A Couple of Mini's

Good Morning! I want to express how overwhelmed and thankful I am over the response to the last post. Crafting with my boys is a precious gift to me. They spend so much of their time playing sports and being rough and rowdy boys, that it is nice to have them slow down and use the other side of their brain. I hope that I can continue to add things to their lives that will develop them into well-rounded young men.

I wanted to quickly share a couple of mini album covers and a few interior pictures with you. The first is a 6x6 mini album that unfolds to form a display. I am taking this album to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. My boys, nieces, and nephew are going to make turkeys to finish the album. I am looking forward to crafting with them and I can't wait to see how it turns out. I got the idea after seeing this card from Ronda at Cocoa Daisy.

Here is the cover:

The interior fold out:

and my finished turkey that I will use to help show the kiddos what we are doing:

I can not wait to finish this mini and give it to my parents. It will make a cute addition to their Thanksgiving decorations and be a sweet keepsake.

The other mini I created was for the boys Christmas Journal. I plan for this to be similar to a December Daily (which I am doing) except that all the pictures, ATC art projects, and journaling will be done by the boys. I know that they will not be able to work on it everyday, but I have created enough pages for them to complete a page for each day of December.

Here is the cover:

and here is a picture of one of the interior pages.

Sorry the photos are a little grainy. It has been raining here in Central Arkansas for two or three days, making it impossible to shoot pictures in a good light.

I have not included tons of details in this post, but I will be back this weekend or the first part of next week to give more details about how I put the mini's together and also post some pictures of my December Daily.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Olivia

ATC Mini Art Projects

Tuesday, I posted that I was planning on continuing the mini art projects with the boys. This is something that I started doing with them this summer as a way to tear them away from technology. I was skeptical that they would enjoy doing them, but once we started they were hooked. We started out doing one every day, but then it kind of dwindled to every other day or whenever we got a chance with our busy summer schedule.

Below are three of the projects that we created this summer. The first is Carter's favorite-we painted the background with watercolors, then used a foam stamp and acrylic paint to stamp our first intial. The second is Ethan's favorite- we used the exclusivecoffee/tea ring stamp from the March Cocoa Daisy kit and stamped it in black ink, then used watercolors and Twinkling H2O watercolors to paint the whole thing. The final one is my favorite- We used Modge Podge and tissue paper to create pictures. I finished mine with a white pen and a rub-on word.

Here is a look at how I have been storing the mini art projects. We each have our own baseball card page and when we complete a project it is dry, we just slip it in. I am currently using an American Crafts D-ring album and these baseball card pages fit perfect.

Once we start to work on a project it was amazing how quietly and intently we all work. Many times the boys will work really hard for over thirty minutes on their little mini masterpieces. Thirty minutes of sustained work and attention span is HUGE for little boys.

I am also amazed at how much I enjoyed working on these little projects too. For me it is a chance to work in different mediums and to just play and create without worrying that I was going to mess up my end result.

All the art projects start with an ATC (2.5x3.5 in) sized piece of white textured cardstock. I usually have in mind what medium I want to use with the boys before we start, but sometimes I just let them choose what they want to work with. Most of the time we work together on projects that are all similar, but sometimes the boys will show up while I am scrapbooking and want to work on a project by themselves, so I keep extra ATC cards on hand for these type instances.

Here are some pictures of the boys working on our latest project and then a picture of the finished pieces.

Inking and using the Big Shot

Splatter painting and misting

Final result

Besides spending quality time with the boys creative playing and talking, which is the biggest benefit of the mini art projects, I also love that they are learning about different art mediums and learning that art is not perfect. Plus I am using up bits and pieces of my scrapbooking materials….Gotta love that!

I plan to continue these mini art pieces more consistently through the month of December; so that the boys can add them to their December journal (I will share this with you in a later post).

I am also thinking that we will continue these in 2012 as part of my Project Life album.

I hope you find the time to make mini masterpieces with your kids or even your husband. It is an amazing way to creatively play, talk, and share. There is nothing better than quality time spent together making memories.
Here’s to creative play and wonderful messy memories! Hugs!!
Olivia

Plans, Glorious Plans!

Before I jump head long into my plans, I want to share a few goings-on from around here.
This past weekend, I participated in the bi-annual Cocoa Daisy crop. I have participated in all the crops they have had and I can say by far that this weekend was the very best! Such inspirational challenges and fun camaraderie and silly banter back and forth on the boards! If you are looking for an online kit company with inspiring design team members and beautiful kits, Cocoa Daisy is the place to go. It is my absolute favorite scrappy spot.


Here are a few of my creations based on some of the challenges from this weekend’s crop and a picture of my desk during the crop. How is it that I have this big, beautiful desk, but I choose to cover it with stuff so that I leave myself a very small workspace? Crazy! I know...

The desk...Yikes!

This was the first layout I completed. It was a fabric challenge, where you had to use a large amount of fabric on your layout. I love how this one turned out!

I created this card for the clothing challenge. In this challenge you were to create a card based on clothing pieces that the challenge designer gave us to use.

This layout was created for the sketch challenge. Vicki Boutin, who is the guest designer for November created a sketch for us to use for this challenge.

For this challenge the wonderful Amy Tangerine inspired us to stitch words onto our projects.

I hope to finish additional layouts this week, so that I will be eligible for Queen of the Crop honors.
This weekend I did step away from the computer long enough to do this:

Woo Pig Sooie! What a great way to spend time with my guys! The wind was blowing like crazy, but our seats were perfect, out of the wind and warm underneath the upper deck seating. To top it off the Razorbacks won big over Tennessee 49-7.

So now onto my plans…. My mother swears that I was a planner from a very early time, I am beginning to believe her, because I am raising one just like me….and boy is he difficult when things don’t go has he has planned! Any who…here is what I am planning for the coming months:

• A fall craft: for my boys, nieces and nephew to complete while we are at my parents for Thanksgiving week. I got my inspiration from Mrs. Ronda’s cute little card, using this exclusive stamp from Cocoa Daisy.




• Use the mini album from this Cocoa Daisy add-on to make mini album about all the things I am grateful for right now.




• Mini Art Projects with the boys…I started these this summer with them as a way to pry them away from technology for a bit. I never imagined how much we all would enjoy doing them. They still ask me to do art projects all the time.




• My December Daily. I constructed most an album last year and got swamped and didn’t do anything with it. But the positive side of that is now I have foundation pages that are nearly complete, so I am ahead of the game for this year. WooHoo!




• Start thinking and planning my Project Life, I am going to do it a bit different this year, and also start contemplating my one little word for 2012.




• Also planning some projects for a possible etsy shop…
  

Man! That is a lot of bullet points and plans. I guess I am an over planner. But in all those thoughts and plans I hope to find a happy medium, where I can feel successful in capturing the everyday moments I don’t want to forget, creating wonderful, art that calms my soul and feeds my inspiration, yet still finding time to live in the moments so that I can enjoy them too.

Is there a happy medium? I believe so… I just gotta find it….Maybe it is hiding under that big pile of stuff on my desk….

Here’s to finding the happy medium in your life! May you find time to do what you love in the middle of all the chores and tasks that you have to do on a daily basis.
Until tomorrow…Hugs to you! (Ok, Ok, maybe not actually tomorrow, but you know I will be back eventually!)
Olivia