Where You Go, I Will Go

We live a somewhat uprooted life. At the moment, we are lucky enough to live at home in Tulsa, close to friends and family. But I have no illusions about Eric's job. Most likely, we will move at least once over the course of our lives together in order to accommodate his lifestyle. Moving across the country is not anything new to me; I just moved back “home” from Chicago, after all. But that was for school, and I always grew up knowing that I would live away from home in order to get a degree. Moving away from home as an adult for a job is a relatively new idea for me. I never imagined that I would live away from my parents and siblings; it was never something I desired.

But as we settle into Eric's job at ExpressJet, it's a reality that I'm not only accepting, but I'm growing more and more comfortable with. You see, living across the country from my family used to seem isolating and scary. But living across the country with Eric seems exciting and full of possibility. And as we have promised each other to spend as much of this life together as possible, moving has become an opportunity for our (upcoming) marriage to flourish.

To remind myself of these things, and to remind myself of what unconditional devotion means, I created and hung this piece of art on our wall, right next to where Eric's suitcase sits when he's home. I designed the text, then downloaded a free banner and printed the whole thing on cardstock. The backing is scrapbook paper, and I got the frame at a garage sale for $2.

Feel free to download the print as a pdf here and print it out from your computer!

Gallery Wall

Making our apartment homey is an ongoing project, that has mostly consisted of planning and planning... and planning. Being on a budget makes it extremely tricky to actually purchase what I want, and it makes me more hesitant—I want to be sure that whatever I spend my money on is actually worthwhile. After months of thinking and planning and looking around, the most recent addition to our place is our mini-gallery.

Before we added the frames and the “G”s, this wall was pretty bare, and I wasn't sure what to do to make it seem warmer. I had seen a lot of different gallery walls online, and after a lot of back-and-forth I settled on the idea of our (soon-to-be) last name initial. I also wanted to avoid making the gallery seem too stiff, and I wanted to keep the possibility of vintage prints and keepsakes, so I decided to add a couple of silhouettes I had cross-stitched.

I found the Scrabble “G” and the metal “G” at Hobby Lobby on sale. The tan “G” was just a chipboard letter I found for less than a dollar and painted. I also painted the top right “G” on a canvas frame I found on sale. Hopefully in the near future I will find a few small prints to add to the open spaces (I would especially love some vintage airplane prints), but for the most part the wall is complete!

Raising the Next Generation of Pilots

We just finished up a unit called “Flying Transportation” this past week. This was a theme I obviously enjoyed very much. The kids already love anything having to do with airplanes, and it was fun to see them learn about several other ways to fly through the sky. I especially enjoyed finding ways to explain how planes fly, how the different parts of the airport function, and what the pilots do-- all on a 3-year old level. Of course, the art was fun, too. We made an airplane, a parachute, a helicopter, and a hot-air balloon.

We made the airplane with a clothespin, 2 popsicle sticks, and a few pieces of paper. Each child cut out their cloud and glued it to their paper. Then they colored the popsicle stick wings. They glued one wing to the paper, then glued the clothespin on top, then attached the other wing. The last step was to glue the tail to the back of the clothespin. 

We used marble-painting to make the hot-air balloon. I cut out the balloons ahead of time, and then each child had a turn to put their balloon into a shallow tub. I splattered the paint on the paper, then they tilted the tub back and forth, side to side, to make the marbles roll through the paint several times. After they were done painting, they glued on the paper “ropes” and basket. Of all the projects we did this week, it seemed they enjoyed this one the most. 

Snow Days

For our first week back at school our theme was Snow, which was fitting considering we came close to having a snow day our first day! This theme was particularly fun for me because it presented so many opportunities to make Art a sensory experience for the kids. We used puffy paint, sponge-paint with stencils, we explored vertical drips with glue, and we used several textures to create our snowmen. I wanted to share two of my favorite (and more importantly, two of the kids' favorite) art projects from this week.

The first one was “Snow Tracks”, inspired by the book The Snowy Day.

For this project, I mixed up puffy paint (1 part glue, 1 part shaving cream, and just a tad of white tempera). The kids painted their entire paper with the paint first. Then I had a bowl full of objects for them to drag through their “snow” to create different shapes and textures, like combs, golf tees, and straws. They had free reign over how they wanted to use each object. What was fun was seeing how differently they all used the objects.

The second project we did that I loved was “Snowflake”.

This was a practice in understanding stenciling, a concept which is tough for 3-year olds to get. Many of them painted on the stencil, expecting that to be their final product. It took quite a bit of prodding to get them to paint around the edges of the stencil, but it was a great exercise. For this project I created simple 6-armed stencils with construction paper which I “laminated” in masking tape so they wouldn't get too soggy after being used by 35 kids! Then I let each child choose where they wanted me to place 6 small pieces of masking tape to secure the stencil-- this made each snowflake (proverbially) unique. Then the kids used sponge brushes to paint in blue, white, and purple. They loved getting to mix up the colors, and getting to paint with something other than a brush.

I hope these are useful ideas for your winter plans, either at school or at home with the tiny humans!

(Belated) Christmas How-To

This Christmas I gave homemade hot chocolate for the second year. Last year it seemed to be a hit, so I decided to do it again, but I also wanted to step it up a notch. So I added very cute (and yummy) peppermint marshmallows!

This was probably one of the easiest homemade gifts I've ever given, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also delicious (I may have taste-tested one or four times...) If you want to give it a try, here's what you'll need:

An empty glass jar (I just saved my pasta jars, washed them, and used Goo-Gone to get rid of the sticky label stuff on the outside)

1 cup baking cocoa

1 cup sugar

1 cup powdered milk

½ tsp salt

Jumbo marshmallows (I put 4-6 in each bag)

chocolate chips for melting

crushed peppermint candies

To make the cocoa I just layered the powder ingredients in the glass jar. I glued cute paper to the lid to make it festive and attached the recipe:

“Add 1 cup hot water to 1/3 cup mix”

If you're like me you can add ½ cup mix.

To make the marshmallows, I melted the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl in 20-second increments to make sure it didn't burn. Then I rolled a marshmallow in the chocolate, and then rolled it in the crushed peppermints. I set the marshmallows on a chilled plate to set, then packed them in these handy-dandy treat bags I found on sale!

The end result was very cute:

Sip-tastic!

Here is another simple project I did to perk up the apartment: a coffee/drink station!

I had seen a few ideas on Pinterest of how to set up a station like this, so I used what I had. The shelf unit is from Target; I got it in Chicago to add a little counter space to my 30 sq. ft kitchen. Now it sits just outside the kitchen here in Tulsa, next to the small dining nook. There are hooks on the left of the shelf unit that I use to hang mugs, and there is also a small box of mugs on the middle shelf. The bottom shelf is where I store pitchers and our tiny stock of rum and scotch. The top shelf houses the coffee maker, as well as a small basket with a kitchen towel (for spills) and our coffee. It's a great way to free up space in the kitchen.

To hang over the shelf unit, I found a small knick-knack shelf at a thrift store and painted it with acrylic paint. I replaced the original wooden knobs with cute vintage-y ones from Hobby Lobby. To redo the whole shelf cost $8. I found the “G” at Michael's and just painted it a bright color with acrylic paint, and I cross-stitched the caption in the frame, which I also painted. The saying says “C is for Coffee”-- simple, cute, and cozy. 

What I aimed for with this station was a balance between storage and appearance. We have a much larger kitchen here than we did in Chicago, but counter and cabinet space is still precious, so this was a great way to open up the storage a bit more. Every little bit helps me feel closer to living in a finished, comfortable home!

It Has Great Bones

Moving to Tulsa from Chicago presented a slue of logistical and practical challenges, the largest one being a lack of furniture. Over the last few months, Eric and I have slowly been accumulating pieces in order to fill the apartment and allow us to stop living out of boxes (we're down to 2!) My goal was to find cute furniture for as little cost as possible; in other words, I knew I was going to be hunting through consignment stores and painting things myself. Here is one piece that I'm particularly proud of:

I found this little accent table at a consignment shop in town for $20. What I liked about it most was the simple finish it had when I bought it (easy to paint) and the great design of the legs. I like having different shapes and textures throughout the apartment, and the curved legs and rounded surfaces helped to balance out the straight edges of other pieces in the living room.

To redo this piece, I started by lightly sanding each shelf. Then I applied two coats of Zinnser Primer. This stuff sticks to everything, but I found that it sticks best after a piece has been sanded. I didn't have to sand anything very thoroughly, just enough to put a little scrape on the surface. 

Then I used Valspar paint for the color, and I sealed it all with 3 coats of Poly-crylic. Here is the finished product:

The wreath is a nice touch. My future sister-in-law made it for me for my birthday, and the pillow is from my other future sister-in-law. They know the way to my heart-- Sooner pride! You can check out their business page here.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed seeing the step-by-step on this piece. It was VERY easy to do and pretty inexpensive. Now go forth and conquer furniture challenges of your own!