Best Sketch Masked J Pocket Watch

This is the best sketch I have done.  It's a pocket watch with a bit of floral background.  I followed Maskd J's Pocket Watch Drawing Tutorial.

I really like her style and find her very easy to watch.  Again I just used some regular pencils and it turned out really great; though, the pencils don't blend as well as I would like.

I did have to change the floral design because I started my watch too close to the end of the page in my journal. 

Learning to Draw - Mermaid Tails

I cannot draw well, but I want to get better so I am using my art journal as a bit of a sketch book.  I found this great video tutorial for drawing mermaids that helped me draw some nice tails -well not as good as the original artist - my tails did turn out fairly well. 

The tutorial uses Prismacolor artist pencils, but I made due with cheap store bought pencil crayons.  Maybe when I get a little better I will invest in a set of these pencils.  They would probably make the shading easier.

Back to the Art Journal

Finally, I created a background for my journal that I liked.  After a few icky experiments I found a technique that I liked it.  It was actually a lot of fun.  I just dumped some paint on a page and used an old gift cart to move the paint up and down in all directions.  It worked great.

Not so sure my handwritten lettering works.  What do you think?  Maybe next time I'll get out the stamps and ink pads.

Art Journal Cover Page

I've been working on my art journal (a gift from my niece) lately.  I thought I would share the front cover I did.  It did not come out exactly the way I planned but what ever does.  

I got a little crazy with smearing paint at the bottom cover and covered up the ripped purple paper.  I liked it a little better cleaner but I think it still works.

Since I'm not that good of drawer I used some images I found online.  One of Michelangelo's outstretched hand from the ceiling in the Vatican and another of the girl (not sure who to credit here).  I colored in the drawing of the girl and added some different paper for the hair which turned out fairly neat.

The quote itself comes from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.  I first read the poem in high school and it has stuck with me ever since.   Has any words or quotes just followed you around?

Water Balloons Sight Word Fight

Practicing sight words does not have to be a snooze.  Combine your child's sight words with a water balloon challenge.  For every three sight words your child reads they win one water balloon to throw at you.  For every five they get wrong you win 1 balloon to fire back and even out the odds.  The more they get right the less chance you have to defend yourself against their watery attack, but remember the more wet you get the more you win as they master their sight words.

I took three envelopes and printed 3 rounds of flash cards out.   My niece is in grade two so I printed the grade one - three words.  I divided the game into levels.  Round one was to build her confidence, round 2 was to see where she was at, and round three was more challenging to see what she needed to work on.

I got the wettest in round one.
I printed out the sight words from kidzone.ws

Let me know if you give this a try.

Quick Party Decoration

We are working on creating some Tsum Tsum decorations for my niece's 8th birthday.  We have this reusable cup that works great for tethering the helium balloons.  I just fed the balloons strings thru the hole where the straw usually goes and tied a loose knot.  I screwed on the top and hid the strings.  The result is a fast and cute table decoration that can be used on the big day.

What to Do When Your Cake Crumbles

 Were you baking a cake and tried to remove it from the pan with disastrous results? I did this recently and instead of throwing the whole thing out I used the crumbled cake to make this no bake treat with the help of my seven year old niece.

What you need?

1 Ruined Cake

Whipped Cream

Strawberries

Spoon a layer of crumbed cake into the bottom of the cup.  Add in some whipped cream followed by another layer of cake crumbs. Finally one more layer of whipped cream and a sprinkle some cake crumbs on top.  Add some fruit to decorate the top and you are ready to go.

You could also add layers of fruit as well which would level out the whipped cream and cake nicely.

Be creative, have fun and remember a crumbling cake is not the end of the world.

Easy Tsum Tsum Cupcake Topper

Want a full proof Tsum Tsum cupcake decoration?

Just bake some mini cupcakes and top them with one of those cute plastic collectable Tsum Tsum toys from Jakks Pacific.

To be honest, I was not even ambitious enough to bake these simple cupcakes.  I just picked up a dozen or so mini cupcakes from the bakery at Safeway.

I took the treats home and popped on my Tsum Tsum characters. 

It took less than a couple of minutes to have theme party ready desserts. 

Note:  I used the medium sized characters for the mini cupcakes.  I found the little ones to small.  If using regular cupcakes I would choose the largest size.  Anything smaller would probably get lost.

Shrink Art

More Fun with Shrink Art

I thought I would share more shrink art that my niece made.  She loves the little fish design that came with her kit because she has room to make lots of these little guys.

I was looking at the shrink art paper online and could not believe you could get so many different kinds. 

We used a clear plastic which basically means that if you forget to color something or design to leave a blank space in the design it will be transparent.  They had different color papers which would make the left out pieces a little brighter.  I wonder how other colors would work on those.  or would that just be for black and white designs you want a particular color.  Anyone know?

They also have ink jet shrink paper so that you could turn you digital art into shrink art.  This sounds pretty cool.

Tsum Tsum Party Activity

Looking for a fun craft theme to compliment your Tsum Tsum themed party?  Have you tried shrink art.  I was recently introduced to this activity by my niece and her class; though, it did reach its height of popularity in the 1980's under the name Shrinky Dinks.  Remember them?

So how do you create Shrink Art?  Just purchase some plastic shink art plastic (affiliate link) and let your crafters place it over a design and trace in out with a sharpie.  You can color the design in with markers or pencil crayons.  We used pencil crayons.

When done with the design just cut it out and place in on a baking pan for 3 minutes at about 325 degrees.  It will shrink 5 times smaller so keep that in mind.  Leave for ten minutes and it's ready. 

You can make pendants out of the designs.  Just remember to poke a hole in the design before you bake your creations. 

As for the Tsum Tsum design - we just printed out a various pictures of our favorite characters.  Often times I had to shrink down the picture before hand to make it work as a template, but you can do that at print set up:)