Polar Vortex: Playing Catch-Up

Well, if there is any advantage to living in the Polar Vortex in Minnesota, it's that I have a little time to try and get caught up on 6 months of blog posts. Or at least attempt getting started writing posts. This first post is just a catch-up post of a couple projects to ease my way in. ;-)

First, here's a duct tape notebook my 8 year old made all on her own last summer. She didn't look at anything on Pinterest or online. Just had the picture in her head (my little right-brained learner!) and created this!

Look at that ear detail! It's 3-dimensional!

We had a wonderful nanny last summer and we made these fun little gifts for her as thank you gifts:

She was heading to Virginia Tech for school so we attempted to make her a rainbow loom bracelet in the right colors (really the school color is a little more maroon, but I digress). I just gave the girls some 5 x 7 canvas boards and asked them to make a fun picture, but that I wanted them to use different lines and patterns so here's what they came up with. They used permanent markers to color these.

The bright colors and happy drawings make me think of summer and warmth! :-)

My girls school has an art class once a week after school. Each girl will be artist of the week once during the term. Here are the girls' artist of the week creations for the fall:

These paper sculptures were really cool! I love the 3-dimensional quality of them!

(Sorry the quality of the photos isn't the best, I took them on my iPhone). ;-)

Summer Recap: Independent Craftiness

Okay, so I admit it. We kind of got away from our weekly artist lessons this summer. I'm sort of bummed about this because I really enjoy doing those projects with the girls. But, this summer just kind of got away from us! It flew right by and before I knew it, they were heading back to school.

We had a great and fun summer! But I guess we just focused on other things. The girls summer bridge work in the mornings, we had books to read for a book club we were in together, not to mention minutes to read for there summer reading log on top of all that. So I guess we focused more on academics this summer instead of planned art activities. But the girls still did art camps at Kidcreate. They created fun things like these candy beach scenes!

Ha ha! Do you see the marshmallow people in the chairs? See one of them is pink? That's because that one is sunburned! LOL!

I did ask them to create some LegoQuest projects. In this one, they were asked to create an outdoor scene. I told them it could be anything, a park, ocean, whatever they wanted!

My ten year old's Arboretum complete with bridge, stream, and "path with lights on the side".

 LOVE the "No Picking" sign with the park security guard there. :-)

My 8 year old's beach scene complete with sand castle and person laying in the sand by the water.

But, honestly, what I think is one of the neatest things about this summer is that our art room was used ALL the time! Just not for projects I was leading. The kids, all three of them, just went up there whenever they wanted and created things. They came up with their own projects, figured out what they needed for them, sat down, and produced some fun and amazing things!

My three year old just sat down one night (hence the yucky red light and terrible iphone photos!) and did his own thing. It was so fun to watch!

And this is what he created, his first artwork all on his own!

I think it should be entitled "Alien Spaceship". He couldn't verbalize to me exactly what he was making, but in watching him, it was very purposeful. And here is the aftermath of his creating. ;-)

My younger daughter crafted this owl pillow completely on her own:

Also, this beautiful chalk wall on the side of our garage:

A wrapping paper version of herself on her bedroom wall:

And a plan for a birdhouse (she is getting a kit to make one for her birthday in a few weeks):

My 10 year old daughter was also inspired this summer and created this winter fairy garden based on a project she found in our Jumbo Book of Outdoor Art book:

She also created this Minion ipod holder out of duct tape:

And just a couple other fun random creations from the summer:

Lily made a little fort/tent for her and Kellan to play under. It included a "tv" as well. She hung the iPad from the back of the couch. :-)

 And a wine cork person just for the fun of it.

I'm sort of proud that I have set the foundation for my children to find the supplies they need and just create to their heart's content. It makes me so happy to see them inspired by so many things and even though I missed doing our projects together, it was almost better to leave them be and see what they came up with on their own!