Bloody Art

I am so excited about my recent DIY project at our house.  The girls have reached an age where they are begging me to do their own art and I have no where to display it.  We are not your hoity toity refrigerator people who have a clutter free facade.  No that surface is covered with all kinds of projects from art school, mom's group. etc... But I wanted a place where I could really show off the ones I really like.  At the same time, I have been contemplating what I wanted to hang on the bare wall in my dining area.  Nothing against it, but I am not fond of store bought art on the walls in my house.  I would rather litter my walls with personal family photos and my kids glorious use of color.  So, I woke up one sleep deprived morning with the epiphany of combining the two.  How smarts I am :)

I had a few projects in mind that I had pinned on Pinterest but none of them individually really excited me.  Therefore, true to Angel-a nature, I took the best of all of them and attempted to combine them all to suit my personal taste.  And I have to say, I am pretty thrilled at how they turned out.  Plus, the hubby really liked them too (which isn't always easy to do!).  I wanted a magnetic, framed board that could really show case their work without looking cheap and cheesy.  I am on a tight budget, so I could never have possibly afforded to buy three large ornate frames that I envisioned for the space.  I kept my eye out and scored in the Michael's clearance section.  I found three large backless frames (wrong color) for only $5 each!!!  They were ugly but nothing a can of semi-gloss black spray paint couldn't fix. I sprayed them black and headed to Lowe's for some sheet metal for the magnetic board.  Only cost me $10!  I needed to cut them to size.  The guy warned me that sheet metal is really sharp when cut.  "I know, I know..." I said rolling my eyes.  I'm not careless.  And that is where the blood comes in.  That guy wasn't kidding.  I got out Jason's tin sheers and started cutting.  I by-passed the gloves because they made for clumsy handling but that was just plain dumb.  That sucker sliced all the way practically to the bone effortlessly.  Almost like a paper cut.  Barely felt it when I did it but that didn't last for long!  Yowzers!   Needless to say, Jason finished cutting them while I nursed my wound with a butterfly band-aide. 

Once cut and with gloves on... I painted the metal my kitchen color to coordinate the two rooms.  I then inserted them into the frame and staple gunned them in place.  I then purchased three white wooden craft letters from Michael's ($6 total)  and glued a magnet to the back and voila!  perfect way to display the girls art!  The whole project cost me $31!  That's cheaper than one regularly priced frame!  I absolutely LOVE how they turned out and they are quickly becoming my favorite things in the house.

As far as the artwork they created here, all I had them do was paint two half sheets (one red, one pink) and make lines on a third with a green marker.  They took a wadded paper towel and used it to paint on the blue for the background.  Once dried I cut the red and pink pages into hearts and the marker page into strips for the "stems".  I then helped the girls glue them on.  They love using the glue stick.

I love the proud little faces that excitedly display their masterpieces for everyone to see at our house! 

Craft Stick Snowflakes

Recap of the last month of my life... horrifically busy.  As I am sure all of your Decembers were.  Ours was intensified by a two week venture to California.  That's right.  Half way across the country with three, three and unders.  I had been dreading the seven hour travel day since we had purchased tickets months ago.  However, I am going to have to boast a little.  My monsters did remarkably well.  With the aid of a dual dvd player and usually off limit candies (don't judge this bribing mommy) we survived as did the rest of the plane.  I had thought about bringing treat bags for those surrounding us (including ear plugs) but decided against it since it was just one more thing to get through security.  Thankfully, they were unnecessary.

In all actuality, the plane was the easy part.  The two weeks of no naps, a baby who refused to sleep in the crib provided for us there, wonderfully bad for you food, weird half Cali half Missouri time change thingy and absolutely no structure was the hard part.  They kept it together pretty well until mid-week two where it became evidently clear that toddlers, although great at creating it, do not bode well for chaos.  Looking back at it now, we did some pretty awesome stuff while visiting though.  Got to catch up with lots of friends and family we hadn't seen in way too long, Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Aquarium of the Pacific, trips to the beach, shopping, eating, eating and more eating.  Don't get me wrong, FANTASTIC vacation, but man was I glad to be back home to the normal chaos that is my house. 

So, in the days to returning to normalcy, I decided to lay low until our precious structure reappeared.  However, the girls were bored within minutes...  So, I came up with this wintertime craft to occupy them so they didn't destroy our house in the plethora of downtime they had.  Winter is hard on toddlers.  And mommies.  And furniture...

I had the girls paint 24 craft sticks each white.  That part was glorious.  It took them, no joke, a half hour of concentrating silence to master that first step.  Great thing about washable tempera paint is it dries pretty quick.  So by the time they were finished painting, the first ones were already dry for the next step.  We laid out our pattern on the table to make sure we had enough pieces and began gluing them with Elmar's glue.  My kids love to glue so I let them.  However, once they went down for their nap they had to be reinforced with a hot glue gun.  I hot glued some ribbon on top and viola!  A pretty non-Christmas winter decoration.  The girls were pretty proud and I have to say they came out pretty cool.

They are pretty big since I only had jumbo size sticks on hand.  So, I hung them in the kids play area in our basement.  I kind of am digging how their inconsistent paint job makes them look rustic.  Which, being my toddlers, I am pretty sure they meant to do that...