My older girl and I received this fun journal in our stockings. It has great prompts like flinging your coffee at a page, collecting fruit stickers on another, taking the journal in the shower with you, finding a way to wear it, and tongue painting. Tongue painting is when you eat colored candy and lick the page. My daughter really loved that one. You can check out the wreck this journal site here. I look foward to wrecking my journal.

Merry Christmas

For a up close look at some famous nativity scenes you can go here.

Merry Christmas

I Am Thankful

I stumbled upon this project this morning and wanted to share it with you. I am Thankful! is a worldwide gratitude project. It is a project created by artist Damaris Pierce and you can find the website here.

"The project, entitled I Am Thankful, encourages individuals of all ages and organizations such as craft guilds, public schools and counseling centers to create original postcard artwork expressing gratitude. Postcards submitted can honor people, places, things or circumstances and artwork can be simple or elaborate as long as it remains two-dimensional. Once completed, postcards can be mailed to Pierce’s attention at her studio located at 69 Wamboldt Avenue Asheville, North Carolina 28806. All postcards will be considered for public display. In January 2008 Pierce will feature the submitted gratitude postcards on her newly redesigned web site http://www.IAmThankful.com. "

This is a great project to do during the Holidays. You could get all the materials together and have an open station where guest could create their own postcards. You could send them into the project or save them as a memento.

New Focus

I’m changing up my blog. My initial intent when starting this blog was to create a resource for parents who want to explore art with their children. I want to make that a focus now. I am so enjoying the creativity that flows from my favorite blogs and I hope to share some of my own with you guys.

There is also another reason for this shift. I hope to open the All Dressed in Blue Art Studio when we move in the next year or so! I am now working on my art curriculum and hope to have lots of ideas and lessons to share with you.

I'm of to the Arts and Craft Fair on this beautiful sunny day. I hope you are all having fun today too! Hopefully I'll have goodies and ideas to share when I return. Oh and I am doing a little research for a venture I want to start, I'll be sharing more of that soon too!

With only two comments, I didn't even need to hold a drawing. Taryn and Jessica are going to get a custom stamp. I will contact you soon with the details. Hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I had a lovely time with family and I am as stuffed as a Thanksgiving turkey!

I mentioned a bit back that the thing I was in to for the moment was stamp carving. It has been great fun getting back to carving again. Printmaking is very close to being my most favorite of all art making. It is only second due to my complete and utter love of figure drawing. I have been playing around with some stamp designs. I will start teaching art lessons again soon and want some stamps to use for brochures and things. The process is easy and fun. All you need is a few tools and you can create fun unique stamps. I found a great tutorial on stamp carving here. There is also a link that has a great idea for using a pencil as a carving tool for kids. You can find that here.


It's so much fun carving stamps that I want to share it with you guys. Leave a post here and I'll hold a drawing November 24th. The two names I draw will receive a custom stamp personalized for them carved by me. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Can you guess what I learned to do this weekend?

Did you guess?

I learned how to make a zippy pouch. My first experience with zippers and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. Of course, I had the help of these fabulous tutorials from twelve 22 and Queenofdiy on crafster. I ♥ tutorials!

Have you Carved your pumpkin yet?

We got in the Halloween spirit and carved up some pumpkins this weekend. I have to admit I have not yet decorated for Halloween aside from this dancing go-go witch and some monster origami figures. Now we have some pumpkins to add to the mix. I found the template for the pumpkin designs here.

Origami Holidays

I stumbled upon this great origami site this morning and had to share. You can visit it here. It has lots of Christmas origami patterns and the cool part is that each design has a regular diagram and animated diagram. An extra bonus is the printable pattern paper you can print out. I think my older would love to decorate her tree with these. The homepage for the site is http://www.origami-club.com/. There are lots of different origami patterns on the site. I haven't figured out how to install the language package but you can still use the diagrams. Look at these great Halloween designs.

I have been tagged by Euphoria. It's my first time so here we go...



Favorite Disney Movie: Monsters, Inc. (my little one remind me of Boo)


Greatest Dessert: I've never met a dessert I didn't like :)


Best Craft: depends on the day, today it's all about carving stamps. I'll share some soon.

Occupation: Art Teacher


Dream job: Museum Educator


Greatest Hero: My Momma ♥ ♥


Pet Peeve: People who own one really big dog and then a really small dog. I can't help but feel bad for the really small dog, you know it has to cause a napoleon complex for the wee one.


Randomness About You: My blog name comes from a song my Daddy would sing to me. It's the tune of Miss Mary Mack but Dad would sing "Oh, Laura Sue, Sue, Sue All dressed in blue, blue, blue"

That was fun. Thanks Jessica!

On the Christmas front.

I saw this last night on the Martha Stewart site while looking for some inspiration for Christmas cards. I love the idea, my youngest one can't have chocolate so I can personalize the gifts for her, she has a real thing for bouncy balls.


A question.

I grew up in East Texas a small town named Henderson. I have heard my fair share of Country lyrics. I love George Strait, and George Jones, Keith Whitley, Willie Nelson and Alan Jackson. I boycotted country music radio several years ago when I felt their express purpose was to make my cry in my car. I had had enough. I still listen to my Cds and I love my husbands music of choice, Classic Rock. Today, I have an Alan Jackson song in my head. All of which has me thinking about you guys.


Do you have a favorite style of music?

When I am in the art shed I listen to a little of everything. Do you have a great craft song? I like to listen to Elvis when starting a new project. My favorite is A little less conversation, how can you not work faster with that song playing?

I was waking my daughter for school this morning and she rolled over and said to me, "Sleep, you don't want to do it at night but can't stop wanting it in the morning."

I thought that was quiet an observation.

I should purchase this for her from tilesmile.etsy.com (I just found this shop today and I love, love it plus she's from my neck of the woods). I think it sums up her morning pretty well.

I have been having one of those sesonal allergy attacks that make you feel all icky and the medication to make you feel better makes you feel sleepy and icky. I'm feeling much better now. I posted way back about Christmas gift ideas and I thought I would share some with you today.


I think that these coasters will make great gifts for the teachers and front desk staff. Allyson Hill was kind enough to offer a tutorial for these on her blog. I have been making them and it's some of the most fun I have had sewing yet. They are super easy and look so lovely when done. Thanks so much Allyson.



Here is an idea for the coasters. The charm packs work perfectly, I bought several packs and can whip these sweeties up fast. I purchased these from fat quarter shop and I am addicted to charm packs now.


I also have in mind to make some fabric scarfs for loved ones. I whipped up one for my youngest last week. I used a charm pack for this too. My little one was kind enough to model for me during the 90 degree fall day here. The warm weather is making me sad. I am ready for the brisk fall breeze!








I also will make some more of those headbands I posted about before. Heather Bailey offers a tutorial on her blog. I think they are super fun to make and wear.





Oh, and I cut off several inches of my hair. (my friend Sandi asked for a look)




I am working on several more projects that are listed in the tutorials I can't wait to try section to the right. I hope to show those soon.

Green Acres? Well kind of.

My camera's batteries are still not holding a charge so whenever I go to take pics of the projects I'm working on it goes all wonkey. I have some other pictures I have been wanting to share.

Several months ago my husband and I were looking for available land to purchase for the later years. While we were out looking we found some property that we feel completely in love with and decided to purchase within the first 5 minutes of seeing. As soon as we closed on the venture my husband expressed interest in moving there, right now! He is ready to decide on a house plan and just do it. It's only 28 miles away from where we live now. I live just north of Dallas and the property is just north of us.

I was stunned. I love where I live, they have just opened a mall not 4 miles from my home that has every store I could ever desire to shop in. I have always planned on teaching in this school district. I'd be moving from a town of 80, 000 to a town of 5,000. My oldest would be leaving all her friends and their families who I've know for years now. Needless to say I had mixed feelings about it. With prayer I am coming around. I know this is the place for us, of course it won't be too hard I mean just look at it.

looking out the front of the property

these two are the back of the property

Neighbors on either side and back have horses. Sometimes there are 30-40 behind us.

and the girls love it (Joe also told them he would get them a dog if we move. Bribery!)

Hey, there is a squirrel stuck to my screen . Funny, huh?

I thought it was really stuck and then Joe came home and gave it a nudge and off it went. It was the most fun we had yesterday. You can see some other pics here.

I've been working on some Christmas gift ideas that I want to share, problem is I keep forgetting to charge my camera batteries. I did get them in the charger today and will be posting them soon.

I thought I might share a great recipe website I love to browse. Joy of Baking is full of scrumptious goodies. I do enjoy baking, it's the cleaning up after that stinks, when I get in the mood I love muffins, cookies and breads. These carrot muffins are delightful and my kiddos gobble them up.

There is even a link for English tea party recipes here. If I were having a tea party I think my menu would consist of....

Yummy

Wow! I splurged today. I purchased one of these nifty Trek Lime bikes. I am in love with it. I had my heart set on a old school cruiser bike but was introduced to this and became easily swayed. It automatically shifts gears and is super comfortable to ride. My older daughter and I will enjoy some nice long bike rides now. That is if I can keep my husband off it.

Yarn Cup

I have been organizing my art shed and found this little yarn cup that I use for instruction. It's upside down in the photo so you can see the bottom of the cup. It is a great idea for that yarn stash you may have around. I think it would be a great gift idea that kids can make grandparents or family. It makes a fun pencil holder and you can never have enough of those. Right? You can use any yarn but the fun crazy yarn makes it fun. I do think it's best to start with the smooth yarn at first. You can find the lesson here. The picture below is a cup made with all fuzzy fun yarn. I think it looks like a monster. I have considedred putting some wild eyes and a mouth on it.

I've also been busy stealing sugar from the girls.

I was reading the blog Finishing Well this morning and Mike was discussing a fascinating photography project. A photographer named Michael Wolf captured photographs of residents in their flats in Hong Kong's oldest public housing estate, 100 rooms, each 100 square feet in size. You can see all the photos here.

There is a pull down menu in the top right corner of the page. Under the Projects link are several other projects to see. Architecture of Density is another fascinating project. You can see it here.

My Niece started a blog to update family and friends about baby Bentley's conditions. You can check it out here.

There were some positive signs that came from the medical test the doctors ran last week. It seems that when they ran the Upper GI the barium made it's way through his little system.

Please continue to keep him in you thoughts and prayers.

What I did while I should have been cleaning my house...

I started making some fabric yo yos. I'm becoming obsessed! I even made an etsy treasury all about the yo yo! You can check it out here.

I sketched on these onesies with some fabric markers. Baby Bentley can have some attitude

I made this great headband with the pattern from Heather Bailey's blog.


I also made headbands for my girls and my little one quickly found another use for it!

I've also been playing around with photoshop. There is just way to much to learn with this program!

I posted a link (back on June 26) from the dick blick art supply site that had loads of great art lessons available. I used the family tree lesson during some art classes I gave over the summer. I thought I would share my daughters. The kids enjoyed the lessons and it was great for introducing facial proportions. I did make some changes. I purchased the cheaper green Styrofoam cones and they fell apart super easy, instead of using clay to cover the cone I used plaster and had the kids paint it to look like tree bark. They all turned out great and the kids were busy talking about themselves and their family the whole time.

I also made little Bentley a small blanket to hold. They ran some test on Monday and the news is promising. I will update when I know the details.

Summer is almost over

What?

But it's still 100 degrees outside.

Yes, but my 3rd grader is about to embark on school once again. This is her last week of vacation. Now we are busy finishing up the last of our summer activities and planning for the year to come. I will miss summer but this is an exciting time of year. I am a compulsive list maker, I love to make plans and organize. I need to clean out the fridge and pantry, we need to organize the closet to make mornings go more smoothly. All things that make me happy.


As the days wind down daughter is working on a painting. She loves to draw and is becoming more talented everyday. I realized I only have 9 more summers with her.

All this planning has me thinking about fall and Christmas. Uh huh, I want to make more gifts this year, last year I started a little too late. I'm in the planning stage and I will be sharing my ideas over the next few weeks. I will definitely be trying this idea for packages. It's from Heather Bailey's blog and I think they are lovely. She offers a tutorial on making these fabric yo-yo's here. My mind is busy thinking of all the things I need to do but thank goodness it's fun stuff. Hope all of you are busy doing fun stuff too.

We crashed and burned with potty training. Big Surprise, huh? It became clear that she needed some extra time and I needed my carpet cleaned.

I have a new picture of Bentley. Look at that smile!