Goals, how'd I do?

goodbye November, hello December

Beginning this month I posted a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish. Here they are:

1. create one painting per week

2. clean my art room at school

3. organize art projects to be completed in said room

4. buy 2 bridesmaid dresses

5. learn a sentence in Chinese

6. plan Thanksgiving meals and day trips for the in-laws

7. do 10 push-ups a night

So how'd I do?

1. I did not create one painting per week BUT I have been painting consistently throughout the month on a couple different pieces. I will be sharing those in the near future :)

2. I cleaned my art room like a mad woman the day before Thanksgiving break! I can actually open the door to my paper closet, and get this.....I can see the floor again!!

3. Art projects organized? check

4. Two bridesmaids dresses? check (so excited)

5. "Ni hao" is all I have memorized in my attempt to learn Chinese. help!

6. We had a great, relaxing Thanksgiving with the in-laws. too....much....food

7. I can proudly say I AVERAGED 5 push-ups a day. I'm weak, I know this.

December is next! I have a lot of exciting things coming up in December which I can't wait to share. Stay tuned and take care,

sc

Cars with bows

There will be times when I go off on a blogging tangent - and today is one of those times. I will call these posts "sidenotes." Sidenotes are when I just HAVE to get something off of my chest and I will provide you with fair warning. Here it is..

sidenote:

Does anyone else get annoyed with Christmas commercials for Lexus, Hybrid, Mercedes, etc. (insert any car brand)? Let me explain.

The commercial begins with a wife/husband, daughter/son -type person with their eyes covered on an early Christmas morning. Everyone is dressed up at what seems to be 6am. Yea, no bed-head, no Christmas pee-jays or slippers.....everyone looks ready for a Tommy Hilfiger Sunday brunch. Their eyes are then uncovered to reveal a 2011 model car - worth at least 30 grand - with a HUGE red bow strategically attached to the top. SURPRISE! Shock! Razzle Dazzle! Here you go honey, I just bought this extremely expensive car without consulting you.

WHO DOES THIS?

really,

has this happened to you?

and,

do you super-secretly wish it had?

sc

Give-away Winner

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1

Max: 10

Result:

7

Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Congratulations Kelly from I Dream of Decor for winning my first give-away!!!! Out of 11 entries, 10 were counted and random.org gave me the results. (my husband Kyle entered, but we thought it best to remove his entry. he's silly)

Kelly, I have your gift card ready to send. Just post a comment with your address or email it to: sheena.custer@gmail.com

Thanks again to all who entered :)

sc

Happy Turkey Day!

Thanks to all who have entered in the give-away. I have really enjoyed reading your comments and welcoming new followers :). There's still time to enter so tell your pals!

My in-laws are in town so Oscar is getting spoiled with extra attention.

I hope today is filled with family, friends, and food!

I will announce the winner of the give-away tomorrow evening,

Take care,

SC

100th post of the year GIVE-AWAY

colorful happy 100th!

Hellooo. This is my 100th post of 2010, woohoo! In honor of my centennial I am giving away a $25 gift card to Michael's Arts & Crafts!

RULES:

All you have to do is become a follower and post a comment.* If you're already a follower, make sure you leave a comment. Please also include an email address so I can contact you if you win. I will draw the winner at 5pm on this Friday, November 26th. Black Friday craziness!

*For a double entry mention my blog on your blog (include a link in your comment) and I'll enter you twice!

I was just at Michael's this weekend and will share that my guilty pleasure is their sketchbook aisle. I am obsessed with buying a sketchbook to fit every purse or bag I own.

What would you get with the gift card?

Happy

"When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade"

This drawing was given to me yesterday by a sweet little girl. I was kind of surprised and also intrigued because I didn't ask for the drawing.....nor were we talking about it in class..... However, I so greatly appreciated the happy reminder.

Enjoy your weekend!

sc

Did someone just write my memoir?

Well crap. Just when I begin thinking of ideas for a children's book about a little red-headed girl, Julianne Moore decides to publish one. How random is that, and how jealous am I?

The book is actually pretty cute and I will probably buy it. Darn that Julianne Moore and her red-headed coolness.

p.s. the illustrator is LeUyen Pham and her website is how you say, flawless.

Shut the front door!

Calling all stationary and Christmas card lovers! The folks over at Shutterfly are advertising an awesome promotion for the bloggers of the world. If you are an active blogger, just go to this link – follow the directions - and then you could receive 50, yes FIFTY, free holiday cards.

My favorite holiday cards are ones with a personal touch, how about you? Being away from family has converted me to the oh-so-awesome PHOTO cards. You can get really creative with what image to include and the photo makes it so you’re “present” at Christmases far, far, and away.

Instead of driving to Ohio, Kyle and I are staying in Maryland for the holidays. This means we’re already brainstorming our “card pose” so the Ohioans don't forget us. One year we dressed Oscar up as Santa Claus but after several takes and fake beards we ended up not using the picture. (insert regret face here)

There are several designs of photo cards offered at Shutterfly that float my boat but I especially like this one seen below:

I like it because the simple and clean design does not take away from the photo. Are you getting excited? I am because aside from loving holiday stationary, I really enjoy STAMPS. The little swirly lines that are stamped on our stamps are just the coolest. You can't do that on emails.

Have fun browsing the options over at Shutterfly and good luck with the card making!

SC

Dogs! Dogs! Awesome Dogs!

My first graders recently finished a unit on animals and I have these crazy-cute dogs to show for it. I know I know...roll your eyes....it's no surprise that I adore dogs. But in my defense, so do first graders.

We used cut-paper collage for the dogs and then glued each dog to an 18 x 24" watercolor background full of dog bones (go big or go home).

p.s. If you think the dogs look sad, then you're wrong. Many of them chose to create a bulldog, so the "frown" is actually the bulldog's overbite. hehe.

DIY Holiday gifts

Yay for gift ideas! Giverslog is featuring a series of posts called "handmade gift retreat" where she invites her friends and fellow crafters to post their favorite DIY holiday gifts. The posts are wonderful and be prepared to get lost in all the coolness that is Giverslog. I especially love this one from her friend Alli. Alli, from One Pearl Button, created an adorable doll for her niece one Christmas and was nice enough to share images of the doll. (so cute!)

She used this pattern to make the doll. However, you can pretty much guess how the doll was created by looking at the great images and I'm sure you can alter it pretty easily.

happy making,

SC

Friday night Sharpie fest

We had a low key Friday involving a glass of wine (for me), a manly whiskey drink (for Kyle), and a jar of sharpies. The assignment was to sketch a portrait of Oscar in his favorite position.

I sketched skinny & long Oscar begging for dessert.

Kyle sketched Oscar in attack mode.

Does anyone else have sharpie fests? It's fun to give a little "assignment" so the sketches have some sort of direction. This way you get to see everyone's interpretation which is the best part. I never knew Kyle could sketch so symmetrically. I was impressed and amused all at once. I am thankful he puts up with my sharpie fests- he's the best.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I have a busy week ahead,

SC

Art Project

My third graders recently finished a painting project using leaves and watercolors. If you have kids at home, teach kids, or just want to try the project, I highly recommend you do it now before the leaves dry up and blow away! It's definitely a project I repeat from year to year because the process is interesting and produces unique results.

Here's how to do it:

Select a color scheme. We talked about analogous colors (colors next to each other on the color wheel), but warm or cool colors work nicely too. They then painted a light watercolor wash on white paper. Leaves, that each student brought to class, were then placed on top of the watercolor wash - veins up. Then they took darker paint colors and painted the edges of the leaves -making sure to overlap the darker color onto the paper. This was left to dry overnight. By the next morning the leaves had absorbed the paint and in the process, left a "print" behind.

Leaves absorbing the paint

Finished painting

Finished painting

Finished painting- the finished paintings look great by themselves OR, they would be an awesome paper choice for future collages.

All the leaves after we peeled them off our papers. How cool do they look? I wish I would have gone straight to the laminator and preserved them -but I was nervous about jamming the laminator (been there, done that).

Happy painting,

SC

recycle, upcycle, make-cycle

I starred this post on my google reader and thought I'd share. How cool is this idea? I don't know how many times I've thrown out those darn bread tabs. (I simply loooove toast in the morning so we go through bread pretty frequently).

I'm thinking about putting out an "all-call" at my school so I can collect hundreds of them. Maybe my students and I could make a huge color wheel....er something awesome.

DIY Holiday Gifts

I don't know about you, but I always have intentions to make alllllll of my Christmas gifts. It never works out. I run out of time. This year, I need to choose DIY gifts that are not only unique but also easy to make.

I saw this post on how to sew a wool throw while reading through Design Sponge. It looks super simple to put together and easy to personalize. I'm thinking about embroidering a name or monogram in a corner of the throw to give it that special touch.

Any DIY gift sites you'd recommend? Less than two months to go!

blog design help

Even though I've been posting here for almost a year I still go back and forth with how I want the design to look. I can never get the header to look right and never fall in love with the fonts of my template. Do you know of a great blog design? How do you like the new look here so far? Any suggestions friends:)?

p.s.

There's still time to vote in the Mobbies! You can vote for Sheena Colleen or the blog of your choice until Friday.

Suffield Elementary!

Not only am I an advocate and huge fan of art education but I am also an avid follower of children's art. Don't you think they have the best imaginations? Well it was my lucky day last week when I received an email from my friend Katy, artist/art teacher extraordinaire. She recently debuted a blog highlighting her school's art program and it is fan-freakin-tastic. I was in eye-candy heaven while browsing her images. She is such a great art teacher.

Take a look at her adorable school blog here and check out what her students have been creating this year. I can't wait to see more of her lessons and have already gotten inspired about the direction this blog is taking. Like Katy, I would love to include more posts of my students' artwork. The sharing of ideas is so important in the culture of art education and Katy's brilliant blog is contagious! Thank you Mrs. Tannert!

Weekend in pictures

We had a lovely Sunday morning walk and noticed how awesome the weather has been in Maryland this fall. Not too cold, not too hot- I'm enjoying every autumn day. All the rain we had in the past is working to our benefit as the leaves are still on the trees and turning colors.

Anyways...I say all this because we know it won't last and pretty soon winter will be in full force. We may or may not be pounded with as much snow as last year but either way, I am not looking forward to bitter cold wind chills. shiver.

Hope you all had a great weekend :). Oscar had a T-bone and apple cinnamon pancakes....so his weekend was wonderful.

This made my day

I love my job. Teaching art to elementary kids is not only rewarding, but also filled with surprises. I was out on bus duty Friday morning when one of my second graders presented me with this awesome drawing on posterboard. It came complete with a hug AND an artist statement written on post-it notes. Here's what she had to say:

"This is when I went to North Carolina. I drew 4 hills. And my mom's car. I also drew a pink tunle (tunnel) and a black sky and river. It was fun there. Mabe (Maybe) next year we will go back."

It was the sweetest gift to receive on a random Friday. I'm really diggin the river aren't you?

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend :)

just a reminder

I'm still in the running for a Mobbie. If you get the chance, please vote today and everyday through Nov. 12.

Have a great Thursday :)

Watch this movie

Kyle recently found Mary and Max on our Netflix 'instant' que so we watched it and I couldn't take my eyes away. It's been a long time since I've seen such a creative movie, and I guarantee you'll have several laughs. Although clay-animated, with kid-friendly characters, some of the dialogue may not be appropriate for the youngsters. I highly recommend watching it if you're bored with all the junk on tv.

Vote Vote!

Mobbies 2010! vote for "SheenaColleen" beginning today at 8am!!!!!!!!!

wake up, wake up, it's the first of the month....

Today is November 1st so I thought I'd make a few goals that I'd like to achieve for the month. Goals are grand and making a list of goals is even better. I heart lists, don't you?

1. create one painting per week

2. clean my art room at school

3. organize art projects to be completed in said room

4. buy 2 bridesmaid dresses

5. learn a sentence in Chinese

6. plan Thanksgiving meals and day trips for the in-laws

7. do 10 push-ups a night

At the end of the month I will do a follow-up post and let you know how I do. What are your goals for the month?