Think Kit Day 8- Create

Think Kit topic today: What did you make this year? Whether something personal, like a song or some art, or a work project, share your process, the end result about your creation.

This year I feel like I was very creative, which is actually reflected in the pathetic state of this this. I've cooked and crafted quite a bit this year, more than any other, in fact. I've made mail art, tried new recipes, and created several artsy-fartsy things on my pinterest boards. I started a Smashbook and I made most of my own envelopes and cards in 2013.

I've also written LOTS this year. Last May I started writing a paper journal, in the form of letters, to my son Mac. I write every day. Sometimes it reads like an agenda and other times it's full of my thoughts and ideas and fears and just the typical stuff people journal about, I supposed. Every time I fill a journal, I give it to him. He's 20 years old and....this is a good way for him to get to know his mom as a person rather than his parent. Additionally to writing journals daily, I also write lots and lots of letters each month to my friends and penpals.

And it was funny to me that this was a "creative" topic because I totally felt like I got my Martha Stewart on today. I actually did create an art project today: a Christmas ornament wreath. With a hot glue gun and lots of swearing, I managed to make something I like well enough I actually hung it up in the house!

 

 Maggie

Been busy with art club

Raise your hand if you knew that March was Nation Craft Month? Ha, I didn't think so! Hell, I didn't know either until I read it on Twitter (an aside: I have become a total twitter freak in the last few months and I tweet all the time!!!!). Keeping that in mind and because I have been a total slacker with the art club, I decided to make a project a week during the month of March.

I've been slacking because the art club stipend was cut in half from last year. So I've been working with kids one on one and in small groups, on library time, so I didn't have to invest so much of my own time for such little money. But in honor of Nation Craft Month, I've really stepped up to the crafting/ art club plate.

So far this month we made a banner for students to hang in their rooms since they live on the campus. It's cool because it has a paper floret. But if you decide to make them, I have 3 words for you: Hot Glue Gun. Hot glue gun the entire thing together.

We also made duct tape wallets, by favorite standby art project. Easy to do and all the kids- guys and girls- like them. And duct tape now comes in so many fun patterns and colors, it's hard to resist!

Yesterday we made 3-D flowers to hang in their rooms, sort of an Easter/ spring thing.  Actually, I totally cheated because I found, on Pinterest of course, directions to make 3D snowflakes. I just had the kids use pastel papers and rung with pink ribbons and added a green stem and viola, it became a flower instead!

Imagine this in pastel. Looks like  a flower, eh????

 Next week I'll get totally crazy and make chalk/ magnetic boards. I spray painted the cookie sheets with chalk board paint and then the kids will decorate those and also make a few magnets. (they aren't allowed push pins for obvious reasons in a school I've endearingly nicknamed Alcatraz).

The magnets

The chalk board cookie sheets

 


Go get your Craft on while there's still March left!

Maggie

Not enough time to craft

Lilith and I took an Archiver's class tonight and it was fun. First I love to hang with Lilith and visit and I love to take Archiver's classes so it combined 2 of my favorite things! We had fun girl time and a good supper, too. Yeah today!

We made a scrapbook called the Doodlebug Photo Album. It's really cool, and very pretty. However, it was the first night for the workshop and that's usually when they work out the kinks. It was a two hour workshops to make a 15 page album. No freaking way was that gonna work.

We got all our paper cut and the pages in the right order, and the cover and first three pages done. We got the book bound and that was it in 2 hours. They sent all the supplies home with us so we can finish on our own. I was so bummed because my plan was to finish the album and put pictures in it- which I had even remembered to bring with me. But no.....!

I really hate that but what could I do? I wish they would give enough time for everyone to finish the whole there. We weren't slow, I didn't think. Here's a link if you want to see it! And when I get mine done, I'll post a picture! And all I can say is that I'm really thankful that there was no heat embossing.

Mags

Crocheting post edit found here

I want to say I hate using Blogger in Microsoft Explorer. I've figured out that 99% of the time I do, there's some weird error.

I wrote the prayer shawl post on Sunday, saved it, then added a paragraph later, and hit publish and today as I re-read it, I discover the added paragraph is gone. So:

Some of the kids wanted to help but had never crocheted before and some has just started learning. This became... an issue. All of the kids had their hearts in the right places but some of them didn't have the crocheting talent to back it up. We had some yarn projects that were... challenging. So God Bless Daddy-O and Curly who "fixed" a bunch: gave them edges, ripped out knots, made shawls longer or wider, and in a couple situations just... um. sorta, maybe took out some stitches and then redid them a bit smoother. This project had 2 angels who made ALL the blankets, shawls, and lap robes able to be used. AND, they each made their own shawls to contribute because I was afraid we wouldn't have enough and the project became HUGE so I didn't want to let anyone down. The ones they made were so pretty, too! (and I have to admit: I can't knit nor crochet so Daddy-O made one for me to contribute!) Thank you Dad and Curly because there is no way I coordinated this alone!

That is the VERY IMPORTANT missing paragraph that stupid Explorer ate!
Mags

Crocheting up a storm

(above is just a partial pile!)

So a few weeks ago I did an art club project with my students that turned into a huge THING. It was supposed to just be a yarn project and a community service project all at once and I was supposed to be behind the scenes and then.... well..... wow.

Daddy-O and Curly make prayer shawls for the prayer shawl ministry at Daddy-O's church (along with other members of the congregation). I have a whole bunch of students at school who can crochet. So I brought prayer shawl samples to school and some patterns, explained the prayer shawl concept, and recruited about 15 kids. I gave them all yarn and 2 weeks to finish. I told them that anyone who made a shawl, a baby blanket, or lap robe would be invited to come to church with me to donate them.

To keep the kids motivated, we meet in the campus chapel to crochet together. They came to the art club space after school and crochet. They crocheted in the library, and of course they could work on their projects in their dorm rooms. While the making and creating is going on with the students and me, there were behind the scenes happening.

Daddy-O told the minister at church and he got together with the woman who coordinates all the prayer shawl donations (who I called to see if she would care if my students made some and then donated them if we had any) and decided to do a special service dedicated to our students who made the yarn projects.

Then on campus, one of the women in the marketing department decided to make the project a the feature project to raise money for our organization. Then the development office sent literature to the church and it became Alcatraz Sunday

Holy Moly!

End count: We had 4 adult volunteers and 14 kids make a total of 24 prayer shawls, baby blankets, and lap robes to donate to the church.

Some of the kids wanted to help but had never crocheted before and some has just started learning. This became... an issue. All of the kids had their hearts in the right places but some of them didn't have the crocheting talent to back it up. We had some yarn projects that were... challenging. So God Bless Daddy-O and Curly who "fixed" a bunch: gave them edges, ripped out knots, made shawls longer or wider, and in a couple situations just... um. sorta, maybe took out some stitches and then redid them a bit smoother. This project had 2 angels who made ALL the blankets, shawls, and lap robes able to be used. AND, they each made their own shawls to contribute because I was afraid we wouldn't have enough and the project became HUGE so I didn't want to let anyone down. The ones they made were so pretty, too! (and I have to admit: I can't knit nor crochet so Daddy-O made one for me to contribute!) Thank you Dad and Curly because there is no way I coordinated this alone! (edited post- this paragraph added later)

Then today I, along with 3 other staff, took 10 of the kids to church where the entire congregation recognized the students. Then the minster blessed the shawls. One of my students (she knew in advance) was asked to say a prayer and did. Two others presented 2 shawls the kids made to a couple in need. An administrator from our facility spoke as part of the service and then the offering for that day was donated to our facility! Wow. Just wow.

I took all the kids out to lunch to celebrate their success. What started as a community service project, a spiritual journey for some, a way to give of themselves and to give back to those in need, to use their many blessings, turned into this wonderful reward for them, and so many others. What a wonderful blessing that day!

Those kids just rock my world more than they will ever know, and they don't know how much they gave to others.

Blessings,
Mags

What's new in the world of art?

After Christmas break we're back at school and I'm ready to get the Art Club going and I know the kids are because they ask me every day "when's art club?" I've sort of put them off because I've been trying to get a meeting with my principal to see how much money I have left in my budget. I finally said 'screw it' and planned a bunch of stuff and "cc-ed" him on the email and figure if there's no money to spend, he'll let me know. Right?

In this day and age where art programs are cut (ours was hence an ART CLUB) and music is cut and hell, at a school in Ohio lunch was cut, I'm not complaining but it would be nice to know if I have any money or if I need to be... more creative. I know we have a grant but it requires matching funds. I know we have a second grant that can be the 1st grants matching funds but I've yet to see any of these numbers. I just keep on spending. Guess he'll stop me if I blow it?

So the art club agenda:

• Duct tape wallets- can be for guys or girls.
• Finger paint replicas of Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night, which is one of my favorite activities to do with kids (this is my after school tomorrow idea)
  
• use Shrinky-Dinks to make jewelry
• jewelry making with beading, felting and metal working
• 'professional' looking valentines (think card workshop from Archiver's type of stuff)
• Necktie Purses
• paperbag scrapbooks
• make trivet coasters
• pottery- using the wheel, paint, the kiln, etc...
• design a bulletin board
  

The above are things I want to do before spring break. I think it's all doable. I'm able to do everything on the list except 2 and the pottery and jewelry making will require a guest speaker which is fun for the kids. They need to be exposed to others and it's always nice to have someone else come do the work!

One thing I am doing is pulling 4 boys who are "artists" and giving them a special project. I'm going to give them each a ceiling tile and then see if they can reproduce a famous book cover on it. If this is successful, then they will go in the ceiling of the library and it can be an ongoing project. (I picked 4 boys who've shown some extra talent and want to really push them to see how well they can do...)

If I get ambitious I'm thinking I might show the kids how to make a quilt square. Then they can either make a pillow or a purse out of them. OR!!!!!!!!!!!! I could see if they would make a quilt square, donate the square back to the school and then we could make a quilt (lap, full or even a wall hanging) and then give it to a charity or donate it silent auction style to raise MORE money for the art club... I'm not sure if I'm ready to bite that off, though.

So, I'm getting my 'art' back on so all should be fun. I can't wait to see what creations the kids come up with! I'll be posting pictures!

Maggie

A holiday story of Polyurethane

I bought a spray can of Polyurethane to spray on rocks that kids painted in art club last week. I've never used such a product before. It comes in a can like spray paint, an aerosol can.

I read the back of the can and it says to remove the safety seal before spraying. I take off the lid and see there's a red dot on the nozzle area so I thought that was the safety thing. In trying to take that off, I sprayed myself: my sleeve and my hand and my fingers. Shit. Well, upon further inspection, the red dot is where the Polyurethane comes out and the safety seal was the plastic wrap on the can which I had to take off to even read the instructions. Go figure.

I sprayed the rocks and then went to the lady's room to wash my hands. I used hot water and soap and dried my hands. My hands were a little tacky and a little shiny but I didn't think anything about it.

When I got to my desk, I worked on my computer for about 20 minutes and when a student came in to hand me a book, I reached out to take it from him and... wait for it... the mouse stuck to my hand. And not just stuck and then plunk to the desk but STUCK to the point where I had to PEEL it from my hand and left sticky residue and skin on the MOUSE!! Holy shit, I polyurethaned the mouse to my HAND!!!!

That was not good.

I went to see our janitor and she gave me a bottle of chemical that we use to wash a dry erase board. So I sprayed it on my hand and it dried and my hand was no longer sticky or tacky BUT it burned like hell. I practically ran to the bathroom and washed my hands with water as hot as I could stand it and more soap. I washed and scrubbed.

When I was done, my hand was white. I mean, really white like notebook paper. Bloodless, all Edward Cullen like.

I put on hand lotion and pretty soon my flesh color came back but it was weird. I was also sans- polyurethane, and I remembered to clean my mouse, too.

Oh.... the rocks looked awesome.

Reason #243 why I shouldn't be allowed to do art projects,
Maggie

Making Christmas cards

For art club this week- on Wednesday, the kids and I are going to make Christmas cards. Here are three samples. I was inspired by Achiever's, with all their make and take freebies, and their card workshops. So I came up with these three ideas and we made these examples.

Then last night I cut all the paper to the correct size after shopping for all the supplies. Daddy-O cut out the shiny trees, the snow flakes and the J-O-Y letters on his Cricut. Then on Wednesday night the kids will rotate in stations and make these cards.

I'm pretty proud of it how they came out! I hope the kids' are as happy with theirs as I am mine- I'll show their pix, too!

Knifty Knitting

Today was a good activity day at school. We had our first Art and Lecture series speaker of the 2011-2012 school year- Curley!!!

She talked to the kids about knitting, crocheting and other types of yarn work. She showed them examples and THEN she demonstrated how to knit on a loom. All of the kids in attendance had a chance to make a sock hat or a scarf. Here are looms:


We had 2 kids make scarves and 6 make hats; thanks to my cousin R, Daddy-O and Curley for all their extra yarn and spare looms so there was enough to go around! Of course they didn't have time to finish their projects today so they can come in and work after school every day until their all done. I'm going to take pictures and will show their work when everyone is finished, next week of course!

It was a really nice group of kids; I couldn't have hand picked a better bunch. AND we had 2 girls and all the rest were boys! For knitting! How cool is that?

Now they all want to make blankets. And two boys asked me if Curley would please come back and teach them how to crochet an afghan.

She was a huge hit (they all thought she was my mom!) and want her to help with art club!

I try and hold a luncheon each month and have a speaker come in and talk to the kids while they eat and then the speaker lets the kids do something "artsy". Last school year we had jewelry making, cake decorating and card making. I plan on expanding this year- we have a potter coming in, and a professional artist who will teach something with watercolor (I have a visual image of something like this happening:)


Should be a fun year! I like it when a plan comes together! Who knows what next month will bring!?

Maggie

10- Take a scrapbook class

I took a scrapbook class, quite by accident. And for free. Yes, free.

This last weekend, Archiver's, a scrapbook chain store, was hosting a free 'make & take' project day. I happened to stumble in the store that day and had forgotten that was going on. Forgotten, I say because I get their online newsletters and knew it was scheduled but it had slipped my mind.

I was looking for a Mother's Day gift for Daddy-O (hey, he's the only parent I have left and often has to take on the role of mom AND dad to me, even though I'm almost 40 yrs old.) and the clerk asked if I wanted to do the 'make & take' of the day. Well, heck yeah I did.

Only ITSam with was with me. And it was to take an hour. And he had just spent 40 minutes waiting for me at Lane Bryant while I tried on pants. Which was not pretty.

But he said for me to go ahead and he would watch.

And he ended up helping!!!

It was cool. I got to use all their papers and supplies. I punched stuff out and got to play with some of the scrapbook/ card making toys. I used ribbon and buttons to make a flower, which I had never done before. It was pretty cool.

Everything we did was standard. What I mean is that every single person who came in was given the same materials and showed how to use the same tools and shown the template and then we could arrange it any way we wanted. It was actually 2 scrapbook pages- two completely different styles of scrapbooking. And one came with a sleeve protector.

It was pretty easy and fun to do.

I apologize in advance for my crappy pictures. I'm having camera issues (gee, how nice, just in time for graduation, damn it.) so I can't do lighting for crap (with or without the flash or plastic cover. It really seems to be a camera issue rather than a user one this time). But here's an attempt to show what I did.

Here is one page. This is a clear plastic sleeve with 6 slots. I filled 2 of them with scrapped projects. You can see one is black and the other is the green one. In the remaining 4 slots, I'll slide in pictures. In the one slot you can see little flowers and butterflies- those are to be adhered to the 4 pictures I use to tie it all together. I'm also supposed to put a picture in the yellow circle (the yellow circle on the green)

Here's a close up of the decoration panel. I have no idea what this is called. I was probably told but I don't remember.

Here's a close up of the black panel.

Here's the ribbon and button flower Sam made for me. I was having no luck with sticky stuff and ribbon. I was sticking everywhere but to the ribbon and it was nothing like a flower shape, either.

Here's a picture of a 3D butterfly that I "distressed" the edges to give it 'depth.'

Another 3D butterfly, that's dimensional (how is it 3D and dimensional, I want to know...?), without being distressed.

And finally, here's the other page, in finished form! It's the more traditional scrapbook style page think of when they think of scrapbooking. I'll drop in either 2 small picture on the green or one large one. And in the thing that looks like a piece of film across the bottom? I can add either small pictures or embellishments in those spots.

Pretty cool, eh? Don't I look talented?

And it was all free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Almost 40 and fabulous,
Maggie

So I did learn a new craft after all!

In my list of 40 things to do before I turn 40 I said I wanted to learn a new craft. I tried a knitting class, and albeit I went one time, I was REALLY not successful! However, yesterday I organized a program in our school library on card making.

When I planned this event it never dawned on me that I could use it as a 40 Before 40 item!

I had a woman from the community who is a card maker and does some beautiful work be my guest speaker. She volunteered to come in during our 90 minute lunch period and give a brief presentation about card making and then she would let the audience members each make a card.

She and I met in advance and planned that we would have 8-10 kids with about 3-4 chaperons. I got a list of supplies, which I bought and/or got donated. I provided lunch. The kids had to sign up ahead of time and write a paragraph about why they should be picked to participate.

In the end we had a group of 6 people in attendance. The presenter gave her little Power Point about card making, the history and her own interest. Then we all got to make cards.

One thing she did that was really cool was that she made several templates. She cut all the paper in advance (due to time constraints) and bagged it up into mini kits. Each person was able to choose a kit and then she went through the creative process. It was pretty awesome! Though the kids didn't have a chance to actually use the Cricut she brought, she did a small demonstration with it. (And we have an arts & crafts & hobby room here on campus and if the kids have good behavior, they're allowed to go there after school and weekends. There's a Cricut in that space so the kids got see what it could do during the program AND will have access to one, too!)

It was a fun experience. While I will never become a 'card maker' (that's Daddy-O's specialty) it was fun to do. I can see why it's awesomely fun to do as a group, too. I will occasionally make a card or two, in the future, I'm sure.

Here are some samples of the work the kids made:

We even made our own envelops!

This 'Aloha' one is the card I made!

Maggie

34. Try to learn a craft I've never done before

I couldn't cast on. I spent about 40 minutes of the class trying to cast on. Thus began my knitting class.

Yes, I took only one class and I'm not saying I won't try it again, but my list says "try" something. I did try it, at least once.

I'm not sure I even like it.

There's an awesome young woman who works at my local coffeeshop who hosts a free knitting class at said coffeeshop every Wednesday night. A couple weeks ago, Princess and I went.

We had some needles (big ones since everyone I know says those are easiest to learn on) and some practice yarn.

I also want to say this woman is a great teacher. She was patient and gave good explanations. She used analogies which I need. She showed me several times from different angles how to cast on. (For those of you who don't knit, this means gets some stitches on the needles to actually begin the project.) I want to make it clear this was not a "teacher" issue. It was really the student.

While Princess practically had half a blanket done I had about 6 stitches on my needles. I couldn't get my fingers and the yarn and the needles all coordinated together. I would loop in the wrong spot or drop something and end up with a knot-- somehow. None of us were sure how. I started over about 86 times. For some reason I just couldn't get it. We even tried different sized needles. It just wasn't working for me.

I couldn't even cast on let alone pearl or knit anything. (you know, "knit one, pearl two")

This is the most I managed to get done. Then the next three stitches I did were all wrong and we had to take it all off.

I tried to learn a craft I've never done before. I like the teacher so I'll probably go back at least once, maybe twice. I have hope. I have no knitting project but I have hope.

Thought I may never get a scarf or a blanket out of this craft, there were three positives: I did like drinking coffee, spending time with Princess, and getting to know K, the teacher.

Maggie