Creative Dawn

Yesterday, my sister in law sent me a text message about my niece wanting to paint and bake with me today.  No problem!  I didn't have to work and it's fun having kids around the house.  I actually ended up with my niece and a friend of hers they are both great kids and awesome little helpers.  First they put on aprons and then got started.  The first thing we did was make chocolate chip cookies and once they were in the oven the girls painted.  They came up periodically to scoop a new batch or to take the finished ones off of the cookie sheet.  They resumed painting and after a while wanted to bake more so we made banana bread.  I think they had fun and I enjoyed having them here.  I am posting some of their work and also a small painting that I recently did.    ;)

It is the last day of May and after today I have three months left in my posting goal.  I will continue to post on this blog, but after August it won't be every day.  So, yesterday we had a very small family gathering at my house.  My niece Kyra was the only kid and asked if I had anything for her to paint.  Of course I did!  She had three things to work on and was extremely content painting while the adults chatted.  I had to post her finished work they are so fun and she was so proud what she did.  Kids don't have any limitations and just do whatever. My other niece is a dancer and I drew this picture for her as a birthday gift.  It was fun to draw the ballet shoes, but they looked so plain so the dots were added.  The endless ribbon designs was fun to do as well they gave the picture more interest.  

This was an idea from a craft book that I got some time ago.  The pencils were from the dollar bins at Target and cost $2 for all of them.  The colors were bright and fun, perfect for this project.  The frame is from Michael's and was a $1.  I left frame unpainted because it was getting covered up anyways.  Using a wire cutter, I scored the pencils in the middle and then broke them in half.  The part that drove my husband crazy was when it came time to sharpen all of them using an electric sharpener.  The pencils were hot glued in place and lined up towards the center of the frame.  This would also be a fun thing for kids to do using regular glue.  I wouldn't want to have them burn their fingers using a glue gun.  Have a great day and don't forget to live life creatively!

This is the official post for 5/13.  I am glad that blogger only was delayed for a day.  I cannot imagine catching up on a weeks worth of posts if that had happened. I had the idea a while back to put bookmarks randomly at the library and here is my felt version of one.  This will probably be put in a kids book because it is bright and fun.  For a bit more weight to this and to cover up the stitching on the back, there are two pieces of felt sewed together.  It is a simple project and would be good for kids to do as well.  It would work great for church groups or girl scouts.  There's another fun idea, I should find away to teach kids crafts.  I may have to look into that.  Kids can be so much more creative than adults because they are more free in their thinking.  Definitely need to check out my options soon.  

  I have two young nieces, Kyra and Jessica around the nine and ten age group.  They can be difficult to buy for.  This year, I painted small name plaques for each of them.  I posted Kyra's a while ago, now here is Jessica's.  This one cost .97 at Walmart.  Besides the name plaques, I will probably buy them each a gift card of some sort to wrap with it and also a small candy treat.  Simple and pocketbook friendly and also a little more than just a gift card.

I love cats, unfortunately I don't have any right now.  I had some great pets in the past and made a collage of them.  My cats were Purrcilla, Oliver and Mystr.  Purrcilla was all black and the others black and white.  Hm...color theme again?  I took some pictures of them and used a copy machine, not a scanner, to make the collage.  Some images were enlarged to various sizes and because I used a copier instead of a scanner/printer, there are different shades on the pictures.  I laid out the pictures before glueing them and didn't realize until it was finished that it kind of resembled the shape of a cat sitting.  This is a favorite of mine because it reminds me of my beloved pets.  This is also a project that anyone can do, it's a great way for kids to be creative and to also use up old magazines.  You can collage anything from landscapes to portraits.