Preschool Art Lessons

In the fall, a homeschooling friend of mine began talking about doing a mini-art lesson each week with her 4 year old daughter, so we began doing just a little crafty/art time together with Ariana. 

It's evolved a little this semester, and we added another little student. I love helping little ones begin learning about simple art basics, and I thought I'd share my plans here for anyone else who'd like to play along at home! 

Last semester, we experimented a lot with color theory and mediums. We also did a lot of seasonal play! 

I got this book before Christmas and decided that during the spring semester, I would loosely follow it and we would do some veryyyyyy simple studies of the Masters. 

Last week (our first week), we talked about the colors in the rainbow and experimented with the different ways different media looks: watercolor, different tipped markers, liquid water color, acrylic paint, neocolors, and oil pastels. 

The girls made a banner that they took home, a different color & medium represented on each piece of the banner. It was cute! 

This week, we talked about the Renaissance and specifically, Leonardo Da Vinci! Before we got into all of that, though, we looked in the mirror and tried to draw our different expressions (especially paying attention to how our eyes, eyebrows, and mouth looked during each one). 

Then we watched this little video about Leonardo Da Vinci. 

After hearing about the Mona Lisa, we had to try our hands at adding hair and clothing! (This activity would be really fun to see how they did at different ages.) 

(Find this printable here)

Then we worked on self portraits, using this printable. 

Because little ones often tend to rush through an activity like this, I had them only do what I instructed them for each step instead of just free styling it. They first had to go look in the mirror and I prompted them with questions like "What shape are your eyes? Are they football shaped or circles? What color are they?" and then they would come back and just draw their eyes... and so on and so forth, so that they really took the time to look at their faces and try to draw details. I loved their results! 

 I'll continue to share our journey each week! 

Mixed Media Heart Flower Canvas Tutorial!

Come over to the NoelMignon blog to see my tutorial on how to make this canvas!

My Workstation Tour

Good morning friends! I'm here to show my little workstation area for my crafting! It's been so fun to get a peek into everyone's spaces this week on the NoelMignon blog.

My workspace has evolved over the years. It changes size and location fairly often. Right now, what's working for me is to have a corner in the dining room. It keeps my family near by and is easy to hop over to in order to grab a few minutes here and there. It's really important to me that my kids are nurtured creatively, and that comes with seeing me working and coming alongside fairly often. So for now- even though it's probably messy, I'm loving the casualness of having it in the corning of our dining room. 

I do not keep all of my scrapbooking supplies in the dining room. I have a shelf in another room that stores the bulk of my stuff, old kits, papers, embellishments, albums, etc. However, I've learned over the years that keeping too much stuff around overwhelms me, so I try to purge often and only keep my favorites. I also keep two or three recent NM kits here at my workstation, but after a few months, I retire them to my big shelf. 

It's really important to me to have ALL my artsy supplies handy, and when I found this old random drawer at the thrift store, I knew it would be perfect for corralling all of my jars! It just makes me happy to see this out, and my kids like it too. ;) 

I keep a small basket with the latest kits' small embellishments right in front of me on the desk so I can see it easily. These little strawberry baskets are perfect for them. 

My kit papers goes in this organizer to the left, along with sketch books and watercolor paper. You can see the papers peeking out! 

Right above where my papers go is this frame. I love to hang all of the embellishments from the kit on here that I can, because it keeps them in mind for me and is an adorable themed decoration for the month, too! 

To the left of my chair is this cart with stamps, tools, and leftover embellishments from previous kits. I try to keep this rotated and cleared out every few months to restock with new items. 

I hope you like my messy little corner! It sure does make me happy! : )

Seven! (Hey Girl NoelMignon Kit)

Before I dive into the scrumptious NoelMignon "Love Life Kit" (there's a few left!) , I wanted to use a few leftovers from the Hey Girl kit. Since my girl turned seven last month, I wanted to be certain to use these bright, vibrant colors to celebrate & document her! 

I loved that the thickers had a few other little designs mixed into them, including these hearts. I just matted it on some patterned paper as a little accent.

As I mentioned in my video, I wanted to try spraying the felt bows with a little mist to see how it would look. I love the results! I didn't completely saturate them because I liked bits of white peeking through, but you could definitely completely change the color if you'd like! 

NoelMignon Love Life Reveal Video

Hi guys! Can I just say- Wednesdays are crazy for us? I almost dread Wednesdays more than Mondays. Anyone else feel that way? It's definitely "hump day" for us!

I have a video for you guys this morning of the new Love Life kit! I hope you enjoy my cheesy self! 

If you haven't picked up the NoelMignon Love Life kit yet, come over to the site and check it out! 

Wanna see Britt's cute video of the Daily Diary version of this kit? Click here! 

Make Stuff - a women's craft night at our church

For three years or so, I've had a dream to have a place for women to come together at our church and find some solace in other crafty ladies. In past experiences for myself, going to scrapbooking crops and retreat weekends, there have been deep relationships formed over the bits of paper and sticky glue. There is something to be found when women come together to create something with their hands, and find that their hearts bind together.

For three years, the timing has not been right for me for various reasons, and then all of a sudden, God opened the door and things aligned and instead of me pushing for something I wanted, I got swept into what I believe is a small part of God's plan for the hunger of the women in our church and community for deeper relationships. (Yes. That's a super long run on sentence. Sorry about that!)

For now, it is just once a month. I already saw small glimpses of how God can help us to walk alongside each other with the raw bits and pieces of artwork, mending, paint splatters, twines of yarn, hopes, and stories forming in our hands and hearts. 

It is so lovely and refreshing to share this time with likeminded women. I can't wait until next month! We do have plans for some of the evenings to be more structured (we have some projects in mind to work on together as a large group), but we will have them mixed in sporadically with the more open ended nights too. It was good for my heart, not because I was crafting and not because I was with other women, but because in that simple setting, the Gospel was whispered to me. 

Beginning again.

It's been nearly a whole year since I wrote in my blog, and I'd nearly given it up for a goner. Instagram and facebook has taken it's place, and since I mostly use this place to share my creative endeavors, I have resorted to using those more photo oriented sharing places.

However, as time has gone on, I realized there were things about this little space I'd carved out that I missed: a place where I could write about being a mother, share ideas on ways we'd found worked in our marriage, tell everyone about an awesome new book or recipe I'd discovered, and record truths I wanted to be able to go back and remind myself of.

So... I'm back. I'm not sure how frequently I will post, but I will. It's time. And I'm ready.


XOXO,
V