This idea came to mind when I was thinking about how to combine flowers with family history. An adult who can read would need to help the child follow the prompts. You will want to will want to print it double sided and flip on short edge. I designed this to be a little booklet. You will need 2 sheets of paper to print the booklet. The order of the pages will look a little funny but they do all line up when you stack and fold them up. I hope this helps those who want to help little ones do their family history who cant read yet.
I have been struggling with how to have Christ be the focus during Easter. There are so many fun activities that are planned, like the egg hunts for example. However, these activities have nothing to do with Jesus.
A friend on mine shared with me an activity that her family did where there were twelve different items inside each egg and each one tells part of the story about Jesus Christs Crucifixion and resurrection. Here is a drawing I did inspired by that thought.
I was working on one of my callings for church. A calling is like a job that you volunteer your time and service to do. I was wondering if there was some way I could use my talent in art to do my calling better. It occurred to me that maybe drawing what I was trying to say might be a better way to explain what I was talking about. Words are not my strength. This eventually lead me to learning more about comics. I have casually read comics in the past but now I am reading them from a more creative, analytical side of things. I have learned a lot about the ways emotions can be conveyed in certain thought bubbles or speech bubbles. The way movement can be shown through lines. I can tell I still have a lot to learn.
Additionally I have never been good at simple artwork and so I have been trying to work on art that is simpler. Comic drawings seem to be a crazy balance between massive amounts of visual information and yet they do not have all the information a photograph would contain. Comics seem to have the most important information for the reader to understand what is going on, the emotions behind it, and the situation the character is in.
I have never drawn in this particular style or ever done a comic before, it was quite challenging to try. It certainly isn't a comic book but it's longer than a comic strip. I am not sure if there is some sort of classification for this length. I don't know if I would call this successful but it was really fun to try it. I am gaining more appreciation for the difficulty of what comic artists do with their art.
Here is what I came up with for my first try. I was imagining, "What would be like if Captain America needed help doing his family tree?"
I have been doodling and drawing more often over the last year and it has been really good for me to do what I love more regularly. I thought I would share another printable coloring page because giving love to ourselves and others shouldn't be limited to just Valentines Day.
Polka Dot School Supplies Organizers from conditioner bottle
Cut the top off the bottle, clean and remove labels.
Cut down to the desired height.
Trace with a bottle cap (I used chapstick) half of the circle onto the bottle with a dry erase marker or washable marker and cut out with scissors or an exacto knife. Clean off the marker after.
Sand down edge to soften the sharpness of the edge with sandpaper or a nail file.
Punch out holes with a hole punch in the center of the scallops.
Punch out holes to glue onto the bottle and glue on with a glue stick. When all the dots are in the desired locations Mod Podge over the top of them.
Hot glue on a ribbon below the scallops and glue the bow in place.
Polka Dot School Supplies Organizers from sour cream tub
Clean an empty sour cream tub and then put a layer of Mod Podge on the outside and press the paper onto it. It will have wrinkles but these wrinkles do not bother me since I like the texture. If having an almost organic texture to it will bother you then I wouldn't use a sour cream tub as it is difficult to get a flat surface and I don't like the look of painting it. I added three layers of paper.
Punch out holes with a hole punch and glue the dots with a glue stick. After you’ve glued on all the desired dots, Mod Podge over the top.
Hot glue on a ribbon below the rim and glue the bow in place.
Bride Pencil holder from conditioner bottle
Cut the top off and clean the bottle.
Cut down to the desired height.
Draw the top of the dress with a dry erase marker or a washable marker.
Cut the top of the dress detail with scissors or an exacto knife.
Sand down the edge to soften the sharpness with sandpaper or a nail file.
Hot glue accents onto the container. You can put on whatever you want: lace, ribbon, polka dots, stripes, flowers or buttons etc. I used hot glue on the waist bow, then glued the faux hem ribbon on. Finally, I punched out holes to imitate buttons for the back of the dress and hot glued them on. I spread Mod Podge over the "buttons" to preserve.
Groom Pencil holder from shampoo bottle
Cut the top off a bottle and clean it.
Cut it down to desired height.
Sand down the edge to soften the sharpness of the edge with sandpaper or a nail file.
Sketch out the tux design on paper and cut out the template so you can check the proportions on the bottle. If it's wrong try again until you get the scale to look right. Then cut out around the design loosely so that you can fold it in half and cut it evenly (similar to cutting a paper heart). Trace the template on your plastic or paper and cut around the outside edge.
Fold over the edges of the lapels and trace the outline. Cut along the lapel line, giving you three pieces.
Hot Glue the shirt and lapels leaving a small gap in between them to create the look of a jacket.
With a permanent marker, draw the bow tie and any other details you want to add. Mod podge over the top of all the suit pieces and let dry.
The genesis of this project comes from us needing a way to organize our office supplies. I tried the bottles for a number of months, in different heights, first with just tops cut off and cleaned. They didn't break and did a fair job containing our stationery so I mulled around in my mind if I could improve them. It occured to me that they were too tall to see their contents without dumping things out. Plus they were boring to look at. I experimented further with different heights and ways to attach decorations. The directions above are the best way I could find for waterproofing and preserving the decorations. Waterproofing is necessary if you have kids even if there is no way liquids"should" be anywhere near the pencils. I even tried it in our bathroom and they’re still just as I made them.
When I was a child my parents got me coloring books for Christmas. I would pull out my crayons and later my colored pencils. Then there was not enough detail in the background of the coloring page and I would add more details: some grass, trees, clouds or a sunset in the background. Eventually my parents got me sketch books so I could come up with my own drawings. I wanted to to see if I could make a coloring page and I was surprised at how hard it was to color a good picture. It was very easy when I added the ink for the lines to look wrong. Or after I had inked it all in, I taped it on the wall to study as I was walking through the room and sure enough a couple of days later I realized there was something wrong again. So I would start another drawing trying to correct the errors and make more changes. I am still not 100% satisfied with the look of this heart drawing I finished but it was a neat experience to try what other artists do, creating lined art for someone else to color in. Here is the link for a Free Heart Coloring Page Heart Coloring Page
A long time ago it was only the wealthy that could read
and write. Anything to do with books was very valuable; paper, ink and the
information that was within the pages.
Books were protected and passed down through families.
Journals kept by family members were also valued by their
descendants. Much can be learned from a journal
about that person and about what life was like in the world at the time the
journal was kept. Our family has a few
journals that were kept by our ancestors and they are wonderful to read. Reading them has put many things in their
proper prospective for me.
As parents we have tried to encourage our children to
keep a journal as well. All of our kids
enjoy this to one extent or another, except one. “Spiderman Jr.” draws pictures
in his. “Little Fish” draws pictures and writes down things that are important
to her. “Future Author” has filled a number of journals. As her nickname
suggests she writes not just for historical purposes but for fun. She is unique
in our family in her extreme interest in writing.
As parents we
except that our children are all very different from each other and their differences
are a good thing. However, there are some things that we encourage our kids to
do even if they don’t like doing them and journal keeping is one of them.
Our son “Soccer Boy” could care less about writing in any
form. Whether it is for fun or for school he would rather not. He is also extremely interested in reading.
We have a hard time keeping him in new to him books.
One of the series that he loves to read is the Harry
Potter series. He will read and reread and reread the Harry Potter series. Which I think is fabulous because it’s a fantastic
series.
So in an attempt to encourage him to keep a journal we
decided that I should make him a Monsters book of Monsters as a journal. I tried to make it as accurate as possible because
even though he loves the movies he points out any time the movies do not match
the book. I didn’t want him to get annoyed
when looking at his journal since annoyance is the opposite feeling we were
trying to create for him.
He does like it:)
I recorded my attempt to create this journal for him in
hopes that if anyone else wanted to create a Monsters Book of Monsters maybe
this would help them with ideas and help them avoid any mistakes I might make.
I spent a long time trying to research what happened to the
Saviors body physically based on the descriptions in the scriptures. I also have a few friends in the medical field
who answered many questions for me. In
the end I still didn’t understand much of it.
I was praying one morning for more understanding of the image
in my mind, of what He saw, when the thought came “ You really don’t need to
understand how, you just need to draw what you saw.” It was true I would have to study for many,
many years to get a very superficial medical understanding of the image in my
mind.
Then came the next thought “It is time to start this drawing.”
So I am swallowing my fear and starting the next drawing even though I don’t understand
why all the colors are the way they are.
These will be separated by days as much as I can manage and
if I can find where the photos I took went I will post those alongside the
videos of that day.
