted us with so many lovelies. Look around.

It is my belief that root beer floats are one of the funnest, tastiest things to drink. I also believe that when you take the appearance of your rabbit in watercolor, and give him one of the above mentioned floats, combined with a pair of sunglasses, you have an icon of summer. So, here's to the very last bit of summer '16 *clink*.

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”

~Louisa May Alcott