DIY: Flattened Fall Leaf Fantasmic

You can find two other leaf-craft posts on this here blog. There's Leafy Prints post and the Leaf Relief project. Since you've got those leaves collected, why not try these other two crafts?

Happy fall, ya'll! 

It's autumn here in Tennessee complete with brilliantly colored leaves, chilly mornings  and a constant craving for hot apple cider. Every year I forget just how beautiful and brilliant fall leaves are. And every year I collect dozens of them to be pressed and used for craftasticness.  I thought I'd share with you one of my favorite fall projects which I've been calling Flattened Fall Leaf Fantasmic (guess who was just at Disney).

My arrangement of leafy-ness hangs above my rarely-used because it's often too-stacked-with-stuff desk.

 Dude, if you are looking for a simple fall craft, this is the one for you. You'll just need the following:

• Leaf Press....you can find these for about $10 at any craft store. Or you can just use a telephone book and some heavy weighted books to stack on top.
• Leaves...if you pick them up off the ground, be sure they aren't so dry that they crack and break when you bend them gently. These should be freshly fallen leaves.
• Canvas
• Modge-Podge
• Paint

If you are handy, a leaf press like this one would be simple to make. You'll need to change out the cardboard every now and then as it will wilt from the dampness of the leaves. I just cut cardboard scraps from the recycle bin to fit my press.

1.  After you've collected your leaves, press them immediately. If you use a press, you'll need to tighten the screws every day to help flatten the leaves. A telephone book also works great and can old more leaves. Simply stack more books on it daily.
2. After a week or more, the leaves should be ready. They should no longer be damp and they should have held their flattened shape and kept their color.
3. While waiting for my leaves, I began to work on a background for my canvas.

You can see by the year that this one was created several years ago. I was very surprised that the leaf kept it's brilliant color after all this time.

 4.   I wanted my canvas to have an antiqued look, so I used a coffee dye. I really had fun playing around with some different textures. Sometimes I let the coffee drip down the canvas. Other times I pressed the damp surface of the canvas with a paper towel. I also used a doily as a stencil as seen on the canvas above.

 5.   Once the canvas was dry and the leaves were flattened, I began to play around with the composition. I used Modge Podge to adhere the leaves to the canvas both under the leaf and on top.

This is the canvas I used the paper towel on. I loved the delicate pattern it left behind when I lifted the towel.

 6.   From there I began lightly drawing in my design in pencil. I used black ink to paint my design as it seemed to flow better on the canvas and give me a hard edge. I wanted the painting above to look like a cameo necklace.

I love all of the different colors in each and every leaf.

For this one, I used a doily in the back ground and many leaves from the same tree. To connect them, I painted a tree branch.

Once complete, I covered each canvas with a thin layer of Modge Podge. I wrapped the edges in black ribbon and hung them up as a grouping together. So easy! 

If you happen to give this craft, or any of the other leaf projects a shot, please let me know! I've gotten several emails from folks that have tried out both the Leaf Relief and the Leaf Prints projects with success. I'd love to know what you think of this latest leaf-y project.

Happy Fall!

What the Art Teacher Wore #117 and It's Fall, Y'all!

 Fall Colors Monday: I scored this vintage dress last spring and I've been saving it to wear on the perfect fall day every since. Despite that 1950's Ima-gonna-choke-ya collar, I love it so. dress: vintage, etsy; belt: Anthro; shoes: Frye; pin and bangles: vintage, gift from moms-in-law

Well, hello thar, buddies! I dunno what you are doing this upcoming week but I can tell you that mine is totes kid-free! That's right, I'm on Fall Break. To the creators of said Fall Break, I take my hat off to you (not that I'm much of a hat-wearer but in this case, I'll wear one and, well, take it off). I'm so looking forward to this week cuz it's gonna be a wild and crazy ride. Tomorrow I'm heading to Bowling Green, Ohio to chat with art educators there (deets here, kids. It's free and open to the public so you should totes attend, kay?). After that, the hubs and I are heading out to Cali for back to back nights of haunted fun-ness. I've got all my Halloween dresses laid out and ready to be packed up just for the occasion.

Since it's fall and all, I decided to dress in my fave fall dresses this week. I also thought I'd share with you some of my favorite fall projects that have been posted on this here blog. Just incase you get that crafty itch (which they've yet to make a cream for) and wanna get your artsy on. 

I'd love to hear what you are up to this fall. Anyone else on break? Whatcha doin'? Until next time, kids, enjoy this fallishness!

 This here leaf-relief project is one that I've done with my third grade students (and buddies on craft nights) and they always look amazing. The process is simple, the supplies are cheap and the results are rad. Follow this link-y-loo for the directions.

 Terrifying Tuesday: So on Tuesday night, I went on a lil photo shoot. More details to come unless I made a fool outta myself (um, more so than the norms) and gotta go confiscate all said photos and burn 'em. Seriously, y'all, I take my own pics with a timer or my handy clicker. I ain't used to no one being behind the camera so it's a lil unnerving when there is! Although, I gotta hand it to the photographer, he was great. But I'm rambling, deets to come, eeeh! dress: vintage; shoes: Dolls by Nina

 One of my favorite things about fall is the changing of the leaves. A coupla years back, I collected a million leaves and started squashing 'em between a leaf press. After a couple of days, I took them out and created several paintings like this one with them. 

 Do you even know what a stress reliever it is to tighten the screws on one of these bad boys everyday? I love that the leaves retained their color and still the look the same in these paintings even though they are years old.

 Whuz Up, Wednesday: This week was seriously a busy one. It seems each day of the week I was buzzing off somewhere. I'm so glad it's fall break, y'all. Let the laziness commence. dress: The Limited, a couple years back; sweater: Thrifted

 My kindergarten friends created these leaves-floating-on-water pieces a couple of years ago. One thing I always add to my school supply order are those Rolyco Color Diffusing Leaves (sold in just about any art supply catalog). My kinder kids learned about line, the veins of a leaf and warm colors just in the leafy portion of this project alone. After coloring the leaves with warm color marker, water was added and the magic of color diffusing happened. The leaves were backed in construction paper with a small square of cardboard added to the back for a pop-out effect. For the water, the kids painted concentric circles and added a piece of tissue on top. 

 Big Puffy Arm Thursday: Seriously, whatcha doing there, Big Fat Sleeve? Oh, did I forget to mention that I've been workin out but only that right tricep (or is that a bicep? Maybe my thigh-cep? Whatevers, my arm looks big in the picture. Why didn't I just say that?!). dress: Anthro, found at Buffalo Exchange; top: gift; embroidered necklace: DIY, here

 I love this project so much that I'm actually really excited to return to school after break and to a variation with my fourth grade students. You can read more about this project here. 

 Fall Break Friday! Not that I'm excited or anything, ahem. sweater, belt and dress: thrifted; necklace: Forever21; owl sandals: Anthro

 I love embroidering when I travel. It's the perfect little craft. In fact, I'm getting ready to start a new stitchin' for our upcoming long plane rides. You can read about this stitched up fall blouse here. 

In the Art Room: Leafy Spring Prints

Negative leaf print by one of my second grade students earlier this year.

 Hey, guys! This post has been very popular on my blog...if you are interested in other leaf-y projects, look at my Leaf Relief project and my Pressed Leaf Project as well. Thanks!

I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in Tennessee, we are experiencing spring-like weather. For the most part. I mean it did snow the last two Saturdays (and, in Tennessee, "snow" means just a few flakes and a couple of inches) but the other day it was 78 degrees. Crazy, right?

For that reason, I've got touch of spring fever. You too? Well then you might enjoy this leafy printmaking project I did at the beginning of the year with my second graders. It's simple, scientific, beautiful and fun...okay, enough talking about me (!), on with the lesson.

For this project, you'll need the following:

• gelatin, not Jell-o. Most grocery stores carry a brand called Knox which sells in boxes of 16 pouches.
• cookie sheets
• printmaking brayer, sold at most craft stores
• printing ink
• variety of leaves
• paper

Print pulled from the same printing tray, this time the positive version.

The night before you begin, you'll need to prepare your sheets of gelatin. To do that, bring about 3-4 cups of water to a boil. Once boiling, whisked one pouch of gelatin into the pot. You don't want any clumps of gelatin, so whisk like there's no tomorrow. You'll end up adding about 12-15 pouches of gelatin into that one pot. Sorry, I'm not into exact measurements. Which could explain a lot about my cooking. If there are any remaining unwhiskable clumps, remove them with a spoon.

Pour mixture into a cookie sheet filling it about 1". Leave uncovered over night. If you see any bubbles in the cookie sheet, pop them or remove with a spoon. For my class of 20 students, I made three trays.

Pulling the first print always managed to get oohhhh's and aahhhh's aplenty.

The following day, we were ready to print. The surface of the gelatin was squishy yet very firm, perfect for holding our printing ink. I think I can explain this best in steps, so here you go:

1. Using a brayer and printing ink, cover surface of gelatin in ink.
2. Place leaves onto the ink-covered cookie sheet with the veiny side down. I don't recommend using anything with pine needles because that will puncture the gelatin. But experiment, you never know!
3. Once leaves are in place, lay paper on top of cookie sheet and rub (er, we call it  "massage") the paper. 
4. Pull paper off, as you see in the above photo, and viola! You have your first print!

Notice how clear the gelatin looks. All of the ink that was once on the tray is now on the paper.

I love her dainty fingers pulling up the second print. So sweet.

Now for the second print:

1. Gently remove all of the leaves from the tray. It's best to pull them out by the end of the stem.
2. Place a new sheet of paper over the now-empty cookie sheet and rub.
3. Pull second print which will be a positive image of the first.

Looks like a black and white photo, don't you think?

Once both prints have been pulled, re-ink the tray and begin the process all over again. With a class of 20 students and 3 pans of gelatin, about 10 kids were able to print per half an hour class. The pans of gelatin can last about two days with an endless amount of printing. I tried to cover the gelatin and keep it for a little longer, but condensation droplets created strange little craters on the surface. If left uncovered for too many days, it begins to dry and crack. For that reason, if you plan to do this project for longer than a couple of days, you'll just need to prepare more gelatin pans the night before.

Our second go-round of printing involved using white ink on black paper. Just as pretty.

This project is so easy and the results so stunning that everyone is successful. I've now had a couple of craft get-togethers and this is always a hit. Once those leaves start growing in your neck of the woods, I do hope you'll give it a shot!

I love the photo negative quality of this print.

In the Artroom: Full Moon Rising

Every year my school hosts an end of the year art show. Throughout the year, I hoard all of the masterpieces the kids create. A couple of weeks before the art show, my Army of Amazing Moms start to mount, sort and organize. Once completed, each teacher is given the mountain of masterpieces for their class. They recruit their room moms who then hang all the works of art.

I teach 420 kids. Each of them makes roughly 5 works of art.

That's 2100 pieces of artwork that fill the hall's walls of our school.

And it freaks me out every year...will I be able to get everything ready in time? What about those absent kids who need to finish? And where on earth did I put that class' paintings?!

As I was making a feeble attempt to organize for the show, I stumbled upon these beauties created by my genius fourth grade students. They painted these masterpieces at the beginning of the school year and I'd completely forgotten about how amazing they were. It was a great lesson for the start of the school year as it allowed me to introduce the elements of art and a couple of the Big Name artists.

So I thought I'd share it with you!
For this lesson, we used the following:

• charcoal sticks
• large rectangular sheets of paper
• black tempra paint
• naked crayons (our name for crayons sans paper)
• Crayola watercolor paints with the addition of turquoise and magenta
• watercolor brushes
• color diffusing paper in leaf shapes

Here's how we went about creating:

1. We started the year learning about Leonardo da Vinci. Using charcoal sticks (because Leo would have used 'em!) and the element of art of line, we drew a tree branch from observation. 
2. From there, we drew a circle for the moon anywhere on our painting and painted over our charcoal lines with black tempra paint.
3. Next, we chatted about Leo's love of nature and did some leaf rubbing. This introduced organic shapes, texture and color. 
4. Finally we were ready to paint. First warm colors were introduced with the leaf painting.
5. For the background, we used the cool colors and a variety of values.
6. During this time, Vincent van Gogh and his love of line, texture and movement were introduced. I'm sure you can see his influence in some of the paintings.

I love the variety of lines this artist used on her tree branch.

Just like any lesson, you've always got the Early Finishers and the Pokey Little Puppies. I myself fall under the PLP category, so I don't like to rush the kids. For my early finishers, they were given the format of a cinquain poem and told to use their artwork as the inspiration.

There are a couple of different ways to go about a cinquain poem. We wrote ours like this:

Line 1: A noun

Line 2: Two adjectives

Line 3: Three -ing words

Line 4: A phrase

Line 5: Repeat Line 1

The kids wrote their poems onto these leaves with a sharpie. These leaves are made from what's called a color-diffusing paper. After writing their poem, the kids used warm color water based markers to color their leaves. Then they simply painted their leaves with water and viola! A beautiful poem-y leaf to accompany their masterpiece.

Because of the dark sky in this painting, the artist used white to paint their tree branch to make it more visible.

I love how this branch seems to hug the moon!

And there you have it! A great addition to our art show. When it all finally comes together, I'll be certain to share photos of the show with you. Thanks for stopping by!

DIY: Anthro-Inspired Sweater and Skirt

What's this?! A DIY Double-Header? That's right, just for your DIY'ing pleasure, I bring to you a double dose: my felt -n- applique sweater along with my tulle-tastic skirt.

You know that whole "you can do anything you set your mind to" crap they tell you when you are a kid? I remember the very moment I realized that was all a lie.

 I grew up a pretty lanky and unsightly teen. Adolescence painted a particularly ugly picture complete with those giant round glasses all the hipsters now wear, braces/headgear and a feeble attempt at 1980's tidal wave hair all on a flat chested 72 lbs frame. There was not doubt: I was Freak Show Fugly. And, like some cruel joke, my family decided I should send in photos for Seventeen Magazine's Teen Model competition. 

Needless to say, setting my mind to becoming Seventeen's Next American Super Hot Top Pre-Teen Model just wasn't enough to make it a reality. After such a traumatic experience, you'd think a relatively intelligent person would have learned their lesson and stop wishing on a star. Since there is no intelligent life here on this blog, the wishful thinking continues in the form of the bottom half of this Anthropologie knock-off: The Tulle Skirt.

 When I first spotted this skirt in Anthropologie, I knew I had to have it in my life. I mean, look at it, it's all fluffy and soft like some sort of magical 1950's cotton candy skirt. However, the $188 price tag was enough to make me slap my mama. It was then I knew I had to attempt my own version.

When I purchased the tulle at the local craft joint, I asked for all that was on the bolt. After measuring, the fabric cuttin' gal informed me that I'd be purchasing 17 yards of the fluffy stuff. That's when this convo transpired: 

Fab Cuttin' Gal: 17 yards is a lot (duh, lady). Are you sure you need that much?

Me: Well, yeah. And it's only like a dollar a yard so I'll just take it all.

FCG: What are you making? (do they pay them to ask that question?)

Me: Oh, a tulle skirt! I'm so excited.

FCG: Oh, for some little girls? That will be so cute. Little girls just love their tutus!

Me: Oh, I know. Don't they though?!

Humph. Tulle skirts are for kids?! Me thinks not. 

After some serious trouble shooting, I decided to create my skirt using the same pattern I did for this DIY skirt. I layered seven pieces of tulle for each of the three pattern pieces (one large front panel and two back panels) with a gathered-waisted slip underneath. Now the thing about working with tulle is that is should come with some warning labels. Might I recommend the following:

WARNING: So Super Staticy. Like, super duper. A close look at my skirt and you'll find thread, bits of paper and maybe a cat hair or twenty between the layers of tulle-tasticness.

WARNING: Do Not Iron. Okay, really, I know I should have known this but I thought a quick hit on a low setting would be okay. Turns out it's not. 

WARNING: No Tools Should Work with Tulle. And I am a serious tool. I realized that when I was seam-ripping the waist band, my hand slipped and I put a hole in the front of this skirt. It was then that I put down the seam ripper and said, "Tulle, you've won." And I decided the skirt was complete.

Thus ending my long-winded story of my DIY tulle skirt. I'm happy-ish with the end result but most excited that I never-ever-ever have to work on it again. 

Can we please talk about happy DIY's now? Like my latest felted sweater (you can see my other felted creations here and here). I know it doesn't look a think like the Anthro-version (which I spotted on the sale rack for the still-too-high price of $69) but I wasn't in love with that one anyway. I mean, those little gold thinger-mabobbers just look awkward. To me. Pardon me if you are a proud owner of said Gold Thinger-Mabobber Sweater. 

But I do love the idea of having three-dimensional flowers on an otherwise boring gray cardi. Which is how my version came to be.

 AND just in time for Valentine's Day I decided to add a little love to the back of my sweater. What's that Gold Thinger-Mabobber Sweater? You don't have anything on the backside? Oh, too bad.

 Because this sweater was pretty easy and trouble-shooting free to complete, I thought I'd share the process with you. I began by purchasing a couple of 100% wool sweaters at the thrift store. I scored a green sweater for the leaves and a dark gray sweater that I used for the flower pedals. I washed them both in hot water which felted the fibers. This made it so I could cut out the leaf and petal shapes and without fraying. From there I used 100% wool yarn and needle-felted the veins of the leaves as shown above.

 I felted some buttons for the sweater also. For this process I took an inch wide button and wrapped wool roving around it. Then I began the process of wet felting it. Using hot water and soap, I gently rubbed the button between my hands until I felt it shrink. Those dried overnight.

 After crafting a dozen leaves, a half dozen flower petals and a couple buttons, I set to work adding them to my thrift store cardi. Using an applique stitch, I added the flower petals and leaves. I was concerned as I sewed because the the shapes looked warped. Thankfully a hit with a hot iron flattened it all back out.

 Felting the spiral design and the word love were relatively easy. I had originally picked up this wool yarn back in the day I had the silly notion I could knit. Turns out I can't knit but I can felt. As you can see above, I just spelled out the letters of the word and started punching it into place. If you are new to this lil ole blog and you'd like to see a more detailed description of needle felting, please read here.

 Ya see those spirally lines on the sweater front? Those were needle felted in the same way.

 And Ta-Da! This Tutu Skirt -n- Sweater Combo is done. And I think I'm finally ready for my Seventeen Magazine Mid-Aged-Lady Who Thinks She Can Sew closeup!

When I showed my skirt off to hubs, he said, "Oh, is that something you'll wear under your skirt like a tutu?"

Why do I suddenly think that he and FCG are in cahoots together? 

Wow, sorry for the long-winded post, ya'll! If you made it this far...thank you for reading and enjoy the rest of your week.