Monday with the Moms: Okay, I'm just going to brag and say I have the best moms at my school. A couple of them have been working with the kids to create a ceramic piece for a fundraiser. If you don't have mom helpers, I strongly encourage you to send out an email and just ask. You won't believe the response you'll receive! sweater and skirt: someone PLEASE make me step away from the Anthropologie sale rack, it is so awesome right now!; tights: Target; belt: made by me for the Gnome Dress; shoes: Miss Albright, Anthro
Hiya, dudes. Sorry for the slightly delayed "What I Wore this Week" as I know you were just dying to see what duds I donned. But I have a good excuse: My mom was in town from Indiana! We didn't have the chance to see each other over the holidays and so there was much gift-giving, chitty-chattering and face-timing with lil Bro and his girlfriend to do. Not to mention the serious retail therapy and dining out we indulged in. When we weren't together, I did manage to finish a DIY that nearly was the end of me (pretty sure I say that about every DIY). Spoiler: it involves 17 yards of tulle. A tool working with tulle? Never a good idea.
Along with my weekly wears, check out these rad photos hubs managed to get with his Christmas present. I got him a deer camera and he mounted it in the woods near our house. He's not a hunter but a big time animal lover and thoroughly enjoys seeing these animals in their element. I think I like these furry neighbors of ours way better than the human ones.
I do hope you enjoy. Stay tuned for this week's DIY and possibly a finished art project by the lil artists. Until then, have a wonderful week!
Hubs had his camera on the motion sensor to capture these shots. This weekend he switched it so that the camera will start recording 30 second snippets of video. I can't wait to see what it captures.
Too Warm for Snow Tuesday: You already heard me whining about my lack of a Snow Day here. With the 50 degree temps we experienced this weekend, I have this sneaky suspicion we aren't going to score a free day this year. Such sadness. dress: Max and Cleo, TJMaxx; fur collar: gift from a friend; tights: Target; leg warmers: Germany; boots: Anthro
You might notice in some of these photos that the bucks are missing an antler. This is the time of year that the deer begin to lose their antlers. They grow them again in the spring. Hubs has found at least three deer antler on his walks in our neighborhood woods. We've got a couple on our mantle and one on our deck for the squirrels. Apparently they are a fan of the marrow.
Giant Bun Wednesday: I actually had a student inquire what was inside my hair that "makes it so big." I told him donuts. And I have a kindergartener convinced that it's what I eat that causes my legs to "change colors". When I wore my purple tights, I told her I had eaten too many grapes and the white tights made my legs white from too much milk. This time when she asked what I'd been eating, I asked her what she thought. "Cotton candy and ketchup." Like, ew. dress, sweater, sweater clip: vintage; shoes: thrifted; red fishnets and turquoise tights: Target: bow belt: Pinkyotto
Can you count how many deer are in this photo? The camera isn't supposed to make a sound but it must do something. In many of the photos the deer are looking right at the camera. I love the thick coat of fur on this guy.
Big Ole Skirt Thursday: The only prob with wearing a crinoline under your skirt is that you are constantly knocking things off tables! I must have sent a dozen works of art flying off tables and to the floor with just a stroll through the art room. sweater and tights: Target, old; shirt and necklace: gift; skirt: made by me, tutorial here; belt: Pin Up Girl; shoes: Softt
While the deer cam was snapping away photos of animals in the wild, I managed to get a photo of this 18 lbs. beast with my cat cam. We found out this week that not only does she resemble Garfield in her girth and tabbiness but also her affinity for lasagna. P.S. If you come to my house for leftover lasagna, don't mind the cat hair.
Floral Legs Friday: Sometimes I don't even know what I was thinking when I put together an outfit. Take this fine specimen for example. Flowers? Plaid? I should thrown in some polka dots and called it a day. What in the world...? blouse, brooch and skirt: vintage; sweater: thrifted; tights: Urban Outfitters; shoes: Anthro
Hands down my fave deer camera photo so far, this image of Grizzly Adams. Or is that Chuck Norris? Sasquatch, perhaps? The world may never know...
Shopping and Lunching: I met up with super cute vintage blogger and clothing designer, Quincy, from Q's Daydream. We hit a giant fabric sale (where I scored some of those fab fabrics below), shopped some vintage and lunched. She was so kind to give me a perfect how-to for my brand new serger! Santa was good to me this year. sweater and dress: both vintage and from Four Seasons Vintage in Knoxville; fishnets: Target; shoes: Softt; poodle pin: etsy
Hello, dudes! I hope the new year so far has been treating you well. Not too shabby here as I've had the past week off and been livin' la vida loca. Which for me means shopping for fabric, vintage clothing and spending time with buddies. I think I could seriously do that all day long. Although, I gotta admit, I'm starting to miss the wee artists quite a bit.
Since it is the New Year and all, I've been randomly jotting down in my little notebook things I'd like to work on this year. Not resolutions really, just improvements. Expansions. Do-it-More-isms. I'm throwing them into the mix with this week's What I Wore. What's on your "I'd like to get better at this" list?
Expand my sewing repertoire: This year, I did manage to sew nine dresses from patterns which is huge for this previous non-pattern-sewer. However, I only used two patterns. This was a great way for me to learn but now I think I'm ready to expand my horizons. I picked up the two vintage patterns at Nostalgia Vintage in Knoxville. One of you friendly folk recommended that I try the vintage repro patterns by Butterick. So I snagged those two at Joann's.
Design my own fabric: I really don't know why I have such a strong desire to do this. I mean, look at these adorable prints! But there are times when I want to sew, say, a Vincent van Gogh dress or a Mona Lisa frock and I can't find any inspiring print. I also would love to see so many of my vintage flour sack fabrics reproduced because they are just lovely. I've been chatting about this for a while...I'm hoping adding it to my resolutions will force me to do it.
Movies and Popcorn: On this particular afternoon, I met up with another friend to see Les Miserables. We hit the matinee and I'm so glad my buddy sprang for popcorn as that movie went way past my suppertime. I love these empty days of vacation for catching up with friends. coat and dress: vintage and thrifted; tights: Target; gloves: Anthro, give from MIL; shoes: Dolls by Nina
Get out more: Since Christmas, hubs and I have been on a hiking marathon. We hiked all over the Smoky Mountains and we hit Raccoon Mountain outside of Chattanooga just the other day. That's the view of it above, isn't it lovely? We have such a good time when we get out and hike.
More shopping, lunching and catching up: My art teacher buddy and I headed in to Nashville and did some shopping. The after-Christmas sales right now are nuts! I was so glad to catch up with her, it made my day. jacket: old, sale at Modcloth; skirt: Pin Up Girl; purple tights, sparkle fishnets: TJMaxx
Keep on lovin' what I do and doin' it with love: I love my job as an art teacher and I love my students. There are some days, however, I forget to slow down and listen to them. With a half an hour, I too often focus on "here's what we are learning in 10 words or less!" ..."let's get this done!" ... "okay, clean it up!", that I sometimes forget what matters most to them: my attention. My spending time with them, chatting, joking and teaching. This sweet note from a third grader really reminded me of this. (P.S. the "fake farts and burps" he is referring to is from my sound effects machine in the bottom right corner...which I may occasionally use to accuse some kid of tooting. But never when I'm being observed.)
New DIY Spoiler Photo!: As you know, I've recently become addicted to needle felting...you can see my other felted sweater here. I finished this bird felted sweater (where the real surprise is on the back) and I'll share it with you soon. As for the rest of this outfit, the dress, shoes and belt, all came from Anthro and were under $25 each. That's right! In fact, the shoes rang up $15. Seriously, now is the time to shop that place. sweater: thrifted, felted by me; dress, shoes, belt: Anthro; tights: Target
Keep on crafting: It wasn't that long ago that I spent more time in front of the television and online that I did in my sewing room or at the dining room table crafting some mess. I found it really hard to start on a craft because I would talk myself out of it: "I don't know how to do it; it's too late for me to learn; I'll never be as good at this as I want to be." Then I thought, what kind of art teacher doesn't create? We eventually got rid of the t.v. but I still spend entirely too much time online. I'm going to limit my time and keep on crafting. (P.P.S. This here is another spoiler of the back of the bird sweater from the outfit photo above.)
Spend more time with this dude: Because we enjoy being together. And he's awesome. We snapped this photo just yesterday on our 12 mile hike (gah!) around Montgomery Park in Nashville.
You know, looking over these resolutions, I'm excited. They seem doable and fun. I need to add decorating the houseto my list as I have so many ideas...but usually end up sewing some new dress instead! Hopefully I'll be able to add some home DIY projects to this blog soon. Ish.
What better way to say "au revoir" to Paris, France than by hot air balloon? Or hand glider? Or, what the heck, a parachute attached to one's head (that poor dude on the far left kinda makes me giggle).
I'm here to share with you the second Parisian-themed project my totally awesome third grade artists just finished up. We actually began this project at the introduction of our French unit when we were learning how to speak and write in French (you might recall a certain pink poodle named Fifi introduced us to the language of love). If you take a close look at the crayon resist in the background, you'll notice a little of our French vocabulary.
I just now noticed how this incredible artist somehow managed to cut out a tiny person in her hot air balloon. These artists always amaze me.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let me tell you how we went about creating our Super Silhouettes:
We began with 12" X 18" heavy stock drawing paper. I learned a long time ago that anything below 60 lbs paper is just junk. We used white oil pastels to write French words all over our papers. We chatted about variety, fonts and threw in a couple drawings of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe when the writing became too tedious.
From there we began our water color painting portion of the project. I never really was a fan of watercolor paint with children because I always found the colors to be very, well, watery. And pale. However, when I learned about Crayola's Mixing Sets, I became an overnight watercolor-with-children convert. These are available in most art supply catalogs. Don't want another plastic case of watercolors? Remember, you can purchase individual colors. My favorites in the set are fuschia, turquoise, red-orange and blue-violet.
3. I did limit the kids to either warm or cool colors with fuschia being the swing color. When introducing watercolor, I demo to the kids how to moisten each color with a drop of water and twirl the brush around in the color on it's tippy-toes like a ballerina (no scooting the brush around on it's bottom and giving it spider legs). I emphasize how the colors should be translucent, not opaque. Painted areas should have a watery appearance, not dry, scratchy brush marks. And, of course, everyone lets out a squeal when they see how the oil pastel resists the watercolor. Much better than a crayon, by the way.
4. On the second day of Watercolor Wonderland, I introduce a couple of tricks. I demonstrate double dipping the brush, first loading it with one color and then adding a different color to the tip. When the brush is laid on the paper on it's side, it produces a gradation of a couple colors. You can see that best in the word "violet" in the painting above.
5. Another trick is the introduction of salt. When sprinkled on damp paper, it absorbs the paint and produces a beautiful snowflake effect.
6. Once finished, we had a chat about some of the most famous places in Paris. We also discussed what a silhouette was and brainstormed some ideas of what we could add to a silhouette landscape. I created the above poster so the kids could see some ideas. Symmetry was emphasized.
I love the "Paris" above the Eiffel Tower.
We did have some chats about scale...and decided that large silhouette cut outs would have the appearance of being in the foreground while small cut outs look to be in the background. Unless that happens to be a giant hand glider dude. With super long arms. In which case, that theory is out the window.
A kite?! Genius.
When I told the kids that we were going to be saying "au revoir" to Paris, France and "guten tag!" to Germany, they seemed sad to go. When one of them asked if I was going to repaint my windows for Germany I believe I said the words, "are you crazy?! No!" To which the questioner replied, "good! Then we aren't really leaving Paris!"
And that made me pretty happy. Almost as happy as these sweet silhouettes.
As you read this, you might be sitting in your decked-out-for-the-holidays living room. Complete with a bedazzled and trimmed tree, wreath on the door, candles flickering in every window and lights strung outside the house.
If you came over to my house, you'd find a couple of pumpkins on my front step, flowers stillblooming in planters (darn petunias just won't die!) and a bedazzled and trimmed pink Christmas tree. It kinda looks like Holiday Goulash. I'd apologize to my neighbors if they were still speaking to me.
Despite all that, what I do have is one completed Christmas dress! And not just any ole completed Christmas dress but one that Lights Up!! That's right, something that rad calls for Unnecessary Capitalization and Multiple Exclamation Points!! Eat That, Grammar Po-Po.
No, that's not my beeper. I upgraded to a cell phone last week. It's my battery pack for my LED lights.
I couldn't resist this vintage reproduction fabric when I found it at my
local fabric shop. I scooped up three yards and decided to go with
another version of the Simplicity pattern I used for my Cuckoo Clock Dress. This time, I went sleeveless for a coupla reasons: one,
if you know me at all, you know I hate putting in sleeves. Like,
hate isn't even a strong enough word. Despise. Detest. De-reallydon'tlike. And,
two, I felt sans sleeves would give this dress a vintage vibe.
But the idea to create a light-up dress
didn't happen until hubs and I took a trip to his fave store in
the whole universe: Big Lots.
Now, my hubs is an Idea Man. He is constantly coming up with new ideas for food trucks (my fave: the Organic Create-Your-Own-Flavor Cotton Candy Cart), clothing, and, of course, musical instruments. I usually know when a Big Idea is coming because his sentences begin with, "Tell me what you think of this..."
And that's what happened when I was wandering the isles of B.L. on Saturday, checking out where all ya'll snagged your Christmas decor. Hubs pointed out the little box of lights and said, "Tell me what yo think of this: You make your Christmas dress light up."
Now, sometimes, hub's big ideas are just too big. But once he explained this one, I began to think it was doable. With his help, it was actually a piece of cake.
You can make any ole dress light up. Here's how you do it:
Sew a 2" hem at the bottom of your dress with a piece of twine that has a long enough tail to hang out of the opening of the hem. Leave about a 6" opening at the center front of your dress, right underneath the pockets.
Seam rip a hole in your pocket.
Feed the end of the LED lights through the hole.
Originally, I was going to sew in two strings of lights but the weight of two battery packs in my pockets didn't seem ideal. Hence the two strands of twine.
Tie the end of the lights to the end of a piece of twine and pull through. I'm making that sound very easy...it was actually a two person job.
Untie string from the lights and close most of the hem opening.
Dress front and back. This dress version of the Simplicity dress actually went by quickly. Skipping those four hour sleeves really helped. Normally I'd need sleeves in December but so far, no. It's been almost 70 degrees for the last coupla days.
This bodice is different than the other dress too in that it doesn't have that inverted V thingie. Thankfully.
So you know, sewing a blue Christmas dress means I had Elvis' Blue Christmas running through my head the entire time. I managed to score this unopened album over Thanksgiving for a mere $3! It's been spinning on my record player since.
And so there you have it! A Blue Christmas Dress. I'm pretty stoked and I can't wait to wear it to school. The kids are always full of questions and curiosity when I wear I dress I've created.
Okay. I'm off to remove my pumpkins, planters and finish the Christmas decoratin' I've started. Because the song goes "I'll have a Blue Christmas..." not "I'll have a Pumpkin on my Porch for Two Months Christmas." Although that does have a certain ring to it...
What I Wore on Wednesday: Don't
ask me what happened to Monday and Tuesday. I'm on vacation. Which
usually means pj's and unwashed hair for as many days as I can manage.
In this case, it was only two. Mom came to visit on Wednesday, so I had
to look semi-presentable. sweater: thrifted with vintage buttons added my me; skirt: vintage, thrifted; fishnets over tights (which I do believe I did every day this week): Target; boots: my good ole Seychelles; scarf: Germany
Well, my Thanksgiving Break is now hours away from coming to an end. The reality of that has definitely not set in. I'm still knee deep in unfinished sewing/crafting/and Christmas decorating projects and I just can't bear the thought of leaving them untouched tomorrow. The silver lining is that I'm very excited about our upcoming unit on Germany. I've got my cuckoo clock dress and the coordinating lesson complete. But that's just for my second grade lesson. I've decided that my first and third grade are going to complete a gnome-themed project. Having done some research on gnomes, I thought I'd share it with you this week. They are quite the character.
Garden Gnome Liberation Front: Did you know there was such a thing? Apparently it's a group of (crazy) people in Europe whose mission is to rescue gnomes from their lives in boring
middle-class gardens and return them to their original homes in the mountains. In this article, you can read how one group of guys can be hired to fight against The Front (as they're called) by dressing up as Snow White's Seven Dwarves to divert attention away from the gnomes and...I'm not sure what their services offer after that. They can also be hired for birthday parties. Something to keep in mind.
Thanksgiving!: Mom, hubs and I loaded up
the cars and headed south to Birmingham, Alabama to visit the hub's
parents and family. It was a deliciously lovely day that ended with a
long walk down the railroad tracks collecting pine cones and railroad
ties. dress: Anthro, picked up at Buffalo Exchange; blouse and belt: gifts from friends; boots: Frye, picked up for cheap at French's Boots in Franklin, Tn
So apparently, there is no definitive history of the gnome. It seems many cultures have their own version of a mystical dwarf, some dating as far back as the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece. Fairy tales and folklore from medieval times are full of stories of goblins, trolls, leprechauns, elves, and fairies. This illustration is from Gnomes by Wil Huygen, illustrated by Rien Poortvliet.
Black Friday Shopping: We
are rather lazy Black Friday shoppers as we didn't leave the house til
8am. By the time we hit the stores, shelves were pretty empty and the
Crazy Shopping Zombies were gone. I could tell my mom was pretty bummed.
She's a serious people watcher that was dying to go out at midnight.
But I just don't have the stomach to watch humanity behave
humiliatingly. sweater and tights: picked up just recently at Target; dress and belt: vintage, from a play I performed in during high school; boots: I only brought one pair on this trip -- Frye.
Story goes that the first gnome statue was introduced to a garden by an Englishman named Sir Charles Isham of Lamport Hall. After having built a huge rockery (er, that's a rock garden of sorts) and filling it with dwarf conifers, our friend of Lamport Hall just didn't feel his garden was complete. It was missing that certain gnome-y something. Sir Charles Isham picked his up in Germany where the figures were mostly kept in drawing rooms. When one gnome just wasn't enough, whole communities of gnomes were added to his garden. Image from pinterest.
Mom Love: After a slightly fruitless day of Black Friday shopping, my mom made the long drive back to Indiana. I'm guessing it took her around nine hours. Ouch. My butt goes numb after two. I'm so glad she made the trip.
The Gnome
by Margaret Morgan
Deep down he goes, the little gnome,
Deep down into his earthy home.
Deep Down among the roots he lives;
Such help to all the plants he gives.
He helps the seed to split its skin;
He helps the roots to settle in;
He helps the shoots to stand upright
And grow to reach the warm sunlight.
Sometimes he comes above the ground;
Sometimes his footprints can be found;
Sometimes, before the moon is up,
He drinks the dew from bluebell cups.
Exploring Birmingham Saturday: My mom-in-law
took us on a tour of Birmingham's thrift and antique shops. We stopped
by the awesome Peanut Depot for some cajun roasted nuts and some
amazing baked goods at the Continental Bakery. We ended out tour with a
view of the city. sweater: vintage, gift from my mom-in-law; scarf: Germany; skirt: Anthro; tights: Target
It's said that gnomes are optimists and that they breathe contentment. And I guess two gnomes are better than one. Especially when you've found your gnome-y match made in heaven. Image from the Gnome Habitat in Auburn, California.
Oh, look, it's me with my gnome-y love match. And he's almost got the gnome-beard to match. I'm working on a couple of matching conical shaped hats for us.
And I just had to include these gnome zombies by the artists Chris Stever and Jane DeRosa. You have to check out their etsy shop. I definitely would add these to my place-were-mostly-weeds-grow garden, especially at Halloween.
Thanks for dropping by! And may the happy and optimistic spirit of the gnome be with you this week.
