Vol. 3, No. 364, December 30, 2018

3364 - Draw With Me.

I was contemplating doing a year-end review and choosing some of my favorite projects from the year to highlight, but I couldn't decide which to use. Therefore, I was excited when Oldest Miller pulled out a coloring book and crayons. I asked her for a blank page and had her give me instructions to create a picture. We took turns, each of us giving the other instructions while also drawing our own picture. After we had each made 4 pictures, I told her we were finished. She had a blast comparing the two versions of each picture.

Vol. 3, No. 363, December 29, 2018

3363 - Champion.

In 2014, my family, consisting of some cousins, one uncle and some of my siblings, started playing fantasy football. We play for fun rather than money, which makes the trophy more important. I created a mini Lombardi Trophy using clay. The top and front is glazed while the back to panels are painted so that the winners can put their name on it. While I put in all of the work to make the trophy, I have yet to win. The trophy exchange usually occurs at our Christmas celebration. This year, after realizing I didn't have any pictures of the trophy, I took some. I wasn't necessarily going to post it as my project, but then I came down with the stomach flu today and didn't have the energy to do anything new.

Vol. 3, No. 362, December 28, 2018

3362 - Diorama.

When I got home this afternoon, Momma Miller was just gathering the Miller Littles for craft time. Thinking back to her school days when shoebox dioramas were a frequent project format, she decided to have the Littles make their own. I decided this would be a fun way to spend some Miller Time and get my project finished for the day. I decided to make a zoo. I painted the inside of the box blue. I used a toilet paper tube for the tree trunk, attaching green paper for the leaves. I used paper to make everything else. The clouds and sun are hung using fishing line. When I was finished I noticed a Lego man lying near by, so I decided he could be the zookeeper.

Vol. 3, No. 361, December 27, 2018

3361 - Giving In.

Recently, Oldest Miller has been begging me to do a craft project with her. As I was cleaning things up at school to get ready for break, I noticed the CD’s and Marbles set aside to make spinners. I decided this might be something fun for the Miller Littles to do during break. I let them use my large bin of Sharpies to decorate their CD, and then used glitter hot glue to attach the marble. They spin really well for something so simple. As soon as we were finished I left, I don’t know how much playing time they got, but it still gave them something fun to do on a Snowy, Rainy Day.

Vol. 3, No. 360, December 26, 2018

3360 - Family Tradition.

I made Potato Lefse with my grandparents for the first time when I was a teenager. I don’t remember making it frequently, but the whole family loved it when we did. The one time I really remember was when we were making Lefse the winter before Granny died. She wasn’t feeling well, so Papa and I did most of the work. We were using the electric griddle on the marble countertop. The high heat for an extended period of time caused the countertop to crack. After this I started making Lefse on my own, usually recruiting my mom to help.

We didn’t have a great recipe, so we kept trying different ones eventually combining several recipes to make what I called Hansen Lefse. Last year for Christmas, I received a Lefse turning stick and a pastry board, but never used them. After being prodded my uncle to make lefse, I took the leftover mashed potatoes from Christmas and put my new supplies to work. With only potatoes, butter, salt and lots of flour, Mom, Becca and I with a little help from Shawn, made 47 pieces of Lefse. This picture shows the lefse making process from rolling out the dough to placing the cooked lefse on a damp towel to cool.

Vol. 3, No. 359, December 25, 2018

3359 - Christmas Joy.

To show my appreciation of Miller Family, and the endless hours of Miller Time I have been able to enjoy since moving in, I bought the family some gifts. First, in the middle of the night I restocked the plastic baggies, paper towels, and napkins. Then I wrapped 3 gifts for under the tree, one for each Miller Little. The gifts were items for the whole family to enjoy with a note stating that I will do a fun activity alone with each of them. They haven't opened the gifts yet, but I am confident they will like them.

Vol. 3, No. 358, December 24, 2018

3358 - Challenge Accepted.

Tonight after attending Mass, my family gathered at Grandma's house with my Dad's siblings to celebrate Christmas Part 1. We enjoyed a dinner of hor'devores. After dinner we just enjoyed each others company. While visiting some of the cousins started throwing around a balled up napkin. When it missed it's target, I was challenged to turn the napkin into a candy cane or a wreath. I started with the candy cane, but struggled. The wreath was much easier. I rolled the napkin, twisting it into a rope. Then I made a ring and tied it closed with a bow. When I was finished, I hung the wreath on the tree. I left it there to be found when the tree is taken down
 Who knows, maybe it'll appear next year.

Vol. 3, No. 357, December 23, 2018

3357 - Rapping Wrapper.

Today in anticipation of Christmas, in 2 days, I decided to help my parents wrap presents. Okay, I wrapped one present, then decided my dad was better at and had him do all of the wrapping while I focused on the bows. Regardless of who did what, they look great under the blue and silver tree. Because one sister is gone on a trip right now, we aren't actually opening gifts until January 5th, so really the wrapped gifts are just for decoration.

Vol. 3, No. 356, December 22, 2018

3356 - Goodbye.

With only 2 days until Christmas, my elf duties have come to an end. Here are my last 4 Elf on a Shelf activities. We'll start with the bottom right. I pinned Elfie to the bulletin board in a Miller Little room. The challenging part was that the bulletin board was above Oldest Miller's bed and she was asleep in it. Moving clockwise, we have Elfie in a candy cane box. I hid the 12 candy canes around the house for with a note for the kids to find them. Elfie stayed in the box for 2 days as the Miller Littles only found 10 candy canes the first day. Next, I used 2 of the candy canes, some string and a toilet paper tube to make Elfie a swing. I hung it from the rafters in the playroom. Finally we have Snowball Fight, Elfie vs. Barbie. Mini marshmallows and Magnatiles made this one easy.

Vol. 3, No. 355, December 21, 2018

3355 - Field Trip.

In First grade, students learn about prehistoric art, using the cave drawings in Lascaux Cave as inspiration. To introduce the lesson, I turned my smartboard into a cave by wrapping it with brown paper and adding paint and charcoal to give it a rocky texture and some animal drawings. Then I projected a video tour of Lascaux Cave. The kids loved it. I have one more class to introduce the lesson to after Christmas break, so hopefully the tape holds until then. Really the only thing that would have made this cooler is fi I could have made the projection full screen.

Vol. 3, No. 354, December 20, 2018

3354 - I’m Melting.

Last night Elfie used shaving cream to create snowmen of our family. It was a little bit messy, but it turns out that shaving cream is hard to draw with on a vertical surface. Plus, the shaving cream started to fall victim to gravity, so I added the paper towels and tape to save the window sill. I wasn’t sure how well the shaving cream would hold up, so I checked it before I left for work this morning. It looked fine so I left it alone. When I returned home tonight, 26-ish hours after having made the artwork, it looked as if it had melted. As it turns out, shaving cream is not a long term art form. When I appeared on the scene, Elfie was already laying down like that, but everyone was in bed so I have no idea how that came to be. Did someone touch Elfie? I didn’t know, so I just cleaned up the shaving cream and left Elfie where he lay.

Vol. 3, No. 353, December 19, 2018

3353 - Count Down.

Last night Elfie made a paper chain counting down the number of Sleeps until Christmas. In case you weren't sure, it's 6. Oldest Miller was challenged to make a paper chain for school, so Elfie left the supplies for all of the Miller Littles. It turned out to be a good way to pass the time as they all ended up home from school, sick. Fingers crossed that I don't get it.

Vol. 3, No. 352, December 18, 2018

3352 - Thank You.

As we enter the final week of school before Christmas Break, I decided I should begin making thank you notes. To show my appreciation to students (parents) who give me gifts, I made homemade thank you cards. While some of the designs are similar, each is unique. They even have matching envelopes.

Vol. 3, No. 351, December 17, 2018

3351 - Secret Santa.

Today was the first day of my work gift exchange. Each staff member who wants to participate puts $1 in the pot and wraps a $10 gift. Gifts are placed outside of your room on Monday morning and remain there through the end of the day on Wednesday. All students and staff are allowed to switch any gift with any other gift at any point during the day. One of the gifts in the rotation is all of the money that was collected. Since kids get to help switch gifts, I decided to wrap my gift in a large box with Disney Princess wrapping paper. I figured if the princesses didn’t attract students, the size would. Sure enough within minutes of placing the box outside my door, some student had snatched it up and replaced it with a different gift. I will have to wait until Thursday to open my gift ant the Christmas Breakfast. In the mean time, I get to enjoy the gift switching.

Vol. 3, No. 350, December 16, 2018

3350 - Christmas Creations.

As my family gathered at my parents house to celebrate my sister's Birthday, we also decorated. I was able to skip out of the tree, but got assigned to  the  foyer. This meant turning the regular band scene into a Christmas scene, as well as hanging the garland and stockings on the banister. I opted to keep the foyer simple, with some assistance from my dad and Becca, I hung icicle lights and Granny's beaded garland. We finished it off with 2 small topiary-ish plants, some bows and a Christmas Gnome.

Vol. 3, No. 349, December 15, 2018

3349 - Catching Up.

My 6th graders just finished an Abstract Art project. The project was based on the work of Wassily Kandinsky. They incorporated feelings and music through lines and color. Each student followed the same set of instructions for the drawing and then chose their own color scheme. I used an analogous color scheme, using red, red-violet, violet, and blue-violet.

Vol. 3, No. 348, December 14, 2018

3348 - What’s Up.

My Elfish Creativity has struck again. I had borrowed some old marshmallows from my mom the last time I was home and was saving them for an Elf activity. Tonight, I pulled them out and let Daddy Miller choose the scene; snowball fight or weight lifting. He was curious about the weight lifting so that’s what I did. I stuck a regular size marshmallow on each end of a short straw and then used rubber bands to hold Elfie’s hands around the bar. Next I built the weight bench from a graham cracker and 4 marshamallows. The cracker broke in the displaying process, so I placed a painted rock under it for support.

Vol. 3, No. 347, December 13, 2018

3347 - Season’s Greetings.

Next week my work gift exchange starts. To prep, I started working on my gift and tonight I made a little card to put with it. It is a fairly simple card. Really the hardest part was signing my name. I may have spelt my last name wrong and had to change the lettering to fix my mistake.

Vol. 3, No. 346, December 12, 2018

3346 - Volunteering.

Once a month, I volunteer 2 hours of my time to be a Religious Education Leader for my church. I lead a small group of K-2 graders while their parents attend a meeting. I usually only have two kids, so it is an easy gig. Today we gathered with the older kids. We sang Christmas Carols, decorated Christmas Cookies and then played a game. I snapped a picture of the finished plates of cookies; nothing amazing, but we had fun.

Vol. 3, No. 345, December 11, 2018

3345 - Breaking Bread.

A while ago, I made a clay breadstick to go with my spaghetti so that I would have a completed example for the 8th grade clay food project. Each student needs to make 3 foods that go together. I had spaghetti and a beat that I had made when still at Holy Tininity. Today I finally got around to painting my breadstick. While it is slightly darker than I was hoping for, I love it. I used a mixture of gold, brown, yellow and white to achieve all of the layers of color. It was a great example to show my 8th graders today as they are painting their projects. I was able to show they how they can layer colors to make their food look more realistic.

Vol. 3, No. 344, December 10, 2018

3344 - Ornamental.

In Kindergarten, students make paper mache ornaments for Christmas. It is a huge collaboration between student and teacher. First, I labeled each cup with every students' name and class code. Then students spent 2 class periods applying paper mache, which meant I handled each cup 2 more times, scraping off extra paste and smoothing paper. Next after they were dry, I took each ornament off the form, transferred the name tag, trimmed the edge and attached a string for hanging. I prepped all of the attachments. During the next class I lead students through painting their ornaments and attaching the details. I had to insert all of the deer antlers myself as it required a sharp needle tool to make the holes. Really if you think about it, this project is 75% my work. I did even more for students who missed a day during the 3 weeks of the project. I may need to rethink this one in the future.

Vol. 3, No. 343, December 9, 2018

3343 - Elf Update.

I have been helping with Elf On The Shelf a lot, but sometimes my placements just aren't crafty enough to be a solo project. I decided to save these smaller undertakingings and post them in groups. Here we have Hanging Elf, Toliet Elf, Tree Elf, and Nail Polish Elf. I did all of the work on the first three. Mommy Miller wrote the note for the last one and painted Daddy Miller's toe nails, all I did was place Elfie, the note and the nail polisb.

Vol. 3, No. 342, December 8, 2018

3342 - Gone Fishing.

I’m not going to lie, I’ve been enjoying this whole Elf thing. I love having a purpose behind my creativity and making something other than just project examples for school. Today the Millers went shopping and the Miller Littles each got to choose a type of candy for movie night. Oldest Miller chose Swedish Fish. I was disappointed because I don’t like the candy, but as she was snacking, I came up with a great plan, I was going to take Elfie fishing tonight. With a box and it’s plastic insert, some blue envelopes, a wooden skewer, fishing line, a stick pin, a felt scrap, some clear hair ties, and of course a large handful of Swedish Fish, I was able to create this fun fishing scene. The hardest part of the project was getting Elfie to hold the pole upright.

Vol. 3, No. 341, December 7, 2018

3341 - Ready, Set, Go.

Tonight the Miller Littles participated in the Pinewood Derby. In preparation I was asked to assist with painting their cars on Wednesday night. Each of the Miller Littles had their paints chosen and painted the base coat themselves. I help Littlest Miller with a few touch ups and then painted a design for her. She chose a flower and insisted that it had different colored petals. She meant that she wanted each petal a different color, but my heart was telling me no. So I just made two-tone petals. She was happy with it in the end. None of the Miller Littles brought home a trophy, but they had lots of fun.

Vol. 3, No. 340, December 6, 2018

3340 - Thrice Fired.

Yesterday was my last time of running the kiln for the quarter, so I decided to get my projects glazed. I reglazed the large bowl for the 3rd time. To try and counteract the bright green of the last firing, I went with a brick red this time. As I pulled the bowl out of the kiln this morning, I decided the color of the glaze was okay, and then I saw the giant crack. I'm not sure if the clay had just had enough or if I opened the kiln too soon, but either way, the bowl had met its end. After snapping a quick picture, I smashed the bowl in the garbage can. Let me tell you, it was rather exhilarating!

Vol. 3, No. 339, December 5, 2018

3339 - Hands On.

One of my 6th grade classes got really far ahead of the other, so I threw in an extra project. They traced their hand and then put Zentangle designs in it. It looked like so much fun and so relaxing that I wanted to make one myself. It took me nearly 2 weeks to finish it, working only during my free time in class.

Vol. 3, No. 338, December 4, 2018

3338 - Selfie Too!

I was so excited to finally get my paint markers that I couldn't wait to fill one with India Ink and start drawing. I tested the marker out by drawing a self-portrait. I cam't wait to use these with my students!

Vol. 3, No. 337, December 3, 2018

3337 - Selfie Flop.

I was attempting to create a  printmaking self-portrait project for my 6th graders. I didn't get it laid out the way I wanted, so I am putting that project on hold for another couple days.

This picture is the printing plate that I started.

Vol. 3, No. 336, December 2, 2018

3336 - Glazed.

A couple years ago, I made a large ceramic bowl. I glazed it, but it didn’t turn out very well. I was giving it to my brother for Christmas and didn’t have time to re-glaze it. I told him that if he wanted me to, I would take it back to fix. He said he liked it as is, so I left it. Fast forward to this summer as we were packing up our house. He decided the glaze job was awful and he didn’t really need the bowl anymore anyways. So I took the bowl to school and attempted to re-glaze it. I chose what I thought was a mint green glaze. Well maybe the glaze was old, or I fired it wrong, I don’t really know. Regardless, it is now worse than before, with the exception of the cute little elephant shape that appeared. I will attempt re-glazing once more, but this bowl may have just become a planter.

Vol. 3, No. 335, December 1, 2018

3335 - Happy Holidays.

This morning I attended a Christmas Card making class at with my mom at the library. During the class we each made 2 gift tags and 2 greeting cards. One thing I learned is to always check your fingers for ink before toughing anything white.