What the Art Teacher Wore #123 // Thanksgiving Day Craft Ideas

 You Don't Even Wanna Know: The most frequently asked question by my colleagues on this particular day? "Just how are you wearing your stockings today, Stephens?!" Suriously, guise. You don't even wanna know (but being the blabber-mouth that I am, I've written a tell-all below). sweater: Betsy Johnson, thrifted; crayon dress: Modcloth on super-duper sale; belt: amazon; tights: Target; crayon shoes: DIY here

Hey there, my favorite people! I come to you from the wonderful land of Thanksgiving Break (which, for me, is a whole week off. Don't hate. Remember, I did return to school in July. Even if it was July 31st, it was still July). The hubs and I are in sunny SoCal (again, is it just me or does saying "SoCal" make me sound like the jerk I am?) where we'll be hangin until we return home for some Thanksgivingness. In honor of Thanksgiving (which marks the end of fall and the beginning of Christmas-freaking-everywhere), I'm sharing with you a backlog of fall-ish projects that have been created in el art room-o over the last coupla weeks. I thought you might enjoy a wee bit of crafting with the fam after you've all recovered from the after effects of tryptophan (btw, you know that if you read about something on WebMD, A. You prolly have whatever disease you just read about and B. You will prolly be dead my morning. My advice? Don't read WebMD).

I hope all y'all have a great week of giving thanks (even my buds not living in 'merica!) and devouring entirely too much food with those you love. Until next time, I'd love to hear what Thanksgiving traditions you have, aside from participating in some super rad fall crafts, of course!

 Even Asha the Cat was perplexed by my two dif colored legs (actually, she could care less, she's just here begging for food. Because, as you can see, we never feed her). So the deal is, I really would love for some genius hose company (not to be confused with "hoes company", ahem) out there to start making two-diff-colored-leg tights. But until they do, I'm stuck wearing one pair then only wearing the leg of another and wrapping and tucking the spare leg. This works if, and only if, the spare leg that's tucked doesn't fall out and then dangle between your legs like some sort of deflated manhood. Not that I know anything about that. AHHHH-hem.

My afternoon clay class created these one-hour created-and-glazed turkeys using fall leaves and an orange-sized piece of clay a coupla weeks ago. We began by twisting the clay into two equal pieces. One piece was used for the pinch pot body. For the other piece, the kids laid a leaf down veiny side up, pounded their clay into it, traced around the shape of their leaf with a skewer stick and pealed off the leaf. The clay leaf was then attached to the pinch pot. The excess clay that was cut from the leaf tracing was then used to form a coil for the head and parts of the face. The kids really loved this easy project and even got carried away creating hats and bow-ties for their turkey.

 Field Trippin Tuesday: I took my second grade students to see the Kandinsky exhibit at The Frist Center on Tuesday. It was a ton of fun. I felt kinda silly cuz I kept forgetting I was wearing my Kandinsky dress until the docents, security guards and just about everyone else pointed it out to me. They were all, "Where did you get that dress?!" Don't ask me why but I get all goofy when I answer and always say, "Uh, I made it?" with a question mark at the end. Big Dork. jacket: Modcloth; Kandinsky Dress: DIY here; tights: Target; Frye Boots: Journeys, years ago 

Some of the kids in clay class opted to create a peacock instead of a turkey and those turned out super cute as well. And I love that one flipped her pinch pot so her turkey could work double duty (btw, NEVER say the words "double duty" to the under-10 set for they will lose their minds) as a bowl or cup or holder-of-many-a-small-things.

 Crayola Sweater Wednesday: Have y'all left a comment here to enter to win my lil Crayola Giveaway Contest? If you haven't, what in the world is wrong with you?! The winner will be announced next week so get on it, kids! dress: Anthro, last season; tights: Target; shoes: Dolls by Nina; necklace: The Paper Source

A coupla weeks ago my first grade friends printed and stitched up these leaf print wall hangings. For the printing process, we used Gelli-Arts printing plates but if you don't have those, have no fear. You can create your own gelatin printing plates by visiting here and following my relatively decent directions. I have the kids tons of different fall-colored fabric options to pick from. After they created both their positive and negative leaf prints, they had the chance to use sewing machines to stitch them together (totally supervised of course. I'm not that crazy).

 Put a Belt on It: Y'all. When I spotted this belt on etsy, I was all, OMG, I gotta have this in my life! I think it has super secret art teacherin magical powers. Although, when my fourth grade class came to art on this particular day, one girl was all, "Is that it? Where's the rest of your crazy outfit?!" And I was all, "DID YOU NOT NOTICE MY BELT?!" Kids, these days. So hard to please. vintage dress: thrifted; belt: etsy; tights: Target; shoes: Anthro

I was fortunate to have some local college kids in my room to help with the stitching portion of the project. While a handful of kids worked on stitching, the rest used Sculpey clay and skewers to create those beads that you see at the ends of the skewer sticks. For extra fall crafting fun, you could make necklaces with the Sculpey. Oh! And if you don't have access to a kiln, you could easily make miniature turkeys using the Sculpey and the directions for the clay turkey above. You see, your T-day crafting options are limitless. 

 Early Morning Saturday: I forgot to snap a photo one day this week and the totes ridic thing is, I can't even remember what day it was or what I wore! So just before our long flight on Saturday, I snapped this photo. I love to be comfy on the plane while I'm spread out with my assortment of crafts (I took along knitting needles and some embroidery madness). So far, all my attempts at crafting have been in vain. Oh well, it's vacay, right? dress: Betsy Johnson, Buffalo Exchange; jacket: Lucky Brand; scarf: Urban Outfitters; necklace: made by me, DIY here 

Enjoy your final days of fall, y'all!

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DIY: Super Sparkly -n- Simple Holiday Decor

I dunno how y'all entertain family when they come to visit but I'm guessing you take 'em to see the sights, feed them and do whatever good hostesses do (meanwhile, all I know about Hostess is they make a KILLER Twinkie). As for me, well, I like to put 'em to work. For zample, when my dear ole moms, mom-in-law and her sister (my aunt-in-law? Nah, she's just Aunt Rose to me) came to town, I decided to have them help me create some holiday decor (added bonus, a DIY blog post, yippie!). And I'm so glad I did cuz now I have this super feathery wreath and ultra divine wall hangings (um, scroll down-eth) just in time for Feliz Navidad (er, I guess it's just Navidad in this case, huh?). Here's how the whole process went down, Charlie Brown.

I started by informing each of my charges that they WOULDN'T be fed again UNTIL crafting was complete. At one point, Aunt Rose (seen above in what she dubbed her "White Trash Honey Boo-Boo Apron") said something along the lines of this being like a labor camp to which I replied, "WHY ARE YOU TALKING?! You can't craft while your lips are moving now hush it and get back to glittering!" 

They pretty much behaved after that. Family, I tell ya. They really are just like a class of kindergarteners. 

Oh, you know I'm only (slightly) kidding! We had a great time crafting it up. Even my mom who has crafting-phobia (is there a thing? Hold on, lemme check...um, all I could find was something called "unicorn-a-phobia". Why do I have a feeling this is wrong? On, like, so many levels) was all elbows deep in glitter, glitz and Martha Stewart paint. So just how did I come up with this lil craft?

Well, a coupla weeks back, Anthropologie had it's little "craft get together" (which truly is a labor camp but it's all good. When it's crafts, it's a labor of love. Plus, there's booze. Which washes down the glitter so well) where we did a super similar craft. They had us cutting out feathers, paint them and then glitz them up with glitter and gold leaving. 

I just so happened to have donated to me a wee mountain of different colored card stock. I created a couple of feather templates for the fam which they traced and cut. From there, I busted out the sea foam and sky blue paint which was dry brushed onto the feather. Once those were dry, we added gold paint and/or glitter. 

Of course, where there's this much glitter, one risks Glitter Lung.

It's a chance we dedicated crafters must take. 

Oh, gah, I just hacked up a disco ball.

Now the menfolk opted not to partake in our craft-tastic ness as glitter is kinda like dude kryptonite in case you didn't know (ladies, just dab it behind your ears on those nights that you, well, just aren't in the mood, ya feel me? Works like a charm). Instead, they went hiking and brought back this mountain of turkey feathers. WHICH we promptly covered in glitter. We might have been a little dizzy from all the glitter-induced coughing fits. When hubs walked into our crafting lair (aka the dining room) he was all, "You just ruined all my turkey feathers!" Ruined? Really? It's called Bedazzled and you outta look it up, yo.

 Since my labor force was so motivated by hunger, they created so many feathers, I was able to bust out a couple of these wall hangings too. 

I used old canvas stretches and some AMAZING gold-leafed yarn I scored at JoAnn's. Just dry brushed the stretchers and added the glitter feathers. Cake, y'all.

Glitter Cake. My fave.

Now covering the world in glitter was not the only thing we accomplished. We also made these feather-tastic beauties!

Twas super easy, y'all. This is a similar craft as that Leaf Relief project I shared a while back. With matte board, paper and spray glue, I cut out the feather, sprayed the board with the glue and attached my paper feather. Then I hit the board with glue again and covered in foil. Finally I sprayed the whole thing with the world's cheapest spray paint. 

It's the dollar spray paint from Home Depot. It works the best cuz it sucks the hardest. Trust me on this. 

While you're at The 'pot, don't forget to pick up some ultra fine steel wool. That's what you'll use to burnish off the spray paint. These are my mom's craft-phobic hands. I think she's doing pretty good, don't you?!

And mighty pleased with herself too. As she should be. 

While we were sitting and painting, I noticed how pretty everyone's paper towels where from wiping the paint brushes. So I gave everyone a little 6" canvas square to just dabble and clean their brush on. Today I added mini-feathers to the painting group. Top left is my mom-in-law, right is my mom's, bottom left is Aunt Roses and right is mine. I've got em all signed and dated.

And there you have it! So the next time that fam of yours comes to visit, remember: withhold food and put 'em to craftin' work, y'all! You'll have a Super Sparkly Time, I promise! 

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DIY: The Turkey Apron with Special Guests: Kindergarten Turkeys

 Do you know what it feels like to have children point and laugh at you? 

Chase you down in the hallways, look you from head to toe and run away, giggling? 

Call you names? Like "big turkey lady" and (for the not-quite-gettin'-it set) "chicken girl"?

If you do, then you probably fall into the "crazy art teacher" category. 

If you don't, well then, you're missin' out. Big time.

 I bring to you the DIY Who-You-Callin'-a-Turkey? (said in your best "whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" voice) Apron. And a welcome to my world.

 Now I don't normally go in for the holiday stuff in the art room for a coupla reasons. One, my little artists have enough projects going that by the time their procrastinatin' art teacher realizes there's a holiday approaching, there isn't time to create anything. And two, I'm not a big fan of holiday art. I guess I created too many hand-turkeys as a kid that it kinda left me with a this-ain't-art feelin'.

This week, however, my kindergarten friends managed to finish up their masterpiece which left me with one 1/2 hour art class to fill before our Thanksgiving break. Because we had just finished a project including shapes, I thought we could use our shape knowledge to draw our own turkey. The librarian loaned me this gem by the author of the Captain Underpants series. Being a vegetarian, I totally appreciate it's anti-turkey-eating storyline. 

I can't decide what I love more, those little dimply knuckles or that colorful turkey.

 We chatted about the shape of a turkey's head being like that of a small circle while his body is a large one. Details of the face were added as were feathers and his little legs. The kids had previously used oil pastels and recalled that you can overlap lines, hence the details created on the feathers.

 After reading the book and discussing how to draw the turkey, we were left with just enough time to create our own turkey-tasticness.

Love those knobby knees.

Can you say perfectionist? This girl is it.

Early finishers added an environment and some turkey friends to their background.

"Mrs. Stephens, you're a turkey!" To which I reply, "Who you callin' a turkey, turkey?" And it never gets old.

But enough of about the kid's creations, lemme show you how to turkey-ize yourself! I know you are dying to impress your friends and fam with your very own Turkey Apron. To create one, you'll need to rustle up the following supplies:

Please pardon the dirtiness of my apron. It's several years old and seen many a messy art class.

• Yard and a half to two yards of a heavy neutral color fabric. Denim would work. I went with this gray fabric I had in my stash.
• Variety of felt with corresponding colors of thread.
• Buttons
• Something for the belt and the loop around the neck. I went with some woven ribbon I had thrifted.

Need more apron-inspiration? Check out my DIY Art Teacher Rock Star Apron.

1. I began by laying another apron on top of the fabric. I cut around that apron, leaving about an 1" for the seam. The seam was ironed under and hemmed.
2. I then traced that same apron onto a large sheet of paper. This allowed me to sketch out my design and try it on in front of a mirror. Once I had the drawing complete, I used it as the pattern.
3. After cutting out the pieces of my paper pattern, I cut them out again, this time with felt. To tack the felt in place, I used Witch Stitchery. 
4. I set my sewing machine to the applique stitch and went to town. That part's easy. Just have plenty of thread on hand as you'll use plenty of it with that stitch. 
5. Add the buttons, the belt and the part around the neck and Bam! You're a Turkey!

My turkey butt itches. Hat courtesy of my P.E. teachin' buddy.

I'm hoping you'll give this turkey apron a go. If you do, please let me know, I'd love to see what you created. If not, I totally understand. Only a crazy art teacher would walk around in a get-up like that. 

Happy (soon-to-be) Turkey Day!

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