Literary Dinnerware

DD14 has embarked on a new creative endeavour: creating place settings of literary dinnerware. Her first place setting centers on The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis. This was a trial run to see how the markers, baking, and washing in the dishwasher would work out -- and everything held up quite well!

Pretty cool, eh? The possibilities are endles :)


She wants to know if you think anyone would want to buy them!

Necklace Branch and Fabric Art

Recently, DD14 had a wave of creativity. She created a lovely necklace and earring holder with a simple tree branch in a (weighted) mason jar base. Then she raided our basement boxes of frames, fabric, and mirrors and created a funky arrangement as a backdrop for her branch. (She simply framed some of the fabric.)

Cool, eh?

Fabric Fun

The other day, DD10 had a friend over and they wanted to do some art. Because she noticed me using swatches of fabric, she thought it would be fun to apply the strips of fabric we have on hand to little canvas boards. 


Here is her pretty product:

And here is her friend's work:

Can you think of anything else we might create with the tons of strips of fabric we have? 

Lego Place Cards

Every once in a while my 13yo DS comes up with a brilliant idea. The other day it was these Lego place cards fashioned to resemble each member of our family, as well as our guest. 

I have no hair ;) I also wear black pants a lot -- and one of my favourite colours to wear is blue.

DH has a bit of hair with a goatee -- and his principal eyebrows and suit :)

Self-portrait.

She was wearing a strapless dress the day he made the figures. He didn't have any dreadlocks, so hair that most resembled her natural look had to suffice. 

Our guest loves to participate in war re-enactments (military helmet) and his nickname around here is "Wolfie."

No glasses -- but right hair. She also likes to dress in all the same colour. 

Little Bro likes wearing his hat backwards and has clothes similar to these. 

Cute, eh?!


Do you know of any Lego creations that might inspire my boy? 

Just the Two of Us

Today found just DD9 and me home alone together. It was a perfect opportunity for us to spend some one-on-one time together. We agreed that doing art together would be fun, but she said she wanted me to actually teach her how to do something instead of her just playing with paint and stuff. Actually, I think it was a ploy to have me more engaged with her instead of us each just doing our own things -- which often means I'm in my own little world separate from her. (She's a smart cookie. Me teaching her would mean I'd really be paying attention to her. I'm glad I caught on!) So we did a quick search of Kathy Barbro's Art Projects for Kids and decided to try a cat painting. There were step-by-step instructions, so I showed DD9 how to do each step (and explained how I would have written the instructions a bit differently ;) 


Here she is comparing her drawing to the example -- and she was quite pleased with her work!

Here is her finished piece, which I think is awesome! I like it better than mine because it has more character.

And here is mine. (More angry eyes! What's up with that?!?!?)

DD9 had also  talked about making lollipop flowers, and her dad had suggested painting a lollipop garden -- so that's what we did next. We started by painting a sky and grass background, then painting circular "blobs" on which we stamped hand-made, plasticine lollipops. We got the idea for the  modeling clay stamps from a pinterest post -- quite brilliant, I think! Here's my lollipop stamp:

Here are our gardens before we stamped them with the lollipops:

And these are our finished gardens:

Baking/cooking was also high on her list of things she'd like to do, so we made chewy granola bars for an afternoon snack -- but I forgot to take a picture of them. Trust me -- they were yummy! 


For supper, she had a real hankering for mushroom soup. I didn't think we had any mushrooms, but she rummaged around in the fridge and found some! She had lots of ideas about how to go about making the soup -- so that's what we did! We sauteed mushrooms, onions, and garlic, added vegetable broth and almond milk (because she wanted it to be creamy) and then blended it a bit with a hand blender (because she wanted it to be chunky, but not too chunky ;) A dash of salt, and -- voila! 

It was DELICIOUS! 

 I think DD9's love tank was sufficiently topped up today. My undivided attention and words of affirmation made her glow. And I know I sure enjoyed our time together. 


What says "love" to your family members?

Clone*Mart

Clone*Mart -- Where Clones Buy Stuff


DS13, Lego lover that he is, created "Clone*Mart -- Where Clones Buy Stuff" (to be read with a British accent):

This is the dude that buys EVERYTHING. "Every store has one." The guy with the bag is buying soap. Just soap.

Silver mannequin. 

Personally, I'm rather glad there's no Clone*Mart in my neighbourhood! But I'm grateful DS13 is using his imagination and taking delight in his creations.


Not to be outdone, after I posted this, DS5 created his own "store" -- complete with a pool that has bombs in it. Nice.

Notice the body parts floating in the bomb-embedded pool. Apparently someone blew up. 

Boy brains. I don't understand them :{


I'm not liking the violent imagery -- but I AM enjoying the peaceful play in which my boys are engaging together! 

Art in the Everyday

As I glower at this . . .

I am grateful for THIS . . .

And this --  DD13 who wanted to be creative in the kitchen and offered to make supper . . .

Apparently it was "the best cheese sauce and pasta EVER!"

Wondering again -- how do you find time for art in the everyday?

Family Day Art -- Second Annual

This past Monday, our country celebrated Family Day -- and for the second year in a row, we made memories by creating a collaborative piece of art. We did some simple print-making, and I am quite pleased with the results :)

I used this as a sample to demonstrate what we would be doing:

We each started with a flat piece of styrofoam (cut from grocery store meat trays) and a pen. I added the tape tabs so that the "printing plates" were easier to hold:

Having each selected a colour of acrylic paint, we set out designing our prints -- together this time. (Last year we worked in shifts, which kind of defeated the family togetherness part :{ ) Isn't it awesome how engaged everyone is?!?!?!

Once we were satisfied with our designs, we used a sponge roller to apply a coat of paint to the styrofoam and lay it on a piece of white card stock. Voila! Here is DS4's "monster":

DS12's space galaxy:

DD8's twin deers (she used a stencil):

DD13's  contemplation of life -- demonstrating excellent mirror-writing skills:

DH's symbolic representation of our children, whose nicknames are Moonbeam, Sunshine, Starlight, and Fireglow, and the cross, representing the Light of the world:

And my random flower (I also used a stencil):

DH picked up the perfect frame for our project (I'm so thankful I had the foresight to make sure everyone oriented their prints the same way!!!):

Pretty cool, eh????? Now it graces the kitchen wall along with last year's piece:

The whole project took just a few minutes to create (a good thing, since some people were just humouring dear ol' mom ;) -- but as I mentioned, I'm very pleased with the results!

Have you done any simple -- or not so simple -- projects together as a family? How did they turn out? Do you have any great ideas for our 3RD annual Family Day Art Project????? (I left this one to the last minute -- I'd like to be better prepared next year!)