Art Journaling

With everything going on these days, lately I've been feeling like ... I need something else in life.  

Being stuck at home is stale.  Granted my state is open for most things, but I am not about to join the masses who are choosing to self sacrifice right now.  

Things feel even more stale on days where it's super hot or rainy outside and I am stuck indoors.  And being it's summer in Minnesota, that happens quite a lot.  Not that I am complaining, I would take summer over winter right now, that's for sure!!!

After a couple of weeks of that good ol' stale feeling, in June I started looking for another creative outlet besides cross stitching (and no I don't mean self barbering - which yes I am doing for my entire family including myself).  This is how I ended up challenging my sister's kids into art journaling.  

Here's how it works:

(1) Each week, one of the three of us comes up with a theme word.  Then, we create.  

(2) Since I'm Auntie, I get to make 2 pieces (one for each kid).  I've been making most of my works on textured card stock that I had left over from ... true story, making stuff for my wedding about 15 years ago (face palm).  The card stock is 8.5x11", and I slice each sheet in half for a finished work size of about 5.5x8.5".  Mediums used each week vary based on my mood and the theme, but mostly I use acrylic paint, watercolor, marker or colored pencils.

(3) I throw my finished works in a mailer when I know the kids are close to completing their works.  I use this envelope as an inner to protect each work, and just for fun I close the inner with a wax seal.  I use this envelope as the mailer.  USPS confirmed that I can use 3 standard forever stamps to put this in the mail, in case you're curious.

(4) When the kids finish their works, it's time to unveil what came in the mail.  Though I've been told it's quite a process opening my works, as the kids try to salvage each wax seal LOL.  Once opened, each work slides into a plastic protective sheet in a mini 3 ring binder, and a printed label with the theme word is affixed to the bottom right of the plastic sleeve.

And that's it - pretty easy!

While I may not be making 100% original works, since I use Google and YouTube for inspiration, the new creative outlet has helped improve my mood and gives me something new to look forward to each week.  And since I'm crafty, my investment has been minimal, as I already have a ton of art supplies in my house.  So, the real win is, I can finally brush the dust off my supplies and put them to work again.

With the above explanation complete, let's get to the fun part of this post.  Here's what I've made so far, with theme noted above each picture.

And before I go ... if this inspires you and you begin to do something similar, post links to your finished works in the comments below!

Sky

Watercolor, Marker & Colored Pencil

Joy

Acrylic Paint

Nature

Sharpie Marker

Mystic

Acrylic Paint

YouTube

Acrylic Paint / Tutorial on YouTube

St. Pat's Extra Mom 2020

Well ...

A lot has changed since I last posted a blog here.  Weeks ago, I thought I would originally come back with an update that we volunteered to emergency host a foreign exchange student from Belgium.  Turns out, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah, I've found myself saying "that escalated quickly" quite a bit these days.

Despite the virus and everything else going on, I've tried to maintain a little bit of normalcy around the house.  Easier said than done when Minnesota Government orders a stay home protocol, and only essential work can be completed.  Not to mention I have zero desire to be out in the general public any more than I absolutely have to right now. 

Which means basically no shopping trips for me.

Thankfully, I'm a planner ... and I've had a lot of things in the works for a looooooong time ...

So regardless of stay home orders, I've been able to have a little bit of seasonal fun. Even if I might have spaced out and forgotten to take my usual insta-worthy photos.  Since I've been a little ... disorganized in the chaos as of late ... I totally didn't take ANY staged photos of St. Patty's day stuff. 

Thankfully, I used some of the same things from my Reddit St. Pat's exchange in 2019 as teachers gifts this year, so let's pretend my photoshop Microsoft paint skills aren't garbage and I'll reuse that picture.

Not shown, but also included - a small, green glittered clip in hair bow

Lucky for me, I had purchased a bunch of this stuff in bulk, on clearance in 2018 with the intention of using them as teacher's gifts in the future.  But when 2019 rolled around, I had only used the headbands out of my stash (thanks to stumbling upon $2 clearance bottles of strawberry booze, LOL!). 

While this wasn't as ... impactful is maybe the word? ... as some of my teacher gifts have been historically, all I can do is shrug.  Given the situation, at least it was something.  And aside from that fact, the teachers were all utilizing at least a portion of the gift when I came to do pickup, so it must have been at least a partial success.

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The night prior, I had given both my son ... and my new "exchange daughter" their St. Pat's gifts so that they could plan them into their outfits for the next day.  Since the local high school was already closed down due to the virus, my exchange student wasn't able to show her swag off to her peers, but she played along and wore it anyway.

The earrings were from Amazon if you're curious, and actually the socks I got weren't actually those ... what I chose had more on them - pots of gold, shamrocks, and I think the heel and trim was actually green ... whatever, you get the idea.

Of course, my son was more than thrilled to wear his gift, despite me not being able to find youth sized St. Pat's socks and defaulting to the next best option in green.  Although his socks might not have been totally on point for the holiday, the rest of his outfit was.  Plus, he came home from daycare covered in shamrock tattoos (he brought them to school to "share"), so he was appropriately festive in plenty of other ways.

Since the socks and other items were fairly small, I had packaged the gifts for the kids in a Target dollar section jute gift bag.  It was similar to this one, but covered in mini lucky charms associated with St. Patty's day like horse shoes and shamrocks.

Since I myself wasn't feeling the most festive due to the stress of current events weighing heavily on my mind, I declined to do too much at work or on a personal level.  I did manage to at least thrown on a pair of fun leggings for work, anyway.  (Yes, I was still being asked to report in to work at that point).

And of course, to round out the day, I served up a crockpot meal of corned beef and cabbage when I got home.  Can't skip that!

So there's my St. Pat's 2020 report.  Mostly normal, but also a little off kilter with everything that started simmering up around that time.  Here's to hoping 2021's celebration is a little better.

Valentines Day 2020

Well ... it's about that time to start talking love and all that mushy stuff.

Or we can skip all that crap and just talk about food.  I mean, why not?

Using that as my segue ... if you recall over the last few years, I've sent my son to school with rather unique Valentine's Day gifts for his classmates.  It all stemmed from his love for his play kitchen when he was just barely old enough to stand on his own ... and his love for bananas.

Then, the following year, building on the crochet food collection, apples were the selection.

For 2020, I asked my son about doing another food item and he was excited for it, so ... straying from produce and moving into proteins ...

Yeah, that's a strip of bacon and an egg.  And I must say, while my son is very excited about giving this out on Valentine's Day (case in point, he walked around the house all evening singing "bacon and eggs, bacon and eggs" after helping me kit these up) ... I was a little less than thrilled with the assembly process myself ...

In case you want your own custom play food,

check out BellasBoutiqueMN on Etsy

*Face palm.*  Being cute and unique always comes with a price!  Oh well, hopefully it's worth it, as I have no clue where these actually end up.  I have grand visions of my son's classmates slowly collecting a play kitchen of hand made food items, but who really knows what happens with them after they leave my house?!

Anyway!  With the above completed, I moved on to the teacher's gift.  Which I have to laugh about, because the necklace alone retailed originally for almost $50 ... so when I picked up three necklaces at Nordstrom Rack (along with a pair of zippered wristlets on clearance for a future gifting need), my receipt told me I saved over $330 in retail value.

Well, thank you Nordstrom Rack.  Thank you very much.  Though in real life I'd never pay $50 for this necklace, Baublebar brand or not.

Actually, the Baublebar necklace above was an after thought.  As you saw in my previous Chinese New Year post, I had already lined up a ring dish and jewelry tree set from Target's 2019 Valentine clearance ... and the only reason I added the necklace was because the price was good and it would help demonstrate the purpose of the gift for the recipients. 

In case you forgot, here's the ring dish I previously gifted for Chinese New Year:

And here's the accompanying tree that I intended for Valentine's Day.

Honestly, I think they make a really pretty set.  But that's just me.

Here's the tree, with the necklace attached - and the end result once wrapped.

Yes, I fully admit the gift box ended up being a bit, uh ... largish.  Because the weighted stand on the jewelry tree was so wide, my options were either to put these in an oversized gift box that I already had and only spend $2.99 total on a roll of wrapping paper at HomeGoods - OR - drop something stupid like $4.99 each on an extra wide base gift bag.

So whatever.  I chose overly large gift boxes.  Bigger is better, right?

RIGHT?!

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Now, you'd think I'd be done spewing information at you by now.  But you'd think wrong.  Because NEW FOR 2020!!!!  I am also going to show you my handy work for my friends and other various gifts.  Because WHY NOT?!?!

So, as you saw in a previous cross stitch post, here's what I made for a few coworker friends.

And in addition to that, I picked up some very special socks for my husband and a reversible scented donut pillow for my son.

Because as you well know, nothing says sexy romance like pillows and socks ...

BZZZZZZ WRONG!  THERE'S SOMETHING EVEN SEXIER!!!!!!  BECAUSE I'M GOING TO MONSTER JAM ON FEBRUARY 15TH - just in time for a late Valentine's family date.  LOL!

Oh man, the things you do for your kids.  Wish me luck - and that I keep my hearing the day after Monster Jam.

Happy Valentines Day 2020 everyone!

The Year of the Rat - 2020

As I said in the past ... it's no secret that I'm a Chinese New Year enthusiast.  I mean ... you don't study Chinese language from the age of 12 without getting a little joy out of celebrating what is now more commonly known as the Lunar New Year.

Me, age 17, preforming YangGui Fei Zui Jiu in TianJin, China.

Basically, I'm one of the hottest consorts of Chinese history, 

but I have recently lost favor with the Emperor, and am debating suicide.  

LOL!  So not me in real life.

Take down Christmas decor, put up Chinese New Year decor.
Keep the festivities rolling, that's what I say.

So, what's an extra mom like me to do in the year of the rat?  Well ... let me tell you!

First, let's talk about recycling.  For 2020, I once again sent a kid friendly book to school about the New Year that my son's teachers could read in class:

Bringing in the New Year

A book about traditional celebration practices by Grace Lin

But since he's getting old enough now to follow longer story lines, I also sent this to read as well:

The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac, Christopher Corr

FYI, this also has the origin story as to why cats hate mice - LOL!

And recycling ideas from previous years, I found a new coloring sheet and finger puppet gift for his classmates to take home as well:

I opted to go a little different for the kids this year, and purchased zippered coin pouches to put the mice in ... more or less, an upscale gift bag without the cinch string.  Since I bought these at bargain bin costs (Chinese factory direct), quality wasn't great, but the presentation was cute at least.

And of course, a tag applied outside each of the gifts:

The end result for the kids:

As always, for the teachers, I found an assortment of adult appropriate goodies - one each of a gold flower (I think it's meant to be a ring dish), a novelty Year of the Rat charm, and a larger version of the kid's zippered bag:

The adult gift came together to look like this:

In addition to sending gifts to school, this year my son was old enough to attend a Chinese New Year celebration, so we made an effort to find a family friendly event ... and drove to it the weekend prior to Lunar New Year, despite the previous night's major snow storm and extremely icy roads.  This was no small undertaking from the South West suburbs to downtown Minneapolis, let me tell you.

By the way - Midtown Global Market's Chinese New Year celebration is great!  My son will be four in April, and I saw kids up through late grade school there (all of which seemed to be enjoying the event).  I highly recommend the celebration for anyone with kids in that age range.  

Activities in 2020 included: making a dragon out of a paper plate and egg cartons, coloring sheets, Chinese fortune telling, getting a Chinese name, making a "porcelain" necklace (unfortunately ours broke on the way home, darn), learning proper dumpling technique, and lots of other fun booths.  We didn't partake in everything due to the fact that my son is still technically three and he's not quite developed enough to be able to do some things ... like intricate paper cutting ... but again, it was all very fun.  Over the course of the afternoon, my son even ended up with two "hong bao" (red envelopes, which are traditionally given to children with cash inside ... but these included a golden foiled chocolate coin and a $1 coupon to buy a snack at the food stands).

Plus of course, there were performers:

My son was adamant that he was "not afraid" of the lions because they were "just a costume" ... all said while he very "confidently" stood ... behind me and stuck his head around to take a peek, or stood next to me with a death grip on my hand.  LOL!  To be fair, they are a little different than anything in standard American culture, and when you factor in the extremely loud percussion music that accompanies the performance, it's understandable that a kid would be overwhelmed.  After all, he's only three ... and some his age were actually crying at the performance.  

To quote "Bringing in the New Year" ...

"Don't cry, Mei-Mei!"  That was a favorite quote at our house well before Chinese New Year season even began!  LOL!  I think every house needs this board book.  Hahahaha!

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So there you have it.  Another year of Lunar celebrations on the books.  Gong Xi Fa Cai!!!