DIY- Living Room Pouf

I have several art teacher-type friends and we do our best to get together every month and create or experience creativity. This month, we spent a Saturday working on whatever project we had going and sharing some projects with each other. For example, my friend one friend taught us how to do photo transfers onto tile to make some super cool coasters. (I did a Star Wars themed set for my husband!)

My teacher friends and one husband who tagged along :)

The project I brought to teach everyone was a little sewing, following this pattern HERE for a DIY floor pouf. I was very apprehensive to teach people how to make one, since I hadn't made my own yet, but the directions provided on the tutorial were easy and simple and it went great. I would say the only hang up for me was installing the zipper. I wasn't clear on the directions, so I ended up doing it how I thought it made sense and it worked out okay! I'm so excited with the way ti turned out, I plan on making another one for the office as soon as I can find the right material. Check out the pictures below and follow the link to make your own!

All the separate pieces I cut out!

The zipper that gave me a run for my money.

Finished floor pouf, so cute!

A Peak Inside my Protfolio: DIY bags and the continuation of Flight

Well, I know it's been awhile, but if you're one of my teaching friends, you know that the weeks before Christmas break are hectic. Especially at the high school level, we're busting a move to get everything ready for Scholastic's Competition. More on my student's work in a later post, however; this one is about some of the work I've been doing at home.

As some of you know, I was working on a series of paintings about flight, for my graduate painting class. You can read about the first three paintings in the series here. Since that post I have finished two more paintings. One on traditional canvas, and one on metal that I cut, sanded and riveted myself! I though it was important to immerse myself in the plane-making process to get a clear understanding of what I was depicting in my paintings. Let me tell you, riveting is hard! Here are some process pictures.

Here's the finished work, can I just say, that it's so much more powerful in person.

The piece of metal, is quite a bit different. My instructor has been pushing me to move away from technical, realistic painting. And although there is still some of that in this next piece, I do feel as if I've pushed myself. There was a lot of trial and error to get there though!

Here's the metal construction that I started with. I used sheet steel, tin snips, air compressor and rivets to put this all together.

This was my first image. And although I like it, it didn't go far enough for me.

So I thought, maybe I should add color... still not what I was looking for.

So then I sanded it down and added these shapes, which I hated. So I took it to class to get some feedback from my peers.

I just needed to refine the lines and shapes a bit more, so back to the sand paper.

Here's my finished piece. I still have some of the same lines and some color but it's more developed and I think they texture and sanded areas really bring a dimension to the piece.

Okay, okay. I know this post is going on and on, but I do have a DIY that I did this last week and some fiber art that I finally finished. That's right, the embroidered backpack is finally done. If you want to read about my long battle with the embroidery, you can read about it here. But here it is in all it's finished glory!

Of course I had to use it immediately as my purse! But I was concerned about all the various things I keep in my purse snagging on the thread on the inside. So, I just quickly made a lining panel for the front side. I also whipped up a cute little DIY pouch to keep all my junk in. I used this tutorial here and it was so super easy to follow!

Thanks for sticking with this post to the end. I love doing little projects and adding to my professional and personal portfolio with different techniques and skills. Hope you're inspired to add to yours!

DIY Ugly Doll and an Update on Some Projects

Hello all!
I think I've finally changed my name with every known institution in the universe. Now that I have my prep time back, I'm hoping to blog weekly again!
In this post, I want to post a quick update on the latest kinder project and then talk about how we're doing a sewing project with the 4th graders! We're all making our own Ugly Dolls!! Which are so stinking amazing and we've just started. Okay but before I start gushing about that...

The Kinders! When I last posted, they were working on drawing faces using their knowledge of line and shape. We used pencil first and then traced over it with black marker. We had a chat about facial expressions and each student picked a different expression to use. Here are what they looked like before we colored them:

After that, we got out the oil pastels and talked about the correct way to use them. We also discussed how we wanted to be sure to get the right color before we started coloring, especially when coloring the face! We came up with a neat trick of testing the color on the back of the paper to make sure it was the right one. I had them color the whole thing; skin, hair, eyes, shirt, and background. They turned out so awesome and expressive! Check them out!

Now on to the very exciting 4th grade sewing projects. Ugly Dolls were designed by David Horvath and his wife Sun-Min Kim.to see their homepage, click here. What I love most about the Ugly Dolls is the message they preach which is: "...we should be celebrating that which makes us different, never hiding the twists or turns which make us who we are, inside and out." What a great message for our kids!!!

We started by looking at examples and then we went to work drawing a pattern for our own Ugly Doll using construction paper. Students were encouraged to be creative. But I also warned them that very tiny appendages etc. would be hard to cut out and sew and maybe they would want to stay away from them. The pattern was then cut out and pinned to a piece of felt that the student chose. They traced around their pattern with a pencil and then came back to me to have the pattern moved so that the could trace it again. They cut those identically shapes out to make the back and front of their Ugly Doll!

Now we're working on attaching any features or accessories to the front side of the Ugly Doll. Although it's taking them awhile to figure it out, the kids love working with their hands and creating something like this. Look at how awesome they look so far and we've just started! Stay tuned for more updates!