thanksgiving leftovers

I realize there are several things that I did not "catalog" from Thanksgiving. These are ideas that came to fruition and that does not always happen around here. So hooray for a project dreamed up, executed and it held together!

First off, we made these cute notebooks for Thanksgiving. We called them our thankful books. 

I bought small note books that were very inexpensive from Hobby Lobby that had blank white pages on the inside. I cut out fabric pieces in the shape of turkey feathers, as well as a body and gobbler. Its not called a gobbler. Its called a...?

The kids got to pick whatever 6 feathers out and I helped glue everything on. They then wrote "thankful" on a small piece of cardstock and glued it on. 

I thought that they turned out really well and each child could master it. I had 4 to 9 years old aged children and they all loved making them. 

The best part was the inside. The kids drew pictures of things they were thankful for. This girly was thankful for rainbows:) Yes, this project makes my heart happy.

And for the second project, we decorated our house for Thanksgiving with old works of art. My daughter and I cut out feather shapes from old drawings. ( Yes, it hurt a little but also I was proud of me for 

recycling!) We then did a quick wash with watered down paint over the feathers. After they dried, we sewed them together into this garland. 

Happy way late Thanksgiving!

Little Girl Art

I got a text today from my friend in Boston. She is also my daughters godmother. 

When she left for Boston a few weeks ago, my daughter was insistent on the godmother taking her paintings with her. She put them up. Isn't that sweet? And don't they look great too? No, really, they do. I am so impressed! We did this on watercolor paper and first drew a flower with oil pastels. Next, she used tempera paint to paint them. 

Art School: Tempera Paint Weavings

At the beginning of every class time together ( we had 5 days of 50 minutes each ), I read different bits of scripture to the kids involving color. That was a fun task looking up all of the verses with color references. 

We read about the ephod, Solomon's Temple, the new heaven, King Xerxes temple, Psalm 23 and a few others. How brilliant are the colors that the Lord has not only provided us with, but blessed us with. 

I read this from Exodus describing the tabernacle in the temple. I had the kids close their eyes and raise their hand each time they heard a color. My hope was to give them a visual of the place and to recognize how our God is in the details of the description, just as He is in the details of each of our lives. 

“Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim woven into them by a skilled worker. ² All the curtains are to be the same size—twenty-eight cubits long and four cubits wide.^[a] 3 Join five of the curtains together, and do the same with the other five. ⁴ Make loops of blue material along the edge of the end curtain in one set, and do the same with the end curtain in the other set. ⁵ Make fifty loops on one curtain and fifty loops on the end curtain of the other set, with the loops opposite each other. ⁶ Then make fifty gold clasps and use them to fasten the curtains together so that the tabernacle is a unit.   Exodus 26:1-6

Now into our work. We are to the last day of our art school class showings. For our final project, we made 2 paintings out of tempera paint. 

We painted our first painting on white paper. I had the kids draw a step by step flower with oil pastels. This piece of paper was the loom for our weaving. 

The 2nd painting was a crazy, quick one and they could do whatever they wanted on it. After it dried the next day, I cut them into strips.

With the strips, I had precut aqua, purple, green and pink paper. They could weave with both or just their own paintings. 

After we wove all of the paper together, we went back and added frames out of the leftover strips. We also worked on added our signature to our work and talked about how important that is. 

I was so impressed with our these worked out. It was neat to see their work change shape and look over the 2 days while working on the project.

Some of the kids had a hard time with the weaving but they got the general idea. I will say, trying to weave the pieces together, it was like camouflage. 

 We serve a Creator God and what a gift it is for Him to give us the ability to create. 

May the Lord reveal more of Himself to you today through his colorful, vibrant, wondrous creation.

Art School: Color Wheel Collage

Another project we did during our fine arts camp at church included a color wheel collage. Ahh, I adored this project. 

I wanted to work with color during the week and found this idea for the collage color wheel here, on a blog called The Handmade Home.   

We used color-aid paper, card stock, fabric and magazines. 

We glued with kids washable modge podge on the original template from the other blog and then I cut them out with an exacto knife and put them on white tagboard. 

I was fascinated by the kids thought process and how deliberate they were in creating these. Remember, they were rising 2nd and 3rd graders. 

I precut the magazine pieces along with the other papers as well. I gave them scissors so they could cut it a tad smaller. Some did, some didn't.

Those who didn't cut pieces smaller, were done quickly. Ahh! I was worried I would have nightmares of them saying, " I'm done." However, they received instruction well and were happy to add more pieces on to the white spaces.

It was a great way to study color and get them to ask questions about what colors are in other colors. 

I do love color. For the first day of class, we went around the room saying our favorite color. I struggled with it because I love so many colors. I am into color combinations these days- that's my new "favorite color." So, for today, mine would be a rose, chartreuse and gray. 

What's your favorite color? Or color combo?

Art School: Butterflies with Oil Pastels

I recently taught art at my churchs' fine arts camp. Oh, it was fun. A bit of a whirlwind carting my children from one place to the other so that I could go and teach, but it was well worth it. 

We studied the color wheel and created butterflies using oil pastels with warm and cool colors. 

 We had a couple of moments ( myself included) where we had to stop and go back and look at our color wheel to make sure we were using the correct warm or cool color.  That yellow-green will get you.

I was impressed with how creative these kids were with color, pattern and design. We decided to add designs to the background, if they wanted to. 

This little boy wanted to add the butterfly's tongue. Smart kid. 

The art class was for rising 2nd and 3rd graders. 

I showed them how to draw a butterfly. We first folded the paper hamburger style, and then hotdog style.

Then, we traced the lines with a pencil. I gave them directions on how to draw a butterfly. A hotdog in the middle, then 4 balloons off of the hotdog. We went over the drawing in a sharpie. And then colored in with oil pastels.

I will show our next project in my next post. My daughter and I tested out all of the art projects, so we have been very "arty" around here lately. My dining room table is filled with art supplies, some used, some not. I love it!

Happy Friday- hope you have a creative weekend!

outdoor art

Oh, how I love the outdoors. The beauty of the Lords creation is intoxicating. I read something recently about what joy it is that we are given the ability to create in the shadow of His creation. What an honor. Everything we can imagine and dream up was first created by Him. 

I recently painted this for my parents for their backyard. I have done several outdoor paintings ( here and here.) It has a different feel than my others and I did this one en plein air. Oui, Oui!

You would think I would get a photo with the whole painting in it...

It was hung in front of a new fountain.

Baby Sister Nursery

I realized the other day that I never posted Baby Sister's nursery on here. Well, I did sort of but it linked to Project Nursery's site. But I wanted to have a copy on here. Here it is!

This is the quilt that my mom made for Baby Sister. So beautiful! She used fabric, tea towels and the center cross stitched butterfly my grandmother had made years before. 

The nursery seen from the doorway. The rug is Tangerine Dream by Dash and Albert. The crib skirt is made from Amy Butler's sun spots and has an orange,yellow, green, blue plaid I attached on the edge. A tad hard to see... The lamp I had and added the Annie Selke Link fabric in pink. 

The dresser was painted in Meadow View by Benjamin Moore. The painting on the dresser was done by a sweet friend. Check out her blog. 

The curtain fabric is called Lovely. And it is so lovely. The gold fabric in the crib is Anna Marie Horner. 

I slip covered the seat of the glider. I was so proud of me! Last baby, I just tucked fabric in the seat.

The sweater was knit for Baby Sister as a gift. I hated keeping it in the drawer.

My husbands sunset painting from long ago along with my new painting.

Up close of my flower painting. I have painted another for my parents back porch.

This buffet was my great grandfathers and actually, he made it along with 2 china cabinets. My handy husband made the changing pad holder from his design. The plates are from Anthropologie in Bham.

She is just now starting to sleep in it, well, for bits at a time:)  I loved creating this room for my Darling. 

Update! The lady I like

Simple Life by Suzanne Connor

Bird in Hand by Suzanne Connor

I don't know why I didn't write this early or type this earlier. My last post, Beautiful Paintings: Lesli Devito, I wrote about how Lesli reminds me of this other lady. This other lady is an artist as well and a great storyteller and a great artist. In my opinion, when you get those two giftings together, bam! Its good. She is Suzanne of Fire Fly Evenings. Isn't that a great name? She has done a few paintings that are in my girlies rooms and they are so sweet. And I don't think I added her room on my blog. Duh. That's for another day. It is on Project Nursery and I did a quick post about it this day and the painting Suzanne did is on top of the green dresser. Enjoy!