Chanelling Eric Carle - Canvases for My Preschool Classroom

I think I've mentioned before that I teach preschool.  We moved locations this school year and when we were setting up the classroom (way back in September) somebody asked me if I could make some art for the walls.  I agreed right away as I love working on canvases.  Lots of ideas swam in my head but I kept coming back to Eric Carle.  Even if you don't recognize his name you will surely recognize some of his books.  They are classics for the younger peeps.

I finally got around to creating them this weekend.  Eric uses painted tissue paper to create his masterpieces.  I had never tried this before but decided to give it a whirl.  What a blast!  Here's a pic of some of the papers I came  up with.

Super easy to do with regular ol' white gift wrapping tissue paper, acrylics and matte medium for gluing.  I used 11 x 14 cheap canvases from Hobby Lobby for the base.

I think they'll look pretty cool hung together since the papers are used throughout the whole batch.
Thanks for stopping by!

Face Painting and Cards

Yes, an odd mix to be sure.  I teach at a preschool and we're having an end-of-year BBQ/auction/carnival in a couple of weeks.  I volunteered to do some face painting.  What was I thinking?  I don't do face painting!  But they were going to skip it if nobody offered and you just know the kidlets love to have their cherubic little  faces painted.  So today I plan on sitting down with some watercolors and working out some REALLY SIMPLE designs that my little kiddos will like.  I'm thinking stars, butterflies, flowers, snakes, lizards/dinosaurs, lightning bolts.  If anybody out there has other ideas take pity on me and please SHARE YOUR IDEAS.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart (hey, hearts!  I could do those too!).

As for cards, I recently went through my stash and realized I have a bunch that I've never photographed and added to the shop.  So that's what I've been doing the last few days.  Some I've posted about before but here are a few new ones that I've added:

While I've listed these separately they can be purchased via this great deal which applies a 15% discount when 4 cards are purchased.

I love this card.  The guy was hand-stamped 4 times on different papers and then I cut out pieces, colored them and layered them for a cool, dimensional look.  I made the background by inking up some bubble wrap (love that technique).  The text star is from a book I saved from the recycle bin.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today.  YOU make ME smile.  May your skies be sunny and your cares be few.

I love the little monsters

I teach at a preschool 4 days a week.  It's a blast.  The little kidlets certainly keep me on my toes and it never ceases to amaze and delight me when they discover some new and amazing thing or reach some new milestone.  As I was packing up this box of invitations for one of my customers this morning I was thinking about my little preschool monsters.  I wonder what mischief we'll get into today.  :)

Paper Bag Puppet Cards are the best sellers in my Etsy shop; especially the Mario bunch.

Hmmmm...makes me think today would be a good day to make some paper bag puppets with my little monsters...