DIY: Spoonflower Student Artwork Dress!

I've had it on my mind to print my students artwork on fabric for a very long time. I've done just about every variation of kid-created fabric for dress-makin' such as having them color IKEA coloring sheet fabric which I then stitched into a dress (more details on that dress here): 

Or the time I found the fabric of picture frames! I had my students draw their self portraits on the fabric before creating that into a dress. Both of these dresses were created with Graffiti fabric markers. They've seen plenty of washing and, while the colors have faded a bit, they still look pretty vibrant. And the kids absolutely love them. More details on that dress here. 

But the idea of creating fabric from student work is one that I've been toying with every since hearing about Spoonflower. In the past, I've ordered fabric from Spoonflower and made a couple of dresses with designs created by artists. 

You can check out the details of this dress and fabric here. 

And details of this dress can be found here. Having ordered fabric from Spoonflower before, I knew I liked it. The fabric I ordered has a good thick quality which is great for the kind of full dresses that I like to create. So, this past spring, just before I hung some artwork up for our art show, I laid a bunch of it out on the floor and took a couple of snaps with my camera. After the art show, I uploaded the photos to the Spoonflower website and was shocked how stinkin' easy it was to rearrange the works of art to create the desired pattern. 

 In case the artwork on this dress looks a little familiar to you, it's from one of the more popular lessons on my blog: The Chris Uphues Lesson for All! Here's a peak of just a few of the works of art based on that lesson:

Take a look at the work of art above and then the print quality below. Pretty amazing, right?!

 This weekend I decided to cut into this Chris-Uphues inspired, kid-created fabric and create a dress using one of my favorite vintage patterns. Now, I did use a circle skirt pattern for the bottom...so only the bodice was used for this dress. 

Here's a little peak at some of the other fabrics I had made with Spoonflower. I cannot wait to make them into dresses too. 

 Usually I'm all about the big belt but when I tried my big belt on with this dress, it seemed to take away from the print. So I went with a hot pink ribbon for the belt instead. 

 Not wanting to waste even a scrap of this precious fabric, I decided to create a couple bow to be featured at the base of the shoulder straps. 

I'm so excited to wear this dress to school and share it with my students. Big thanks to Spoonflower for working with me on this fabric-making adventure and to Chris Uphues for his constant inspiration. 

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What the Art Teacher Wore #204

Hey there, friends! I come to you just as excited as this photo from Monday because...it's a three day weekend. Here's to staying in my pj's all weekend, watching The Office for the umpteenth time and working on all the projectzzzz. I hope you all are livin' it up and partyin' hard like me!

To kick off the week, I wore my needle felted Kandinsky inspired dress to inspire my third graders as they started painting their plates for our Circle Loom Weaving unit. I've got several weaving videos on my YouTube channel if you are interested in bringing fibers to your art room. Just search my playlist Fibers!

Many of my grades are kicking off the year with fiber arts projects like sewing, weaving and fiber applications. I'm so excited about that, here's just a peak. MANY more details to come, I pinkie swear! Of course, I share tons of sneak peeks here. 

 On Tuesday I got all set to teach some of my classes about landscapes. They are getting ready to do my Tree Weaving project which means they gotta paint a landscape first. 

 I was feeling all sorts of prepared. We partnered up and looked at the landscapes in those clear plastic sleeves. The kids had to work together to find the horizon line, the back-, middle- and foreground. It was a GREAT pre-assessment. Then we went over the vocabulary and corrected our mistakes. I chatted about scale, perspective and atmosphere. We were just getting ready to paint when the fire alarm went off.

C'est la vie. After being outside for 10 minutes, we were hot, bothered and not ready to paint. So with our short class, we each took our turn playing the Clean Up Drums instead. More on the Monet Dress here. 

Many years ago, my husband scored me a drum set for my art room. I haven't pulled it out of the storage closet in a couple of years...but decided to this year. It's our Clean Up Drums...an incentive for awesome behavior. One student is picked at the end of class to play a fill. I teach all the kids how to play a fill so that when it's their turn to play, they'll know. On our first intro do, we each get our chance to learn and play a fill...it's a lot of fun. 

 My fourth graders are gearing up to sew. Once class is stitching emoji pillows and they are SO EXCITED. I had to wear my needle felted emoji dress for the occasion. 

Teaching sewing means teaching good sewing habits. I created color coded sewing kits for each table. The kits include a color coded needle book (the felt piece with the button) and a color coded felt backed magnet for pins. I'll keep you posted on their progress!

 Another fourth grade class is stitching pizza pillows! So OF COURSE I managed to leave all of their supplies at home. SMH. They were great and the rolled with our alternative project instead...sewing next time!

Third graders from Monday had a bonus art class on our half day Friday. I was excited to see the patterns they added to their plates in just 30 minutes!

Since my younger students have really been focusing on line, I have been introducing them to the work of Kandinsky...which means I got to end my week on a Kandinsky note too. Hope y'all have a long and relaxing weekend! 

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What the Art Teacher Wore #200

Monday's ensemble: shirt: from Uniqlo a couple of years ago; skirt: do y'all have Buffalo Exchange where you live? It's my FAVORITE resale clothing shop. If you have one, get thee there! That's where my skirt is from; shoes: Trashy Diva, couple years ago. My problem with sharing where I got my clothing is that most of my clothing is pretty old...or thrifted. So it's tough to say where it's from!

Guess what I'm bringing back? My What the Art Teacher Wore feature! My blog got it's start with 3 weekly blog posts: What the Art Teacher Wore, DIY's and art projects for kids. Well, over the years, I dropped WTATW and I don't know why! I now share my daily wears here. I've decided to share them at the end of the week here as kind of a highlight reel of my wacky outfits and my wacky week. So let's get started!

 I kicked off my Monday with a morning meeting at school, a lovely brunch with the other art teachers in my district (I work in a small k-8 district with 8 art teachers) and a haircut! If you follow me on IG then you know I've recently become the proud owner of what I'm calling Bang Toupees. I even took them in for a hair cut. Yes, that was awkward..."would you mind cutting my fake hair? Thanks!"

Tuesday's outfit: shirt from The Crayola Experience in Orlando; skirt from H&M

Tuesday was my last official day of summer vacation. My intention was to spend the day working in my art room. I got ONE bulletin board done (see below) and then spent the rest of the day buying all the 90% off things at a local craft store and eating tacos. Which is really how I'd rather spend my last day anyway!

 This board sits in a place of my art room that is both hard to see and rarely viewed. So I decided to create something big, impactful and semi-permanent. I used wrapping paper I found at Marshall's and boarder from Joann's. I cut the wording out from white paper.

I love how well it goes with this side of my art room!

 Wednesday: This was our first official day back! I wore my jacket from Forever21 that I added a million patches to. 

 Lots of rainbow patches of course. I forgot to snap a picture of my dress underneath...it is a recent thrift store score. 

Our district always kicks off the new year with a motivational speaker (they are always AMAZING) and then time for the teachers to attend PDs. My sweet friend Jennifer organized a wonderful PD with Ashley Owens of Black Sheep Goods. It was super fun!

 Thursday! The top is from Forever21 a couple of years ago and my skirt is from Modcloth!

Thursday was filled with meetings. I was excited to score this shoe bin at the thrift store for just a couple of bucks. I'm really hoping it works well as a yarn caddy in my fibers area! 

 ORANGE YA GLAD IT'S FRIDAY?! Y'all, I've been waiting all week to wear this skirt and say that! Shirt from Target, shoes from wherever you buy Chucks and skirt by me! 

 If you read my last post, than you know I lead a PD at my school on Friday. It was so fun! I cannot wait to do something similar when my kiddos come back in a week!

 Added bonus: all the tables and supplies are prepped for the kiddos. AND the teachers served as great test-drivers...even if they didn't know it. 

I hope y'all have a wonderful week! My kiddos come on Wednesday. I cannot wait!

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DIY: Latch Hook Jacket!

In case latch hooking a mini rug and sewing it to the back of a jean jacket wasn't the first clue...I have cabin fever! I'm currently on my SEVENTH day off in a row after we got some snowy weather here in the South. Y'all know, we Southern Lilies cannot handle that white powdery stuff and it just shuts our town down. I've been knitting, needle felting, and latch hooking since. It's been GLORIOUS...but with this DIY, I'm starting to question my sanity. 

 When bad weather is predicted in these here parts, everyone makes a mad dash to the grocery store. I happened to pop in to get my staples (cat food and a bottle of wine. Pretty sure nothing says pathetic more than that!) when I was practically run down by carts filled with Wonder Bread and gallons of milk. What EXACTLY does one do with that much bread and milk? Are milk sammies a thing?

 Me, when bad weather hits, I skip the grocery and head to the craft store. My provisions are CRAFTS!! I know I'm gonna need something to occupy my hands. So I hit the craft store with the idea of knitting a rainbow scarf rolling around in my head. After piling my cart full of Roy G. Biv yarn-i-ness, I turned a corner and spotted a whole aisle of these: LATCH HOOK KITS!

I grew up in the best era: the 80's. Crafting was all the rage and I was a huge fan. One of my faves? Latch hooking. I can still remember sitting on my babysitter's couch, latch hooking a mushroom in all those horrible 80's browns and greens while watching MTV. I remember they played that video for Madness' Our House about 20 times a day. I can still see it in my head!

Even my parents caught the latch hook rug and made a huge red rug with a bright orange running tiger across it. It sat in between their dresser and their waterbed (omg! Why was that a thing?!) for years. 

I never did finish my mushroom rug but I managed to complete this guy in just a couple nights. I had EVERY intention of taking this to school, showing the kids how to do it and adding it to my early finishers fibers area...but when I got the call for another snow day, I couldn't stop myself! When I bought it, I thought it would be fun to hang in the art room as a reference for TEXTURE (and I still plan to do that!)...but, in all my cabin fever wisdom, I decided to add it to the back of a jacket instead.

The final design, only being 8" square, was not as big as I would have liked to fill the back panel of the coat. So I added 8 additional rows: two turquoise and two indigo, both at the top and the bottom. This filled the space completely. I did have to cut the yarn to that certain size to hook which was a slight drag...but not that bad. 

 

 From there, I just used a super sharp needle and some super strong thread and stitched it to the back of the jacket. Easy! Right after this photo, Asha the cat came over and planted herself right here. IT'S A COAT, KITTY! NOT A RUG! NOW MOVE, I GOTTA VACCUM IT!

Alright, be honest: is this crazy or what?!

Not gonna lie, it's warm and certainly easy on the back when I sit down. Kinda like giving a panda a piggy back ride. 

Pretty sure I'm gonna be getting a lot of back rubs from the kids for this one!

Now, don't judge...I already have designs on hooking a Mona Lisa coat! Okay...time for me to leave the house. Fresh air and human contact might do me some good. 

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