Creativity...Where For ART Thou??

Last week the boys and I had a great art filled weekend. We worked on decorations, drawings, sewing, gluing and painting. I love it when we can spend a few hours being creative together. It can be overwhelming to have 3 little boys all begging for your attention at the same time and I love it when we can find common projects and work together.

We finished our Valentine's Tree and are pretty proud of it. Noah ended up sewing most of the hearts and he just wouldn't quit. I though for sure he would get bored after he finished his first one but he really surprised me...and kept right on sewing for 3 hours. Our tree has 3 branches with 7 hearts. Each heart represents a family member. Some have words sewn on them and some just have sparkles. It is a cute little reminder of our unique family tree, full of love....and we made it out of materials we already had...awesome!

This is my awesome art/office/library room. I work in here and we create our art in here. The red walls were here when we moved in and its one of my favorite wall colors. Perfect for an art room! Eli worked on redoing his Amazon map while Lucas and I started the tree.

I had to put in the little photo of Noah smiling while we worked because his two action shots make it look like he was miserable. I promise he wasn't...he was just really concentrating on making the hearts perfect...he can be quite the perfectionist!

After Eli redid his map, he helped me glue the stones onto the vase. We used a cappuccino bottle for our vase and after we covered the entire thing with shiny pebbles...I decided I didn't like it...and took them all off with an ice pick...don't ask...but Eli really enjoyed my hot pink, mini glue gun...have I ever mentioned I LOVE that thing?? I just put the tree on the mantle tonight after I wrapped it with ribbon...I know Valentine's Day is a few weeks away but I love the hard work that went into it and wanted to be able to enjoy it for awhile. Didn't they do a great job?

Here is the new map that Eli made for his post card brochure. The map shows South America and labels all of the countries. The bright green shows you where the rain forest falls in each particular country. He is also modeling the front of his book after he put the final touches on it with special stickers. I know you heard it before...but we are so proud of this project! He did such a fantastic job!

On Sunday Noah decided to spend a few hours painting. He chose a flower and spent the afternoon sketching in the design, painting in the background and starting on the foreground details. He got a little frustrated as he went along because he was afraid he had messed up several times...but I told him the best part about being an artist...you can keep adding paint, changing the design and "fixing" your mistakes until you are happy with it...it just takes practice.

He was so serious while he worked on his art...I need to teach him to relax and enjoy the process too...and not to worry about the finished product just yet...

This is where we are in the process...he is getting ready to start adding some details...but he is waiting for inspiration to hit so it is waiting for him in the art room...

Noah told me that I should post this to the blog too...so here it is. I made this last summer and when we hung it up last fall we put it near the front door to be used as a cork board. I painted cork and secured it to the back of an open frame. It looks like an open shadow box but with more class. :) We put our weekly agenda on there so the kids could see what activities they had that week as they walked out the door. Right before all the leaves fell, the boys took me on a walk down our favorite block. We picked up leaves along the way and I made a fall bouquet that we gave to Grandma for her birthday. It has been in our agenda frame since Nov. and it is just too pretty to move...I really like it! Now I just need to get some vinyl from Ashli so I can keep decorating...it is GREAT therapy!!