Easter fun

This past weekend was Easter and we were busy! I had the kids decorating eggs one night. I had found these egg holders in Target and knowing that it's hard to hold onto eggs when you are a little one, I thought they would be perfect!  So I bought 2... They had a blast painting them and then when I pulled out the Faber Castell Pitt pens, well, it turned into a Zendoodle party!

 

I also found this cute stamp set~ it was adorable but didn't work as well as I would have liked.  Maybe foam stamps would have been better.  Too hard for Christopher to use. He did like to paint with the "inks" though.  Here he is drawing over the painted egg.

Here are our finished eggs... one was dropped and cracked.  Good thing I hard boiled them first!!!

I love these little masterpieces and it's going to kill me to throw them out soon.   Fun night for all!
On Easter morning we had a little scavenger hunt that the "Easter Bunny" set up the night before.  Late that night might I add... So, due to that fact, the last clue was totally screwed up!  We could NOT find it!  SO, I had to pull out the baskets and ruin it all or it would have lasted all day.  Oh well.  They had fun and I better double check the clues next year before I hide them (and write down where I hid them!).

Okay, I promised to give away a fun basket of Nikki Sivils goodies! Here is my winner (randomly picked):

Katie said...
Wow! What gorgeous stuff! You just HAVE to get picked! My favorite thing about spring? Definitely sidewalk chalk! There is nothing like playing with your kids and drawing on the concrete!

Katie, email me your address and name and I'll get that little basket of goodies out for you!!!  I love sidewalk chalk too!  Being an art teacher and artist, I go all out with my kids too!  I just bought a new box to draw with alongside my boys!

Thank you to those that follow me and leave sweet comments for me!   I'll share more work soon!

Sharing

Just a little post to share some new work!  I haven't shared in a while and sharing is good.  So, while I'm working on teaching my toddler to share nice, I will do the same here!  I might even have some nice goodie sharing to do at the end of the post!

 First up is this layout for the current "Scrap That Baby" challenge blog prompt.  Sonograms was the theme.  I used one from Christopher as a little bean!  I think this was the one where we found out he was a boy!  I used Prima papers, My Mind's Eye kraft embellishments, Prima flowers and bling, and Thickers letters.  The ribbon was from a recent baby shower I went to.  Recycling! Check out the challenge and link a page up there to be in the running for some Nikki Sivils goodness!

 Cute... that's my sweetheart!  My little Christopher looks adorable in this photo from a year ago.  I created this page as part of my PencilLines DT application!  Haven't shared it yet, so I thought I'd do that now.  The sketch was great fun to use!

 Another cute photo of my boo..  Here I used a Studio Calico kit for the page and it was my first PencilLines sketch challenge page!  Lots of Sass here.  Here's a link to the challenge page.

This is the current Pencil Lines sketch page!  I used lots of Faber-Castell products here and featured this page on their blog for my Technique Tuesday this week.  I love the summery feel and the warmth of the glazes!  I soooo want to go back there where it was warm and sunny.  It's cold and snowing (in late April no less) here! BLAH!!

So, those are some of my most recent projects.  I have a bunch of Nikki Sivils stuff to share too in a minute, but here is a Spring project I made using ALL Prima flowers, papers, and embellishments.  I submitted this for my DT application (trying once again... hmmm hmmm) in hopes that they see how I can use their product.  I absolutely LOVE how this turned out.  I had an old cake dome in which the base broke.  I used my Slice die cutter to make the leaves and also used some Prima felts to create the foliage.  The flowers were sprayed with mists and added Ebling to it. There are 4 layers of design here. 

 Here it is without the dome so you can see the layers better.  This took me forever to do!  I have it sitting on my dining room table now for Spring. 

Okay, so now some Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker pages to share.  I absolutely love their new lines.  This is one using the 'It's Raining, It's Pouring" line:

Mark was about 2 at this time.  He was so cute jumping in puddles.  His brother now does the same at his age.  I need to get some photos of that soon!  I used Faber Castell's Gelatos to make the mists here.

Another page this time using "Max and Mollie" line.  The photos are from our Making Strides for Breast Cancer walk in October this year.  The back of our shirts said, "Fight like a girl". 

I have a couple more, but I save them for another posting this week.  I told you that I'd have a little giveaway at the end.  So, I will give away a little Easter basket full of Nikki stuff!  A couple mini pads of papers, cord brads, flags, and some of her sticker treats along with some candy goodies.  This is open to US participants only unfortunately.  Not sure the candy will be okay to ship overseas.  So, if you post a comment about what you love about Spring, I'll pick a winner on Friday, April 29th!  Thanks for visiting!

XOXO
Jen

Bits and Pieces of Perspective

It's been a long while since I posted.  It's been a busy couple months!  Between school, home, and designing for some wonderful companies, I'm a little crazy! It's bound to slow down soon.  I hope.... Well, at least for the next week, I'll be on "vacation" for Spring Break!!!  YAY!  The kids will be off and so will I.  We plan to play, make stuff, and relax! At least for a few days and then I'm sure I'll be pulling my hair out with trying to figure out what to do with them! 


So, I'm going to share a little of what has been going on in my world lately.  First, I have been featured here and here. The blog, Just Perspective, is one that I found by chance.  The owner of the blog, Sue Mylde, is one of the girls that I design with on Pencillines Sketch blog.  I was asked to create 3 pages with 3 different words that mean something to me and give me perspective.  So, I chose Ability, Communication, and Inscription.   I LOVED doing these pages and the canvas that hasn't been shown yet.  I used Faber Castell products for the color and am proud to say that I came up with a few new ways to use the Gelatos.  One is on this post here at the Faber Castell site.  I created these sprays and I have a new post coming up next Tuesday that shows how to make glazes or paints from them!  It's a lot of fun!

Now on to my work life... I have been so busy with getting work hung up, labeled, teaching, and Open House!  We've had 3 artshows in the last 2 months + one BIG fundraising event called Empty Bowls.  I wrote about that several posts ago.  Well, it was a HUGE success and we raised over $600 for our area Food Bank!  So happy that the kids, families, and staff has such a great time.  I know I did!
Here are some photos of the events and artshows:

 

 

 

 

My son at the Empty Bowls event.  He's standing in front of the kid's bowls!

my bowl for the "celebrity bowl Auction"

My son with his artwork and just a sampling of the over 3000 artworks at the Adventures in the Arts exhibit!

Adventures in the Arts was our district wide Elementary showcase of the arts.  There were over 3000 artworks there from 8 of our Elementary schools!  Music concerts were played for the attendees featuring our student bands, orchestras, and chorus.  I worked a hand's on activity table making Artist Trading Cards with kids who came to the show. It was fun for all!!! LOTS of work, but a well attended and worth it-kind of tired! 

Our Open House was this past Tuesday so here are some photos of the artwork hanging in our halls for the event!

I'm so proud to teach the kids in grades Kindergarten through sixth grade here!  What fabulous work they do!  It makes my job crazy to push them to do this kind of work but LOOK at it!  WOW!  It's worth it!

I'll be posting more work from me later! Have a great week!

YIPPEEE!!!

I'm so excited to announce that I made the Pencil Lines sketch blog DT!!!  This is amazing news as I LOVE this blog and now to be a part of the team is just fabulous!  Here's the announcement:

 

There are so many of my favorite scrappers on here!  I am honored to be joining this team.  Check out their current sketch... I will have my first page on there soon.

Thanks for letting me shout my announcement!

Pencil Lines sketch

I have loved PencilLines blog for some time now.  I haven't really had an opportunity to play along until I was asked to guest design for them back in November of last year.  I am hooked now!  The current sketch is so cute!  I love the banner! Here is the sketch:

 And here is my layout:

Snow Day

Okay the weird little thing is that I did this layout in January!  But it totally looks like the sketch right?  I did it BEFORE I saw this sketch.  Don't believe me, well look at a few posts below!  I think that we are on the same wavelength!  Weird!  I used some scrap papers and made my own sprays using Faber -Castell's Gelatos and water.  I also used the Pitt Artist pens. Anyways... I thought I'd link it here with the sketch to compare and show off my ESP abilities.  I'm working on another layout using the sketch as inspiration so I'll post that when I finish as my OFFICIAL take on this sketch.  I just couldn't help comparing the sketch to this previously created page.  I don't know about you but these cold, snowy, blah days are getting to me!  I wish I was somewhere warm.  My parents keep tormenting me with photos of West Palm Beach and Key West!  They are having a great time and won't be back until the beginning of April.  I'm jealous and sitting here wishing that I had a warm location to jet off to.  It's mid-winter break and I have the winter blues!
Here are a few more pages that I've done lately... when there isn't much else to do except be inside, I get my mojo moving!

 

Family

Just one for me... Love this photo of us from last April in Florida

 Detail of layered part

 

The Wheels Are Turning

This was for the Scrap That Baby DT prompt this month. That is my Christopher with his funny face.

I Love You

This month's prompt at Scrap That Baby AND a layout using Nikki Sivils new "We Are Family" line.

I have some more but I'll save them for a future post... gotta have something to keep this blogging thing going.  Hope you are warm somewhere!

What a Banner Day...

Some exciting news to share... I'm now a print ad. 
 This is not the ad, but the artwork that I made in the ad...

Being asked to be on the DMC (Design Memory Create) DT for Faber-Castell art products, I made a canvas and cardboard banner with their blue mixed media product line.  I used a multitude of techniques on the entire banner and really loved it when I was done.  After sending them photos of it, they decided to buy it from me.  YES!  I'm a paid artist now.  AND... a few weeks ago they asked me to make three more in each of the 3 color packs that are in the line.  So, I made one in yellow, one in red, and one in green. I can't show those just yet as I have to mail them out to them and wait to see if they are going into print too.  I recreated the one in blue to take process shots and to keep for myself!  I might have to recreate the others now because they came out fabulous (if I do say so). I'm so happy that I'm finally a working artist.  I've always thought things happen for a reason and when the approached me I realized that this was that opportunity!  I am so lucky to be a part of this team!  Thank you Faber-Castell!  So, check out their blog with lots of "how-to's" and product examples.  I am over the moon about their mixed media line of products.  The watercolor pencils and Gelato sticks are my absolute favorites!!!!  I won't use any other pencils now!  I also love their artist pens so much that I use them for everything.


It's been a crazy month with work.  I teach art to Kindergarten through 6th graders and let me tell you, it has been a very busy time lately with 4 grade levels making clay projects.  I am constantly spraying clay, rolling clay, fixing clay pieces, loading and unloading the kiln, final glazing, and sorting into classes.  It's exhausting!  I am also starting new projects with 3 other grade levels so it's been hectic to say the least.  BUT it's been inspiring to see what kids come up with when given minimal instructions and shown what to do but allowed to be creative with their own style.  Emerging style as it is, but that's how we learn.  Someone teaches us basics and we experiment until we do something that we are satisfied with.  Then teachers try to push students farther.

 

We are preparing for our Empty Bowls dinner on March 29th at 5:15pm and 6:15pm at LBE.  If you are in the area stop in for $2 a person you get a handmade bowl as a reminder of all the empty bowls in our community that need filling.  You also get some excellent choices of soup, bread, dessert and a drink.  Cheap dinner and help feed the hungry in our area.