TreasuresInTerraCotta

I have been saving, washing and storing Capri Sun pouches for several months now.  I finally got around to making a bag this week.  I laid out the pieces and decided to make a big bag, 3x4 for each side, and 3 each for the edges and bottom.  I had some trouble with the tension and also with the spacing of the stitches.  I decreased the tension and that seemed to fix the problem.  I also slowed down and fed the pouches through the machine carefully instead of relying on the feed dogs, because they just didn't grab the foil very well.        Here are the sides all pieced together.    The bag portion assembled.   The bottom corners were a little tricky making three pieces come together.  The solution is to stop the stitches before going off the end on the first two sides.  I ended up ripping out some seams to attach the bottom correctly, but it worked out in t...

The weather in Southern Arizona turned the slightest bit cool and my mind began swirling with craft projects.  It wasn't intentional, but one day in early October, I looked around and discovered I had about six crafty projects in various stages of incomplete. It seems no coincidence that in early October I also started reading an enlightening blog by Emily over at Chatting at the Sky .  During the course of the month, I've read along as Emily has discussed art.  Not just the painting or symphony writing kind of art.  Not just a commissioned artist or professional art teacher kind of art.  But the art of living as the person you were designed and created and crafted to be.  The art of you!     What if the book, the painting, the meal,  the presentation were all simply evidence of  a deeper art happening within the soul of an artist? Art is what happens when you dare to be who you really are .   Emily'...

The kids are all ready for summer fun!  My sister found this  Freezer Paper Stencil Tutorial at MADE  and we decided the six cousins needed matching shirts for all the sumer fun we have coming up in July.  We picked up shirts in various shades of blue, dug out some old fabric paint, bought a humongous roll of freezer paper and then the debate began.  What should the stencil be?  There was much discussion, second-guessing and internet searching for clip art while trying to find something that was: ~easy to cut ~visually appealing ~gender-neutral ~summer-y ~and fun We finally settled on a simple camp fire.  All of the kids (except the 2 year old) painted their own shirts.  Each one is slightly different but they are all adorable.  (I'll post more pictures when we get the kids all together.) I wish we had done this craft earlier in the summer so the kids would have had "camp shirts" for all the out-and-abo...

I have had this craft in the works for months and it is finally compleated.  Adorable Emily over at Jones Design Company showed me how to make a book page canvas in one of her many tutorials .  Her finished product looked something like this, with pages from many different sizes and colors of books, which I plan to copy some day. I started with an inexpensive canvas from the craft store, a Bible bought at the thrift store and a large V for my monogram printed from Word. I had Mod Podge, black acrylic paint and brushes on hand. Then I started to disassemble the Bible (please don't think me irrevrent!) and cut up the pages (eeekk!) and arrange them on my canvas.  I used some pages from 1 Thessalonians that contain our family verses, but I also added some other favorite and encouraging verses from Philippinas and Ephesians and elsewhere. I cut some small and some large and filled in the gaps and did some overlaping.  Then I used Mod Podge to glu...

We're rapidly approaching the end of our school year and I wanted to post a few of our art projects.  Our homeschool curriculum includes art books and instructions in the lesson plans a few times a week.  I have to admit that I am not very rigorous about ensuring we complete the art unit each day.  We do however, do art and other crafty activities regularly.  In addition to the curriculum, I've also found a couple wonderful art blogs with many great ideas for kids.  One of my favorite inspiring places is Deep Space Sparkle .  As an art teacher in a public school she includes a lot of age specific projects, lesson plans, supply list recommendations, and lots of samples from real kids.      This year we've studied many birds in our overview of United States history and introduction to the states.  We made a textured owl craft.  We made these pretty cardinals...