Found Heart

My littlest likes to paint, and I've been trying to teach him the pattern: water, paint, paper...water, paint, paper. He getting it down, and the water colors are surviving longer without turning to brown.  But every two year old forgets now and then, and one such moment resulted in the tiny green heart in the yellow paint above, which I caught for Guest Heart Thursday.

2 Q THURS/ Aloha Friday

Every now and then I participate in Aloha Friday, where I ask a simple question for you to answer (nothing that requires a lengthy response) and Two Question Thursday (same idea...only TWO questions).  If you'ld like to, comment with an answer to the questions below:

My dad has Parkinsons, and the shaking has gotten so bad that he can't even read anymore...even with a book-stand it's just too hard.  Since he's always been an avid reader, I wanted to get him some books on tape.  Maybe you all can help me with suggestions:

• Do you know of any good books in the following genres:  westerns, historical fiction, mystery, suspense, documentary? 
• What is your favorite way to enjoy a good book:  regular paper book, audio book, kindle or other type of reader?

Please leave your answer in a comment below.  Thanks!

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And here's a follow-up on last weeks question.  I asked whether people got the joke on my "I Drank the Water" maternity shirt (pictured left).  Thanks everyone who answered!  For those who were baffled, I promised I'd share what it means.  At several places I've lived or worked, when several women got pregnant they would say "There must be something in the water"  or   "Don't drink the water!"  (as if drinking the water might get you pregnant).  So,  I made this shirt with those comments in mind.

If you have a blog and would like to post your own questions you can leave your link on the linkys at 2 Questions Thursday and An Island Life.

I Was Featured!

My post about my kids artsy science experiment  was featured on this week's Tot Tuesday at My Delicious Ambiguity! How cool!

Its a fun experiment that makes colors move in a bowl of milk when dish soap is added.

Here was the artsy results:

When Art Meets Science

I just love when art meets science. Last month we got to introduce our kids to one of my favorite artsy science experiments.

It's fun and fairly simple. You will need:

• A shallow pan or bowl
• Milk
• Food coloring
• Dish soap

Fill the pan with milk. Drop several drops of different colored food coloring in different places in the milk. Then, squirt a small drop of dish soap in the middle of the dish soap. The colors will start to swirl as the dish soap reacts to the protein in the milk.  Like this...

Isn't that cool!  Of course, if you want to keep this "artwork" to hang on your wall then you'll have to take some pictures like we did.  I love how this also caught the reflection of the lights above our table.  Pretty cool!

LESSON IN COLORS
Use red, yellow, and blue food coloring to help teach younger children what colors are created when those colors mix.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND IT
I found this description of what causes the colors to swirl on About.com:

"The detergent lowers the surface tension of the liquid so that the food coloring is free to flow throughout the milk. The detergent reacts with the protein in the milk, altering the shape of those molecules and setting them in motion."

You can read the whole description at the bottom of About.com's Magic Colored Milk Science Project Page.

This post is participating in the following memes, where you can find
a lot of other creative ideas for kids!

 



Little Masterpieces

Get Crafty

Throwback Thursday

Aloha Friday - Christmas Carols

Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday, where I ask a simple question for you to answer in the comments (if you want to).

I love Christmas music...not only does it help put me in the spirit, but the words of so many Christmas carols are packed with such profound meaning.

So my question today is...

• Tell me one of your favorite lines from a Christmas song?

Please leave your answer in a comment below. 

And here's mine (or one of my favorites):

How silently, how silently,

The wondrous gift is giv'n!

So God imparts to human hearts

The blessings of His heav'n.

(From Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.)

If you have a blog and would like to post your own question you can leave your link at An Island Life.

Redness Day

I thought for Redness Day I'd share a few of my favorite very RED ornaments I sell in my shop.






  I'd love it if you'ld share your thoughts on them!

(And yes, those are my kiddos in that last one.) 

Merry Christmas!


ALSO LINKING UP WITH

Purty Trees and TreasuresSumo's Sweet StuffFinding FabulousWho's Got Glam

Two Question Thursday/Aloha Friday

Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday. Every Friday (well, ok, almost every Friday) I ask a simple question for you to answer--nothing that requires a lengthy response.    I'm combining this with Two Question Thursday (same idea...only TWO questions).  If you'ld like to, comment with an answer to one or both of the questions below:

• Do you go out shopping on black friday?  Or stay home?
• If you do plant to go out shopping, is there a certain item that's the main reason you're going?  And if so, how did you find out about it?    

I'll be staying in, promoting my own Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale!

If you have a blog and would like to post your own questions you can leave your link on the appropriate day at the linkys at 2 Questions Thursday and An Island Life.

Magic Marker Monday

I hadn't shown off my kids art here in quite a while....so long in fact that one or two pieces just won't do.  They just brought home a bunch of really neat fall art from school, so I had to share the whole fridge-full!

Love all those pumpkins and leaves and bright colors!

 Here's a close up of the scarecrow my 7 year old did.

 

And heres some fun farm animals!  My seven year old made the chicken, and was really proud of the shading he did (and with good reason, I think!).  The pig is by my 6 year old.  Notice the popsicle sticks for the fence!  He's always loved using three dimensional stuff.  For the longest time he had no interest in drawing, but if you brought out dried spaghetti or yarn he loved to make pictures with those.  Since Kindergarten he's started to enjoy drawing more, but those popsicle sticks make me smile because that's just so HIM. 

That's actually only HALF the art on my fridge.   I'll share the rest soon!

Music That Moves Me

A funny thing happened last week.  The blogger over at Xmas dolly invited me to join in on her meme, Monday Music Moves me, which happened to have a country theme.  The first thing I thought of was this funny Texas song that I had just been waiting for an excuse to share on my other blog, Texifornia.  But in stead of clicking on Texifornia when I posted it, I clicked on Scribbleprints, and accidentlally posted it here...I even copied the link and shared it on the meme before I realized I'd put it in the wrong place.  So I went back and fixed things, and deleted it here, but because the original link on Monday Music Meme could only be taken down by the blogger, people were coming here looking for it for a while before it was taken down.

That's all taken care of, but it got me thinking of some beautiful country songs I love that I WOULD like to share with you all here.  So, I'm going to do a Music Post here after all.

The first song I'd like to share is "You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All" sung by Alison Krauss.  I'm a bit of a country fan.  My husband is NOT.  But, regardless, when we were dating every time this song came on the radio I'd have to stop whatever I was doing and listen to it, because it made me think of him.




Though it isn't one I relate to as much as the first, I love the mournful beauty of the next song by Trisha Yearwood.

If you'ld like to see what other bloggers have picked to feature, you can find more Country Music posts here...

Free Fall Printable Coloring Pages

Time to remind everyone about the fun free fall coloring page I have to offer! Now doesn't that look fun to color? And they aren't just for kids! Grown-ups can have fun coloring too!

I also have one sectioned into smaller cut-apart boxes which would be fun for a classroom activity, party favors, trick-or-treat bags, or for a fun activity to keep the kids busy while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner.

Click on leaf for larger version to download.
(For non-commercial, personal use only.)

Here's how to turn this into a fun favor (or even something to give out to Trick-or-Treaters):

1. Click on the image above for a larger, printable version. 
2. Right click and save it on your computer.
3. Print it.
   
4. Cut out along the dotted lines.
5. Take a couple crayons and a small rubber band (like the little ones used for hair-braids), then wrap each coloring paper you just cut out around the crayons and secure with the rubber band.  
6. ALTERNATIVE IDEA:  Follow steps 1 - 4, but in stead of rolling it around crayons, cut out cardboard slightly larger than the picture (old cereal boxes work good for this), and using a glue stick glue a single leaf picture on the  front.  This gives the kiddos a solid surface to draw on.  Put these in a plastic or cello wrap baggie with crayons OR use a hole punch to make a hole, tie a ribbon to it, and tie a crayon or colored pencil on the other end. 
   

Wha-la! A fun party favor that costs next to nothing!

These are just a couple of the coloring pages you can print for free from my site. See more here.

And here's some examples of them colored by my readers...

 Beeb colored the following.  She didn't have crayons ready, so she used a 

purple sharpie and a pink hi-lighter to make her Psychedelic Leaves. 

Petra's son colored this leaf.  Love it!

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Thanks to the following blogs that let me link this post up in their linky parties!












Fabulous Friday
It's All About Fall
Autumn Inspired Art
Categorically Crafting 4 Fall


More Fall Blog Events

Apples

I've been talking a lot about my new water color Apple design lately...well, here's some other apples I did a long time ago in a very different style:

I found this out in the garage last month...an oil pastel drawing I made long before kids, and not long before I was married, graduated college, and started teaching.  Yeah, I used to teach...briefly.  After college I subbed for a year and then got a full time position teaching 7th grade English.  I only lasted 5 weeks!   Every day I had been loosing ground in the classroom and loosing sleep at home, until the stress permeated every area of my life.  I had to leave, though was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life (I had wanted to teach since 7th grade--it's hard to leave behind a dream).

So, everyone, as school starts this month, please  consider sending up a prayer for both our teachers and students as they start the school year. 

ABOUT THE ARTWORK:
This was done with oil pastels.  I always loved how the apples on this came out, but disliked how the basket came out.  The bowl the apples were in (the real ones that inspired this) was red...I decided to try green for more contrast.  Didn't like how that looked so I somewhat unsuccessfully tried to cover the green with brown. All that reworking left it looking a little "meh" (IMHO). 

Then I was just starting to dabble in graphical programs.  Now, I think I might see what I can do with the on the computer to clean it up.   Is that cheating?  Or just using new tools to make art?





I'm linking up at...  



Ruby Tuesday and Redness Day and Take a Look Tuesday 

Aloha Friday - How About Them Apples

Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday! Every Friday (well, ok, almost every Friday) I ask a simple question--nothing that requires a lengthy response. 

OK...not long ago I came out with a new apple design....which I did some "teacher" stuff with, like the shirt below...

Which illicited the following comment from one of my followers:

"I really love it!! That said, I'm so sick of traditional crafts with apples (as teacher gifts), the shirt makes me wince a little."

Which I wasn't hurt or offended by at all...in fact, I agree a little.  It's overused...and when I taught I never really understood the "apple/teacher" connection (I know, I know..."an apple for the teacher"...but still).  

So here's my questions (ok...I'm supposed to just ask one, so pick whichever one you want, but if you want to answer all of them that's cool, too):

Do you like the apple symbol for teaching?  Or are you bored of it?  What do you think would make a better teacher/education symbol?  And, any suggestions for other text or quotes I could put with my apple?

Please leave your answer in a comment below.  And, if you have a blog and would like to post your own question you can leave your link at An Island Life.

Aloha Friday - Creativity

 Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday! Every Friday (well, ok, almost every Friday) I ask a simple question--nothing that requires a lengthy response.

Last week on this blog I discussed "The Creativity Crisis" -- an article I read which talked about how creativity scores for children in America had been decreasing since the 1990's (and by "creativity" they didn't just mean "arts and crafts" but creative thinking in terms of being able to think of new ideas.)

So, related to that, here's my question....

How do you encourage creativity and creative thinking in your children?

Please leave your answer in a comment below.  And, if you have a blog and would like to post your own question you can leave your link at An Island Life.

"Rocking" the Legos Again

Here's a sampling of what my boys have been up to lately...

This is a stage for a very tiny rock band.

And yes, that does spell out the word Rock.

And oh, does it!

And here's a dog house my kids made for their pet doggy.

It doesn't spell it out for you like the last one, but yeah, it rocks too!

Oh, and if you had noticed a trend on the last few Magic Marker Monday's of no markers being involved...and were wondering if my boys spent all their free time making things out of legos...well, you'ld pretty much be right. :-)

What My Kids Have Been Up To This Week....

Artistically, that is...

We found instructions for this fun giraffe craft at Redtedart's Blog.

We were all out of yellow paint so went for blue, red, and green. 

And of course there were more lego creations,

including this tractor...

...and this amazing tree house.

A Pirate Kid Creation - ARRRRG!

I like to show off some of the creative things my kids do. Here's a ship my oldest son made. He used every single lego duplo piece we had (at least the ones we could find)  to do this!

Design Focus - Inner Child

I decided to start featuring some of my designs on the blog.  My "Can Your Inner Child Come Out and Play" design was just a witty idea that was running around in my head for a while.  It was one of the first humorous designs I added to my shops.  You can find this design at Zazzle, CafePress and Printfection.

This post is participating in Monday;...because the cheerful yellow sun just fit.  Click the Mellow Yellow Icon to see more yellow photos and art (mostly photos).

Aloha Friday - Art

Welcome to this week’s edition of Aloha Friday! Every Friday (well, ok, almost every Friday) I ask a simple question--nothing that requires a lengthy response. 

Here's my question...

Tell me about one painting, artwork, sculpture, figurine, or other work of art in your home?  When/how did you get it?  Why do you like it (or, if you don't like it...why do you keep it around)?

Please leave your answer in a comment below.  And, if you have a blog and would like to post your own question you can leave your link at An Island Life.

Define ART

Scoutie Girl, a blog I just discovered, had an interesting question they were throwing out to artists and crafters.  "Let me know how you define handmade versus homemade – or any other this versus that you’re passionate about."

This is an interesting question because  defining the products I sell has been a difficult process for me--and not one I've worked out completely.   The actual physical products I sell through CafePress and Zazzle and Printfection can hardly be considered hand-made OR homemade.  I don't silk-screen the shirts myself, I don't hand-kiln the mugs and tiles, and the posters are prints, not originals. 

But the designs are MINE.  They are made by me...the result of my own creativity.  So, am I, and all the other many artists who print through Zazzle, CafePress, Spreadshirt and all the other PODS part of the indie world or not? 

This comes up most often when I'm trying to find places to advertise.  This listing is for "independent artist."  Do I count?  At some indie listings my shop has received a welcome, at others it's been denied.  I sometimes feel like I'm sitting on the fringes of the indie and corporate world, with my feet dangling on both sides.

And is this art, what I do?  That's another "this versus that" question that comes up in my mind often.  My Scribbleprints started at doodling (which is art, in some sense...my children's paintings and even my toddlers scribblings are art in their own way), and worked their way into something I'd call art without question.  But my humorous designs are a different story.  The pure font designs certainly aren't.   (Yes, words can be art...but these are just typed in a graphics program, not calligraphy).   Even the humorous designs that took some artistic skill to create don't feel like "art" to me.   They're an expression of my wit...and as different from art to me as a joke is from a poem. 

There are many other "this vs. thats" that stumble through my mind.  Is what I do a business or a hobby?   Are my scribbleprints "drawings" or "digital art" (since they start on paper then are scanned and edited and reworked and sometimes made into something else).  Defining can be hard to do.

Water Color Fun With My Kids

Had fun painting water colors with my kids last week...

My 5 year old painted the green tree on the left, and my 7 year old painted the one on the right (a branch with leaves and a birds nest is sticking out the side...if you were wondering).

Here's some more they did...

The abstract pastel on the top way by my two year old.  The bird and the lightsabers (with flowers and tree...because those totally go together *grin*) was by my 7 year old.  The blue painting was by my 5 year old--"it's night" he told me.

I had fun painting too.  I attempted some fruit.  Most didn't come out but my son said this was "the best apple ever."  (Kid compliments warm my heart).

And I tried my hand at a t-rex...this was fun (though I ran out of room for the RAWR!)