Vol. 6, No. 19, May 16, 2026

Week 19

Day 127 - I got to see a preview of Murder on the High C's.

Day 128 - Wrapped up my week as a music teacher with the first bonfire of the season, complete with friends, good food, and lots of shots!

Day 129 - Baseball, cards, and more shots!

Day 130 - Happy Mother's Day!

Day 131 - Free Facial with a Friend.

Day 132 - Gymnastics with LilE!

Day 133 - Happy Birthday to a sister who has the best sister in the world! And thanks for giving my your free $22 coffee!!

Vol. 6, No. 18, May 9, 2026

Week 18

Day 120 - A Million Crayons Giveaway and Crayola Experience with LilE.

Day 121 - Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Mortenson!

Day 122 - Out to the Movies! Watching Devil Wears Prada 2.

Day 124 - It was a good week to sub for music as it was an easy schedule. 4th and 5th learned about the National Anthem, 2nd and 3rd watched a video of their concert from last week, 1st explored the alphabet with the book Chicka, Chicka, Boom! Boom! and kindergarten explored elephants with the book Elmer.

Day 125 - It was also Teacher Appreciation Week, which we were all treated like VIPs and enjoyed lots of goodies throughout the week.

Vol. 6, No. 17, May 2, 2026

Week 17

Day 113 - I'm always up for a Costco run! Especially when I find good deals.

Day 114 - Girl's Night. We had dinner and enjoyed Great Theatre's production of Frozen.

Day 115 - Some Barbie is turning 7 this week!

Day 116 - Choosing a dress. A, B, or C?

Day 117 - Celebrating 3 birthdays all in one day. Cheers to 39, 9, and 7!

Day 118 - Self-care = Pedicures with Friends.

Day 119 - Self-care = Chiropractors who incoporate massage.

Vol. 6, No. 16, April 25, 2026

Week 16

This collage represents my top 7 events of the week, even though they didn't all happen on different  days. Some days were really busy and got 2 papers to represent them while other days were more relaxed and got none.

Day 106 - Opening Night of Finding Nemo Jr. and got a surprise package in the mail. Thank you LMNT!

Day 107 - Substitute teacher for art again. This afternoon I got to teach Kindergarteners how to draw a castle, which they will color texture plates and crayons next week.

Day 108 - Crashed a baby shower and attended a local high school's Spring Play: Romeo and Juliet

Day 110 - Attempted to give blood.

Day 111 - Attempted to give blood again, then attend an elementary music program. One of the songs was Four-Leaf Clover.

Vol. 6, No. 15, April 18, 2026

Week 15

Day 99 - Substitute teacher for art today. I had to demo printmaking. It didn't turn out perfect, but it worked.

Day 100 - Fixing jellyfish for Finding Nemo Jr. is not what I had on my agenda for the day, but with a little duct tape, I got the job done.

Day 101 - Made a Chocolate Espresso Cake. While it didn't turn out perfectly, it tasted great! I did some stencling with cocoa powder. 

Day 102 - Today was the warmest day we have had so far this year. I was doing laundry so that I could hang sheets on the line. This lead to me cleaning the washer, as the detergent cup got stuck and shredded.

Day  103 - While the storms went around us again, the clouds broke in time to give us a beautiful sunset. I grabbed a couple shells from the beach. 

Day 104 - Finding Nemo Jr. preview night. Look at those jellyfish. I think they may just be the stars of this show!

Day 105 - Lots of breath-takingly beautiful sunsets this week. I used the egg dye that is still out to add some sunset colors to my printmaking.

Vol. 6, No. 14, April 11, 2026

Week 14

Day 92 - Cozy time under the watchful eye of the giant moose.

Day 93 - Good Friday: The Passion of the Lord

Day 94 - Holy Saturday: Candle Light Vigil. I painted the program from the Easter Vigil with Easter Egg dye.

Day 95 - Easter Sunday

Day 96 - I'm uping my sewing game. Today was my first time using a serger.

Day 97 - We bought dyeable plastic eggs. They don't dye quickly and are still sitting in the dye. It is creating a neat marbled effect though.

Day 98 - Cleaning up after Easter and disposing of dying flowers.

Vol. 6, No. 13, April 4, 2026

Week 13

Day 85 - Dinner at Jonas Hill Vineyard and Winery. Wine glass rings stamped with wine.

Day 86 - Scratch Art with Lil E. She wanted to make scratch art paper. I provided her with pre-made paper, all of the fun with none of the work.

Day 87 - Community Easter Egg Hunt

Day 88 - Palm Sunday. I found the thinnest palms available, and braided them.

Day 89 - Let spring break vacation begin!

Day 90 - Sunsets over the lake.

Day 91 - Lots of swimming.

Vol. 6, No. 12, March 28, 2026

Week 12 

Day 78 - Filing my taxes.

Day 79 - Subbing in 4th grade. We watched Zooptopia 2 on the big screen in the auditorium.

Day 80 - Ag Day. The day old baby goat was the star of the show.

Day 81 - Prom dress shopping

Day 82 - Paper Airplanes

Day 83 - Pedicures

Day 84 - Story Hour

Vol. 6, No. 11, March 21, 2026

Week 11

Day 71 - Art Teacher Afternoon. Kandinski Clay, Weaving Introduction, and Coloring for Animal T-shirts.

Day 72  - Mosaic Turtles at Story Hour.

Day 73 - Family Birthday Party.

Day 74 - Snowed I. Ides of March Snowstorm left my car buried under nearly a foot of snow.

Day 75 - Another Art Teacher Afternoon. Paper Weaving Day 2 and Tessalations

Day 76 - Happy St. Patrick's Day and band concert.

Day 77 - Media Assistant - So many books.

Vol. 6, No. 10, March 14, 2026

Week 10

Day 64 - For Read Across America week, we had dress up days. Today was neon day. I wore a neon green t-shirt with a neon pink sweatshirt and a neon orange headband.

Day 65 - Catching up on card making.

Day 66 - First Saturday of the month means that it was Coffee Talk at church.

Day 67 - Scrambled omelets for breakfast means lots of eggshells. - I tried to make a clover.

Day 68 - Board meeting tonight.

Day 69 - Choir concert tonight.

Day 70 - Financial planning meeting today.

Vol. 6, No. 9, March 7, 2026

Week 9

Day 57 - Getting started on props for Finding Nemo Jr. Today I used spray foam to make a rock.

Day 58 - Today's prop task was starting the jelly fish. I cut strips of fabric and slid them under the tines of umbrellas.

Day 59 - Today I continued work on the jelly fish, adding unbound loofahs to the center of the umbrellas.

Day 60 - The first week of March brings 4 more birthdays for me to celebrate. The first of the 4 was celebrated with carrot cake. I had to shred the carrots which makes a very nice orange juice that I used as paint.

Day 61 - I was subbing again this week and was greeted back with a couple belated Valentines from some kindergarten students.

Day 62 - This week we celebrated Read Across America at school. Every day had a different dress up theme and of course a lot of reading.

Day 63 - Today I met with a committee to choose the finalists for the Watercade Button Design Contest.

Vol. 6, No. 8, February 28, 2026

I'm changing the rules. I couldn't keep up with creating something every day and then making a collage. So I am just going to find something to represent each day, to make the collage.

Week 8

Day 50 - Went shopping at Trader Joe's and found a new flavor of sparkling water to try, Cherry Vanilla.

Day 51 - I was a chaperone at the Minnesota State University Mankato High School Theater and Dance Day. We ended the evening by attending their play "The Cherry Orchard".

Day 52 - On four of the seven days this week, I celebrated extended family birthdays. 

Day 53 - One how per week is just not enough. Today I had a girls day and we went to see The Great Theatre's production of "Caberet".

Day 54 - Tonight I attended a class where we recycled sweaters, turning them into hats.

Day 55 - This evening was the last 9th grade boys basketball game of the season.

Day 56 - I was back in the art room this afternoon. The 4th Graders were using acrylic paint to paint their paper mache masks.

Vol. 6, No. 7, February 21, 2026

Week 7

Day 43 - Edible

With juice from pickled beets, pea flower tea, and lemon juice, I made an array of edible paints. It was fun to mix the paints and watch them dry on the paper. I never really knew what the finally color would be.

Day 44 - Shadow

After a quick search online for 'shadow art' I decided to try this one. They did a snowman on a blue background which was cuter, but my trees on a scrap of green paper served my needs.

Day 45 - Heart Shaped

A piece of junk mail had a beautiful heart on it. Why work harder when you can use your resources?

Day 46 - Green

With green acrylics and a sparkly green crayon on green paper, a created a scraped paint painting.

Day 47 - Soft

I pulled out the soft pastels and created a stencil using a heart corner punch. I then stenciled directly onto the background paper for my collage. I forgot to take a picture of the finished artwork before I made the collage, so here is a picture of the stencil instead.

Day 48 - Broken

I thought of ways of adding something broken to my artwork, but I didn't have any good options readily available. That's when I found a piece of plastic and thought I would draw cracks over it to look like a broken screen. Ultimately I decided to put the cracked design on a piece of shipping tape so that I wouldn't have to do any gluing. The texture under the crack is from the silicone mat i put the tape on while I drew.

Day 49 - Stick

I burned the end of a stick and drew stick people.

Vol. 6, No. 5, February 7, 2026

Week 5

Day 29 - Helpful

Once upon a time, phone books were very helpful. I was lucky enough to find an old phone book in my dad's office. It was from 2020, when we still had a landlines at our house. So I found the Hansen section and started doodling with some new to me gel pens.

Day 30 - Pointed

My sister invited me to attend her community art night. One of the activities they were doing was a sticker mural. They had a bunch of white stickers that people could color and add to the mural, many were Minnesota themed. When I was coloring this Pink Lady Slipper, I noticed all of the points it had and decided to save it for my collage.

Day 31 - Silhouette

Also at the community art night, I created a simple sunset silhouette with acrylic paint on paper. I think my painting inspired someone else, because after I hung my painting to try, I noticed someone working on a very similar painting. 

Day 32 - White

For this project I pulled out the plaster of Paris. I started by painting the plaster onto paper with a pallet knife. Then I remembered that I had some small silicone molds that would work.

Day 33 - Old

I looked through some old art that I had sitting around and chose a watercolor wax-resist leaf painting that I had made as an example for an Art Club project.

Day 34 - Sky

It may be double dipping, but I was feeling a bit lazy this week and I decided to use the other half of my silhouette painting for my sky painting. 

Day 35 - Pattern

As my 5th grade students worked on their patterned animals, I drew a small patterned design.