Emerging Spirit

Making Placemats with Oma

Arts and crafts start young at oma's house.  Nineteen month old Jack creates placemats that are just the right size for his tray using coloring and stickers.  Now it must be said that his favorite part of coloring is opening and closing the crayon box and removing and replacing the crayons. (The crayon box is an exciting 64 color box left behind by his Great-Aunt Barbara.  And I remember being jealous growing up when sister Barbara received a coveted 128 color box of crayons that included gold and silver.)  He loved the stickers as they al represent words that he knows and can either say, sign, or make a sound for.  As a result, the mats are a great conversation tool for someone just discovering the magic of communication.

ATCs

Work has interfered significantly with my availability to do much art lately.  This morning I dashed off 4 ATCs for an online group I am participating in.  Fortunately I have made a number of background papers in the past and I used one of these for this project.  I cut the papers using my deckle cutter and then mounted them on a background paper.  Punched hearts and stamped letters made quick work of the project.  I did a final light brush and wipe using Golden's Metallic Copper Light Glaze.  I love this stuff which gives the pieces more of a finished look and adds just a touch of glitz to the piece.

Of course, when one has to hurry to complete a project, it comes at the expense of orderliness.  My art studio is not very big.  I had been working on wirewrapping over the holidays and then in the last two weeks had switched to glass, moving the silver to the other side of the table.  So in order to do the ATCs, the glass had to be shoved to the side.  And that is how my work table came to look like this.  But it is a happy mess!