Hey, kids! In my last post I shared that during our LIVE chat, we'd be sharing our WHYs. Why do we teach? It's such a simple and important question that I can honestly say I've never been asked or given thought to. WHICH IS JUST PLAIN CRAZY. The question was brought up during our online bookclub chat. We are currently reading The Wild Card by Hope and Wade King. You are always welcome to join our chats, even if you are not reading. This summer, I've been going LIVE every Wednesday at about 9:15pm CST. Last week, during our chat, we decided it would be fun to come up with our WHYs, put them in kid-friendly terms and make a work of art featuring our WHYs for our classrooms. I started to paint mine while live last night and, in usual form, it looked like a flaming hot turd. However, now I'm pleased as punch with it! So here is my WHY:
I've had this round canvas forever and I thought it would make a fun surface to paint my WHY on. Once I decided upon my WHY, I came up with the palette idea. I finished that off after our chat:
Here's a lil behind the scenes of the process:
I'm THRILLED to see so many other teachers jump on the paint-your-why train. I think it will be so wonderful to share with out students at the start of the school year. Check out these amazing WHY works of art created by other teachers. Be sure and give them a follow on their social media as they are all amazing and inspiring!
My sweet buddy Ashley created this precious WHY for her art room. In case you don't know, Ashley is INSANELY talented and known for creating teacher caricatures. You'll have to check out her IG to see more. Side note: her husband is a super talented art teacher also who just opened an Etsy shop with posters for the art room!
Kim's rainbow-tastic WHY is the stuff of art teacherin' dreams. I love how simple and colorful and PERFECT this is!! I want one! Be sure and give Kim a follow. She's fabulous!
Another rainbow-lover! Crystal's WHY is another one that is just perfectly simple and kid-relatable. That's what I feel is so important...so the kids can read them and understand just why we are there!
Isn't this quote just the most amazing thing? I LOVE this so much, Phyllis! Sharing what art means to us and why we value it's place in our student's lives is such an important thing to share with our kiddos. Beautifully put, Phyllis!
If you don't follow this Disney-loving art teacher, you are not livin' your best life. Everything Mrs. Cook shares is sprinkled with pixie dust including this quote!
Over on Facebook, during our LIVE session, folks were painting right along! Check out Raquel's reason for teaching art...the kids are like a fountain of youth!
Michele's WHY is perfect for the kiddos to see and understand...but my favorite part is the heart, the palette and the 3D element with the paint brushes. LOVE it!
Jacqui's art makes me so happy. I know my students would LOVE that happy faced, big-eyed Earth and would probably love to replicate it. I think her quote and image are just magical.
YES, Shelby! This is kinda what I was going for too with my quote. You put it into words perfectly...and with a rainbow to boot.
Hilary, this just makes me so happy. The different fonts, the rainbow order and THE MESSAGE. Y'all...you nailed it!
Howdy, friends! I've been busily plugging away, getting my art room ready. My students will be here in just three short weeks...which I know sounds like plenty of time. However, I go back in two weeks (and two days, but who's counting? ME, THAT'S WHO) and have decided not to come in at all next week. That leaves just this week to get my room ready...and I decided to only allow myself two days. If you follow me on Instagram, you were able to see my progress. I drank two pots of coffee AND GOT SO MUCH DONE! Proper room tour to come...once I clear the hot mess off my counters (like, did an art supply store bomb go off over there or what?!)
In case you didn't know, I've got a book club happenin' over on my IG and my FB pages. Every Wednesday evening, I've been going LIVE around 9:15pm CST to chat with y'all about The Wild Card, our current teacherin' read by Hope and Wade King. Recently, in the book, they mentioned finding your WHY...why do you teach? During our chat, we had the idea to each come up with our own WHY (if you don't know it already), put it in kid-friendly terms and make a work of art out of it! Here, lemme 'splain:
Clear as mud?
Easy enough, right?
Sound good? Great! Even if you can't join the fun, be sure and tag me, I'd love to know your WHY! It will surely inspire others.
My goal this summer was to stitch up one dress a week. After sewing this beast a couple of weeks ago...I've since changed my lifetime achievement goals. BECAUSE THIS DRESS WAS A MOTHER-LOVIN' BEAST.
Here, lemme show you why:
Now look, don't get me wrong. I LOVE this dress and wanna wear it every day and make about a million more in a variety of colors. But.You.All. I cherish the sliver of sanity I like to think I have left. And therefore I will not be making another dress like this for a while. It's gonna be like the Halley's Comet of Dresses that only makes an appearance every 75 years.
I started with a sketch...where all bad things take form:
And, like, I'm kinda thrilled that my dress actually kinda-sorta looks like my drawing. That NEVER happens! Mostly because my drawing looks bananas but also because I can't sew and 99.9% of the time, I'm just winging it.
I decided to go with a 1950's pattern bodice and my trusty Anna Maria Horner circle skirt pattern. Now the 50's pattern did lead me astray as it had me install these horrible, puffy-topped, too-long sleeves that had me lookin' VERY 1980's Working Girl. I mean, I had shoulders for DAYS. I promptly ripped them out and went with a cap sleeve.
But the sleeves were the least of my worries. It was THE APPLIQUE. What in the world was I thinking?! I cut out and appliqued no fewer than 29 sprinkles. I think that was how many there were. I dunno. TOO DANG MANY, THAT'S HOW MANY. I'm sorry for shouting but if you had to live thru this, YOU'D.SHOUT.TOO.
Okay, I thought. Bodice done. Surely the skirt will be easier as it's only too colors. Well, first of all: Don't call me Surely. AND no. A circle skirt is massive...and appliquing around that alone takes a bit. Add the squiggly line of melting ice cream and you have a project that takes FOR.EVE.RRR.
Insert all the annoyed face emoji's here.
But once the skirt was complete, I was in the homestretch. Just had to attach the top and bottom, throw in a zipper, toss in a hem and BOOM! Done! 3 hours later...
Hurray!
Lady at the grocery: What are you supposed to be? Me (going all existential on her): I don't even know anymore. Lady at the grocery, shaking her head: No, I mean, are you in a costume? Me: No. Literally, that's all I had. I was so tired from sewing, I couldn't even give her more than a NAW, LADY. THIS HERE IS MY ENSEMBLE. Now, move, I gotta go figure out what I'm supposed to be!
Now, I say all this because y'all know good and well I'm gonna have to applique me some more dresses...I have them all sketched out and ready to go. Wish me luck!
Well, I accidentally took a wee blogging break and I'm super sorry! I had a really exciting opportunity pop up and I seriously had to just stop, drop and get the heck outta Dodge. I can't fill you in on any more details other than that...but I will be able to spill the beans soon. And when I can, trust me, y'all will be the very first to know. While I was on my adventure, I threw the idea of a book club out to my friends on Instagram. I picked up The Wild Card at the bookstore to read on my travels and I was really excited about it right from the start. I thought y'all might like to join me on Wednesdays during our Facebook and Instagram LIVE chats at 8pm CST. This Book Club isn't exclusive to art teachers tho, I've opened the floor to all educators. The more, the merrier! I firmly believe we can all share, learn and grow so much with each other. We'll start this coming Wednesday with a soft intro and a chat about the first chapter. Even if you don't get a chance to get the book or do the reading, I do hope you'll join the fun!
Hi, y'all! I'm so excited to share that I recently decluttered and organized my sewing room! It's been a LONG process and I'm so thrilled with the result. I can walk in, move around, LOOK around and see all of my supplies. It's amazing how much clearer the mind and work when there aren't piles of stuff to sift through.
When we first moved in to our house some 10 years ago, I already knew I wanted one room dedicated to sewing. I'd just started teaching myself to sew and was excited by all the possibilities of what I could create. Having a room dedicated to this was so exciting to me. Because I'm a collector (read: hoarder), I'd accumulated a ton of fabric and fun vintage finds like sewing notions. I thought it would be fun to dedicate one wall of my sewing room to display my inspirational finds.
Over time, I realized that this was a waste of precious space. I recently removed all of the frames and vintage notions within.
And decided to make this wall a workspace. So all of the above came down.
I LOVE my studio space and decided to create a similar space in my sewing room. I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up their biggest frames in the clearance section. Then I headed over to Home Depot and had them cut pegboard to fit my new frames. I also picked up a pegboard kit which includes the tools for hanging the frames.
And now I'm so excited! I have all of my embroidery floss, currently used patterns, knitting needles, embroidery hoops and more stored on this pegboard.
I'm super visual, I love to have all of my supplies on hand and on display. This kind of set up works so well for me. The same goes for my thread. These are actually table top thread displays that I found at Joann's. I simply drilled holes in them and hung them on the wall.
Keeping this off my sewing table allows me to have so much more space to work.
Here's a look at my other pegboard. This one is a lot bigger than the picture shows and it holds so much stuff! I purchased the wire bins as a set from Home Depot along with all of the pegboard hooks. The yellow and metal cans are from Hobby Lobby. Currently, all of their metal containers that are colorful are on super duper sale, check their spring isle.
The little round containers along the bottom are magnetic spice holders. My mom gave them to me but I feel like you could find those at IKEA or Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Pegboard Porn, y'all.
BEFORE! I had fabric everywhere! So much so that the room was very crowded feeling...and not fun to work in.
AFTER! I ditched the wire rack and a lot of the fabric that was on it. I kept what I liked and have decided to part with the rest. The giant mirror is from my bedroom which we never used. It allows me to see dresses as I sew them and really opens the room up.
BEFORE! This is from a "clean out" a couple years ago...here is the AFTER result of that.
That time, I didn't really "declutter" as much as I just rearranged. I'm a constant sh**-shoveler, as I like to call myself. All I seem to do is just shovel sh** from one place to another. NO MAS!
AFTER! This time, I really did declutter! My mom helped me out a lot. What I learned is that having a person help you is key...and it has to be a person who has no ties to the items you are looking to declutter. My mom does not sew or craft so she was all for trashing everything. Don't worry, nothing was trashed...just going in the donation/sale pile.
Love using shoe and sweater holders for scrap fabric, yarn and roving!
Y'all recall that fabric stash of mine from the photo above? Well, the closet was also filled! My goal was to condense all of my fabric supply to fit in this closet. And I did it!
I love having my fabric hung as it allows me not to have to root through piles of fabric. It also keeps it less wrinkled.
There are still some things I'd like to do: make sure curtains, take down the old art you see above me and paint a happy picture...and organize the wire racks and make them more useful. But the bulk of the work is done and I'm so excited!
