An Egg a Day, #4: Isia recently insisted on wearing her Woodstock-worthy blue tie-dye shirt with the bright pink heart in the middle, seen here, several days in a row. I was thrilled not only because it seemed to be dirt-repellent- it stayed clean for over two days- but also because she's possibly inherited my soft spot for tie-dye. I love tie-dye and, between us, I have a plan to incorporate more of it into our lives shortly... well, mainly our bathroom. But in the meantime, what better place to display some tie-dye magic than on some eggs?

 An Egg a Day, #3: As promised... glitter!

On to Day Two of our egg crafts together! Our friends Ezra & Ella came over to play and that led, as most things do these days, to decorating eggs together.

Things move a little bit slower around the house these days with a toddler and a baby. You learn to plan ahead, allot yourself more time than needed... and then a little bit more for good measure. So our egg decorating started last week even though Easter is still about three weeks away. And for good reason: I wanted to do hollow eggs this year, and of the few we began decorating last week only one survived little hands. They were all fine at first, but I mistakenly left them within reach. (When will I learn?) So to encourage us to try again- this time putting all decorated eggs out of reach- I'm doing a week's worth of egg-xcellent posts (smile).

It all began with these flowers. I enjoyed making them so much that I made a few more- and then a few more as well. Well, then they needed a home, so I made a wreath entirely out of old shirts, and one pair of very loved corduroy pants, to put them on...

In this technology age, I am probably not the only one who's created a wreath form out of t-shirts. But I've developed this method without referencing anyone else, which, I think, is as close as we can get to original these days (smile). Our wreath journey continues!


Next we'll match our bound end to the end of the other shirt, right before the sleeve section. (We'll need the rest of the sleeve later to secure the two pieces together.) Tape the ends together.

Our windows have been open this week, allowing spring's breezes into our house. They've been busy breezes: removing the last remnants of the cold we've been recycling the past month and emptying our closets for the annual spring cleaning. As I start to ready our clothes for warmer months, my pile of clothing-to-be-recycled grows faster than the lettuce seeds I just planted. I've been looking at the shirts especially, starting to see dresses, like here, and also wreaths. Wreaths, you say? Yes, wreaths, and here's how you can start to see wreaths too!

 Isia's my constant helper these days. She's an enthusiastic one, who solves the problem of not recognizing weeds yet by just pulling everything (eek!). I thought putting her to "work" digging with a spoon might be a tad more helpful. I also cut a milk carton in half and offered her the bottom part to fill with dirt for her own flower seeds. She thought about it, then decided that it would be better to just fill and dump...

which is okay. She'll learn in time. I fondly remember working alongside my grandmother in her garden. I just enjoyed being with her; I never realized I was learning to transplant, weed, identify flowers, and enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. Then, when it came time to begin my own garden, I heard her gentle directions guiding me all over again. I hope to instill the same joy in our children. Here's to Spring, and all teachable, enjoyable moments that come with it!

Here are our finished clovers, pre-sprinkles. It was, of course, no longer St. Patrick's Day. But is there ever a bad day to make sparkly edible four-leaf clovers to share with your neighbors?  (Hint: I learned the more melted chocolate I used, the better they held together.)

I bought the ingredients to make these beautiful creations on Monday:

Picture courtesy of http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/clever-clovers-988547/

And now it's Saturday and I still have the bag of supplies sitting in the corner of my kitchen. How was I supposed to know that Spring was going to arrive this week? All of a sudden running around the backyard and having picnics became more important than being in our kitchen. But I haven't put the supplies away yet, because there's always time for something delicious- especially when little hands can help! In the meantime, find the directions to make your own here.

 And lastly, more things I would like to try:
::Make a picture Lichtenstein-worthy here.
::An introduction to digital scrap-booking through videos here.
::And I'm also loving the "stitching on a path" tutorial here.

I've been so inspired this week, thank you for joining me!

ps. This is my attempt at the "Polaroid Collage" (from Monday). The tutorial was written for Photoshop, so I had to improvise a lot using Elements. Improvise, of course, meant spending way too much time on it. I'm now really considering proper Photoshop (smile).

I fell in love with black and white photography in high school. At the time, the only way to create your own pictures was to hide in the dark room until you had mastered your light exposure and your hands smelled like fixer. It was magical. And I was apprehensive of digital photography at first, because the computer would be handling the process instead of me. But this technique made me a convert, because I could never do this in a dark room...
2) Create another new adjustment layer, Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Gradient Map. Select the black to white gradient. If the image looks infrared, click the "Reverse" button and it will go back to normal. Click "OK" to apply the gradient map.
3) Now zoom in on the area to be colored so that it fills your screen. Select your brush tool, pick a size, set mode to "normal" and opacity to "100%." Set the foreground color to black. Make sure the gradient map layer is selected and begin to paint over the area to be colored. I like to investigate the brush's "more options" and soften the brush as I reach the outside edges.
4) Once I've finished painting the colored area, I usually see some color beyond the outside edges. Tidy it back up by setting the foreground color to white, then paint the color away once more.
5) Flatten your image, save as a .jpg, and...
6) Sigh a deep sigh of relief that the little boys noticing your daughter's eyes are still more interested in their trucks than her.

I love wallet sized pictures. I think they're the sweetest size to keep, to tuck in a note, and to give away. Although I can print 4x6 prints for around 10 cents a picture- even less on sale- wallets can be as much as 30 to 50 cents a piece. Yikes! Then I discovered how to take one 4x6 picture...

 and turn it into two wallets!
Since my traditional white border would have gotten lost on the white blog, I used gray instead for contrast. I think I like it... and I think I might need to think of other fun border colors (smile).

Our little Billy is now 6 months old, which has prompted a flurry of picture taking. I've been busy designing photo packages for family to celebrate this milestone. (We're halfway through his 1st year... eek!) While searching my computer for different saved ideas and tips, I realized that it would be handy, and quicker, for me to post some links and notes here instead for future reference. Then I thought it might be helpful for you too- so that is what we shall do this week. An idea or editing trick a day, starting with...

the collage! I like the simple banner across the middle of the page, but I'm thinking about branching out into:

::making a polaroid collage from one picture, here.
::adding some amazing distressing to my clean edges, here.
::incorporating some beautiful (free!) digital scrapbook paper, here.

Like most art teachers, I have a hard time throwing away anything. I see magazine holders in cereal boxes, buildings in oatmeal canisters- and a canvas in a ripped paper grocery bag. The last of which is especially fun to hang on the refrigerator for little hands to draw on.

And see that fantastic marker holder? It was a gift from a friend right before Billy was born. If you'd like to make one of your own, directions here. It's been so much fun for drawing, as well as entertaining (putting markers in and out... in and out...). Happy drawing!

                                     

We've been in our home for less than a year: not long enough to tackle big projects but definitely long enough to notice blank walls. And notice them again. And notice them yet again. Am I the only who fixates? (smile) This blank wall in our dining room has been especially noticeable recently.



But not anymore! I found this idea several places on the internet, and we already had the rod so I just had to buy the hanging clips. I love that Isia's artworks are more a part of our home- not just the refrigerator- and that we can change them out so easily. Yea for more places to hang art! Now onto the next blank wall... (smile)

It's been a long month, with our family recycling the same cold over and over again. It's made me anxious for Spring. I finally feel that it's getting closer- the birds are returning and my crocuses are starting to faithfully reveal their little green sprouts. What better way to celebrate the coming of Spring than by sewing some flowers?

We had already invited a little friend over for Valentine's tea before the quest for an Isia tea set began. With a week to go, I found this on Amazon. I was so happy to find this set- highly reviewed, ceramic, and less than $10. The cups are very sturdy and have even survived a few mishaps already. The teapot holds enough for all four cups, and it's perfect for little hands to pour. Since it is ceramic, and the little girl's only two and a half, it's brought out only for tea time (while Mama can be there). But that just seems to add to its charm... (smile)


Posting on Amazon, here. It might be worth keeping an eye on the price: it was less than $10 when I bought it a month ago and now it's up to almost $17 (!). I've seen prices do this before, and they usally go back down again.

We'll take a break in our book-making adventure to eat muffins together, because every creative journey needs fuel. These muffins are delicious: sweet, fluffy... and bran. I never thought I would put fluffy and bran in the same sentence. Usually bran and baking, at least in my experience, equates something dense that I can either eat or use as a door-stop. These are the absolute opposite, and they freeze wonderfully too. That is, if your family doesn't eat them all first.