Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Thanks Giving!

Well it's that time of year again! Time to be especially thankful. Not that it should be just one day! One should be thankful for many things every day! 
This year I am specifically thankful for my family, including my extended family members, and especially my grandma who we are celebrating this year at Thanksgiving!
My grandma's 75th birthday is today, one day before Thanksgiving, and so we are having a two in one party this year. This means that we have tables and chairs for 31 people in place at our house! Uff da! I'm so excited to have our extended family gathered together for two wonderful celebrations, but it's been a busy week here as we prepare! This blog is a compilation of the festive decorations that are ready for our fun!
My first decoration location was the giant upright piano in the dining room, the perfect place for a fall vignette. It is full of fall patterns and colors, as well as some fun decorating pieces. Check out the pictures below, captions give quick explanations of each piece.

Pulled a group of vintages books from my parent's and my own collection. They coordinate with the colors that are in my fall inspiration fabrics. The yellow and gray book is especially neat because it's the book my grandpa used to study Brazilian Portuguese when he became a missionary to Brazil. :)
The vintage green vase was left in my parent's house by the previous owners. The matching colored basket is from one of my favorite stores, my friends at Vintage Hardware! Ooh and so is the little berry basket! The eucalyptus is from JoAnn Fabrics.  The pumpkins come from The Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island! 
Snagged these adorable over sized tiles from the harvest bazaar that is held at my school. Thanks to the wonderful Andrea Weaver for making these! They are the perfect message for Thanksgiving!
I'm totally in LOVE with my red canister! (It has a matching short and wide canister, 2 in 1!) This was a find a couple weeks ago from Ikea! My aunt gave me the three tiered baskets as a hand-me-down that she got from a friend. The chocolatey-charcoal color worked perfectly with my color scheme and held all my fall goodies (pumpkins, Indian corn, and pine cones) so snugly.
Not sure where this lovely little gem is from, it's just been in our house for as long as I can remember. :) But it works perfectly with my red canister and fall funk theme.

Final product at the piano! 
My fall fabrics that I have used all over the house! The chocolate fabric is on top of the piano. It is also featured as table runners and one table cloth. The orange check is also a table runner and cloth. And of course... burlap! It's my favorite.
My Aunt Kathy made these ADORABLE place cards for everyone! She used vintage print music, card stock tags, and stamps. The fabric ties are extra scrap from the fall fabric. Told you the fabric is everywhere! The tags turned out so amazingly! Thanks Aunt Kathy for your creativity and time!
Aunt Kathy was tasked with the job of making tags that will fit into pine cones as tag holders.  Now the house smells like eucalyptus and cinnamon pine cones. Oops!
Almost finalized look for the tables! Just need to put the flowers in the jar in the morning.  Centerpieces are simple, leaves that I pressed, and Ball jars with chocolate covered raffia. 
Picked up these beautiful flowers from Costco! They will end up in the Ball jars Thanksgiving morning! 
Now let's hope that our birthday/thanksgiving celebration goes smoothly tomorrow! 

Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving! Full of blessings, joy, and love! No matter where you are or what you have or have not, take a moment and find one positive for which you are thankful! 

PS: I'm thankful for all my blog readers! Thanks for making this a wonderful year! Stay tuned as the Christmas season approaches! I have decorating, gift making, and present wrapping in store for you!  

Friday, November 22, 2013

Fun and Funky Folk Art!

I have to preface this with the fact that I have absolutely terrific projects going in the shop write now. The only problem is that they are all Christmas presents and I can't blog about them lest I spoil the holiday surprises! This is a lesson in patience for a very impatient person! 

Fortunately my students have been working on a fun art project the past couple weeks and a handful of them are complete for the world to see! 

I found this clever plan on Pinterest (of course) and couldn't wait to give it a shot! I have to say that for a person who is able to craft and create on my own, but not share and teach such things very well, Pinterest is a teacher's lifesaver! I have become a fan of an art project blog, Painted Paper, that is chalk-full of kid friendly projects. 

Material list:
8.5" by 11" white paper
Pencils
Black Sharpies
Crayons
Water color paints
Black construction paper

To start the project, we looked at the inspiring folk artist, Heather Galler (check out her Etsy shop). I then gave students the basic steps aloud, written on the board, and showed them my example pieces. Students needed to use about 2/3 of the paper to create an outline of the landscape, including any hills or curves. They then divided the land space into at least fifteen areas.  Once they had the land divided up, they added patterns including stars, hearts, stripes, checkerboards, flowers, zigzag lines, and many more creative designs.  The final piece of pencil work was to create a barn or house, one or more trees, and a festive, funky sunshine.  All of the pencil lines were then carefully traced with black Sharpie marker so they would stand out in the end.

The students then used crayon to color in the patterns, leaving the background of each area white.  If they had stripes or checkerboard patterns, many kids colored every other section so they could add color through paint to the remaining sections.  

Once the crayon work was complete, they carefully painted in the all of the white paper that was left. This gave the art pieces great dimension and texture. Once the paint was dry, art was mounted on black construction paper, and boy did the colors pop! The final products that I have received thus far are AMAZING! Absolutely phenomenal! I may be biased, but seriously... Check them out!