Mosaic Roll Call

It took months, but it's finally finished. Through the efforts of several moms, including myself, we completed this mosaic art installation as a school fundraiser. It had been eons since I last made a mosaic so having that skill revived was a bonus for me. The visual beauty that it adds to our school just makes me so proud to have taken part in this project and my kids are just thrilled to see their handprints and names out front of their school.

Are Your Kids Angry Bird Obsessed?

My kids are obsessed with Angry Birds. Actually obsession doesn't quite describe what's going on in my household right now, aberration comes to mind. There's a constant conversation about red birds, golden eggs, green piggies, and the like. If that's not going on, then there's the constant badgering of mom for the iphone. Realizing something needs to change before I lose my mind, I decided it was time to redirect this angry bird fixation into other activities...angry bird related of course. Convincing them of angry bird art work was not difficult by any means. Certainly this did not curtail the perpetual discussion of colored varmint that frankly is making me angry now, but it did halt the jockeying for iphone time.....for a moment.

Artful Thursday: Happy Spring

Today was a gorgeous day. I think it may have hit 80 degrees here. I picked up the boys from school and we zipped on over to the park to soak up some sunshine and just played for 2 hours. It was such a refreshing moment after all those dreary days of gray skies and rainfall. We definitely were thrilled with the day's warmth. After leaving the park the boys wanted to go for a ride with the windows down and sun roof open to let the warm air just whip through their hair...It was sweet to look in the rear view mirror and see them all with huge grins on their faces, a look of glee. A "Happy Spring" moment for sure.




"Happy Spring" was the theme for today's Artful Thursday project. I pulled out a bunch of items (vintage sheet music, spring themed scrapbook papers, vintage bunny illustrations, German glass glitter, flower shaped chipboard, bright colored inks, felt adhesive letters) that gave me some spring inspiration.



With a bit of glue, a pair of scissors and a black brush tipped PITT artist pen I suddenly had this spring themed collage. I was going to put some grommets on the top corners to hang this with ribbon but,I think I may put it in a 12 x 12 frame. Here's wishing you all a "Happy Spring.

Artful Thursdays: Buttons of Love, a Valentine Ornament

I've been inspired by Julie Collings and her wonderful blog the adventures of bluegirlxo and am ready to take on her Artful Thursdays challenge. She's come up with this fabulous idea to pick a project every Thursday, using the treasures we've collected and finally use them. As many artists, I've managed to hoard collect lots of treasures with art projects in mind but never find the time to do them. This challenge will force me to make the time and work on it while meeting one of my goals for 2010, which was to focus more time on creative self-expression. My dear hubby will be happy too, as this may lead to some de-cluttering that he is always hopeful for.


So let me present to you my first project with tutorial for Artful Thursdays,

Buttons of Love



List of supplies I started with:
1. an oval shaped paper mache ornament left over from a previous project
2. vintage sheet music, cardboard left over from some packaging, ivory cardstock
3. one of my many jars of buttons
4. star dust glitter
5. a tiny piece of satin pink ribbon and vintage trim
6. red ink pad
7. heart punch by marvy
8. silver pipe cleaner
9. foam square adhesives and craft glue

First step was to glue the sheet music to the thin cardboard then punchout a heart from it. Then I inked the heart with red ink.



I then applied glue to edges of heart and oval ornament and rolled it through the glitter.


I trimmed and glued a piece of lace trim to the top of the oval, sorted through my buttons (deciding on an ivory, pink, and red color pallette), glued buttons covering the front of the oval.



I printed out "LOVE" on the ivory cardstock, trimmed it into a strip, followed with a second strip a bit longer with "v" cut outs on each end. I inked both pieces in red, adhered "Love" to the strip with foam squares, making a small banner. I attached this banner to the heart using more foam squares to give the piece some dimension.



I made a small hole on each side of the ornament at inserted silver pipe cleaner to make the hanger.



I attached the heart to the buttons with foam adhesive, tied the pink satin ribbon in a bow on the pipe cleaner, heat treated the ends of the ribbon to keep from fraying and Whaaa Lhaaa! You now have a very cottage chic valentine ornament to spruce up some small corner of your home or a perfect gift for a friend.



You can find this one in my etsy shop.

Art Work Pride

One of the fun things about going to preschool is all the great craft projects the boys get to do. Miles is especially proud of his artwork. He makes sure I bring it home everyday. It's become a standard conversation on our way out of preschool, Miles will say " Mommy, Mommy, my artwork." and I'll respond, "Yes, Miles I have your artwork." He'll respond with a huge smile and will often ask to carry it home. When we get home he wants to talk about his current art project and loves listening to positive feedback, "Oh it's fabulous, I love the colors, Great work Miles etc. etc". He just beams with pride. Miles, our little artist.