DIY: Spoonflower Student Artwork Dress!

I've had it on my mind to print my students artwork on fabric for a very long time. I've done just about every variation of kid-created fabric for dress-makin' such as having them color IKEA coloring sheet fabric which I then stitched into a dress (more details on that dress here): 

Or the time I found the fabric of picture frames! I had my students draw their self portraits on the fabric before creating that into a dress. Both of these dresses were created with Graffiti fabric markers. They've seen plenty of washing and, while the colors have faded a bit, they still look pretty vibrant. And the kids absolutely love them. More details on that dress here. 

But the idea of creating fabric from student work is one that I've been toying with every since hearing about Spoonflower. In the past, I've ordered fabric from Spoonflower and made a couple of dresses with designs created by artists. 

You can check out the details of this dress and fabric here. 

And details of this dress can be found here. Having ordered fabric from Spoonflower before, I knew I liked it. The fabric I ordered has a good thick quality which is great for the kind of full dresses that I like to create. So, this past spring, just before I hung some artwork up for our art show, I laid a bunch of it out on the floor and took a couple of snaps with my camera. After the art show, I uploaded the photos to the Spoonflower website and was shocked how stinkin' easy it was to rearrange the works of art to create the desired pattern. 

 In case the artwork on this dress looks a little familiar to you, it's from one of the more popular lessons on my blog: The Chris Uphues Lesson for All! Here's a peak of just a few of the works of art based on that lesson:

Take a look at the work of art above and then the print quality below. Pretty amazing, right?!

 This weekend I decided to cut into this Chris-Uphues inspired, kid-created fabric and create a dress using one of my favorite vintage patterns. Now, I did use a circle skirt pattern for the bottom...so only the bodice was used for this dress. 

Here's a little peak at some of the other fabrics I had made with Spoonflower. I cannot wait to make them into dresses too. 

 Usually I'm all about the big belt but when I tried my big belt on with this dress, it seemed to take away from the print. So I went with a hot pink ribbon for the belt instead. 

 Not wanting to waste even a scrap of this precious fabric, I decided to create a couple bow to be featured at the base of the shoulder straps. 

I'm so excited to wear this dress to school and share it with my students. Big thanks to Spoonflower for working with me on this fabric-making adventure and to Chris Uphues for his constant inspiration. 

In the Art Room: My Favorite Sub Plans!

DISCLAIMER: I am offering these lessons, handouts and videos to you for free. PLEASE do not take my lessons and sell them. Because that would be super crappy of you (yes, someone is doing this. Yes, they are super crappy). Thank you.

Going to NAEA in Boston next week? Need some sub plans? Y'all, I got you COVERED! Today I'm sharing my favorite VIDEO sub plans and my tips and tricks to planning for being out. There's nothing like the amount of WORK you gotta do just to take some time off. I'm here to make your life a little easier, I hope. So, without further ado, my Top Ten Sub Plans!

Let me just start by saying that the sub plans I am sharing were created for my kindergarten through fourth grade kids. I ALWAYS make a lesson that's age appropriate for all my classes. This makes my prep life so much easier and the life of the sub all the better. For more tips and tricks, check out this video!

Lessons like this require a lotta prep. Yeah, I will be keeping it much easier this time. More about how I prep for a sub can be found in this blog post. 

1. James Rizzi Cities! This sub plan was a huge hit with all of my kiddos. They started it while I was away and I was able to easily slide back in to a low-mess/low-stress project for them to continue. Lesson, handouts and video can be found here!

 2. Loud Mouth Collages! My kids thought these were the most fun ever...while I thought they were the most funniest ever. Complete video lesson and plans here!

3. A Colorful Village! Again this is another lesson that the kids work on while I'm away and we finish up with oil pastel and watercolor when I return. Easy, fun and super colorful. Video and lesson here! 

4. Chris Uphues Inspired Hearts! Who doesn't love Chris Uphues and his happy artwork?! My kids love learning about him. I've not only got a video lesson but I have a short clip of an interview I did with Chris and his wife Jen. More here!

5. I am a Super Star! This lessons is so fun...it really incorporates so much, from mixed media to literacy to a good ole boost to the self esteem! I DID ask the sub to make the stars for the kindergarten before they arrived because I'm not that crazy. Lesson here! 

6.  Collage Monsters! Another fun lesson that the kids really enjoyed. This one required more prep than most, just an FYI. Complete details and video here!

 7. Kerri Ambrosino-Inspired Still Life! Need a pop of colorful happy for spring? Try this sub plan on for size. So fun and we busted out the PUFFY PAINT! Lesson here. 

8. Wings Mural! I know, you've seen it a thousand times...but the lesson originated here! The feathers were created while I was out on jury duty, I believe...and then we assembled it when I returned. Lesson and video here. 

9. Britto-Inspired Collaborative! I love having the kids work on collaboratives when I'm out. It means we have a big beautiful work of art to hang when I return! Lesson video and details all right here! 

10. Monochromatic Self Portraits! Lastly, here's a lesson that's always a hit: monochromatic self portraits. We love hanging these in rainbow order for a beautiful display. Have your kiddos follow along with me in this video! 

There are PLENTY more lessons and videos on my YouTube channel so be sure and give those a glance if none of these strike your fancy. And be sure to subscribe, I upload videos and content all the time. If you are gonna be in Boston, see you there! 

2019 Art Show: 2-D Work!

 Serving up the final installment of our 2019 art show for y'all today! This here is the 2D portion of our art show where every work of art that every kiddo has created all year long is on display! You can check out our Glow Gallery Tour and our Pirate Gallery Tour here! 

In this blog post, I thought I would share a link to each and every one of these lessons you see! This will give you an idea of what projects I teach (2D, that is) throughout the year. If you are interested in details on this art show: how it's hung, who does the hangin', how it's taken down and sent home, then you might want to watch this tour I created to answer those questions for you:

Please feel free to leave any questions about what you see here or on my YouTube channel and I'll be sure to answer them.

 Let's take a tour of theses projects! We'll start with kindergarten. My kindergarteners always have the biggest amount of artwork because their lessons are shorter. I started the beginning of the year with my lessons on line. Those projects did not make it to the art show as they were sent home at the start of the school year. From there, we did the rainbow lesson and Mouse Paint project. 

 One of the more popular lessons for kindergarten on my blog is this one. This lesson is always followed by my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom project which you can find here.  

 Our snowmen were a lot of fun to create this year too. We learned all about the cold colors and painting spiral lines. 

 A new lesson I came up with this year were the heart prints. We were able to get many prints created and used our two favorites for our work of art. 

With our printing plates, we created these beauties! Super fun and stunning!

 The kindergarten gallery is almost always my favorite! 

 Although first grade sure does take a close second. Let's talk about their projects. One of my favorites this year were our Mad Scientists! 

 A classic that we've done many years in a row are our Royal Self-Portraits. I love that we have two selfies in this art show: one as royalty and one as kid-genius. Perfect for my kids!

We also did those heart weavings that you see with the stitched edge. With the heart we cut out from our construction paper for the weaving, we created these Romero Britto inspired pieces. You can see a variation of that lesson here. 

All of the artwork and the kids who created them make me this happy. 

The big penguins you see were created from this lesson here. 

 Let's move on down to second grade! These kids had many works of art both in the Glow and Pirate Gallery that their wall seems a little empty. Don't let that fool you: we are always crankin' out some art!

 Our Super Hero Selfies can be found here while our Chris Uphues Hearts are here. 

 This printmaking lesson is one of our favorites. We seem to improve up on it each year! 

 And this lesson is from my String and Stitch Lab for Kids book! Check it out! 

It's a pretty colorful hallway!

Speaking of, let's move on down to third grade! You'll notice these kids also did the Chris Uphues lesson...in fact, all of my students did as it was a sub plan. 

One lesson of mine that was especially popular was the landscape project! I had run out of paper (omg, an art teacher without PAPER, hello!) and had a lot of cardboard pizza rounds...so we improvised! 

The kids also created those amazing Sandra Silberzweig-inspired self portraits!

 My students did two kinds of weaving, tree weaving and circle weaving. Two kid favorites. These are also featured in my new book! 

 One lesson that I'll be sharing soon is this one! If you can't wait, then check out this blog post as this lesson is a variation. 

 

 This is another lesson that I'm excited to share with you soon! 

 This third grade display brings me so much happiness!

 My fourth graders spent the start of their school year making pillows! We made pizza, donut and emoji pillows, all of which are in my sewing book. 

 One of my favorite lessons this year was our Snow Globe project!

 While planning our snow globes, we made tiny paintings that we later used for our marble still life lesson. 

 Our Fauve-style self portraits were a lot of fun to create too. 

I hope you enjoyed this art show tour! Be sure and check out the other posts to see all the other works of art these artists created.