Creative School Projects

So even though I haven't posted on my blog for a while, I have been staying creatively busy.  I've started thinking about school already and spent some time organizing my classroom and getting things prepared.  For a bit, it sounded like I might be going full-time and to mentally prepare myself for that change I created a little scrapbook-style schedule to help my stay balanced.  Here it is, hanging over my alter that I decided to set up again once I realized how much I was missing having one....

...so I found out after that I'll probably stay part-time, but I still have this for when things change.  Other creative school projects that I've been busy with include:  sewing curtains (with the cutest ever fabric) for an area of my classroom, decorating binders that I'll use to organize student assessment paperwork, cutting out squares (from leftover scrapbook paper) and adding numbers for our calendar routine school day count, decorating my lesson plan book (see photo below) and much more....

I have also discovered a whole fabulous world of Kindergarten (and 1s/2nd grade) teacher idea blogs while spending too much time on Pinterest.  I've decided to once again start a teacher blog of my own: http://msmoonskindergarten.blogspot.com/  so that I have a designated space for sharing/seeking ideas and inspiration for the classroom.  It's not much yet because, quite frankly, I needed to boot myself off of the internet (currently have a 1 hour time limit that I set up for myself on my laptop so that I don't overdo it!).  And a link to my Pinterest account...I'm still trying to decide if I should keep separate accounts for work vs. creative life...but we'll see.  

Mixed Media Paper Arts Class

Another thing that I've been busy with this summer is my Mixed Media Paper Arts class taught by Katherine Willson.  One thing that I really like about the class is that we come home every week with at least one finished project.  One of my favorite projects involves an ink-decorated altoid tin that houses a tiny accordion journal.  I thought it would be fun to do a tiny page every day until it's filled up.  Here's a photo of the first two pages I started working on.

Altered Book Round Robin

Yesterday I had some fabulous artists over for our Altered Book Round Robin get together.  Here are some photos of the cover and sign in page of my altered book (all about birds), but I totally forgot to snap a picture of my first page that I did.....so I'll have to share that later.  The cover is collaged with images and artwork from other artists that I've sort of been collecting....including business cards and trades from Artfest.  Apparently I'm not the only one drawn to bird imagery in artwork.   The next book that I get to work in is called "Aging with Attitude"--sounds very fun!

Today is a lovely day....

Today it is a beautiful and quiet Monday (summer) morning and I was thinking about how much I love my bright and colorful living room, with the sunlight lighting up different patches, and feeling so blessed that I have a little creativity corner.  The picture is not quite the same as real life.

Today's creative project and crazy colors

Today I worked on painting this dresser/desk piece of furniture that I had salvaged from the dumpster.  Although I originally planned on painting it white, after going through all the trouble to sand and prime it, it felt like a shame to paint it such a boring color.  So instead, I used paint on hand and made it apricot and hot pink.  I'm thinking of painting the sides and top of it "leopard print" if I can figure out how...to look somewhat like photo on the right.  Wouldn't that be fabulous?

More Lists!

Here are a few more lists from the 52 Lists Project:  Things to do on a rainy day and things to let go of....

Art Journaling inspired by Traci Bunkers

I've been reading and working through some of the ideas of Traci Bunker's "Art Journal Workshop."  What I love about what she does, is that she values the therapeutic benefits of journaling that sometimes get overlooked with art journaling.  Journaling can be a tool for personal and spiritual growth and working on her prompts feels like I'm in therapy, in a good way.