Happy April Fools (it's not April Fools Day) Party!

To continue the tradition of having a party every other Wednesday, we decided to have a party in honor of April Fools Day. So we decided to have an April Fools April Fools Day Party. Sara and I made foods that looked like other foods. I made little hamburgers made out of cupcakes, nobake cookies, green coconut and yellow and red frosting for mustard and ketchup. One lucky person got a hamburger with REAL ketchup and mustard because we had to have at least one april fools joke. It was really funny. 

Sara made these cute little eggs and bacon out of white chocolate and m&ms, and tootsie rolls and caramel. They were a big hit.

We made a sugar cookie pizza with m&ms and swedish fish on top.

Sara, Erin and I with the goods:

A great way to celebrate April Fools with great friends and delicious food. 

Only 2 more weeks until the last day of classes. Maybe we'll have another party then to celebrate :)

Wish me luck!

Hey there!

The other day Rose invited me to go get froyo and catch up. Of course, I couldn't decline because I love both Rose and frozen yogurt. It was a supreme day. We also went to a HUGE park and the gym. Definitely a great and necessary break from the normal hectic schedule. Thanks Rose!

An Art Update

Here are some art projects I've been up to...

I painted this sign with a friend for another friend's St. Patrick's Day party. It was a big success.

I stayed on campus for 14 hours straight to work on paintings for my class. This is the beginning of one of the paintings. It looks pretty different now, but I don't have a picture of it.

I fixed up this painting and submitted it for the student show, so we'll see if it was accepted.

This is one of the paintings that I've been working on in class:

And my awesome friend Alissa drew this beautiful picture of me the other day. She's so talented :)

Happy art making!

Happy early Easter!

Happy early Easter from the Livingston siblings in Utah!

Hunger Games!

Last night the roommates, Jessie, Mark and I went to a premiere showing of Hunger Games at 9:30. It was awesome. Not only was the movie sooooo good, but we got VIP passes, free junior mints, we almost won some door prizes and we finished the movie before midnight. Awesome.

So excited!

Read the books then go see the movie. You won't be disappointed.

Printmaking: Intaglio

I just finished my latest printmaking project this morning. It is an intaglio print with both line etching and aquatint. I really like how the aquatint turned out. It's a pretty cool process. For intaglio, you etch your image onto a copper plate using acid. This is the acid room:

The aquatint process uses rosin and acid to create large areas that are one shade. This is what my copper plate looked like after all of the etching was done and I had cleaned off the hard ground:

And this is what the print looks like:

I'm happy with the result! And I'm also glad to get one more thing checked off of my to do list.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

29 Years!

Happy Anniversary to my amazing parents!

Thank you for all that you do for me and for all of your love and support. I love you both dearly.

Hey Guess What?!

You're looking at the newest Arts and Crafts Counselor at Aspen Grove for the Summer :)

Happy Pi Day!

In order of 3.14 my apartment had a Pi Day party. It included lemon meringue pie made by the lovely Courtney, Pumpkin, Chocolate Pudding, and Cream Cheese pies made by the amazing Melanie, and chocolate chip cookies and oreo truffles made by me. It was a pretty great spread if I do say so myself.

These babies are the best. Greatest and easiest dessert.

A pack of oreos blended up and 4 oz of cream cheese rolled into balls and then dipped in chocolate. Perfection.

I attempted to make the chocolate chip cookies into the shape of pi, but they didn't turn out too well so I mostly stuck with the circles. 

Pi mustaches!!!! (and Sara is wearing a pi shirt...we mean business)

lovely girls from my freshman hall :)

Thanks for coming guys!

Overall, a great way to celebrate Pi(e) in all of its forms. 

Hope you had a happy Pi Day!

Student Show

This is Maxwell in the printmaking student show at the HFAC:

Max should be proud. He's basically famous now.

Printmaking: Intaglio

My first Intaglio Print: Windmills from Spain.

A Very Spanish Reunion

A few weeks ago I went over to Leigh's apartment to eat the Spanish tortilla with Leigh and Annika. It was a great reunion and Leigh is a boss at making the tortilla. 

She spoiled Annika and I with salad and homemade dressing as well. Thanks Leigh, you're the best! But at this lunch/dinner we all had the great idea of throwing a Spain reunion for our study abroad group. We set the date, got the goods and it was a party!

My main contribution was choco boms. They were a group favorite from the vending machine at our university in Spain. I recreated them by dipping famous amos cookies in melted chocolate chips and then keeping them in the fridge because they were always served cold. Then I found the label on line, so I printed it out for extra decoration. They were a hit and now I have a TON of famous amos cookies (thanks to costco) that I can make a lot of choco boms with :)

Some of the partiers in action. We made churros and chocolate and it was pretty similar to the good ol' spanish days.

The hosts: 

It was great to see people from the group again, reminisce and catch up. I'm glad that we could get together again. Yay for Spain, study abroads and friends!

A Sunday Picnic

This weekend was Stake Conference, so we went to the Saturday session where Melanie spoke (good job Melanie!!) and then on Sunday we had the session from 10-12. It just so happened that it is a beautiful day today so Kayla, Courtney, Sara, Brian, Peter, Melanie and I decided to have a picnic up the canyon. Since there was still some snow on the ground, we sat on the bridge and picnicked. It was wonderful.

we made sandwiches up there:

cute Kayla:

played some frisbee and had a mini snowball fight:

and celebrated the beautiful day! 

(before you think you're going blind, you can know that there was a water droplet on my phone from the snowball fight, so that's why there is a black spot in this picture).

Happy Sunday!

The Magic of a Home-cooked Meal

Alissa, Roxy and I decided that we were in the mood for a good home-cooked meal this weekend, so that's what we did. We went to the store and got all of the ingredients for an enchilada casserole that Alissa had a recipe for. We made rice and corn to go with the enchiladas and man was it good! And now we have leftovers for a few meals so that's awesome. I think we're going to make this a regular thing.

A New Painting

I made a new painting for my class this past week. Here are some shots in the making and then the finished product. (I'll have to take a better quality picture when I get it back because it looks a little blurry). The assignment was a painting in certain dimensions (I used one of the panels that we made earlier in the year) and it needed to be geometric, with broken color and mainly either warm or cool colors. We also had to be responding to an artist off of a list that he gave us. I was originally inspired by Mark Grotjahn and then it ended up having some Al Held to it as well. I'm happy with it and I love that it's on a panel that I made :)

When You're Missing Spain...

...do as the Spaniards would do and make a tortilla. A couple weeks ago I ate another delicious Spanish Tortilla with Leigh and Annika and then the next day I helped Jessie to make one for her reunion and we ate one for lunch again. Delicious as always.

Leap Year = An Extra Day to Party!!

The roommates and I decided to throw a Leap Day party this year because we figured that Leap Day is really an extra day to party and it only comes every 4 years, so you might as well celebrate! We made lots of delicious desserts, decorated for the occasion and even made a piñata. It was rockin'.

Here's Erin and I frosting some cupcakes:

Courtney couldn't contain her excitement to party:

I made a garland of leaping animals the night before, so Kayla and I had to pose with it:

We finally have a roommate picture from this semester! These girls are awesome!

The spread of deliciousness included animal crackers that you could "leap" into dipping chocolate, cupcakes, peanut butter balls, cake mix cookies, sugar cookies and Oreo truffles (that I made). Oh and that's the piñata in the corner...it is a frog with a party hat on :)

Jessie came!

Court and I took the opportunity to do our traditional pose:

And then we smashed the piñata! Sara and I were very proud of our creation.

Overall, it was a great way to celebrate the Leap Year and I can't wait for the next one! 

(even though it's 4 years away now) 

Hope you had a happy leap day!