What the Art Teacher Wore #25

Geez, Guess Who's Excited Monday: One of my favorite things about summer is being a helper (ahem, a facilitator) at Tennessee Arts Academy. If you dunno about the 'Academy and you are an arts teacher, you must check it out. It is by far the best professional development around. dress: vintage, picked up on my trip to Amsterdam; belt: made by me; sandals: old, Target

 Hi, friends! I hope your week has been Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I have spent the last seven days with the most incredible artists and arts teachers around. I cannot wait to share with you all of the art lesson ideas I've gathered over the last couple of days. I feel so energized (well, after a big fat hairy nap) and excited about the new school year. If you are an arts teacher, please don't pass up the opportunity to attend the Tennessee Arts Academy next summer. And don't let the name throw you, anyone from anywhere can attend. Registration begins in the fall, so visit their website often to secure your spot (okay, unpaid advertisement over).

The biggest highlight was having the opportunity to meet, listen to and hear the singing voice of one of America's greatest song writers. Richard Sherman and his brother Robert started their song writing career by writing the top 10 hit Tall Paul for the Mouseketeer Annette Funicello (this youtube link is a must see!). This lead to them being approached by the great Walt Disney to write some songs for a little movie project he was working on. But more that later...

Recognize this ride? It's one of my Disney favorites, from the design by Mary Blair to that little ditty that resides in one's head long after the trip around a Small World. Image found here.

 First lemme introduce you to the brothers that wrote one of the world's most recognizable Sherman Brother's tunes, It's a Small World. Richard Sherman shared with us the amazing story of how this song came to be: back in 1964, Walt Disney created this ride for the New York World's Fair UNICEF Children of the World pavilion...a mouthful, right? The Sherman Brothers thought so too.

Finally the Rain Comes Tuesday: dress: vintage with Naughty Nautical Girls embroidered by me; belt and hair flower clip: made by me; anchor sandals: Sperry, last summer

The design of It's a Small World is by one of my favorite Disney artists, Mary Blair. I think I need this image in my classroom this year since we are traveling the world in art.

They asked Disney if they could possibly shorten the name of the song and he agreed. He told them, 'it just needs to be about small children around the world and I need it yesterday!' The brothers set to work in a panic. Thankfully, they seemed to work well under pressure. While Richard sat at the piano, he and his brother bounced back and fourth: 

"Small Children..."

"Children of the World..."

"Small World..."

"It's a Small World!"

Tall Cassie Wednesday: The combination of 4" wedges and 3" hair had me leering over my good friend Debbie all day. We had quite a laugh and I enjoyed that I could easily put her in a choke hold when necessary. dress: vintage, thrifted; shoes: Anthro, sale; belt: gift from a friend with flower added by me

The opening of the ride in 1966. Image found here.

 Now when the brothers wrote "It's a Small World", they wrote it as a song. It was Walt Disney that put the song to that tempo that causes the song to stay with your for days, weeks and months. A pleasant reminder of a sweet song, says me.

Thursday, Darling: Every morning I was in a hurry to get to the Academy so my photos this week are a bit rushed. Notice I'm wearing my name tag in this photo, oops! dress: vintage, gift from a sweet friend; owl sandals: Anthro, last year; belt: Pinkyotto; sweater: ebay; headband:  from the best hair accessory maker around Peachy Tuesday

From left to right, Robert Sherman, Richard Sherman and Walt Disney. Awesome.

 Mr. Sherman also shared with us the story behind the songs of Mary Poppins: when Walt Disney first approached the brothers it was to work on these songs. Walt discovered the stories about the magical nanny through his daughters who adored reading the books of  P.L. Travers. Apparently, Ms. Travers was not an easy one to work with and obtaining the rights proved to be no small feat. But, as you know, Walt was able to and the rest is history.

From left to right: Richard Sherman, Julie Andrews, Dick van Dyke, Robert Sherman

 Mr. Sherman told us a little back story about the casting of Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins. Apparently, Julie Andrews almost didn't take the gig. She had her sights set on the role of Eliza Doolittle in the movie production of My Fair Lady which she'd performed on Broadway for many years. Hollywood decided that she was too much of an unknown and went with Audrey Hepburn instead. The moment Audrey got the role in My Fair Lady, Julie called Walt and said, "okay, when do we begin Mary Poppins?" Julie Andrews went on win an Academy Award for her role. Take that, Hollywood.

And Now It's Time to Say Goodbye: The last day of the Arts Academy is always a toughie. I make so many new friends and reunite with old ones, it's bummer to bid adieu. dress: Okay, don't hate me but I found this ANTHRO dress at GOODWILL (yes, this is worth shouting over). The original $298 dollar price tag was still on the dress and I got it for...$7.99. shoes: Anthro, sale

This photo makes me so incredibly happy! It is a Small World, after all!

After hearing Richard Sherman share these stories and sing his songs from Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, Chitty Chitty Bang, Winnie the Pooh and, of course, It's A Small World, I was just completely star struck. Sadly, the stars were not aligned for me to meet him as the chance never came up. Until this afternoon at the final reception when I found him sitting at the table next to mine. He graciously agreed to a photo ("Well, sure, sweetie!") after I gushed on and on about how much I loved his songs. What an incredible song writer and gentleman.

Have the loveliest of weekends, friends! I hope you make it Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

In the Art Room: Weaving, The Final Chapter

When weaving with children, you might be surprised to find that the boys enjoy this activity the most...as long as you don't call the completed weaving a purse, that is. 

 As I wrap up this weaving mini-series, I thought I'd leave you with the following: a little bibliography, weaving finishing touches and my secret to getting these pouches completed without taking half of the school year. In case you missed, here is Weaving, Part 1: Getting Started; Part 2: Learning to Weave; Part 3: Removing the Weaving and Part 4: Weaving the Cord.

My Weaving Bible: You Can Weave! By the amazing Kathleen Monaghan.

 This week, I'm currently at the world's best arts professional development: Tennessee Arts Academy. Several years ago, the author of You Can Weave!, Kathleen Monaghan, was a presenter and she was incredible. Her book is full of clearly written and photographed projects, tips and tricks. I can't recommend it enough.

The ole standby: Goat in a Rug

 I don't just weave with fourth grade, I begin weaving with first grade. You can see their completed weavings here. And the book I use to introduce them to the world of weaving is this one, Goat in a Rug. It's told from the perspective of the goat whose mohair is used by the Native American, Glenmae, to create a rug. It's the perfect balance of factual and funny.

Sometimes the best books are the ones found in the dollar bin, like this one, Grandmother's Dreamcatcher.

 With my second grade, we create quasi dream catchers. The kids love this book as they sympathize with with the main character who is cursed with bad dreams. The author does an excellent job of explaining the origin of the dreamcather and it's believed powers.

This is like the older kids' version of The Goat in the Rug: Weaving a Rainbow.

 This book is an excellent one in that it re-explains to the kids the process of creating wool yarn. This year, we had fun reading this book and dying our own wool yarn with Kool-Aid ice cubes during our science experiment time.

 Now, let's talk weaving finishing touches: Getting rid of that pesky warp tail. To do this, the kids will need a needle (I don't recommend this kind but it's all I had on hand. My kids use 3" plastic or metal needles) and a small folded piece of paper for a needle threader.

 We call the small folded paper the "hot dog bun" and the thread the "hot dog". Put the hot dog in the bun and slide the bun into the eye of the needle.

 Now pull the hot dog bun off of the hot dog thread and, viola!, you have just threaded a needle. No wetting the end of the thread and spreading nasty germs required.

 Now weave your needle in and out of your woven pouch until you run out of warp thread. Pull needle off and you're done. No knotting needed.

 For button sewing, I usually have a sewing circle. The kids pull their chairs up and we sew the buttons on step by step. We begin by threading and knotting our needle. Find a good place on the pouch to pull the needle through like you see in the above photo.

 Slide your button down the needle and thread. Sew a couple of stitches to secure the button. By the way, you'll notice that in the photos of the kids pouches, we use pony beads instead of buttons.

 Now sew a double knot in the back. To create a button hole, just separate the weft threads on the flap and force the button through.

 You can have the kids go about sewing the cord two ways, on the side, like I have done, or across. I began by threading and knotting my needle and pulling the needle through the cord, as shown above.

 Secure the cord onto the pouch with a couple of stitches. If you are sewing the cord across, you'll have a little more sewing to do.

 I will say that the end of this year sneaked up on me and I was in a real bind. The kids did not have time to do the sewing themselves as they had done in the past. Thankfully, I had some very kind parents that took the sewing task on themselves. If you don't have a Mom Army, you need to get one. They have been an incredible source of support in my art room.

Now, just how do we manage to get these pouches woven in 30 minute art classes? After I am confident that the kids understand how to weave, I let them take their weavings home. That's right, they leave my room with a giant zip lock bag with their loom, needle, twenty strands of yarn and a note home that reads something along these lines:

Dear Fourth Grade Students and Guardians, I would not be sending this weaving kit home with you if I did not believe you were mature enough to handle the responsibility. This weaving is not homework so work on it when you have the time. You are to bring this weaving with you each time you have art class. If you forget your weaving, you will receive one reminder before a phone call will be placed. If you lose your weaving, your needle or any part of your weaving kit, it will not be replaced. Have fun and weave!

I know what you are thinking: that would never work for me! Well...it doesn't always work for me either. There's always the kid whose dog devours their weaving, whose kid brother flushes it down the toilet, whose mom accidentally throws it away. So, you make exceptions. You quietly slip those kids a new loom or needle and tell 'em not to spread the word to their buddies that you are actually a softie.

I also promise a grand reward to those that remember to bring their weaving back the following art class (a blow pop is the preferred dangling carrot of choice). But I only do that once. After that, the kids become very competitive. "I have four inches woven, how many do you have?!" Which morphs into, "I finished my flap, what about you?!" This positive peer pressure pushes the kids toward finishing their weavings. 

It's not a perfect system. There are some kids that don't have time or care to weave at home. And that's fine. They can work on their weavings during in-between-project time in art class. As for the early finishers, the kids get to keep their looms and needles, so they can rewarp their looms and begin a second weaving. This year, I had one student that wove five pouches (with cord handles!) in her spare time.

I have been doing this weaving project with my fourth grade students for many years. This is a project they look forward to since the first grade. I believe that excitement is what makes this weaving unit so successful. 

I do hope you've found this weaving series helpful. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas. I look forward to hearing more from you!

What the Art Teacher Wore #24

Motivated Monday: Some days, I've just got it. Motivation, that is. Most days I'm a useless slug. But on this day, I was all about the laundry, the cleaning and the dying of this dress...which I'm still losing sleep over. Note to self: no dying, hemming or drastic-vintage-dress-decision-making whilst pms'ing. dress: vintage, thrifted, sweated thru then dyed then hemmed by me

 Hiya, friends. How are you? Is it just me or has this week been screwy as all get out? It's that middle-of-the-week-holiday thing that threw me off. Wednesday felt like Sunday which made Thursday feel like Monday and Friday just wasn't as cool as it usually is. But, whatevs, the fireworks were cool (oh, who am I kidding, this ole bag and her party animal hubs were both in bed by 9pm).

Apart from this week trippin' me out, it was a good one. I got to catch up with some friends, do some estate sale shopping and a wee bit of crafting. So I thought I'd share just a bit of that with you, along with what I wore, this week. This weekend and upcoming week is going to be an exciting one for me as I'm attending the Tennessee Arts Academy. So if I'm a little pokey on the posts, I do hope you'll understand. I'll be certain to fill you in on all of the awesomeness that is the Arts Academy soon. Until then, enjoy your weekend!

Uh huh, you thought I gave up hookin', didn't you? Because it's not a craft that travels well, it has been neglected of late. However, I'm excited to share with you the two squares on the right that have recently been finished.

Car-Jumpin' Tuesday: I went to visit my adorable and amazing former-student-teacher-now-middle-school-art-teacher Lauren on this day in her new school! You might remember her and her artsy looks from these outfit posts. Sadly, after our visit, I had to bother her kind vice principal for a car jump as my GPS decided to go rogue, fall off the windshield, bump my hazards which blinked for hours on end causing my battery to die. What kind of Terrible Tuesday Domino Effect is that, anyway?! same dress; sandals:  made by me with this DIY

This may sound silly to you...but every summer, I've always wanted to spend my Fridays estate/garage/yard saling. And every summer, I've neglected to do so because I hated the idea of goin' it alone. This summer I've got a couple buddies that love to go with me and I'm so excited about that and my great finds! I found this beautiful book and creepy letter opener on a recent saling trip.

Happy Fourth of July Wednesday: We celebrated our independence by shopping at Goodwill and running into this sweet girl and her hubs. dress: the first dress I ever made based off of a pillow sack dress idea, vintage fabric; flowers in my hair: one by me, the other by H & M; sandals: old, BC Footware

One of my favorite estate sale finds: vintage hankies. Antique stores now ask for almost $6 per hankie...I managed to score all of these for half that. I'm thinking of collecting more to create another one of these skirts.

Ladies that Lunch Thursday: Met up with an incredible art educator and professor for a delish lunch on this day. dress: Forever 21, old. I added the brown and mustard yellow bands of fabric at the bottom to add some length. My thighs just aren't up for that much air time; belt: made by me; sandals: You've seen me wear 'em to death, old ones from Target

Ashie's new favorite place to spend her afternoons is on bird duty in this chair overlooking the deck. During this nap she missed the two dozen bird party we happened to be hosting in our bird bath.

Early Morning Estate Saling/East Nashville Lunching/Car Tire Exploding/Tire Buying Fun Friday: Yeah, throw in a thunderstorm, a near wallet snatching and a 110 degree day and you've got yourself more fun that you can handle. Thankfully I had a good buddy to get me through it! dress: vintage, thrifted; coral floral pins: made by me

"Um, did somebody say Bird Bath Party?! Where??" Poor kitty, I swear she misses all the action.

In the Art Room: Weaving, Part 4

Finished weaving, complete with cord and coordinating background.

Now that your weaving is finished (ahem, you did finish it, right?), let's get to everyone's favorite part: cord weaving. My students as young as second grade absolutely love weaving these cords. They weave mounds of them, fashioning them into necklaces, bracelets and belts.

If you need a refresher course on the woven pouch, you can catch up on that with Weaving, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

For this project, you'll need:

• two colors of yarn, four strands of yarn each, all of them approximately 24" in length. 
• thick cardboard
• scissors
• pencil

Begin by cutting out a circle. I traced around an old plastic lid with a 4" diameter. 

Make four equally spaced marks on your circle like a compass. We do a short geography lesson in class while marking our loom.

Make four more marks in between your North, South, East and West.

Make eight marks in between each of the aforementioned markings. You should have a total of sixteen equally spaced marks. Cut them. 

At this point, I ask the students to bring me their looms and I stab the center of their loom with a pair of pointy-end scissors. While I'm loom stabbing, I send them off shopping (our art room word for supply-gathering) for yarn. Students will need eight strands of yarn, four of one color, four of another.

Have the students tie all eight strands of yarn into an overhand knot like that shown above. Push the knot through the hole in the loom just enough so that only the knot is peaking out from the bottom and the rest of the yarn is on the top of the loom.

With those long strands of yarn coming through the hole in the loom, feed them through the cut notches you made. Set your loom up like a compass. There should be a vertical "X" and a horizontal "X" of yarn.

To weave, you will follow the same three steps over and over. Begin with vertical "X". Using your left hand, remove the bottom left string and place it on the top left side of the loom. Now your "X" should look like a fork.

See the fork? Easy.

Now using your right hand, begin at the top right side and remove the right string. Place it at the bottom on the right side. Now you should see your "X" again.

It should look exactly as it did a moment ago. If the "X" becomes off-center, do not worry. You can correct that by shifting the strings on your loom if it bothers you.

I promise I am not flipping you off, I'm trying to point you in the direction that you will turn your loom: clockwise. Once you have turned your loom clockwise, you will do the same steps over again, this time with the other yarn colors in the "X". And that's it. Really. You'll repeat this pattern continuously until you have completed your cord. We have a little poem in art class that we say to help us remember the weaving instructions: Right string to the top, Left string drops, Turn it like the hands of a clock.

Now let's talk trouble shooting. As you are weaving, your cord will come out of the bottom of the loom, shown in the photo below. The long strings around the loom can sometimes become tangled, shown in the photo above. To prevent tangling, I usually have my students stand while weaving. This allows the long strings to hang straight and not tangle. If they do become tangled, pull one strand of yarn out of the tangled mess at a time. Do not run your fingers down all of the yarn in hopes of combing out the tangles. It will only make it worse.

After just five minutes of weaving, you should see your cord coming out from the whole in your loom. Yippie!

More trouble shooting: if your cord keeps popping out of the hole as you weave, as shown above, tug on it gently from underneath the loom to bring it back down, as shown below.

The entire time you are weaving, it's a good idea to tug gently on the cord to keep it from popping up.

How do you know when you are finished? When the shortest of the eight strings is no longer long enough to make it to one of the notches. You can see my peach colored string at the top is now too short.

Taking it off the loom is very easy. Just remove the strings from the notches and pull it through the hole.

Viola! A finished cord! Often the kids will ask if they can use strands of yarn longer than 24" so they can create longer cords. I have found that this causes a lot of tangling so I try to avoid the question by changing the subject, "Oh, look, a unicorn riding a rainbow!"

Depending on the time, I'll either show the kids how to sew in their cord or have one of my awesome mom helpers give us a hand. Simply feed a knotted strand of yarn through both ends of the cord...

And attach with a couple of whip stitches. The students are give the option of having the cords sewn on the side like mine or across. Most boys tend to go for the cord on the side as the across one looks a little too purse-y for them.

And there you have it! Because I've thrown so much at you today, I thought I'd do one final installment of this weaving series. In that, I'll show you how to sew on a button and hide that pesky warping tail. I'd also love to share with you my favorite weaving books and how I manage to get these pouches woven in the 30 minutes of class time that I have. Yeah. 30 minutes. We have Fingers of Fire! Chat with you soon.