Cold and Grey

Photos by Daughter M.

Paint-by-Number

Winter afternoon fun. We have rediscovered the classic paint-by-number. This one is a fox in leaves. Check Amazon for lots of options, including adult level ones. Or make your own photo into one at www.easy123art.com. Paired with a classic "taped" book, we have literature and art for afternoon school.

Teaching Tangling

I teach a girls art class twice a month to W. and some of her friends. I decided to teach them some of the "zentangling" I have been working on myself. (see Ornation Creation on FB.)To start, I gave them a gridded paper and we tried some patterns.

Then I gave them a simple feather outline I drew and asked them to fill each section with a different pattern. I thought the narrow shapes would be an easier way for them to start tangling while still making something.

I also drew out  each girl's name in "puffy" letters. They could work on filling these in if they finished their feather, or they could take their name home and work on it later.

 

Ornation Play

I have been playing with more of the Ben Kwok templates and filling them in with my own designs. For templates, see Ornation Creation on Facebook.

Halloween Costume Hacks

 

To make a flamingo mask, I  paper mache'd a beak onto a pink mask bought at the store. Then we hot glued a stick for the handle and feathers on the front of the mask. To finish and reinforce the handle, we taped and wrapped it with duct tape. I painted the beak with acrylic paints to finish it.

 

 

Audrey Hepburn needed a cigarette holder. I found a bag of paper straws at the Dollar Store. We taped two together with black electrical tape. The white faces had to be colored in with black marker. For the cigarette we used a shortened McDonalds straw. We taped that on too, and covered the stripes on the side with white electrical tape. Cut to desired length.We also taped the "mouth piece" so it did not get soggy during use.

For Audrey's gloves, I ordered some on-line, but they did not arrive until after Halloween. What to do? At first I planned to make some out of the excess material I cut from the thrifted prom dress that I altered for her. Then I realized that black socks would have elastic already. Trouser socks would be even better, since they have no heel. One pack of three sets cost about $6. It took about 30 seconds to snip a chunk (as below) out of each folded sock and make simple "fingerless" gloves.

 

 

And, the wolf. I could not find fur that was appropriate. Since W. will use her pretend animals more than once, early on I ordered her a wolf tail off of Etsy. It was a reasonable price and designed much better than one I would have thrown together. Win! Finally I had the idea that maybe I could find a dog or wolf stuffed animal that I could cut up and use for a mask. Did not find one, but found a teddy bear for $2 that had great fur. I dismembered him (which disturbed the girls) and made the ears out of his front paws sewn onto a headband. One of his legs became the snout, which I glued to a plastic Halloween mask. The rest of the bear "skin" went to covering more of the mask around the eyes. At the end I hot glued some more fur onto the ears to make them larger and more in proportion to the face. I painted the nose on with black acrylic paint.

 

Wicked Witch of the Eastern Part of the State

 Look at this pretty, sweet face...

 See what happens when you do not wash off all your make-up?

 She and some of the other workers at her Starbucks were "The Wizard of Oz" for Halloween.

Halloween Dance

The older two girls went to a "Monster Mash" dance at their usual ballroom dance lesson place. All of the costumes were really fun and creative.

L.-Audrey Hepburn, Katie-Minnie Mouse, Nicole-flapper

 Cecelia-A girl you can count on, M-Flamingo, Susannah-bag of jelly beans

 Bret-Camo game guy

Halloween Night

 

Supper before going out to Trick or Treat. For the last few years, some friends have gotten together to go Trick or Treating. The dads take the kids around, the moms stay home and talk. My dream plan for Halloween!

 W. was a wolf this year. The more realistic the details of her animal costume, the happier she is.

Here is the motley crew before heading out for the evening. L to R from back: W., Liam, Thomas, Finn, Ian, (Sandy) Rebecca, Tess, Abbie, Hope, Eleanor, Carl, Mona, Andrew, Gideon, Elizabeth, (ghost) Nicholas, Josie.

Harvest

Son J. has been out helping with harvest this year and has taken great photos while out there. These are all by him.

And sometimes his honey comes out to help in the tractor.