Class Is In Session

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Class Is In Session

Today I will teach my third Indie Craft Lab class! I settled on a paper and string theme for this semester to test the waters working with 4th-6th graders on a variety of Poppy Haus inspired projects. The end goal is for each girl to have several handmade pieces to fancy up their bedrooms. So far we've made the cupcake paper lantern, a striped drinking straw sunburst mirror, and this week we dive into string art. I'm amassing a collection of tiny hammers and brightly colored glue guns, and I'm learning how to pace the class, and how to best present a project to a group of eager crafting tweens. Honestly, it's pretty awesome.  

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Wall Mounted Pinch Pots

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Wall Mounted Pinch Pots

Our new house is white walled, and I'm kind of loving it. I like the idea of bringing in little pops of color with art and accessories. I can easily swap them out when I want to change things up. Because our upper level has great light and beautiful tree-filled valley view, I really want the interior walls to come alive with flora to mirror the outside. I even bought a few large Shane Powers ceramic wall pots from West Elm for hanging ferns on the stairwell wall (me and those ferns). Using these large pieces as a point of inspiration, I made some tiny versions with polymer clay to hang in smaller spaces, like the bathroom, or over a bedside table. I think the granite pots look like river rocks.

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Plant Recipes

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Plant Recipes

This will be the last dispatch from the coffee table in this living room with the black and white rug. We get the keys today!  I'm still knee deep in packing materials, but as this is maybe the busiest month on record, we are also attending the big elementary school fundraiser tonight, two days before we move. The word on the street is that if you bring your own flower arrangement you can claim your table.  I thought this is as good a time as any to test out this amazing new recipe book that was sent to me to review...it's a recipe book about plants, or rather, how to use plants to create beautiful, decorative arrangements for your house.

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Testing The Waters

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Testing The Waters

I love working with tween girls...they say the funniest things. They are always so chatty and engaged, they are not yet too cool or distracted by themselves, yet they are not too young to focus their attention on something, take direction, and work through a problem. For this reason, I am testing out my first iteration of design classes with 4th through 6th graders in an after school enrichment at my son's school.  Here's my spiffy flier. If all goes well with this test run, I'll be able to open up classes to everyone soon!

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DIY Glow In The Dark Stars

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DIY Glow In The Dark Stars

Things are plugging away over here. Thank you for all the kind words about Wylie, and our big news last week. We have our big home and pest inspection today, one of the last major hurdles before we can finally call ourselves homeowners. The boys are starting to get excited about moving, and are already talking about what they want in their new rooms.  Jasper has this cool idea to keep his room white, and paint his ceiling black, for a scatter of glow-in-the-dark stars. I'm totally down with this idea, and I thought we could make it a little more like an art piece and a fun project if we made our own stars with polymer clay.  You can purchase glow-in-the-dark oven bake clay and a set of star cookie cutters at the craft store.  I am using 3M command strips to attach to the ceiling to set them off the ceiling ever so slightly, to give the impression that they are floating in the sky.  Here's the simple tutorial.  

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