Santa Maria Baby

Believe it or not, I am actually going to post something on this beloved blog of mine :)
The days are racing by, school, work, house remodel ... it's like a crazy tornado going through our lives right now.

The art classes are in full motion and slowly we are getting into the swing of it.
It turned out to be much more work and less help than expected BUT I think we are at a point where we can chillax a bit and just go with the flow.
No more 8:00 am - 5:00 pm shifts for days in a row.

My Ls need their mama, my husband his nagger, the dog needs me to clean up after him and the house needs to be visitor ready in only 7 days.

My favorite quotes of the week from my little art students were:

Me: Use your white crayons on white paper, magic will happen, Believe me!
Student: I believe in you Mrs. C!!!
:)

Me: Good bye my friends. See you next week!
Student: I LOVE you Mrs. C!
:)

Melts my heart and just assures me that this is exactly what I should be doing!
Creating messy magic with little people is truly the best job EVER! (even is unpaid ... ha-ha)
Good things come to those who wait.

So while Lulu and I were waiting for L to get out of school, we had about 1 1/2 hours to kill, we decided to stay in the class room and work on her Columbus Day assignment.
Just like L she had to build her own Santa Maria, due TOMORROW.
Pat was supposed to help her with it but since he took over my other volunteer job at the school site council I thought I should help him out ... since the project is due TOMORROW.

The benefits of being an art teacher are plenty but today the best was having a room to work in and some left over water colors from the last class, an old copy paper box from the recycling bin and a paint covered aluminum pie form, add some markers and you have yourself an awesome Santa Maria!

The ARTIST full at work ...

Mr. Columbus "Hip-Hip-Ahoy"

Provisions for the traveler

Bread, cheese, pasta and corn, lots of corn (not sure why she wanted lots of corn but apparently that was VERY important to Mr. Columbus!).

Blue ocean water complete with white caps.

The ARTIST and her AWESOME creation.

THE flag/sail!
Lulu and her little friend Miranda had worked on this flag forever.
They found an old pointer stick when we cleaned up, taped an envelop to it and then had started to draw on it.
A little more each time they come to wait for mom to finish up work in the art room.
They even have their own storage place for it and hide it there so the other kids can't destroy it :)
The best part is listening to their VIP conversations while they work on it ... pure AWESOMENESS!

The steering wheel.

I helped drawing the waves and cutting the windows, the rest is 100% Lulu made :)

My baby is so proud of her Santa Maria and rightfully so!

And I am oh so proud of my crafty baby!
I used to get so much more involved in their projects and take over but I finally figured out that they work best when left alone and the outcome is so much better than when mom gets in there and makes it look perfect.

Mr. Columbus would look very stylish in this Santa Maria Baby :)

Off to rest my weary body so I can head out at 6:00 am to run in 52 F ... brrr .. LOVE IT!!
Fall has arrived!!! THANK GOD!

How to ... "Activity" Nativity Scene

Every year we make some sort of Nativity Scene (or as L calls it Activity Scene :)
But this year we made the VERY best of ALL!!!

I am so proud to show off the fruits of our three day long labour (and the 5 days of clean up required now :)

AHAND ... this one is Trademark CZ and not some copy-cat craft mom found on one of the 1 million blogs she follows  ... nahahaa ... this one grew in our own craft-yard

To make one of these AWESOME Activity/Nativity-Scenes one needs:
A big work space, covered and away from the rest of your house so you can mess it all up and then leave it for days at a time :)

We covered the old train table into the Lego / Puzzle / Craft - table and covered it with a big, plastic table cloth ...

You need loads of empty TP rolls (or do it like Lulu and unroll one if you can't find one - NOT kidding!)

Here you can see master-TP roll carpentry ... the soon-to-be crib for baby J

Lots of glitter, Sharpies, more glitter ...

... and some odds and ends evenly distributed all over the room/floor

A cool box from aunty Michelle's favorite Chinese Bakery (it helps to eat the goodies in it first :)

... and two willing craft-o-holics (shirts optional)

And then go crazy!!!!

Lulu made the STAR and decorated the back-drop with LOTS of glitter.

She also painted the angel (it was an old window ornament we still had from last year)

L in action ... topless na-course

A few green patches ...

Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus in their new pad

The sweet baby ...

Some bah-bah-white sheep and an AWESOME shepherd dog made by Lulu.

The gifts the Wise Men gave (jewels, spice and oil)

And some animals from the barn, curtesy of L.

Add a HUGE palm tree in the back ...

Et voila ... you have yourself an AWESOME (3 day activity) Nativity Scene

L wanted to blog about it on 1-2-3 but I stole it and posted it first

 ...whahahah 

... evil blog-mother :)

Kitchen Table Creations

We have been home-bound most of the day today working on all sorts of crafty things.
After half of the summer is already gone I realized that we hadn't done any crafty, messy things yet ...

... na-course that had to change TODAY!!!

We started with a little drawing session for the Ls

- Floppy Ear Bunny - 

I found the tutorial here, one of the best kids art blogs that I have found so far. I love this woman, she rocks the art world for kids BIG time!!!

L laying out her project. 

 Getting started

Lulu had a little easier instructions, she was drawing her FIRST bunny ever!

This is one of our favorite books "How To Draw Animals" 

Very easy steps for little ones to create real animals.

Ta-dahhhh .... Lulu's bunny-baby-princes 

The big one was done with the first part, drawing the head and body 

and now had to fuse both and make it look like a bunny.

Getting there ....

 Tracing with a marker

Adding some color

(Omi, die Buntstifte werden GUT genutzt wie Du sehen kannst!!!)

Ta-dahhhhh ... one floppy ear bunny

So cool!!!

This is by far the best drawing she has ever made!!!!

After we had finished we still had some more craftiness in us and moved right on to 

The Hedwigs

The Making Of ...

The Ls are TOTALLY into Harry Potter right now. 

Well really it's L and Lulu is just being thrown into it by her big sis. 

We let them watch part 1 and 2 and afterwards I thought "OMG, I would have NEVER, EVER let L watch Harry Potter when she was 4, NEVER!!!! and here I am, sitting with Lulu and holding her hand while she peaks over the edges of her lee trying to be brave and not be scared of the "bad guys"I must be CRAZY!"

But luckily she seems to be too young to understand and can go to sleep afterwards like she just watched "Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses" while the big one is now peaking from beneath the covers and asking for us to keep all the lights on, the doors open and maybe to stay with her for just a little wile longer :)

Anyways, they LOVE Hedwig, Harry's owl and when I saw this tutorial I was all over it!

I have no pictures of the actual making of the Hedwigs since my hands, my table, the kids (the whole bodies I mean) and even the dog were covered in clay. 

I pulled out my old clay tools (YES aunty Michelle, I still have them!!! ... and with them come some fond memories of us making many, many, many bowls ;) and a box of air dry clay that I had bought a while ago and so it began. 

The results are shown here. 

L's Hedwig

Lulu's baby-princess-Hedwig

They are drying right now and by the end of the week we should be ready to put some acrylics on them to make them look even more pretty. 

A quick glaze and they'll be ready for display.

You'd think that was enough to make the Ls run from more messy creations but NO, they went on to make 100 mud pies in the sandbox and decorated them with pearls and flowers (out of MY GARDEN!).

We may have to do this tomorrow again ... there is a wind-sock waiting to be made for the play house :)