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.

Vol. 6, No. 6, February 14, 2026

Week 5

Day 36 - Red

I used the end of a head of Romaine lettuce and red paint on red paper to create a floral texture.

Day 37 - Sharp

Using primary color tempra paints and a palette knife, I painted some leaves with sharp points.

Day 38 - Colorful

A student gave me this colorful drawing today. I decided it would loom great in my collage.

Day 39 - Round

The paints from Day 37 were new and had round seals on top. I pressed the seals together to create round rainbow paintings.

Day 40 - Grayscale

As the 5th graders continue on their Zentangle animals, I drew a small pattern with pencil on a test piece of paper mache.

Day 41 - Cheerful

There isn't much more cheerful than a sunrise or sunset. The 3rd graders were using watercolors today, so I painted this.

Day 42 - Heavy

I struggled with this one, then came across some small ceramic tiles in my craft drawer. I'm always up for recycling!

Vol. 6, No. 4, January 31, 2026

Week 4

Day 22 - Pattern

Today, I emptied some marker boxes. I decided to recycle one and draw Zentangle patterns on it. For inspiration, I looked at the handout I will be giving to my 5th grade students to use for their project.

Day 23 - Pretty

Today, I was cleaning out some paint pallets and I decided to to put the leftover paint to use. I went crazy, painting abstract designs, not even bothering to wash my brush. One stroke looked like a flower, and soon a small garden of pretty flowers had appeared.

Day 24 - Rough

One fun thing about acrylic paint is that is thick and can add a lot of rough texture to a painting. This is a corner of my "pretty" painting, that I layered clumps of mostly dried paint.

Day 25 - Lots

The 2nd graders are learning about Yayoi Kusama. She puts lots of dots in her art. I drew this mushroom by making lots of small dots with a ultra fine point sharpie.

Day 26 - Strong

Mushrooms seemed like a fun theme to continue. This mushroom was painted using very strong coffee. 

Day 27 - Hanging 

Using a scrap of newspaper that had been used as a messy mat, I created a paper chain of miniature flowers that I could hang.

Day 28 - Brittle

More mushrooms. These mushrooms were drawn of a dry, brittle leaf with a glue pen and sprinkled with glitter. The leaf was so brittle that it was breaking under the pressure of the pen.