Tuesday, February 12, 2013

More Amore Paper Mobile

I was trying to come up with a craft to take to the grade 4 class for this week...so, with a Valentine's theme. After some looking around, I thought I'd give my hand at building a mobile. There are various computations a mobile can take on, I was pretty excited about the possibilities and had big visions of buttons and ribbons and ruffles (on the Girls at least). Along the way, I stumbled on a Home schooler's blog. Her blog described how her girls discovered how even just the weight of simple paper needed balancing along the dowel. This statement made me realize a multi tier mobile might be more daunting than I was ready for with a class of kids. She also talked about reading a book about Alexander Calvert, an artist from the turn of the 20th century who is known for kinetic art, and his beautiful mobiles. My husband questioned the 'kinetic' part, but it is the energy of wind in this case to make the art.
This is one that I made. It is in constant motion and ever changing.

 
During my search, I came across a fun banner that used yellow for Valentine's along with the reds and pinks so I added in some Daffodil into my mix. Stampin'Up! has added in Pool Party to their beautiful paper, More Amore. I used a variety of heart framelits and the new Banner Framelits, along with embossing folders and a couple of the great lacy hearts from the package of More Amore paper. It is amazing to me how a simple breeze adds ten-fold to the allure of these, even the simpler one I constructed as an example to take to class, is so pretty as it twirls in the wind movement. The two bottom dowels spin around and the hearts twirl around on their own strings as they float around and pass one another.
I helped the kids make a simpler version with a single dowel along the top and three strings of hearts dangling from it. The kids cut multiple hearts in the pinks, reds, blue and yellow. I love seeing how different each child creates. Each mobile was so fabulous and so unique!
(I'm thinking I might try my hand at an Easter egg mobile for next month, using our oval framelits and some of our papers and more of our embossing folders...or maybe for more fun try dying some papers to add to a mobile. Maybe I can get some interest in a class. I really love the grace of them.)
 
Happy Valentine's Day!
 
smiles,
Laurie


Monday, February 4, 2013

Hearts a Flutter Creating these Last night

Yesterday, I saw this cute idea of using chocolate boxes as shadow boxes...because don't we all have some old chocolate heart shaped boxes saved to repurpose somehow, one day... or is that just me!


I had so much fun pulling out stamps from some new and old sets. I covered some Hershey minis to add more dimension to one of them. I built in the shelves. (I see from the photo I didn't finish lining the sides like I meant to. I'd also like to add some glitter to the Create a Cupcakes.) I used the owl punch for the little hearts. Collage Curios was used for the banner along with Lovely Little Labels and Tiny Tags. To create the banner, I used the heart from Hearts A Flutter framelits,Itty Bitty Banners framelit was cut in half, the smallest of our heart shaped framelits and the Banner punch. The chocolates are from the Hostess set, A Cherry on Top. The mailbox is from For the Birds and the ticket from the new set That's the Ticket. Yup! you've thought correctly, my table is a plethora of stamp boxes and DVD cases hanging open. Off to tidy up : D

P.S. the Penny is making a cameo as our Canadian Mint has stopped making them and today is the last day of the Canadian penny!

smiles,
Laurie