Still Busy...but it's not all CHRISTMAS!

So when I was done with ART Symposium at the Girls' school, I thought for sure I would be starting on my Christmas crafting....oh how I was wrong!!  You may try to leave...but they will PULL you back in!!  Kathy and I received a distress call from another mom who was in charge of the Library Book Sale decorating...yep we answered it!!  I guess when you do something crafty and put it on display, you should expect to be asked to do MORE!!  So I showed up to a "paint party" at the mom's house thinking I would be putting a day into creating a panel for the hallway leading to the school Library...NO ONE was there...except for the mom in charge...and she was sick!!  So I left her house with THREE panels to decorate!!  The only "instruction" I was given was that the theme was "Wild about Books"!  

Here is the first one:

I wanted it to be "girly" so I could put some Girl Book titles on it!  I had the hippo from Fantasia in my head and just went from there.  The panel is actually a giant foam board covered in bulletin board paper.  I then used wood paneled Contact paper to make the "tree", and some more paper for the leaves.  The hippo is tempera painted on with a tulle tutu glued to the panel.  The giraffe is paper pieced then painted on.  I used hot glue for the ribbon, but Craft Bond glue stick for the paper piecing.  The cheetah is my favorite!!  She was roughly drawn on the paper, then I pieced craft FELT to fill her in!!  I used the Craft Bond EXTREME glue stick...that stuff WORKS!!  I had so much fun doing these panels...but it did take away from my Christmas crafting...oh well...

Here is the second panel I did... 

I wanted to do a "Night-themed" one because of the book Stellaluna!!  I had a whole bunch of craft paper scraps after I cut 22 "V" vests for The Middle Child's Thanksgiving Feast...and I HATE to waste!!  So I used the rolled paper to make the trees!!  Once again, I used the Craft Bond EXTREME glue stick to adhere them to the panel.  Then threw some tempera paint to add "texture"...Kathy must be rubbing off on me :)  I didn't have a lot of time to work on this panel, so I printed outlines of the animals then cut and glued them to the panel.  After, I went over them with tempera paint...worked out much better than me trying to draw or trace all of the animals!!   Thankfully, Kathy saved me from the third panel...she took it and did a Rainbow Fish underwater theme...sorry, no picture!!  So once that was done, I was free to work on other things...but first, I wanted to show you my really QUICK Thanksgiving wreath I did for my momma...

It was my Halloween wreath that I did with the orange drywall tape.  Same scrappy burlap flowers...I just added some thick felt leaves, a different ribbon, and a scrappy "Give Thanks"!!

So I've been knitting....a little...

This was a really quick hat I did for my SIL's new baby niece!!  Her momma sent me a couple of picture texts of hats asking if I could make one...for that sweet babe...OF COURSE!

Her big brother had a birthday in November...this is what he requested...

Spiderman is his favorite super hero...so why shouldn't he have a cape?? HA!  I made it reversible...just in case he realized that Spidey is NOT a cape-wearer!!

 Ms. Priss had a couple of birthday parties to attend this month also...

Pillows are my "go to" gifts these days!!  And headbands...

These are for the second birthday girl...

 YAY!!  A little Christmas crafting!! :)  The last two headbands were actually for Ms. Priss' BFF...she got a bag full of goodies and an I.O.U. from me!!  I promised to make her a pair of jammies, but realized too late that I didn't have enough fabric...GAH!!  So she is owed a trip to the fabric store to pick out her own PJ fabric! :)

I mentioned a couple of post ago about making ornaments with my GS Daisy troop for a swap...well here they are!!

They all did such a good job!!  I brought them white air-dry clay and cookie cutters; floral wire, jingle bells, and some ribbon; and some pre-cut felt circles with the GS logo already stitched on!!  They all picked which type of ornament they wanted to make and went to town!!  I brought them home...under LOTS of protest to let the clay dry and add the hanging ribbons.  The air-dry clay took a LONG time to dry...like a WEEK long of constantly turning to make sure they dryed evenly.  Maybe it is the humidity in LA that makes them take sooo long.  I want to do some with my kiddos...can I put air-dry clay in the oven??

Any way, the swap was cancelled...bummer!!  BUT the girls were sooooo happy to get to keep the ornaments they made, so all ended well!! :)  This month we did some winter-themed tee shirts...

I was just going to paint the mitten on the shirt, but ended up not getting all of the tee shirts in time!!  So I cut the mittens from felt and the cuffs from various fleece and felt scraps.  Then decided to go ahead and monogram all of the girls' names on the cuffs...for FUN! :)  I used a machine blanket stitch to sew them to the shirts...it just looked RIGHT!!

Then  brought them all to the meeting so the girls could put their handprint on them....too cute!!

As you can see...some of the girls still forgot their shirts...and one little girl tells me, "my momma doesn't want me to get paint on my hands..."  WHA-???  So I improvised by putting her hand on the mitten and painting AROUND it...think they can THWART me, huh??  HA!

So wrapping up this super-long post....The Middle Child's teacher has left to have her third sweet baby...which means aLOT of work during pre-Christmas week for this ROOM MOM!!  Anyway, before she left to have her baby BOY...after having two girls, she asked if I could re-fashion her baby swing cover to make it more "BOY-ish".  She sent me the cover and a thrifted bed ruffle...this is how it turned out.. 

Not too bad...but my machine did NOT like all of those LAYERS!!  I finished it and got it back to her a whole day before she left for maternity leave...yay!!

SO this is SMS GIVEAWAY WEEK!!!  Are you participating??  I'll be visiting...so should everyone else!!  Head over to Sew Mama Sew! for the list of link ups!!!   Until later...

ART Symposium 2011

Well, I made it through Symposium week...YAY!!!  For those of you who are new, our PTC puts on an educational Symposium every year for the students of our Elementary school.  It is paid for by our annual BBQ dinner fund raiser and is done completely by PARENTS, and it is alot of WORK!!  This year's theme was ART, and we had a ball!! We started the week off with a parade Monday morning, and ended it Friday with Tent Day.  Each tent was represented in the parade.  This is my friend Kathy's last year, since her daughter is in the fourth grade with my oldest and will be moving on to Middle School next year.  I allowed her to talk me into doing a tent with her, where in the past I've only worked in someone else's tent!  Our tent's theme was Art in Literature, so for the parade we dressed as book characters.

 

Sorry for the blurred faces, but check out those HUGE letters!!  I used a circular saw for the first time, and cut them out of plywood...go ME!!  I also primed them, but made someone else paint them!  I also used a miter saw for the first time cutting the PVC pipe at a 45 degree angle to prop the letters up!  I was Olivia, and the kids were the dinosaur from Chalk, Fancy Nancy, Lil Bo Peep, and Madeline.  The only sewing I've done in the past couple of weeks was to make the Madeline's cape using this awesome tutorial!

Not only did I allow Kathy to talk me into doing a tent, but she also wanted to go into EVERY class and teach an Art technique...so we did!!  Seven Kindergarten classrooms and seven first grade classrooms did Buffalo skin "paintings"!

We taught the children about how Indians used symbols to tell stories of the Tribe's year.  Each child got to use a symbol that they liked best.  The buffalo "hides" are made from thick brown craft paper that we found at Lowe's by the paint department.  The children used charcoal to make the symbols.

For the six 2nd grade classes, we split them in half and taught two different techniques used by book illustrators.  Three classes did Eric Carle's painted tissue paper collages...

 

Did you know that Eric Carle and his wife opened a Picture Book Art Museum in Amherst, MA??!!  I would LOVE to visit it!!

And three classes did Marcus Pfister's watercolor technique used in Rainbow Fish...

  

 At the end of the week, we chose two paintings from each 2nd grade class to display in our tent!

Six 3rd grade classes learned about Clemetine Hunter, and re-created one of her paintings.

 

Clemetine Hunter was the granddaughter of a slave.  Although not a slave herself, having been born after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, she worked on a plantation for very low wages and never learned to read or write.  She painted on whatever she could find, mostly paper grocery bags.  So the students used the same thick brown craft paper we used for the buffalo "hides", to represent Clementine's "canvases".

For the six 4th grade classes, we had to stick close to their curriculum.  So some classes learned about Lewis & Clark, some Pioneers, and one class learned about the first assembly line.  We taught the lessons then had the students paint or draw something they learned.  Then we put them all together for a Story Quilt!!

 

 

 

I didn't get a picture of the Assembly Line Grid, unfortunately, but it was AWESOME!!  Kathy really put alot of thought into the 4th grade lessons and art projects!!  She did a really great job, and we are very proud of what we were able to accomplish with lots of help from other Parents coming in when we needed them!!

Once all of the Classroom projects were done...we still had to get our tent together!!  Since we were in the classrooms all day, we were usually up painting storybook characters ALL NIGHT!!  Thankfully, we had other super talented moms and dads helping us out!!

Here is a walk through of our tent!   As the children walked up they were able to view the 4th grade French classes' work using Cubism.  Our French teacher uses this technique to teach shapes!  The Eiffel Tower was done by a parent last year for the Library's Literature around the World night, and has resided in the french class ever since.  It tied in very well with our Madeline.

 The front of our tent was done with our Kindergartners in mind.  We used the Nursery Rhyme characters to greet them, and of course the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree!!

 The mushrooms are from Alice in Wonderland...we had an Alice after this photo was taken!  The mushrooms got bigger as the children begin "shrinking" into our giant Book!

 

 The first presentation was on all the various types of ways illustrators use to tell stories.  We talked about Dr. Suess, Eric Carle, Marcus Pfister, and other illustrators' techniques.  Storybook Art is not always drawn pictures.  It is really a child's first introduction to Concept Art.

 Don't you LOVE this??  Rhonda, from You Sew Silly Mama made it.  It is stitched, painted, wired...you name it!!  She took characters out of her favorite children's book to make this masterpiece!!  She is AWESOME, and with three adorable girls running around it amazes me all she gets done...thanks girl!!!  BTW, she also did the Chicka Boom tree...that's what she gets for telling me she was done early!! teehee!

This was done by another momma!  She came to our first meeting, then we saw her at the Art Walk downtown.  We knew we wanted something special to represent Suess....she NAILED it!!  Thanks Margo!!

 One of Ms. Priss' oldest friend's mom did the Bone piece for me!!  This is what she tells me, "oh, I draw a little...I guess I can try to do something"  WHA-??  A LITTLE??  See the AMAZING talent I'm surrounded by?  My neighbor across the street did the Green Eggs & Ham character as well as Curious George and the Wild Thing with Max!!  I am soooo thankful to have such wonderful friends!!

Having all of these talented friends made me want to attempt a character without having Kathy come back and fix it like she did with many of the other characters I did....what do you think?

I drew him WITHOUT the projector and painted him freehand....of course he would have look 20 times better if Kathy had put some artsy touches to him, but I was pleasantly surprised with the little bit of skill I had!! :)  The table next to him was set up with Caldecott winners.  That was the next part of the lesson of the tent.  I went over the history of the Caldecott medal, and that they could all be found in a special section of the Public Library.  Kathy and I also "read" from our favorite Picture Books.  Hers was The Lion and the Mouse, mine was Chalk!!  Here's a quick review of the book.  I LOVE this book...you know how the Boy LOVES dinosaurs!!  We found it at the Library one day...and I've had it ever since!!!  I finally returned it yesterday, with the 30 other books I used!!!  Santa will be looking for a copy to leave under the tree this year!!

 So leaving the tent, was our display for our 2nd grade winners....

 

 And of course CHALK!!

 The kids got to use some of my magic chalk to make their own art come to life!! 

Sorry this post is sooooo picture heavy!!  I am just so proud of all the work that was put into Symposium week!!  Of course, there were OTHER tents besides ours!! HA!  Although I didn't get a chance to see them all...I gave my camera to Rhonda to get a couple of snaps....

 The Art of Motion Picture tent where the kids learned how to make drawings into moving pictures....



 And here is the Bead Art tent where the kids used LOTS of Mardi Gras beads to make Art!

 Speaking of Mardi Gras....we had a tent for that!!

The students learned about Mardi Gras inspired art and got to eat King Cake...out of season!!

 They also made Mardi Gras masks!

This was the Museum Art tent...

 The kids had a BLAST making their own ART!!

Well....this post has taken me a couple of HOURS to get out...whew!!!  I did not have any time to finish any Fall crafting I wanted to get done, so I guess the next time I post it will be all about CHRISTMAS!!!  Are you ready?  I plan on being in the stores with my belly full of TURKEY in a day or so....Black Friday shopping is FUN!!  I know I'm crazy, but it really helps to have it out of the way so I can sew and craft until Christmas without having to think about SHOPPING!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!   Until later...

Nursery Rhyme Day...and NO, I didn't forget about Halloween!!

Although, with all of the CRAZY going on around here...I could have!!  How was your Halloween?  I haven't even had time to check out all of your costumes...UGH!!  I promise to try to take some time this week!!  So thankfully, I have been meeting every deadline and getting things done ON TIME!!  I hope it holds up!!  Last week was The Middle Child's Nursery Rhyme Day for all of the Kindergartners.  Our teacher is new and had nothing for decorations and classroom set up!  Enter the most AWESOME Room Mom...EVER!!!

She let me do what I wanted...isn't she sweet?

My friend, Kathy's daughter was raggin' on my poor wonky cow!!  "Is that a dog?" she so innocently asked...the SASS!!  I said, "um, NO!!  Sorry but we can't all be talented arteest like your momma!!"  We'll get to her mad skillz later...we're still talking about ME!! ;)

 The dish running away with the spoon...

and the itsy bitsy spider...or Ms. Muffet's, whichever you prefer!!

Ok...now we can get to my friend Kathy...but I will say that I did all of the HARD work!!  She just came in and used all of her artsy skills to make the characters come ALIVE!!

Remember all of that cutting I was talking about?  The character cutouts are painted on one and a half inch cardboard!!  We went to International Paper and got LOADS of it.  But it is sooo thick that you have to use a jigsaw to cut it!!  So for our Nursery Rhyme Characters, I grabbed the ol' Mother Goose book and a transparency!  I have an old Overhead projector that my baby sister gave me a couple of years ago.  So I used that to "draw" the characters on the cardboard.  Then I took it outside and cut it, painted on some primer, and the first coat of tempera paint.  Enter the artist...although, she did let me do the bricks with her pastel crayon thingies!!  But she nixed the original face I had because the features were too small for Humpty's big head!!

 Here is The Middle Child's Classroom set up for the BIG DAY!!  I brought all of the characters in Wednesday after school, and hung the paper curtains.  Did I mention that our teacher is about 8 months pregnant??  No ladders for her!!  Thursday all of the children came dressed in the Nursery Rhyme Character that they were reciting that day.  The Middle Child was Little Bo Peep. Her costume was given to me by guess who??  :)  They all did so good!!  We were all proud parents...then we had cupcakes!!

Yep...I did them too!!  Of course, another mom brought some too...but we are still talking about ME!!  The toppers are what I'm showing off here...not the cupcakes!!  I promise they taste better than they LOOK!  And I did make toppers for all 48 cupcakes, not just mine! Us moms like to coordinate, ya know.  :)

So, I stayed until the festivities were over and took everything down...and brought them to different rooms for the other teachers to use for their Nursery Rhyme Day the next day!!  Share and share alike...that's how our teachers do it!!  I'll be collecting the character cut outs to store until Symposium on the 18th of November...yeah, like in TWO WEEKS!!!  We have four done....we have THIRTY more to go!!!!  Give us strength!!

See...I didn't forget about Halloween!!

For The Boy's orange day....

and for the girls' class treats....

toilet paper rolls, scrapbook paper, tissue paper, and alot of glue!!

We went to Yogi Bear campground for the weekend!!  It was very nice and the kiddos got LOTS of candy!!  Then we came home so I could prepare for The Middle Child's class party and Halloween Craft.

All ready...just need little hands...

or really, their fists!!  This idea is from my friend Kathy...again!!  Do ya'll get tired of me talking about her??  Sorry, but she's da BOMB!! ;)  She was one of the Room Mom's for Ms. Priss when she was in Kindergarten.  I LOVED this little poem and pumpkin so much when she brought it home, that I just had to do it for The Middle Child too!!  Thanks Kathy!!  Oh and did you notice the glue stick?  It works REALLY well!!

And finally, a costume!!  When I first saw this on Running with Scissors, I KNEW that I would one day make one of these for The Boy!!!

 And here is his whole costume...

And here he is IN his costume...well, some of it.  He actually wore a green long sleeved shirt and jeans for Trick or Treating...it got COLD!!

Don't you just love his "head and claws"??  I was racking my brain trying to think of how to do a dinosaur head!!  We were in JoAnn's and he saw the visor and said "dinosaur head"!!  He is SOOOO SMART!!  And EASY!!!  No hard costumes for this boy!  The teeth and claws are stiff white felt.  I just used some stretchy scraps and hot glued the claws on after sewing a tube to fit his wrist!  Can you see I used a red Sharpie to make his claws bloody...he loved that!!

Well, that is all for now!!  I had my GS Daisy meeting today and I am whipped!!  We made ornaments for an upcoming swap at the zoo!!  More on that later....much later!!  The next couple of weeks will be consumed with Symposium stuff.  But while I was at my folks, I found these...

They are acorns from a White Oak tree and are HUGE!!  I want to use them to make some of these....yeah Amy, I'm copying you!!  Until later....