Rainy Days and Broken Crayons

We've been in our new home just about three weeks and it's rained every day except one. We've had a few days in a row recently where it's rained all day and was cold. I was hearing the dreaded "B" word way too often. 

"Mom, I'm Bored!" 

The kids still had their school supplies in their backpacks. We hadn't unpacked them in the move. It was just low on my to do list but we dug through them and found all the broken crayons that accumulate through a school year. We had tons of crayons between three kids. I'll kind of be happy when Yip and Yap hit middle school and they won't need crayons anymore. 

Anyway we peeled and broke up some of them, we still have lots more, and sorted them by color in a muffin tin I found at a garage sale. I popped it into a 200 degree oven for a few minutes. It didn't take long, maybe five minutes, to melt them all. 

I had tons of old brushes that I let the kids use to paint with the melted wax. A few boxes out of the recycling bin worked perfectly! Yahoo enjoyed following the circle imprints from a box that held soup cans. It looks very Kandinsky like doesn't it? 

I just love the texture that Yahoo came up with!! 

We did have to remelt the wax a couple of times but it remelted fairly quickly. And it kept Yahoo busy at least for about an hour!! 

I looked at the weather forecast for this week and it doesn't look like the rain is going away any time soon so I better start looking for some new indoor ideas! 

Artsy Fartsy Night

I absolutely LOVE nights when we, as a family, spend lots of creative time together. The older the boys get the more they tend to do their own thing which is great but I miss that time when they were little and excited to do art with their mom. 

But last night I was able to talk my kids into helping me with one of my creative endeavors. I bought myself an anatomy book and am slowly working my way through it in order to better understand body structure to improve my figure drawing skills. I always enjoyed figure drawing but haven't done any serious figure drawing since college. 

And my kids agreed to do a little modeling for me! Hope I can make this a daily habit! The boys were pretty patient and sat still for a FIVE WHOLE MINUTES!! For them that's practically an eternity! Yahoo I think lasted a total of 60 seconds and even then I had to sketch fast, she was always moving! 

Yip even set up my camera in order to work on a stop action film with his superhero figures. He got about half done before the battery died...sorry bud! When (and if) he finishes it I'll be sure to share! 

And Yahoo had her own special artwork to share especially with me this week! Yesterday I painted a Leprechaun for an upcoming painting party. 

But when Yahoo saw it she immediately said,

 "Mommy that painting isn't good!!" 

"Why?" I asked thoroughly puzzled. (I thought I'd done pretty good considering how fast I'd painted it.) 

"You can't see his face!!" 

(enter eye roll and exasperated face of five year old)

"I will show you how to make a GOOD leprechaun!" 

A GOOD Leprechaun

Yes dear. I totally see my mistakes. Thank you so very much for setting me straight!! LOL 

I'm really not ignoring you.....

You probably wonder where I've been. The month of May was SUPER busy for Painting Parties! Yay!! Most exciting, for me, was that I was able to paint with a lot of kids this month!  So here's a not so short run down of my month of May!

 

My month started off with a Sunflower party but this group of ladies really went above and beyond with their flowers to make them so unique.

Then I led my library ladies in painting Sunset (or Moonrise) on the lake. This has become a favorite for many painters and it's especially a good one for first time painters.

My next party in May was a birthday party for a mountain loving gal! Everyone went home with a present. What a lovely group of ladies. And most of them hadn't painted before and they did just marvelous.

But my favorite party for May was painting Pigeons with Preschoolers!! They were awesome!! Really, I could paint with kids all day long. They are just the best!

 

 

Then I painted clovers with my boys 4H Club. I won't lie, it was more chaotic than I was used to and there was no way we could get a group shot, but I think they all had fun!

Whoo....are we done with the month of May yet??? Not quite...

Towards the end of the month I led my first Peacock Party..also the first time I've had to break out the flashlight on my phone to paint by!! We were painting in the hostess' photography studio which has awesome windows that allow in wonderful light. Great for photos, not so good for a late night painting party!

Then a very ambitious three hour party of an old farm truck that went extremely well! Even though we were rushing around the last 20 minutes as we were expecting a hail storm to hit...that never materialized.

The very next night we painted (and drank) wine to celebrate a friend's retirement. Congrats!! This ladies were a blast!! I could paint with them every week.

And FINALLY I ended the month painting seasonal trees with a brand new group (all newbies!) from a nearby town.

Whew!!! That's alot for one month but I loved every bit of it. Thanks to all you lovely painters!!

So I'm really not ignoring my blogging here, it's just that these painting parties have become a real hit and it's keeping me jumping. In fact I'm leaving for one more in a couple hours to round out my month of May. This is sure never something I ever expected to be doing when I became an art teacher 16 years ago but I must say that this is so much fun. I get to meet all kinds of people with all different backgrounds and these painting parties are so flexible!

 

But the greatest reward has been when one of my artists go off independently and paint without me. My greatest goal is to teach myself out of a job. If everyone I meets gains the confidence to create on their own then I've done my job!

Spring break art time

We are on spring break this week and the weather has already been crazy! Warm then cold then warm again. Wind, wind and more wind. Today is WINDY!

 

So we've decided to spend the day doing some artwork. Yahoo playing with a bit of clay.

 

Recognize these? They are plants from the Plants vs. Zombies game app. My boys love playing it, don't all boys like zombies? Hopefully I can convince Yip (it's cardboard so of course Yip built it) that they need to be painted and put in the 4-H fair this summer. 

 

 

Yap even tried his hand at making something from cardboard; Yip enjoyed being the "cardboard teacher" this morning. I can't say that Yap had any success...he made something from cardboard but he wasn't too happy about it. Sometimes I think poor Yap just hasn't found his niche yet. He's a Lego freak and he loves to read but those aren't qualities that shine easily in a tiny town where every one is sports obsessed.

I did get him to sit down and plan out a painting for his summer 4H project.

 



 

He loves all things military and war so he chose to draw out a German shepherd. Hopefully we'll get it painted before spring break is over.

 



 

I've been busy doing some of my own artwork today too. It's kind of hard to tell from the photo but I'm creating a giant stencil (3'x3') from laminated paper that I'm going to use on a red burlap aisle runner for a wedding. We'll see how it goes. The wedding isn't until October, which is good, because it may take me that long to get this to work!!

 

My proudest accomplishment of the day though was getting a belt on my Singer treadle sewing machine!! I stumbled onto a sewing store in Wichita over the weekend that services the treadle sewing machines at Wichita's Cowtown.

 

I've had this machine for over a year but with missing pieces. I'd really like to get it working. I was so excited about getting the belt that I totally forgot to look for a needle or the other missing pieces! But I made sure I grabbed their business card!!!

 

Today never warmed up or stopped blowing but I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have at least one nice day this week where we can get out and enjoy the short spring we are sure to have!

 

Free Weeds!

I found the cutest sign on Pinterest; FREE WEEDS! 

Doesn't every gardener need a sign like this? 

I decided to make my own. I found an old cabinet door sitting in my garage. 

I gave it a couple coats of primer. 

Then a coat of some leftover blue paint. While it was still wet I wiped some of the blue paint off with a rag to try and give it a bit of distressed look. 

Then I free handed some lettering. I could have gotten all fancy but really, it's a sign for a garden. I think it should be kind of rustic. 

I took some sandpaper to it to make it look even a bit more distressed then hung it up on our garden fence. 

I'm thinking it might need a bit more sanding for an even rougher look. 

In our little town quite a few people go walking in the early morning or evening right by our garden so my little sign is sure to get some attention. I'm sure I'll get plenty of laughs from it but really, I'm hoping someone will take my sign serious! Doesn't every gardener wish some passerby would take them up on the offer of taking the free weeds? 

4H Champions!!

I thought I'd take a quick minute and brag on my boys. They did so well on their 4H projects this year! 

Yap received champion electric project. 

and he was chosen to go to the State Fair! Unfortunately he's not old enough, you have to be 9, but this shows that his photo is high quality! 

Yap also received reserve on his painting and a champion on his Lego model (I didn't get a pic of that!)

The boys had woodworking projects too. The judge said they were blue quality but they received reds because we didn't include building plans. Oops! 

I received a couple of ribbons too. A champion on my painting and a reserve on my colored pencil drawing. 

The most exciting award though was definitely Yip's champion on his Ironman! What was even cooler that the judge just LOVED it! She even encouraged him to learn how to weld and carve when he gets older! 

A friend of mine asked me if I had finally recuperated from the week of Fair/Bible School. 

NO!! I haven't! Monday we took off to Wichita for a day at the museum and to visit a friend. Yesterday I spent over an hour in the garden picking veggies that should have been picked last week! Then today I gave a drawing lesson at the town library. 

I'm sure life will eventually slow down....maybe. But I sure couldn't give you an idea when that might be! 

Indianapolis Children's Museum

I can't believe it's been almost a month since we've been back from our visit to Indiana. This summer is really flying by! My sister, Officer, lives in Indianapolis and whenever possible I always let her do the driving around town. She never gets lost and I'm not a patient driver! While we were visiting we met my parents, sister in law, sister and her husband and we all visited the Indianapolis Children's Museum. When I was growing up we visited it often but I haven't been there in quite a while and BOY has it changed! 

This is what you walk by to get to the entrance. How cool is that! 

Then before you even enter the museum there are all sorts of famous "landmarks" outside for the kids to climb on...Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, the Pyramids...

The museum currently has an exhibit about brave children in history that includes, Anne Frank, Ruby Bridges and Ryan White. It was a great exhibit and dang, I was so in to the entire thing I didn't take a single pic of it!! But this chestnut tree was planted in honor of Anne Frank and the tree she saw out her window in the Secret Attic. 

My FAVORITE part of the museum?? The Chilhuly glass sculpture of course!! Never heard of Chihuly?? Do yourself a favor and Google him...awesome artist! 

There is just so much to do at the Indianapolis Children's Museum. We arrived before it opened and I honestly thought we'd be done by lunchtime and have the afternoon to go somewhere else. Nope, we were there for SEVEN HOURS and I don't think we saw everything. 

They have this awesome hands on exhibit about explorers and adventurers that included Egyptology, pirate treasure and the famous Chinese terracotta statues. 

They have an incredible dinosaur exhibit too! Fossils, dress up and (my favorite) a place where you can be a prehistoric artist that discusses how artists decide what a dinosaur probably looked like. They had a section with dinosaur skulls and play putty and the kids (me) could build the skin on the skull. SO COOL! 

I didn't get nearly enough photos of everything at the ICM. I was too busy having fun myself! They had an exhibit on modern Egypt, old toys, the Old Carousel, Transformers, Trains, oh what else? I know I'm forgetting something. The exhibits are constantly changing but one of the greatest things, I think, about the museum is they still have the "oldies but goodies". 

Of all the years my parents have visited the museum, my dad said nobody had sat for this long to watch a particular exhibit. 

What was it?

The Water Clock! We waited at the clock to watch it drain from 12:59-1:00. 

It was the first time I'd ever seen it change! 

AND they STILL have the Indy Car!! I think it's the same car I climbed in when I was a kid! 

My kids and I have been to a LOT of museums but the Indianapolis Children's Museum, no question about it, is the very best for kids! They may have been exhausted by the end of the day but they were never bored! If you are looking for a place to go with your kids this summer the IMC is it! 

(By the way Officer...thanks for driving! You sure made our visit a lot more pleasant! )