**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!
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.
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.
We developed and washed everything with plain old water.
And just used tape to hold the screens in place rather than stretching screens on frames.
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.
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.
was full of food,
father-son engineering,
and bike race watching.
There was some movie watching, knitting, and guitar practicing thrown into the mix as well, just no pictures of those.
We have oh so much to be thankful for, especially each other.
I’m popping in today to tell you all I’m thankful for you! The other day I was at a neighborhood park and someone came up to me and asked, “Are you Jessica?” Turns out she was a blog reader. She had e-mailed me once to ask about a place we had hiked, but had never commented. It was fun to chat with her, see her family, feel like we had something in common. I left wondering how many people are out there reading this. Well, to all of you, I’m thankful for you. I’m thankful for this place to share the things I actually accomplish and finish, to share what I love, to archive the best parts of my life.
I’m also thankful that the holidays are near. This whole month has been quite a challenge because Barry has been gone for training and only able to be home on weekends. I am SO thankful that I am not a single parent. I forget how disorganized and messy I naturally am when my partner in this crazy big-family-homeschooling endeavor is not around. It’s good for me to realize that I seem on top of things because he helps me so much.
So, the kids and I are heading down to Colorado Springs to try out Dad’s hotel room for a night, watch TV (oh, the things that are a treat!), take a dip in the pool, eat out… and then come home and cook some turkey.
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend that is full of everything good.
Photos by me (the top) and Brenna (the bottom) from our hike in the foothills this past weekend.
