gifts given and received

Ah, fare thee well, Christmas. May you rest well until next season where I can glitter the hell out of you again.

I thought I would share the gift I made for my sister's family. As you probably know, I am an identical twin, and my sister has three children--aged 9, 6 and 4 (two months older than Beezus). Every year we try to give something handmade to one another. She made my kids the cutest stuffed animals ever.  The ballet pig is for Beezus since she was born in the year of the Golden Pig and the elephant is Thor's. She named him Sir Nigel Flopworthy. Thor calls him Da.

That monocle has velcro and goes on his arm if he is feeling less dramatic.

I initially had painted her a mizuko jizo, since she has been saying she wanted one for her house. But it didn't exactly turn out the way I envisioned. So, I sat with it. I had no idea. Then I walked around the pre-stretched canvas section of the art store, seeing if I could envision something for her. And then, I saw three canvases bundled together. Each canvas was four inches by twelve inches, so together they were like a square...it came to me, and I could envision exactly what I was going to do.

Three paintings, one of each kid, representing their beautiful personalities. Ones that worked together or individually.

I hope they like it. The first one is Audrey, who loves doggies, so I have her holding a dog with a spot over its eye and a paint brush, and her one eye painted. The middle one of Maxwell is of him with a bone and magnifying glass since he always seems to be exploring and trying to discover something. I just see him as a paleontologist. And the blue one is Cooper casually hanging out and yo-yoing, which is his personality. I like stripes, so painting each of them with stripes and gray outfits was fun. All in all, I loved the way they turned out.

Merry Boxing Day. Hope you are kicking the crap out of someone. (Just kidding. I know that Boxing day isn't about boxing.)