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.

Vol. 5, No. 163-170, December 28, 2020

You probably noticed, this year, I have been really bad at posting work. The truth is, I wasn't enjoying writing the blogs, so I would put off posting. Therefore I decided that next year, I am only going to post to Instagram and let it do the automatic post to Facebook. That way, I only have to post once. If you want to know about my project, you will have to ask.

Before I "give up", I am going to post all of the projects that I have missed.

5163 - Squash Soup.

I was helping to make squash soup and got to run the immersion blender. When it is held at just the right height, it creates a fun woven star design.

5164 -  Quilted.

In mid-November, my mom, sister and I finally finished the baby quilt that we had started nearly 2 years ago. It was a gift for my niece. It turned out pretty well considering it was out first actual quilt.

5165 - Mixed Media Self-Portrait 12/12/09.

In college, I took a drawing class; one of the assignments was to create a self-portrait. It is labeled as mixed media, although I am not sure what I used; I am guessing chalk, colored pencil, and paint.  After the class, I filed away the project in a tube. As I was going through art supplies recently, I came across the drawing. I unrolled it thinking I would look at it quick and then put it back in storage. Unfortunately, I noticed mold spots on the paper. I decided the best course of action was to photograph it and then dispose of the artwork. 

5166 - Giving Thanks.

Thanksgiving looked a little different this year. Rather than gathering with my dad's family like we normally would, it was only my immediate family in attendance. We still had a full dinner including homemade bread and pies. We arranged this picture showing our "bounty", to share with my dad's siblings as they were all sharing pictures of their own feasts.

5167 - COVID Cardinal.

At school, we are trying to keep our curriculum the same as much as possible, while still following COVID guidelines set out by the state. Sometimes this means changing how we do certain projects and we have found that some of these changes are good and we intend to keep them. One such happy change was the addition of a cardinal to Kindergarten Paper Mache Ornaments. In the past students have been able to choose between a reindeer, a snowman, or a penguin. All three ornaments were cute, but the penguin required two colors of paint and either two brushes or water to wash the brush. I didn't want to deal with the extra setup, so I changed the project. Our school's mascot is a cardinal, so I knew that would be a great winter bird option. I love how they turned out and will be keeping cardinals next year.

5168 - Snow Globe.

The ornament project that I did with my Transitional Kindergarten class last year required a lot of prep work and it wasn't really COVID guideline friendly. Therefore, I wrote a new lesson plan, deciding on paper snow globes. Using Epsom salt "frozen" paint, we iced the background. Next we added finger print characters and decorated with markers. The plan didn't go quite how I had intended, but most of them stilled turned out cute.

5169 - Cake Construction.

It's hard to believe, but ten days ago, one of my favorite littles turned 3! I did lots of research to find the perfect cake. He is in to trucks of all kinds, so I decided to make a construction themed cake. I made a Double Chocolate Banana Cake (he loves bananas) topped with chocolate ganache and crushed Oreos. A bit of powdered peanut butter helped to create the three in the middle. The cake was finished off with some Milk Dud rocks and little toy trucks.

5170 - Quarantine.

Due to close contact, I got to spend some time in quarantine. While it may sound like a paid vacation, it's really not that fun; especially for a teacher. I still had lesson plans to prepare. I decided to use a lesson I had initially done during distance learning last spring; Guided Drawing Cardinals. As the school mascot, I figured a cardinal was something that students could benefit from knowing how to draw. I made two examples showing different backgrounds that could be added.

Vol. 5, No. 161, October 29, 2020

5161 - Creative Sprint Day 29.

I decide to redo yesterday's prompt, use a tool in a new way. I was thinking about the tools I use in the art room and I remembered the "tragedy" that happened when I was peeling crayons a few weeks ago. I had dumped a bunch of crayons into a bucket of water to encourage the wrappers to come off. When I returned to the crayons, some of them were soggy and mushy. I noticed that these crayons all had labels marking them as Washable. I decided that I would use crayons in a new way and paint with them. I soaked a rainbow of washable crayons in water. When they were wet, I rubbed a paintbrush on them like one would do with paint. I liked this new way of painting and may try it with my students someday.

Vol. 5, No. 159, October 27, 2020

5159 - Creative Sprint Day 26 & 27.

Yesterday, it was late before I decided that I should paint in reverse, so I opted to wait until today and combine it with today's prompt. My plan worked perfectly, it provided me with both a subject and medium. On my way home from work, I stopped at the thrift store and picked up a clear glass plate. Then I got to work making a painting from a snails point of view. I started with the details and outline, adding the base colors last.