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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Scrapbooks for My Son's 4th Grade Class & Teacher

The end of May is always crazy busy, mostly due to end of year school activities.  Thankfully, the shows I was involved with were early May.

In the last few weeks I have worked several days a week at school.  Add to that, the days I have been at my son's school as a volunteer.  4th Grade at Governor's Ranch is full with tradition.  The 4th graders study and work towards Colorado Day for weeks before the day of their presentation held on May 16th. Each student selects a person who has made a contribution to Colorado's history.  On Colorado day, the student comes to school dressed up like that historical person and presents a board with facts and information about the historical person's life and contributions.  I was in the classroom all day to capture each of the kids presentation on film, which would become a big part of a scrapbook I created for each student.  The kids also have a lunch box social during Colorado Day (a favorite of the students).  They fill out a questionnaire with their preferred lunch choices and their lunch partner decorates or handcrafts a lunch box for that student.

My son Alex was "Otto Mears" during Colorado day.  His lunch partner was "Molly Brown", survivor of the titanic.  This is the lunch box my son decorated for "Molly Brown."

I don't post pictures of my kids on my blog, for reason's I have mentioned before.  However, since he is in costume and wearing a big beard, I thought I could make an exception.  
 Here is Alex's display:


When we first moved to Colorado, my daughter Laura was starting 4th grade and Alex was only 2 years old.  This was eight years ago.  Laura is now a Senior, as of a few days ago.  Alex has two more days of 4th Grade.

At the end of Laura's 4th Grade year, I gave every student in her class a personalized scrapbook with pictures I had taken throughout the year.  The scrapbooks had pictures from the start of the school year all through the end, including many pictures from Colorado Day.  Eight years ago, my creative energy was spent more on scrap-booking, so I was able to work on those scrapbooks on and off for many months.

These days, I have very limited time for projects like creating a scrapbook for every student in Alex's class.  Especially since now I spend as much time as I can on creating handcrafted items for Isa Creations and work part-time as a substitute teacher and/or paraprofessional (teacher's aide). 

But, I felt I should try to give Alex a similar experience his sister had when she was in the 4th Grade.  Although the personalized scrapbooks I created for each of Alex's classmates is a much less comprehensive scrapbook than Laura's classmates, it actually comes close.  I have worked on them almost round the clock for two weekends.

The scrapbooks are a hybrid of digital scrap-booking and simple traditional scrap-booking.  With the help of Alex's teacher, Mrs. Walls, I was able to incorporate the kids owns words by incorporating some of their work, including a self portrait.  The self portraits were on a much larger paper, which I photographed.  The photograph was resized onto an 8.5 x 11 sheet.  Here is Alex's self portrait now part of his 4th Grade scrapbook.


Here is the cover for each scrapbook, personalized with the name of each student on each cover.
 

The scrapbooks include 4 pages of personalized digital layouts of Colorado Day.  Black card-stock pages with photos from Halloween, Holiday Class party, and pictures of their Diorama's (which were done on May 23, 2014).  I have taken all the photos in these scrapbooks.  Although I may not scrapbook like I did at one time, I continue to take lots of pictures.  A page with Mrs. Wall's picture along with a note from her to each student. I added a page with a pocket so the kids can add other school memorabilia along with blank black card stock pages where they can add additional photos.  I created a book for Mrs. Walls using the Colorado Day layouts I created for her students. 

This project has taken more than two entire weekends to accomplish.  Why do this?  For my son Alex.   It's a labor of love.  This is something I did for his sister and her classmates when she was in 4th grade.  Now that he is just finishing 4th grade, I want to do something similar.





Monday, May 26, 2014

She Who Sews Challenge by Isa Creations

It has been several weeks since my last post.  Several reasons for my absence. Tomorrow I will post about a project I have been working on for two solid weekends involving my son's 4th grade class.

Add to that, I have been working at school (2 days) or volunteering at school (2 days) 4 of the 5 days this past week.  All of this has been done while having a cold with a hacking cough.  I am still coughing as I write this post, I can't tell you how tired I am of this cough!

Anyway, I want to share my two completed projects for

Challenge involved using the Handmaids fabric created by J. Wecker Frisch.  These are the challenge rules as posted by the Joy Studio Blog:
Challenge Rules:
1. Sign up by April 25, 2014 with an email to tidings3@aol.com and comment to this post – Accepting the first 30
2. Make any item (s) of your choice using one (total) or more yards of the “She Who Sews” fabrics (collection from Quilting Treasures – available in quilt shops & on line)
3. Use two “She Who Sews” fat quarters – We provide
4. Also (must) use at least 2 more cuts (skus), your choice, of the “She Who Sews” fabrics, in any increments, totaling an additional 1/2 yard or more – You purchase
5. To be eligible/entered for the participant giveaway/drawing, you must email photo(s) of finished project(s) to tidings3@aol.com by May 26, 2014

I created two styles of bags with the two fat quarters I received along with the She Who Sews fabric I had previously purchased.




The first one is a clutch bag, fully lined and with a layer of fusible fleece for added support.  I love to use the free-motion sewing attachment on my sewing machine.  I stitched the outline of the the girl, her hair and added some free-style stitching doodling throughout the bag.  On the back I free style stitched "Create with Love." I just added a bit of vintage red rick rack trim to the top.


 Free-style stitching on hair:


The second bag is a lined zippered bag.  The bag itself is square but the quilting itself is not.  The paint palette  inspired me to have the square a bit off centered.  I believe in art it's okay to color outside the lines and think outside the box.   The yellow and red rick rack trim are not in a straight line.  All the rick rack trim is vintage.  I added some fun charms to the zipper pull for fun.  For the lining in this bag  I used both fat quarters sent to me.






Working with the Handmaids fabric line, She Who Sews has been fun.  I have more lined zippered bags just waiting to be sewed.  Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will get those done. 

 J. Wecker Frisch is coming out with new fabric lines, (Angelband and DrawNear) I look forward to purchasing both fabric lines as soon as they become available.

Friday, May 9, 2014

Vintage Embriodered Linen Clutch Bags...Just Created in time for Horseshoe Market

Tomorrow is Horseshoe Market. from 9-4 at 46th & Tennyson, Denver...find more more details here.

Running a bit behind with dinner (we normally eat late). so this post will just be pictures.
 Anyway, here are the pictures:












Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Horseshoe Market

Isa Creations will be at Horseshoe Market this Saturday.  Hope to see you there.  My goal is to have new vintage linen embroidered pin cushions and MAYBE vintage embroidered clutch purses. 

It will be another busy week!


https://www.facebook.com/horseshoemarket

Monday, May 5, 2014

A Paris Street Market Booth -Saturday May 3rd

This past Saturday, I had many firsts at A Paris Street Market in Aspen Grove.

First time I had to rent a U-Haul van to take all my stuff to the market since we no longer have the Ford Excursion and still dealing with insurance on a replacement vehicle (rollover accident on the Excursion over Spring Break March 22nd). 

Thankfully, my friend Lisa was able to drive me to pick up the U-haul van and helped me load it up at home while Alex, David and Laura were at the school (GRE Elementary) carnival Friday evening.  Laura was volunteering (needed the hours to fulfill her Honor Society community service hours). 

Since Laura was taking a practice AP test on Saturday, she was not able to help me at the market like she has in the past.  David, my husband, came with me and helped me unload and setup the booth.  He left around 8:00 a.m. so he could be home with Alex and Laura could leave for her test.    Thankfully, my friend Lisa came late morning to help me.  With Lisa there, I was able to take a needed bathroom break and she went and got us both lunch.  It's great to have a friend at the show!  Laura came to the show the last hour, she helped me pack up my booth.  Around 4 p.m. David and Alex came over and helped me load the U-Haul van.  Usually, at A Paris Street Market it just Laura and me...this time with was the entire family.  Very grateful for their help.  Lisa is like family so she I include her in thanking my family for all their help.



I want to thank all the lovely ladies who shopped at my booth. My new vintage illustration altered dominoes were very well received.  I appreciate all the positive feedback!  Thank you to everyone who came to support all of us at A Paris Street Market!


Lots of dyed doilies ....lots of new colorful dyed buntings...



White Vintage Hankies ... makes me think of wedding dresses.



My next show is this coming Saturday, May 10th.  I will be at Horseshoe Market.  Here is the info and the link.
http://horseshoemarket.com/