Winter arrangements

It's always fun to switch certain decorations in each new season. Putting away my Christmas stuff finally, I arranged new Winter decor--snowflakes and frosted pine cones a necessity. New idea this year: pussywillows in the water jar around river rocks.

(wouldn't it be fun to be an artistic florist?) bonus: the picture in the frame above is:

Collage on stretched canvas

So I got some kinda craft bug, and I painted over a dollar-store "stretched canvas." ...I pasted a female cardinal from a magazine cover, and a (picture of a) Bible page. My favorite experiment in it was the letters: I placed letter stickers over the first layer of paint, then painted/sponged a darker color over them, then I peeled off the stickers.

Of course the Scriptures paired with a bird in the snow were: from Matthew 6... "look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store up in barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable to Him than they?" :) ...Hence the lettering of "Be still." (--which is like Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God."

And, randomly, I had this idea to add to my beach-y bathroom. That was fun. Thanks for visiting!

Crayon art

Just for fun, I made a crayon decoration, inspired from a pin I saw on pinterest. Right now it is at our children's art table. E (for all our names) was easier than S (for last name)!

Critters for the stockings

Made some new stuffed felt critters for our kids' Christmas stockings. This koala (5yo's fave animal right now) has a pocket in which I included some felt leaves for the koala to "eat." And that is an E, for her name, on the behind.

For our 7yo, I made a lizard (and the name also starts with E).

On the other side of this critter I have a pocket as well, with felt bugs.

(below is some felt monsters the kids are making, with hot glue instead of sewing)

:)

Gingerbread Houses 2011

This has become my favorite part of our week between Christmas and NewYear's :)

All 4 of us do it quite easily this way: begin by building a structure with old cartons & boxes. Then stick graham crackers onto cartons with frosting (below). (Mine in foreground is an elbox pasta box laid down with a mini cereal box on top of it.)

Gotta have waffle-shaped square pretzels for windows. Icecream cones are great for towers, both triangular cones & classic cones (below).

Good variety of sizes and shapes of candy below, which you just stick on wherever with frosting.

These are an exciting addition too: gingerbread people cookies...

both our kids were hard at work and did a great job pretty much all on their own! foreground is our 5 y.o.'s, and our 7 y.o. is still working on the front of hers...

silly hubby's...

above: 7yo, below: mine

above: 5yo, below: hubby's

So fun. A family project for a couple hours. This is becoming a tradition to do in the week we all have a break, and one idea if you plan on this is: the candies and supplies could be the treats that are in the stockings on Christmas a.m.

New Christmas card 2011

My newest Christmas illustration! pencil & digital mixed media. Inside the card I wrote, "Merry Christmas from our small home to yours!" I wanted to feature a handprint wreath that we just made which includes all our hands (our two childrens', my husband's and mine). So I placed it on a front door, and naturally around the door I included things that are commonplace in winter in our home of small children-- boots and mittens scattered, little creations strewn, and decorations creatively added to, such as a car in the nativity scene, and a frog in the vase of Christmas flowers. This tells a story, as do the Christmas cards and invites on the door and the lightswitch, telling of this busy time of year. But the meaning in this crowded season is small, however-- and easy to miss if you don't look. On the back of the card I included this poem by Ann Voskamp: "Power plays and big takeovers, it's the way the world and Wall street turns. But God, when He comes, He shows up in this fetal ball. Just this seed unfurling, impossible power contained in the small." ~Ann Voskamp :) fun fact: on the printed card, the other mitten that matches the one on the front was found on the back of the card. My mom, forever a mother, told me she was excited to find that missing mitten on the back :) lol i love her. Does anyone else notice anything else in the illustration? :) ...... (to view my past Christmas card illustrations, click here and browse) Merry Christmas!

new book coming

Until these October posts, it had been quite a while since I shared some art. This is good news! It is because I was very busy all year in my spare time, illustrating a new book. It will be revealed finally very soon! :)

T-shirt design: owl

I got to play with my mom's embroidery machine! Before I chose the fabrics (all scraps--woohoo for thriftiness/recycling), I designed it first, of course, with pencil...

...then used the applique feature on the embroidery machine, onto the smaller fabric. I then hand-stitched that onto the shirt and hand-sewed the buttons (flowers have buttons as well as the eyes).

[she's saying, "wise up!"] ;)

Fall pic

Just for fun today, because I can't resist a nice pack of decorative papers. I've got it up with my fall decor! favorite season.

T-Shirt design: moose

Made my own souvenir from our trip to New Hampshire :) I chose the fabrics, cut the shapes, and hand-sewed them on. Put the second flower onto a hair-clip to match.