Adventures in Finger-painting

I recently let my son, (then about 10 months) try finger-painting. I mixed up some Jell-o vanilla pudding with pureed sweet potatoes, pureed peas, and pureed blueberries. I make my own baby food, so I had some readily on hand. Then I put them in little dishes with a large piece of drawing paper on the kitchen floor and let him have at it! It was fun watching him really get into it. The only thing I would do differently is put the "paint" in plastic cups instead of ceramic ones, because he did try to throw them!

Starry Night Bottlecap Mural

This fall I made a large 8 ft. x 12 ft. mural with my elementary art students completely out of bottlecaps. We studied Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night and then each of my 700 K-5th grade students took turns drilling in about 10 bottlecaps each. We used about 7,000 bottlecaps, all recycled from the students' homes! The idea came from artist, Michelle Stitzlein , who sells the complete instructions to the mural in her book, Bottlecap Little Bottlecap.

Favorite Artist of the Week: Toilet Paper Tube Art

I found this image online and it just made my heart smile. I love that the artist used a recycled toilet paper tube to create a tiny little world. I don't know who the artist is though, unfortunately.

Circus Baby Shower

This weekend I helped throw a baby shower for my dear friend Julia. It was a circus themed shower using her nursery room colors: red and light blue. The party was held at the church where Julia is a children's pastor. Aren't the decorations cool? (Thanks to my co-hosts Shannon and Amanda). They were inspired by some of the links above.

Amanda made these cute little circus tags for all the food with circus stickers.

Strawberry, Nutella, and Vanilla cupcakes with animals on top.

These are so easy and yummy to make: cherry tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil, and a little balsamic vinaigrette on top right before the party.

The pretty pregnant lady: Julia Goolia!

Our craft activity was to have everyone make a quilt square for a crib quilt. I cut flannel into 8x8 inch squares and the ladies traced stencils and die-cuts into shapes on fleece. Then they pinned them to their quilt square.

A few finished squares. I'll post the finished quilt when it is done.

Guacamole, Artichoke dip, Italian Skewers

Fruit salad, cupcakes, cookies, lemon blueberry trifle

To make the Lemon Blueberry Trifle:
For the lemon mixture: Mix two 3.4 oz boxes lemon Jello pudding powder with 2 1/2 cups milk and three 6 oz. containers lemon yogurt
Layer 1 inch cubes of angel food cake, then lemon mixture, then blueberries. Repeat two more times. Top with Cool Whip and blueberries.


Tissue paper flowers

The guests filled out wish cards for the baby.



I just love this silly lady and can't wait to meet her baby!

Curious George Baby Shower

I am a bit late in blogging about this Curious George "Sprinkle" that I threw for my cousin's wife Lindsay. Her baby is now 5 months old! But I wanted to show off the party anyway. I figured out how to make a diaper palm tree by using a coat hanger to fashion a hook shape. Then I slid rolled up diapers onto the coat hanger and wrapped a ton of brown yarn over it. I made the leaves by painting thick paper with green paint and used 3 brown beads for coconuts.

Fabulous monkey cupcakes

Fresh fruit kabobs went well with our cook-out.

Monkeys love banana pudding.

Decorations


Guess the number of animal crackers in the container. We also played baby pictionary.

Babies love baby showers!


She was ready to pop!

Don't Throw That Away!

Skateboard bench
Book house

Bus stop made from a recycled bus- (Here in my home town of Athens, Georgia!)

Toilet paper tube bunnies

National Geographic magazine wall shelf

My new favorite website is www.recyclart.org . It is an online portfolio of innovative art made by many different artists that use recycled items in a new way. I can't stop pouring over all the great ideas!

Mother's Day: It's the Thought that Counts

I just thought you might get a kick out of what I got for my first ever Mother's Day present. Since this is the first time I am a mother myself, I was kind of expecting some lavish treatment on that day. Instead I got a gray blob. Yup. You heard me. A gray blob. My husband attempted to make an impression of our two month old's foot and our son moved around so much that the impression ended up as just a blob of gel. He never got around to adding the plaster of paris to the gel base (which is step 2) because it didn't turn out. Oh honey, thanks anyway. It's the thought that counts. Maybe try that again when he's about 5 years old. :)

If anyone out there has successfully achieved this with an infant, let us know how you did it.

Favorite Artist of the Week: Michelle Stitzlein

As an elementary art teacher with a tiny budget, I love learning about how to use recycled products to make fabulous art. When I came across artist, Michelle Stitzlein, I thought her use of found materials to create new sculptures, was pretty awesome. She uses piano keys, broken china, fragments of old furniture, and other scraps to make butterflies. She also teaches workshops on how to turn bottlecaps into sculptures. Her book, Bottlecap Little Bottlecap, will also show you how to do it.