Two posts in one night?!
(The crying baby was a false alarm)

So... time.  I feel like I never have any (which isn't totally true... I got on a elliptical for 10 min today- like a CHAMP).  I carved out the time... it was 10 minutes!  (and about 30 min of talking myself into getting onto the machine).

Anyway, even though I feel like I don't have any time I recently sat down and made some drawings for a gallery show that my friend Jessie roped me into.  I love Jessie.  She is by far one of the nicest and most positive people I know.  She also completely understands how little time I have to make art and so she twisted my arm to try drawing (since my usual photographic method can take more time to set up etc.).  I drew the things around me... my particular favorite is of Bean's giant animatronic dinosaur, Tridonta.  It's a start... I'm not happy with them.  I'm not good yet... it takes practice (something that I tell students all the time- drawing is a skill to learn not an innate talent that flows freely from your fingers).  Here are a couple of the drawings in the Craft Studio gallery right now.  I cringe that they're on the wall... I wouldn't be happy if it were another artist with such underdeveloped artwork on the walls but since I'm the boss, they let me do what I want.

Nudy Doodle

Helen helps color in the drawings of Bean and Boo's toys.  I didn't have time to finish them so... voila! Instant collaborative artwork 

People are encouraged to use the watercolor pencils on the walls.  I'll finish them after the show and then post pictures of them here and on the Craft Studio's Facebook page.

 There's that Tridonta Triceratops.  

 Beach.

 Bright and able.

 Detail of We Used to Have a Dog, Didn't We?

So there you go.  I made some time and realize that I need to devote more REAL time to making drawings if I want to be good at it.  So I wait for my kids to grow up (all the while trying to work my jobby job and enjoy all my moments at home with the kiddos- even those fraught with tantrums and sassy 4-year old comebacks) and sneak in some me time.  

A friend of mine, Suzy Day (http://thesuzyday.tumblr.com/), just checked out my blog and noted that I hadn't updated in a while... she also noted that she couldn't imagine when I had time to update my blog (as she was cleaning my library because I don't have any time to clean my own house...).  But miracles of miracles... both kiddos are in bed (or at least Bean is in her room doing who knows what and Boo is asleep in his).  So I have 5 min to myself.  I suppose I could clean out a drawer or at least pick up the kids toys off the floor in the living room.  But instead, I choose to pour my brain out onto this blog post.  It's probably time for a picture... this might explain more than anything I could write here...

Well... I hear a baby crying.  I'm off!  (That was quick)

Mouse Bed Project as seen at the Hammalier household

Oh Pintrest... you've made a crafter out of everyone. And not everyone should be a crafter. I am a semi-professional crafter... in that I force college students to take fun art classes to de-stress and hopefully learn the importance of HANDMADE. But as many of my hobby crafter friends have discovered, just because you saw it on Pintrest, it doesn't mean that yours will come out well crafted. I, too, occasionally suffer from this fate... occasionally? Well... anyway... here is my latest attempt.

I saw a cute craft on Pintrest and thought that maybe I could make it with the help of Bean. Mostly she sat and watched me hand sew and was bored... many exclamations of, "Mama, when will it be my turn to do something?!" were heard around the house with much loud sighing... sometimes I think she is 15 instead of 3.5.

Despite her preview of the teen years, Bean helped select the fabrics for our mouse bed project. White felt for the mouse body, pink cherries for the blanket and dark purple for the bedding.

When I was done sewing the mouse I let Bean help decorate her. I was then going to stitch over her pen marks with embroidery floss, but she preferred her true artistry to show through. (The large blue circles are the mouse's teeth, obviously...)

So proud of her work!

And then she kept "working on the mouse". Sigh. Why do kids always create until they destroy?Here, gentle reader, is why you might want to craft without your children present. But if you're like me and don't have a lot of time without one of these crazies running around the house, the best thing to do is to figure out how to involved them and let go of all your feelings of control. So, Bean kept decorating her mouse... the pink lines at the bottom represents the "mouse's vagina because it's a mom mouse. It has babies."

I feel compelled to make it a pair of underroos or something... she seems awfully exposed... next time. Another way to involve Bean was to have her make some patterns for me so that I could cut out and sew her creations. In the original Pintrest craft, the mouse had a little teddy bear. And because my daughter is who she is... she made a pattern for a pet snake. I did my best to capture it's likeness in green felt- complete with pink and brown decorations.

So, a mint tin, blanket, bedding, pillow, snake friend and mouse... with a vagina because she's a mom... all added up to a craft project that Bean rejected in the end and decided should be a gift to a newborn baby girl named Harper James Page. James, incidentally, is Bean's middle name too... two girls with matching middle names have a special bond and in this case that bond will be a very odd gift of an anatomically correct mouse and her sleeping quarters.

In the end it's a totally wacky take on a craft seen on Pintrest and epitomizes the awesome collaborations that Bean and I occasionally attempt. And it's another example that shows the act of making something can be more than the finished project.

HIghlights Magazine Craft

Bean and I made an easy craft on a rainy spring morning from Highlights Magazine.


I loved Highlights Magazine when I was a kid. All of the stories and poems, that crazy duo- Goofus and Gallant... such great memories. Bean received a subscription to Hightlights: High Five (for little kids) and I love it as much as she does. She "reads" it from cover to cover and then asks us to read it to her from cover to cover.

We recently tried one of the art projects they had in the back of the magazine and I have to say, it was a complete success.

Spring has come early to Missouri (or maybe it will snow again and kill all of the new buds on the trees and kill off all of the daffodils that are starting to blossom... but that's a little too pessimistic for a blog post about a kids craft project... so ... SPRING! WHOOPEE!).

Bean was really excited to help with this project which started with a tromp around the yard looking for the right kind of sticks. We put them in a glass jar (that was about to be recycled) and got started cutting our tissue paper in squares.

Bean was able to help with the twisty tie part. Take your tissue paper squares (we made them about 3"x3") and tie a twisty tie in the middle creating a bow tie shape. The ends of the twisty tie then get twisted around the branches of your sticks.

And depending on how many little branches are sticking off of your sticks you have an approximated Forsythia flower. It's quite nice on the dining room table... makes me want to do some spring cleaning now.

Easy Valentine

It's not that I ran out of time to make my Valentine's this year... not exactly... it's more like all of the other things I do were calling out the loudest and my Valentine's sort of lost their voices. So I made this simple Valentine for my husband in about 10 min.

1. I cut the heart out of one of the MANY paintings my daughter creates on a weekly basis. (I'm sure she would be okay with it!)

2. I found a pen (in this case a black Papermate ballpoint pen- my husband's favorite kind) and laying it over the heart I measured out where the two notches should be cut out in the middle of the heart.

3. I cut 2- 1/2" slits into the heart and threaded the pen through so that the top and bottom of the pen show up on top of the heart

4. I then cut a triangle out of colored paper for the arrow tip and two smaller triangles out of colored paper for the "feathers" of the arrow and taped them onto the pen.

5. To make the "feathers" look more real, I fringe cut the bottom triangles.

6. Add a sappy note on the back and you're done!

(He loved the pen... earlier that day another pen just like it ran out of ink... it's all in the timing.)

Baby Boo was the only one I didn't make a Valentine for... but he's only 4 months, so I hope he forgives me. Bean got her favorite kind of sucker. My mom got an anti-Valentine, as she prefers. All said it was a good day that didn't rely too heavily on consumerism.