Summer Vacation Week!

 It's officially summer! My summer vacation began last week but I'm going to continue to teach live art classes one more week! Here is our line up for this week. I go live every week day on my Instagram and my Facebook page. You can of course catch my videos afterward over on my YouTube channel. New videos are added all the time so be sure to subscribe! 

Here is our line up for this week. We'll kick things off with a Summertime Selfie!

It wouldn't be a week of creating with me without Salt Dough Clay!  

 Last week, the kids really loved origami so I decided to do another origami project! 

 On Friday, we'll sail away to other adventures and beyond in this hot air balloon pop-up! 

See you soon!

Read more »

Snack-tastic Chefs Week!

Who is ready for another week of art-making! I'm pretty stoked about this week as it is based on my favorite thing: snacks! And, despite the fact that I'm not such a great chef myself (have you even seen Season 3, Episode 3 of Nailed It!?), we are going to be BAKING COOKIES on Friday! Which is all kinds of funny as the judges spit out my cookie that I made on T.V. Let's just hope y'all don't do the same. 

So get read for another fun week and be sure and share this with friends and family so they can join the fun too. We'll kick things off with a Chef Selfie!

On Tuesday, I'll be sharing a lot of paper folding and paper sculpture techniques in this Hamburger Sculpture project. 

 On Wednesday, let's make a Salt Dough Pizza! 

On Thursday, I'll show you how to draw a 3-D cake! It's a piece of cake! 

And on Friday, we are gonna bake! I'm so excited about this!

To join me live, you can find me on my Instagram and my Facebook page. If you miss the LIVE session, no worries. You can catch the video the next day on my YouTube channel! Be sure and subscribe. I'll be sharing lessons there (in addition to these) all week for Mother's Day! 

See you real soon!

Read more »

Let's Make a Fashion Look Book!

I've been watching a whole lot of Making the Cut, Project Runway and Next in Fashion lately. As some of you might know, I make a lot of my clothes and I am passionate about fashion! I know many of my students are as well...which is what inspired me to create this fun activity that I'm calling a Fashion Look Book. My favorite part is, with just the flip of a tab, you can change the look of a whole outfit. All you need are the following:

* One piece of copy paper
* Construction paper for the cover (any paper will do)
* Permanent or black marker
* Stapler
* Something to color with

Here we go:

Have fun! 

Read more »

Let's Make a Landscape!

Here's an easy and fun way to teach about the four parts of a landscape: horizon line, back-, middle- and foreground. What I love about this little lesson is that the pop-up stands up and it can act as a card of a storytelling prompt as it opens like a book! Check out this three-minute demo. Feel free to share with the young artists in your life!

Have fun!

Read more »

Outer Space Week: Salt Dough Solar System!

If you joined me for my live art class either on my Facebook or my Instagram then you know...this art lessons was easily a favorite! I know you'll have a blast and your artwork will be out of this world! Grab some cardboard and crayons for the background. To create the planets, you can use Play-Doh or I'll teach you how to creat Salt Dough Clay with 1/2 cup of flour, 1/4 cup of salt and 1/4 cup of water as well as food coloring. Let's create!

For more videos like this one, be sure and subscribe to my YouTube channel!

Read more »

Outer Space Week!

Who is as excited for Outer Space Week as I am? I'm thrilled to share the line-up of art projects that we'll be creating this week. I'll be LIVE on my Instagram and my Facebook page every weekday at 11am CT. If you miss out on any of the live art classes, not to worry! I archive each lesson to my YouTube channel. By the way, I've been adding a ton of new videos nearly every day so you might want to go ahead and subscribe so you don't miss out! 

Okay, here's the line-up and supply list for each day! 

If you don't have the ingredients to make the clay then Play-Doh is an excellent substitute. Any clay will work! 

"Take me to your leader!"...that's what my alien would say. What would yours say? This fun pop out is so silly because you can make your alien TALK! This process is also great for creating other moving and talking cards and pop-ups!

Here's something you can create and then interact with once complete. Tell stories, write plays, come up with your own universe! 

This is such a fun process. If you've been creating with me for a while, you might remember we did a project using this method for Robot Week! 

Big thanks to our sponsors! Dixon Ticonderoga supplies me with the most incredible art supplies on the planet! And Art to Remember allows us to create a gallery of our own artwork on line...which can be shared with family members and even printed on a multitude of items. Thank you so much, sponsors!

Read more »

Dinosaur Week!

I can't believe we are heading into our fifth week of LIVE online art classes! When I started this adventure with Robot Week, I didn't have any idea or plans to continue. But so many of you have joined the fun and, honestly, it's been such a joy for me that I don't see signs of stopping...at least not for a while. And that brings us to this week's theme Dinosaur Week!

We'll kick off Dinosaur Week with a Paleontologist Portrait. We'll either create a self-portrait of that of someone else. Simple supplies are all you need and if you see a supply on the list that you don't have, don't worry. I always offer lots of alternative supply possibilities. 

Now that we are paleontologists, let's go digging for dino eggs! These fun moveable puppet-like eggs are easy to create and so fun to play with and create stories about. 

I seem to bring back the salt dough clay each week but I know kids love it! If you don't have the ingredients to make the clay, any clay will do: Model Magic, modeling clay, playdoh, you name it! 

What do dinosaurs eat?! Well, in this project, you get to decide! In this lesson, we'll make a mouth that pops open for you to draw whatever snack foods you wish to have your dinosaur munching on. 

 What if the dinosaurs...came back?! And roamed the streets of our cities? Let's make a pop-up city for our dinos to wander in. We'll create dinosaurs using cereal boxes and a TP tube!

If you'd like to join the fun, art class is free! You can catch it LIVE on my Instagram and my Facebook. You can always watch later on my YouTube channel. New videos added daily so you might want to subscribe. See you soon!

Read more »

Zany Scientists! Exploding Beakers and Floating Chalk Prints!

Yesterday we did one of my favorite art projects so far: Exploding Beakers! We followed that up with a fun science experiment of making floating chalk prints. In case you missed the fun, no worries, here's the video:

In case you need a list of supplies, here you go:

 If you want to join the fun today, you can do so here on Facebook or here on Instagram. Be sure and subscribe here on YouTube so you can keep up with all of our Zany Scientist happenings! You can also catch all of the Robot Week videos there too! 

Read more »