Pirate Week!

I hope you Pirates are as excited as I am about Pirate Week! We are going into our third week of themed home-based creating and I am loving it! In case you missed, we've done Robot Week and Zany Scientist Week. All of those videos you can now catch on my YouTube channel. More are added all the time so I would encourage you to subscribe! 

Once again, we are keeping the supplies simple. Most days we are just using household items. So that you can scavenge around for them like a true pirate, I'm including the list of supplies for each day this week! 

When I go LIVE, I do so on Facebook and Instagram. You can find me there, each weekday at 11am CT. 

If you know of ANYONE who would like to join, please know that this is absolutely free. Anyone is able to be apart of the creatin' fun. Art teachers, feel free to add this to your list of creative activities your students can do at home. Our kids are currently left with a lot of time on their hands. Let's fill their days with a bit of normalcy and FUN! Thank you SO MUCH for continuing to get the word out, it means the world to me and our creative kiddos. 

On Monday, we'll be drawing Wanted Pirate Posters! To get those creative juices flowing, I created not one but TWO coloring sheets! You can find them here and here. 

Just for fun, I created these What's Your Pirate Name sheets. You can use these any ole time but we'll definitely be taking a look at them on Monday! Of course, coming up with your own name is most of the fun!

Tuesday's activity is going to be all about recycling as we use a toilet paper tube and a cereal box as our main creating source!

Last week, making our own clay was a HUGE hit! If you want to make your clay in advance or find out more, just hop over here! 

The most fun in making your own treasure map is making it look old when you are finished. For that you can use a cup of coffee or tea. I used my cold cup of morning coffee and it worked great. 

I love making puppets, they are so much fun. And this one is a simple puppet that can actually be transformed into so many things. We'll be making a Crocodile Puppet with ours!

And here's the daily lineup! I hope to see you there. 

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Robot Week! Let's Draw Robots with Shapes and Markers!

In case you missed the news...it's Robot Week! All week I am going LIVE at 11am CST drawing, creating, printing and making robots with YOU. You can watch me LIVE here or here! However, if you miss the video or want to create with me all over again, I've got the videos on my YouTube channel. Here you go: 

You might want to subscribe so you can keep up with the weekly videos! 

Initially, I was only going to go LIVE a couple of days but I've had such an overwhelming response from artists all over the world, I decided to keep it going! Here's the line up for the rest of the week:

 Simple supplies for tomorrow's LIVE!

 Then keep that creation handy for Thursday! We'll be using it for marker printing!

And on Friday, we'll create a collage! No paper? No problem! Let's recycle some old envelopes with fun patterns and designs!

Parents and teachers, looking for an extension? Here you go! Some writing prompts for when the robots are complete! 

Also, for free PDFs with a coloring sheet, how to draw robots and an idea sheet, go here! 

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DIY: Creating a Home Studio

 The second big project on my Spring Break To Do List was carving out this brand new home studio space! This was the second big endeavor I set out to accomplish over my break (check out the others here and here) and I'm so excited with how it turned out. This room is our bonus room (dubbed the "bogus" room by me for years as I literally just piled stuff in it!) and it sits right above our garage. It's a big space and filled with light and windows. This room serves many purposes: it's my yoga studio on the 3 times a year I decide to practice; it's a book writing space; a lesson planning and video recording spot and where I host Facebook and Instagram LIVE every Wednesday night at 8pm, CST. While it's always had many jobs, I never felt like this space was my actual studio. My drafting table was in another part of our house and my art supplies were scattered about. Over break, I decided to change all of that.  

 I started by clearing out the accent chairs and the end table that previously sat in this space. If you'd like to take a tour of my bonus room, you can see it all right here. Those chairs are now sitting in a heap in my front room...another space that I've yet to figure out. And, before you ask, no, we didn't just move in to our home. I'm just a VERY SLOW decorator/figure-er out of life-r. I then moved my 1940's drafting table to this space. 

Let's talk about my drafting table for a minute. I scored it a couple of years ago from a Craigslist seller. I had always wanted one after I broke mine in college (how does one break an iron drafting table? These are questions only those in college under the influence of Zima can answer). The vintage light was an ebay find. 

Despite the fact that I like ALL OF THE COLORS  I'm trying to approach decorating my home in a less crazy manner. For that reason, when deciding on framed pegboard and an accent color, despite my knee jerk reaction, I decided to go with ONE accent color...not ALL the accent colors. Yellow was my color of choice. I thought it was bright, happy and would compliment the slate gray of the curtains. My vintage desk lamp was originally gray. After priming it with a white spray paint, I hosed it down with a sunshine yellow. It makes me so happy!

 Now let's talk pegboards. After I decided I wanted to hang pegboards up, I thought they would look better framed. Since this in my house and not my garage, I just thought it would elevate the look. I am a hoarder of all things but frames in particular. When I found three in my stash that would work, I took them with me to the hardware store to have pegboard cut to size. Why not just measure them, you ask? Well because the frames are a touch wonky. I wanted them to be certain the pegboard would fit. I'm glad I did...each pegboard had to be trimmed down at least two times before they fit the frame. 

While at the hardware, they had a couple of pegboard kits. These came with the supplies needed to hang the boards and the hooks for supplies. 

 Here's my advice for hanging pegboard...and take this with a hunk of salt as I'm not handy AT ALL: hang the frames with a heavy duty hook. I happened to have these Monkey Tail hooks that could hold up to 20 lbs. They slide right in to the wall and work fabulously. 

 Now you can't put the frames right up to the wall. You'll need a little bit of space in the back for the backside of the hook. The pegboard kits I purchased came with long screws and a bumper. The bumper goes in the back and forces the frame to sit some distance from the wall. 

 When putting in the screws, you'll want to be sure to put add them to the stud. This will further anchor your pegboard so that the weight doesn't cause it to simply fall off your wall. I used this cheapo thing called a Stud Buddy (heehee) and it worked great at helping me find the studs. It's really just a high powered magnet that finds the nails in the studs. 

 The baskets were a purchase from Target and work great at holding my small bottles of paint. I hate having all of those bottles of paint laying around on tables...this seems to be such a colorful solution.

 As for the tubes of acrylic, I decided to hang them store-style.

 I'm such a visual person who loves to have EVERYTHING OUT so I can see what I've got. These pegboards allow me to do this without having a mess of stuff all over the place. 

 The added bonus is that I can change the configuration of the arrangement at any time. Now I want WALL TO WALL PEGBOARD: for my jewelry, for my sewing room, for my LIFE. 

I also have a stand alone easel that I'm contemplating bringing up to this space also. 

 I did purchase a drop cloth to go under my table as I really don't want to mess up the hardwood floors any more than I already have (ahem). You can see the drop cloth in the basket I've got hanging from the table.

Eee!! Y'all don't even know how happy this new space makes me!

Do you have a home studio space? In what part of your home is it in? What are your favorite parts of your space? I'd love to hear! 

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