A School Year's Worth of Work

So my first teaching year is coming to a close and I wanted to highlight 2 of the grandest projects we did.

1st up: 7th grade girls paper maiche animals. This project took a ENTIRE semester so I don't recommend doing this. I could possibly be fired over this project since my girls have nothing else to show from January to June. Regardless here is the fruit of my labor.

Above: A purple frog- all is paper maiched- even the tounge.

Above: Lion- adorable!

Above: A shot of some of the classes work.

Next: My 4th grade. If there was one class that was my most challenging it was 4th. We started with empty food containers, coffee cans, pretzels jars... etc... we painted them brown and decorated them with totem pole faces. The idea was a teacher at the school who previously taught at the Lab School and she wanted to do an art project that tied in the 4th grades study of Native American culture. We installed these around the school. A pretty easy project. Hard part- getting the parents to send in containers.

One day when I'm drunk I'll tell you all about the nasty emails I got from parents who were pissed I asked them to send in a container.

In total there were about 6 totem poles around the school.

Colored Pencils

I went babysitting today and happened upon these amazing colored pencils. I promptly went home and searched and searched on the internet with the rubbish I scribbled down off the pencil itself. After many fruitless searches, I found it!!!

One of the best colored pencil sets, for cheap, that I've found. The draw so smoothly and feel good to grip in an adult or childs hand (I would know, I have child-like hands).

They're called Lyra Ferby, they're made in Germany and can be bought here.

I've Had a Fever Lately....

And the only cure is making crafts!

I wish I was kidding but no... I am that lame.

I have also had like a three-week craving for mexican food but luckily my griddle and some cheese and beans have satisfied that urge.

Back to the crafts, so I have been having insaitabe urges to create things lately so here are some things I have made in the past week:

At BS- where I teach we are in need of better water cups for the kids to clean their brushes when painting. I dug up some old coffee cans, painted and collaged them and then sealed them with polyurothane (my second husband) and voile! Adorable art-themed water cups. The first is decorated with some bulldogs I downloaded, cut out and loosely watercolored blue (the schools colors and mascot). The second I traced a Matisse cut-out work, traced it onto painted blue paper (wasn't about to go buy blue construction paper) and voile! Instant Matisse-themed water cup. Double learning for the kids- art history, art recognition and cleaning their brushes. I should get a raise.

Next up for my darling daughter who is about to switch to a big girl bed (when it arrives in early June) a pillow made out of a Whole Foods bag. We bought a bunch of these Clementine bags when she was first born because it was just freaking weird that this was the bag Whole Foods was selling when we had her. I put some away so she could have them as a teenager and my dear sweet husband broke off one of the handles. We were about to throw it away the other day and then this idea hit right in the forehead. Clem could care less about the pillow. It's got brown piping to tie the whole look together.

Enjoy!

Metal Smithing

Metal smithing could be a compound word but I don't feel like looking it up.

Anyway this morning I got an email from the director of master degrees at the Corcoran and she sent a link to a former students new website.
I was pretty impressed with the website and this womans skills sooooo check it out!

System

Self-contained Unit

Limb

Column





Funnel (brooch)

Moth Design

House Beautiful featured a pretty cool side table from Moth Design.com so I went and checked out the website and here are some samplings of what I found:

Some edgy tables with an even "edgier" price tag- like $3000 each.

A interesting take on a chandelier- called the Dinner Party.

A side table that will keep guests on their toes!

Big Brown Towel

Bloomingdales has made an adorable towel to go with their signiture little, medium and big brown bag line, this time a big brown towel. How cute! A little pricey though at $40. Juicy Coutour on the other hand wants you to buy their white trash towel for $75- no thanks.

Trip to Leesburg Va.

The dear hubby and I took a trip to Leesburg Va. this past weekend. Now I'm a Maryland girl and hopefully I'll die a Maryland girl- but this trip was well worth it. We checked out a little antique hot spot with one particular store called Lucketts. Yes I claim to be the officinoto (no clue ho to spell that) regarding all things old and important (or so I like to think) but for some reason I just heard about Lucketts -from this girl actually:

And yes, she was boozing when she told me about it.

So the hubby and I took a senic route which we all know means:

Which was good because the hubby was able to indulge his outdoor time during a car ride.

We then boarded a ferry- no shit- a ferry for cars!

Not nearly as fun as the hubby made it out to be. $6 round trip. There was a confederate flag flying from one of the poles (not pictured, wonder why?) and we were parked next to a black person on the ferry. Needless to say you could cut the tension with a knife.

Once there we were face to face with what us into old important stuff people like to call heaven.

A indoor-outdoor extravganza of goodies! Clothing, furniture, decorative arts, historical scrape pieces. You name it- it was there. And the prices were amazing!!

Here are some pics of the goodies:

A collection of slate bowls that I am obcessed with.

An iron vase that I loved also.

After Lucketts I followed a stone path to the Beekeepers Cottage next door which had all sorts of white furniture. It was shabby chic galore!

The store has three componets: vintage collection, signature collection and romantic collection. We all know romantic collection is code word for shit like this:

But printed on canvas- so it's classy right??? And it's got a crackle finish- even better!

Ok so now the good stuff:

And here's the link:

beekeeperscottage.com

So the Beekeepers Cottage did have some good stuff. The prices were high and the owner talked my ear off on the phone about what you put in a duvet cover which I alreay knew but I was nice and smiled and nodded- none of which she saw 'cause it was over the phone.

My next stop- Luckett's showhouse. I followed another stone path and was at a house that reminded me a lot of my interior design days. Rooms decorated with stuff you could purchase. Thay had complimentary wine which I took full advantage of and since I rarely drink and had an empty stomach I got buzzed and lost my sunglasses inside. Luckily the hubby went back in and found them.

Since I was in such a good mood from the drinks I agreed to get lunch out. We stopped here:

There weren't very many options and I'm not going to lie I loooove Roy Rogers- it's so novel to find one now a days (unless you live in Luckett.)

After our lunch my buzz was gone and we took the ferry home.

The End.

Spring Cleaning!!

It's spring cleaning time! And I love spring cleaning. Here are some pics I have been holding onto in the hopes of doing a post on them but I think it's just not going to happen- so enjoy my yard sale of pictures!

Above: These four sconces are by Vaughan- a to-the-trade-only brand. These sconces are all so beautiful but have an outrageous price tag.

Above: A Al Hirschfeld drawing that I didn't post when I did the write-up of him.

Above: A Starbucks in Dupont Circle- the blue windows make this Starbucks stand-out from the run-of-the-mill batch in the suburbs.

Above: Vintage frenology heads. I think this is from the London science musuem- but I can't remember.

Above: A gorgeous sofa from Oly Studio.

Above: Extra image of pottery by Mougin.

Above: English Mason Pearson brush- with real boar bristles.

Above: Traditional English Wellies!

Above: My go-to antique shop in DC: Finials. A tad overpriced but still enjoyable.

Above: The emerald earrings Anjelina Jolie wore to the Oscars.

Above: A house for sale in Chevy Chase- 4 million, overlooks the golf course at the Chevy Chase Club.

Above: I saved the best for last, jewelry by artist Alexander Caulder, and I'm pretty sure that's Angelica Houston modeling.