Road Trip Photos Part One: Signs

At the end of August my boyfriend, Kyle, and I took a long road trip down to Arkansas to visit my sister, Jennifer, her hubby Jarrod, and their son (my adorable nephew) Gavin. We drove from Cincinnati, to St. Louis, to Arkansas, to Memphis, to Fort Knox, then finally back home. We had such a good time and discovered that if we can survive a road trip that long in a Mini Cooper, we could probably survive anything together. I took such an overwhelming number of photos on this trip that I have decided to break them down by category.

The first category in this series is "Signs"...all of the quirky, funny, and lovely signs we saw on our trip.



Welcome to the South. Home of fast food and porn.



"Use the Rod on Your Children"?? Did I read this correctly?



"Sheesh!"

I think the Mini counts as small...

We didn't get to see these guys and I was heartbroken. Oh well, guess we'll just have to go visit San Diego zoo.

Dear Jesus, Thanks for the postcard! Love you too.

RAWRRR!

This was a sign at the Patton Armor Museum near Fort Knox. I just love the unapologetic tone. "You didn't listen. Now you're stuck. Your fault. We'll let you out when we feel like it."

This is Kyle's cupholder in his car. Apparently you're not supposed to put wine glasses in the cupholder...hmm...

Let's get it on...

Thank you gas station sign. You're adorable.

"60% of the time, it works every time."



Kyle's doppleganger. The license plate says "KBall"



Shoutout to Grandma WillowTree

Is it delicious chili, coleslaw, potato salad, and goulash?!

Oh my. Do Precious Moments really need their own museum?



They were reeeeeally pushing this advertising campaign with the freaky cartoon child spokesperson.



Wow. How forward of you.

Not sure what kind of games constitute "XXX Video Games" but I'm pretty sure I don't want to play them.

The country's first Wal-Mart.



25 Things Update!

Just wanted to update everyone on the status of my "25 Things to do Before I Turn 26" List! I've gotten quite a few of them crossed off and I look forward to crossing off some more!

1. Take an art class
2. Visit my sister, Jen, in Arkansas
3. Start an Art Journal started on 7/15/10- first entry was this list!
4. Volunteer somewhere
5. Bake a pie from scratch
6. Make something out of clay accomplished on 7/6/10, made salt and pepper shakers, pics to follow...
7. Visit a beach
8. Start and herb garden
9. Visit an art museum
10. Go to Findlay Market
11. Revamp and Relaunch MoKoPo Creations accomplished 7/17/10 (at 1:50 am, haha)
12. Build something with tools
13. Learn how to use a sewing machine
14. Sign up for an Art Show/Craft Fair accomplished 08/18/10- Got my acceptance email from the Loveland Art and Craft Expo on November 6th! SO happy/nervous/overwhelmed/excited!
15. Do something with my little brother and sister individually, one-on-one
16. Read a book I should have read in H.S. (but used Cliff's Notes instead, oops)
17. Build a fort
18. Visit a Children's Museum accomplished 6/29/10- Cincinnati Museum Center w/ Kyle
19. Create something "wearable"
20. Go Kayaking accomplished on 07/02/10- Little Miami River, sunburned but super fun!
21. See a play
22. Make my own logo stamp
23. Update my Flickr account
24. Create business cards for massage therapy 07/30/10 Business cards ordered and website launched!
25. Go to the shooting range

Art Journal

One of my 25 Things to Do Before I Turn 26 was to create an Art Journal. This is a place where I can record things that are going on in my life with pictures, paintings, and words or just let myself go and experiment with new techniques and such. I plan to share most of my art journal pages with you all and I hope you feel inspired to start your own journal. It's so much fun!

What better place to start than with a "painty" version of this 25 things list!

MOKOPO REVAMPED!

When I woke up this morning the plan was to spend the day with the BF, run some errands, do some creating, and to work on some commissioned work. Well, after Kyle threw his back out while having a dispute with one of his aggressively cuddly dogs, the plans shifted to a day at his house. I didn't have the things I needed there to work on projects so instead I decided to focus on something I could do-- revamp the MoKoPo website! In between fixing the poor man some food, preparing some ice packs, and working my Massage Therapist magic, I was able to crank out some long, intense hours of website building, not to mention crossing off one of the items on my 25 things to do list!


If you don't already know of Wix.com, I highly recommend it. It's super easy for those of us with zero computer programming background and it's free to build it. If you want to attach it to your own personal domain you have to pay to upgrade but from what I can recall, the prices aren't too bad!


Anywho, please check out the site and let me know what you think! Also, if you find any grammatical or spelling errors PLEASE let me know...pet peeve of mine, haha.

  www.mokopo.com

Make something out of clay...check!

I've been slowly but surely crossing off things from my "25 Things I Want to do Before I'm 26" list. One of those things was "Create something out of clay". My boyfriend, Kyle, was particularly excited about this one because although he said he was never too great at drawing/painting, he was a master clay-worker and referenced his most prized crafty possession-- a mini-statue of Mr. Peanut he created in school. One day we bought some DAS clay from Michael's and got to work. Kyle was lacking some standard Salt and Pepper shakers at his house so I decided to make him some new ones! :)

25 Things...

As I was browsing through Etsy the other day I stumbled upon an artist by the name of Michelle Allen. Everything about this woman inspires me! I've been addicted to her blog and just love all of the art tips and ideas offered there. She is totally creative and I admire that so much! She motivates me to just "let go" and start creating for the joy of creating again. I may have lost touch with why I love painting so much in the first place and I hope to get back to that again. One of my new goals is to start focusing more on creating what I WANT to create or expressing what I FEEL rather than trying to come up with a "sellable" product. Art should be fun. Period. So let the fun begin, right?

Aside from her artwork, another idea I saw on her blog that I loved was the list of goals to complete before your next birthday.

Here are mine!:
25 Things to do Before I Turn 26:

1. Take an art class
2. Visit my sister, Jen, in Arkansas accomplished 8/23/10-8/31/10-Kyle and I took a road trip through St.Louis, down to Arkansas, then back up through Memphis and Ft.Knox
   
3. Start an Art Journal started on 7/15/10- first entry was this list!
4. Volunteer somewhere  on 09/26/10 Me, Kyle, Ty, Briana, and Abbi helped out with the Paint The Street event in Over-The-Rhine. It was SUPER fun!
5. Bake a pie from scratch
6. Make something out of clay accomplished on 7/6/10, made salt and pepper shakers, pics to follow...
7. Visit a beach
8. Start and herb garden
9. Visit an art museum
10. Go to Findlay Market
11. Revamp and Relaunch MoKoPo Creations accomplished 7/17/10 (at 1:50 am, haha)
12. Build something with tools
13. Learn how to use a sewing machine
14. Sign up for an Art Show/Craft Fair accomplished 08/18/10- Got my acceptance email from the Loveland Art and Craft Expo on November 6th! SO happy/nervous/overwhelmed/excited!
15. Do something with my little brother and sister individually, one-on-one
16. Read a book I should have read in H.S. (but used Cliff's Notes instead, oops)
17. Build a fort
18. Visit a Children's Museum accomplished 6/29/10- Cincinnati Museum Center w/ Kyle
19. Create something "wearable"
20. Go Kayaking accomplished on 07/02/10- Little Miami River, sunburned but super fun!
21. See a play
22. Make my own logo stamp
23. Update my Flickr account
24. Create business cards for massage therapy 07/30/10 Business cards ordered and website launched!
25. Go to the shooting range accomplished on 09/29/19- I'm a nautral! :)

I will be crossing things off my list as I do them. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think, or maybe create your own list! :)