I have an addiction

 

 

 

Seriously. I can't stop making Christmas ornaments. Last year it was Sculpey polymer clay, this year I am totally ignoring all my other household duties to make paper ornaments. I bought some awesome, very old sheet music at the Treasure Hunt Antique Mall a few months back and it has consumed my life. I am dreaming of things to make with it.....for real. (Dreaming about sheet music. I need to get help.) I found a cute snowman ornament on Pinterest that caught my eye and decided to make those. Aaaaand, I also love the simpleness of the single "swoop" bird (what?? that's what I call it anyway...don't judge) so I made some of those too. The birdies have sheet music on one side, pretty Christmas scrapbook paper on the other, and a button for an eye. Easy peasy. I am also going to make angels, stars, and Christmas trees using the same scrapbook papers and sheet music.

 

 

Lovely Landscapes

I found this most awesome lesson plan the other day from MaryMaking (click here ) and I immediately HAD to try it out. MaryMaking suggested using scraps of posterboard/cardboard dipped in black acrylic paint to make the "landscape". Once the paint is dry, then the students use watercolors to paint the landscape. I incorporated the warm/cool color combos into my lesson. The students had to choose whether they wanted the sky to be "warm" or "cool" color schemed...and then do the opposite for their mountain/hill/landscape. Watercolor paper probably works best, but I used white cardstock because that is what I had on hand (and it is cheaper).

I really liked the end results:

 

one of my examples

by a 9 year old

another of mine (my fave of the two I made)

It's been a while.....but summer is here and we are in full ARTS and CRAFTS mode here at the homefront.

So, while I am in school I am not on here much...nor can I actually do fun things with the chirren to have anything to post here....you get the gist....anyhoo- Now I am OUT OF CLASSES FOR THE SUMMER!!!!! YAHOOO!!! Yesterday we had our first session (still in my kitchen, not in my soon to be newfangled basement studio...which is being worked on by my wonderful husband as I type this...I can totally hear him banging around down there)... We made Shoeprint "clay" pendants and 3 Minute Messy Mondrians. If I can figure out how to link the pendant lesson ...hmmm... maybe if you click here you will be taken to the lesson...and here are some of the pics of the kids and their pendants they made.

look what you made!!!!

 

painting his own pendant

letting the paint dry

picking out the perfect bead

those are some supah-fab clay pendants!!!

Here are the pictures from the "3 Minute Messy mondrians" the kids made. I had pre-cut black lines of construction paper and pre-cut squares and rectangles of red, blue, and yellow. I gave each child one piece of white cardstock and they each picked out a handful of the black, red, blue, and yellow pieces. The timer was set for 3 minutes and they had to arrange their colored pieces on their cardstock in whatever way they wanted....and it totally didn't matter if it was "neat" or "messy"- and it didn't matter how many of their pieces they used. After the timer went off I took these photos. The children were then given the opportunity to glue their pieces on the cardstock if they wanted to. (If I was to do this again, I would limit the number of chosen construction paper pieces to a "usable" amount...and I would give them less time...maybe only 2 minutes)
Here are the pics I took:

Chloe

Dakota

Gavin

Jamie

Lily

Vianne

Riley

and here is the collage I made from those pictures....because I like to do this sort of thing.

Alcohol Inks....I luuuuuuurve them!

I love abstract artsy stuff. This is right up my alley. I used alcohol inks on glossy paper and just let the colors ooooze all together. I tilted the paper up and down to get them to blend. Really, I might be addicted. I could play with alcohol inks all dern day.

Karate chopping gingerbread men Christmas Ornaments

My daughter is a yellow belt in karate and she wanted to make ornaments for her instructors for Christmas. I used a gingerbread man cookie cutter and salt dough. After I baked them and let cool, I painted their Gi's and belts with acrylic paint. I love them so much...I almost hate to give them away!

Mr. Owl, How many licks does it take to get to the candy cane center of a candy cane?

go to this website to get the easy instructions on how to make this owl

I used Sculpey clay

(Ultra Light?? something like that, but I am sure the regular Sculpey would work just as well)

and then baked...and then let cool...and then painted with acrylic paint...

My Christmas tree loves it!

solargraphy has taken over my mind...for real. I can't sleep.

This is the "negative" and the "positive" solargraphic image I made yesterday. I put my tin can camera loaded with b/w photo paper on a tree stump in my front yard and got a solargraph of the sunrise. The "negative" is what comes out of the camera, the "postive" is what I get when I invert the negative in photoshop (after I scan the negative).