Summer pottery

At the end of the school year, Ella's class made pinch pots in art class and each student got to bring his/her finished pinch pot home. When I saw Ella's I thought this could be a fun activity we could do together in the summer, so I went to the store and bought some clay. 

We had a lot of fun making pinch pots but we also made other things like flowers, printed leaves, and pots with faces. I was so excited with this that sometimes Ella was already done with it and I still was giving details to my creations.

Here are some pictures.

Ella's flower which she says is not finished yet.

My pinch pot with a face. I've never worked with pottery before so it's still dusty. I'll have to research if there's something to coat it with so it would have a more finished look.  

This one is painted and I gave it a gloss glaze after (The gloss glaze works only after painted). 

I made this one because I saw something in a store similar to this, not very similar, really. I used a drinking straw to make the holes.

Maybe not as much as I did, but Ella really enjoyed making pottery. 

Diy outfit

Hi! Today I'm posting this not-so-easy-to-make outfit. To be honest, the pants were a little bit hard to make. I started them with the help of this video and to finish them I needed the help of my mother in law. Sewing pants is the hardest thing to do! On the other hand, the shirt was super easy.

Modeling my DIY outfit.

I transformed a plain white t-shirt into a cute tank top by cutting the sleeves and screen printing the front. Its not perfect but i did wear it to go out.

I didn't have any ink in the printer so I traced the image from the computer with tracing paper and a marker, then I cut it with an x acto knife.

Summer Crafts

I made the perfect craft for the end of Summer. They're cute, inexpensive and have a bohemian flare. Yes, they're barefoot sandals, simple jewelry for your feet. It reminds me of Indian women or women from old Egypt. The project was very easy and simple.

I chose earthy tones and wooden beads. (I have many of these).

An here they are. Perfect for the beach or the pool. I wear them at home too. 

I also took some time to make a variety of stencils for t-shirts and bags. I made some of Ella and I favorite animals and things, like this hot air balloon, I love it and plan to make a shirt like this for myself. The hardest part was probably sewing the shirt because I ended up doing it by hand, I have to get the hang of that sewing machine. 

I will be posting some other crafts soon. See you later! 

Flora and flower crowns

Finally, after some retouching here are the pictures with the flower crowns.

Flower crowns

When I was going to get married back in 2007 I wanted to wear a flower crown, I even went out to find out prices and when they told me that it was $50 dollars for a flower crown made with natural flowers I decided to wear natural daisies lined up in a row held with bobby pins. It was a new country for me so I didn't know where to buy craft supplies to make it myself.  

I guess that is something that I always wanted to make and finally, a few days ago, I decided to do it. I bought FAKE flowers. I don't like fake flowers but it made more sense for this project since Ella and I will be wearing them for a photo shoot that Ramon is going to take us. 

I bought four clusters of flowers, flower tape, and florist wire. The total was $9.25 dollars.

I wrapped  the wire around my head twice making a circle then I cut the flowers and secured them with wire. The last step was wrapping the tape around the circumference so the wire didn't prick my head.

Ella chose pinks and I chose yellows... predictable.

The end result was great, we can't wait to take our photos.

Beautiful Ella.

The fish

I have been changing the art I had on the bathroom walls for something more updated and water related. I started in my bathroom with the lady siren illustration I made with acrylics and a sharpie on a piece of brown paper. Now, I move on to Ella's bathroom. Obviously it had to be something more juvenile and naive. 

I drew a background of water using color pencils and a black marker then I drew a fish on another piece of paper. I cut out the fish and pasted it on top of the background.  

This was a fun and easy 20 minute project. I loved the result. On to the next artwork. 

Siren artwork

I'm trying to update the artworks I have in the bathrooms, so a few days ago Ella and I sat outside to paint and draw. I took that moment to make an artwork to hang on the bathroom walls.

On a brown bag paper I drew and painted this siren, which I'm very proud of, and put it in the frame that came with this picture on the left top.

I think it looks really cute in our bathroom. Now I want to make another original ocean related artwork  for Ella's bathroom.

The fairy garden

For some weeks we had planned that when mom arrived this time the three of us would make a fairy garden for Ella. 

And that's what we did on Wednesday afternoon.

Welcome to our fairy garden. We love that the sculptures of the characters were made by mom. 

Yes, I went crazy with the pictures because I liked different angles.

This was a fun activity to do together, we wont forget the experience and we loved the result. 

Little sculptures

Once again I have my lovely mom here visiting. We love it when she's here as much as we love her creativity. She molded and painted these four cute fantastic sculptures for Ella and me.

Mom made for me the garden gnome, because I love the chubbiness and the big nose of these little characters. For Ella she made a boy, a girl and a garden fairy.

We have great plans for our little sculptures which I'll be posting pretty soon. In the mean time look at these pretty little creatures.

The boy and the girl. (Mom made the girl's skirt look like a flower and the boy is holding a white rabbit).

My garden gnome. I love it.

Deconstructing an apron

OK, so remember that fabric I bought a long ago with which I made Ella's headband and skirt. Well there's still plenty of it, so with Ella's help I made her an apron, for those baking days and painting projects.

The pockets are made with an old pair of jeans Ramon can not wear anymore and on one of the pockets I sewed a colorful cupcake that once was part of a shirt.

Ramon's jeans.

The new favorite Christmas ornament

This year I thought it would be a good idea to make another original Christmas ornament for the tree but this time with an image of Ella. I thought about doing something with photography but then I decided to make her silhouette.

I took a picture of Ella and used Photoshop to vectorize it and turn it into a silhouette.

I printed the silhouette on the computer and cut out the shape to make the stencil, then using the screen printing technique I transferred the image applying red paint on a sheet of white felt.

I cut out circles of the white felt with the red silhouette for the front and green empty circles to sew on the back.

And finally I sewed the two parts together with a red thick string to hang it on the tree. 

I only made four but I wished I'd made more. The good thing about screen printing is that with one stencil you can make many more things of one design. I kept the stencil to make some more of these ornaments for the tree.

A school's fall project

Now for fall, there's a pumpkin decorating contest at Ella's school. The contest consists in decorating pumpkins as storybook characters. Ella and I thought we could participate in this one. We just needed to buy the pumpkin and the rest of the materials were already at home.

Painting the pumpkin.

As always, I look for a low budget project with a nice looking result. Here is our pumpkin.

Our storybook character is Junie B. Jones.

Ella had been reading books about this funny character lately and we thought it was a good idea to make her our pumpkin. 

Ella and her Junie B. Jones pumpkin.