Monthly Archives: December 2010

Christmas break

Hello there friends.  Things have been busy here, but all of the crafting that’s been happening can’t be blogged about until after Christmas.  We’re preparing for our annual Messiah Sing-along party tonight, Barry’s parents to arrive on Sunday, his promotion to Major next week, and then the big holiday itself.  I’ve decided since I haven’t made any blog posts lately and have been fretting over that fact, I’m just going to give myself permission to take an intentional break until the new year.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful Christmas.  It never ceases to fill me with awe that the Creator of worlds without number was born so humbly as a helpless little baby.  I love Him… more than I can put into words.

Thank you all for stopping by and reading.  Don’t forget about me!

I’ll be back in the new year.

pattern giveaway!

**UPDATE** The giveaway is over and the winners have been announced at Bloom!

I’m a new sponsor over at Bloom and today we’re doing a giveaway of my patterns.  If you’ve been wanting to try them but haven’t yet, head on over and enter to win!

All you need to do is comment on this post and you’ll be entered for a chance to win the pattern of your choice.

Head on over and spread the word!

a lot of kids and a lot of ink

kid made silk-screen cards

Last week I taught a silkscreen workshop for the kids in our homeschool group.  I got all of our supplies from EZ Screen Print and each kid got to make a screen 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″.  We spent the first 20 minutes making their drawings with black Sharpie on 20 lb. copy paper then used the sun to expose their screens.

exposing screens in the sun

In art school silk screen was a long process requiring a lot of special equipment– but with the EZ Silk Screen it was a breeze.  Colorado boasts more than 300 sunny days a year, and it did not fail us.  I was so excited that we didn’t even need to use transparency for their images.  The Sharpie on paper exposed perfectly.

rinishing screens

We developed and washed everything with plain old water.

homeschool silkscreen craziness

And just used tape to hold the screens in place rather than stretching screens on frames.

kid made silk screen

getting shirts ready

The actual printing was pretty  messy, but the results were worth it.  I love sharing these kind of projects with kids– helping them do things that seem so complex and showing them that they are artists!  They were all so proud of their finished products.

some finished shirts

I ended up doing it over 2 days.  The first group had 8 kids, with my older 3 added to that.  11 kids was a bit overwhelming, I have to admit.  The next day I had 4 extra kids and it was perfect.  It made me wish I taught an art class more than once a year.