Monday, February 23, 2015

Horse Pallet Art

Soprano's room re-do is coming along. After painting, we decorated with some loaded up picture gallery shelves and with embroidery hoops. Our next project was to upcycle an old pallet into more art for this horse-themed room. I liked this version via Pinterest and wanted to create my own.
Bass got an old pallet from our local Habitat Re-Store. He dismantled it and cut the boards to the length I wanted. After attaching the boards together with some thin wood boards, he also added a metal hanger.
 The hanger thing is cool and all but the front is the pretty part. :) I cut a horse shape (from Cricut's Old West cartridge) out of vinyl and put it on the boards. Then I dry-brushed over the vinyl with the same color paint as her trim (Olympic Crumb Cookie). When it was dry, I peeled the vinyl off and voila. Bass sanded a few parts where I got a little heavy-handed with the paint for this final result.
Now it's the feature piece that hangs above her bed. (We're looking to get her a different bed this spring which is why it's hanging a little high at the moment.)
Just a few more projects to go before the room reveal!

Linking up to some or all of these great blog parties:
Sunday: Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming;
Monday: Inspire Me Monday at Sand and Sisal; Tutorials and Tips at Home Stories A to Z; It's Overflowing; Monthly Before and After at Thrifty Decor Chick
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts; 
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

Monday, February 16, 2015

Make a Card Monday - Giggle, Laugh, and Be Silly


My other recent card swap offering was this design. I needed something a little less time intensive than all the alcohol marker coloring on Harvest Girl.
I found the layout idea on Pinterest and thought it went perfectly with the papers from the "Amy Tangerine Sketchbook" 6x6 paper pad by American Crafts. A friend had given me the embellishment flowers so I went with different color schemes to incorporate them all.

The yellow flower started out as white. I lightly stroked over the petals with a yellow marker to make it match the card.


Details:
cardstock: blue and pink card base (Recollections), yellow card base (Bazzill), white (Georgia Pacific)
patterned paper: Amy Tangerine Sketchbook 6x6 paper pad (American Crafts)
embellishments: flowers (Recollections), pink and white pearls (Recollections), various ribbon (unknown)
color: Paris Lights, Orangerie, and Belle Rose ink (Palette)
tools: scallop edge punch (Fiskars)
stamps: TAC Express Yourself (sentiment)

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Love is Valentine's Day Branch Display

I don't usually do much Valentine's Day decorating...mostly because I'm lazy. It comes too close on the heels of having decorated for Christmas then winter. It would be up for such a short amount of time that it doesn't really feel worth the effort. (This makes me a bad home/DIY blogger, doesn't it?)
This year I was inspired by a couple ideas that I saw (this banner and this centerpiece) and decided to clear the dining room of my winter and snowman decor and put this up instead.
Braving the cold, I went tromping in my backyard and cut branches from a forsythia bush and added some other random twigs that fallen in the yard after some recent wind. I cut the hearts from various scraps of cardstock I had on-hand using Cricut's Cricut Classic Font cartridge and then stamped the words ('God is...', 'love', and the words from 1 Corinthians 13's "love" passage) with Faith (TAC), Mini-Bet (TAC), Simple Bet (TAC), Nurture Your Soul (TAC), and Rummage (Making Memories).
I added baker's twine from Queen and Co. to the hearts and hung them all on the branches.
I used several Bible versions for my hearts but here is the passage in the NLT.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. 
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never ends...
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13


Linking up to some or all of these great blog parties:
Sunday: Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming;
Monday: Inspire Me Monday at Sand and Sisal; Tutorials and Tips at Home Stories A to Z; It's Overflowing; Monthly Before and After at Thrifty Decor Chick
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts; 
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

Monday, February 9, 2015

School Summary - More Revolutionary War and the Constitution


I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

A Summary of January 19 - February 6
If you look at the dates, you'll see three weeks of time. Despite the dreary winter weather, the days do seem to be flying by. Way back, sometime last summer, when I was planning our year, I intentionally scheduled our MFW work to allow for a catch-up week after we studied the War for Independence. I figured we'd have a lot of book basket reading and other activities to fit in. I was partially right. We weren't behind but it was still nice to have a week that was less full.
Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:
Math
Language Arts (Grammar, Reading, and Writing; Spelling for Soprano)
Tenor started his next reading book, "Where the Red Fern Grows". Soprano completed "Island of the Blue Dolphins" and began "Caddie Woodlawn." They both finished their three paragraph research reports on important figures from the Revolutionary War for writing. Tenor chose George Washington while Soprano picked Benjamin Franklin.
Tenor also finished Saxon Math 8/7. He'll be starting Algebra I next week.

Electives:
Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor), Home Ec (Soprano)

My Father's World Exploration to 1850
We continued studying the people and events of the Revolutionary War before learning about the creating of the U.S. Constitution and our first, somewhat reluctant, president, [the original G.W.] Mr. Washington.

Bible: This year we're doing an in-depth study of the book of James and attempting to memorize the entire book. We're now reviewing chapters 1and 2 and finishing up learning chapter 3.
Science: Since we did all of our botany work, using AIG's The World of Plants, over the summer, I'll try to give an overview of the experiments and demonstrations that we did. Currently the younglings are working on a botany lapbook from In the Hands of a Child.
They're reading a section and doing an activity three days per week to review what we learned.
These weeks we would have covered lessons 15-20. That included studying stem growth, photosynthesis, leaf arrangements, leaves changing colors, and identifying trees.

We did a bunch of experiments and observation but I have no pictures.
History: We read about the Revolutionary War again this week. Lots and lots of reading. We learned about the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights. [It's amazing how our government is operating today so far away from how our founding fathers intended it to based on that Constitution. Crazy! and scary!]
Our THREE branches of government -- or how it's supposed to work
We finished Johnny Tremain as a read-aloud that I added in, and the younglings also really enjoyed the rest of the Liberty's Kids DVDs.
We skipped the silhouette activity, but made colonial flags.

We also did the quilt activity. I had a bunch of pre-made quilt squares from my late grandmother's craft stash. She quilted for years and participated in a club which swapped squares amongst its members. These squares were headed for the get-rid-of pile but I rescued them knowing this craft was scheduled. Soprano made a doll blanket,
and Tenor made an envelope pillow cover.
We started our state study too.
I added in some map work from SOTW (The American revolution). No extra timeline pieces though. 
Other MFW: 
Music: We listened to several pieces by Chopin. For our hymn study, we spent one week on "Jesus, Lover of My Soul" then the following week learning "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing."
Art: We read about Turner and tried painting atmosphere.

Extras:
Web:
You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 15-34.
Botany extras (we didn't use them)
Revolutionary War lapbook (we didn't use it yet but I still might add it in)
Videos:
Liberty's Kids
American History for Children: American Independence by Schlessinger
American History for Children: United States Constitution by Schlessinger
Animated Hero Classics: George Washington by Nest Entertainment
Johnny Tremain by Disney
Ladies of Liberty: Boston 1775 by Learn Our History
The Presidents [George Washington] by The History Channel

Favorite Books: 
What If There Were No Bees? by Suzanne Slade
From Bird Poop to Wind by Ellen Lawrence
What is a Fruit? by Jenifer Day
Revolutionary Friends by Selene Castrovilla
The Boston Tea Party by Russell Freedman
Those Rebels, John & Tom by Barbara Kerley
When Mr. Jefferson Came to Philadelphia by Ann Turner
Will you Sign Here, John Hancock? by Jean Fritz
D is For Democracy by Elissa Grodin
Eight Hands Round by Ann Whitford Paul
The Quilting Bee by Gail Gibbons
We the People by Peter Speier
F is For First State by Carol Crane [Delaware]
Journey Around Philadelphia from A to Z by Martha Zschock
Lives of the Presidents by Kathleen Krull
Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Sasha [New Jersey]
George Washington by Mike Venezia

Monday, February 2, 2015

Embroidery Hoop Art

Another bit of art I wanted to tackle for Soprano's room was embroidery hoops with fabric. I found tons of super cute ideas on Pinterest.
I found a few hoops at a local craft re-uzit store and had one on-hand already. The two smaller ones were inexpensive purchases at JoAnn's. I painted them all with the yellow spray paint I used on the picture frames. I found all of the fabrics at JoAnn's too.

The larger two hoops only have fabric in them.

I used the flowers on the gray fabric to add buttons.

I made a little banner from bits of the other fabrics using the Stampin Up Pennant Punch as a template.
The last one was the most time intensive but is my favorite. I used the pattern of the fabric to add embroidery stitches as embellishment. I did have to Google how to make French Knots to refresh my memory but the rest was pretty easy.
Altogether, they hang on the wall adjacent to the picture gallery shelves.

Linking up to some or all of these great blog parties:
Sunday: Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming;
Monday: Inspire Me Monday at Sand and Sisal; Tutorials and Tips at Home Stories A to Z; It's Overflowing; Monthly Before and After at Thrifty Decor Chick
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts; 
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

Make a Card Monday - Harvest Girl

 
For our recent card swap card, my first card was this sunflower card. I really, really wanted to create something to use my new alcohol markers. I asked the gals if they wanted a blank image to color themselves or if they wanted me to pre-color. They all let me color their images. I tried to give them my best efforts.
I gave them all the pieces to create this layout below. The other layout was what I put together with my extra images after our card night.
I hand cut the girl image then to add more interest, I stamped it again on some of the patterned paper and cut it out to get a second sunflower. I cut out the second flower and layered it over the top using a foam dot.

Details:

cardstock: yellow card base and gray mat (Recollections), cream for sentiment (unknown), white for image (Georgia Pacific)
patterned paper: "Queen Bee" 6x6 paper pad from Pink Paislee
embellishments: metal clip (unknown), button (Foo-Fa-La), ribbon (unknown), fibers (EK Success)
color: Charcoal ink (Palette), Black (Memento);
tools: Circle dies (Nestabilities), scallop edge punch (Fiskars), foam dots (Studio G)
stamps: TAC Fall Harvest (images) and TAC Feel Better(sentiment)
Markers:
Stem: Spectrum Noir DG3 and DG4
Shirt: Spectrum Noir CG1 and CG2
Skin: Spectrum Noir FS2, FS3, FS6, and PP1
Pants and Shoes: Spectrum Noir BG4, BG6, and BG8
Hair: Spectrum Noir EB5, GB8, GB10 (brown) or CT1, CT2, and CT3 (blond)
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