Pandemic Scouting (Part 2)

Last summer, I made a scrapbook layout called Pandemic Scouting, using pictures from April 2020. I would have been shocked to hear that the pandemic would continue on long enough to need a second Pandemic Scouting layout, but here we are. These photos are from June through November.  

Pandemic Scouting (affiliate link)

I made this layout for the Ultimate Ingredient Challenge at Victoria Marie Designs. It's a doozy, requiring the following "ingredients" on one page: enamel dots; patterned paper; die cuts; chipboard die cuts; fiber; buttons or brads; border strips; acrylic or acetate embellishments; wood veneer; and stickers. Good grief! Fortunately, Victoria encourages substitutions and interpretations. I did quite a bit of substituting and interpreting.

Of the listed ingredients, I used two patterned papers, a die cut, fiber (ribbon), border strips, and stickers. I made a faux button and faux enamel dots out of thin chipboard (because both are too lumpy for my taste). I added paint (for my button and dots) and kraft cardstock. I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising that I didn't follow a scrapbook ingredient challenge exactly when I am incapable of following an actual recipe in the kitchen. 

I Love Bunnies

Saturday was National Scrapbooking Day. As usual, I got up before dawn and scrapped well into the night, chatting with friends via Zoom as I worked. It was a lot of fun. And now I have a bunch of layouts I'll be sharing with you over the next few weeks, interspersed with other projects (including a review of a painting kit and some edible art, to name a few). 

The first layout I made on National Scrapbook Day is this: 

I Love Bunnies (affiliate link)

A few days ago, I received a box of fabulous goodies from Scrapbook Customs and I couldn't wait to jump in and play. Everything on this layout except for the white cardstock is from Scrapbook Customs. Aren't those patterns fabulous?! Click the affiliate link above for specifics about the products. 

The layout is based on this sketch from Victoria Marie Designs. 

As you can see, I stayed pretty true to the sketch. I swapped the two photos for one, flipped the flags so they are off the photos, moved the journaling under the title, and changed the stars to hearts. I'm really happy with how it turned out. 

Our dear Trouble is now 10.5 years old and slowing down, but still as packed with personality as ever. I really love that bun and am glad to have another page about him in the album. 

Magazine Symmetry Art

The most challenging aspect of being an elementary school teacher is not the actual teaching part, where you explain or demonstrate how something is done. Sure, a teacher has to be a bit of an expert in everything (since they teach math, language arts, science, history, PE, art, music, and technology to a diverse group of 32 people with different ability levels) and that is definitely a challenge, but most people who go into teaching are quite good at explaining skills or demonstrating techniques across many subjects. That's not the hard part. 

The most difficult part of teaching is classroom management. Those 32 people with different ability levels also have different interests, arrive with varying amounts of background instruction, and have personal issues or circumstances that impact learning (whether positively or negatively). Even assuming all students exhibit excellent classroom behavior (a laughable assumption- in a group exhibiting no distracting behaviors, at least one child will rise to fill the void) and students are somehow so homogenous as to have the same base knowledge and familial situations (equally impossible), people naturally learn and work at different rates. 

All this to say, as a teacher it is really important to know how faster workers will spend their time without disrupting slower workers who require the attention of the teacher. Silent reading and creative writing are both obvious choices, as are independent extension activities like researching more about the topic at hand. You can also put students to work preparing materials.

One of my favorite "if you finish your art project early" activities is Magazine Symmetry Art. Students who finish early could select an image from a stack and use color pencils or other art materials to fill in the missing half. Here are samples from Gabbi (owl) and Ralph (upside down boy). 

Early finishers prepped these for me so that we always had a stack available. They would go through old magazines looking for symmetrical images, cut them out down the line of symmetry, and then glue them to paper. It took some time for my helpers to develop an eye for which images work and which do not. For example, if a face is even slightly tilted or turned, it will look mighty strange when you add the mirror image.  

If you aren't juggling 32 kids in a classroom, you may still find that you need a short activity for 1 or 2 kids to do at home while you tend to something else. Magazine Symmetry Art is a fun choice.

How to Draw Duo, the Duolingo Owl

I started learning Spanish in 7th grade, way back in 1985. I continued with Spanish all the way through 12th grade and did well enough on the Advanced Placement test to end up in an advanced Spanish composition class during my freshman year of college. It was very challenging. Because it was so difficult and I already had more than enough language credits, I never took another Spanish class.

I rarely used my Spanish and my near-fluency disappeared. It was frustrating but not surprising; you can't expect to remain good at something if you don't practice it for 30 years. In January, I decided to relearn Spanish and started using Duolingo. I spend an average of 30 minutes a day, 7 days a week, and it's amazing how much I've regained. It's fun and motivating and I'm excited to keep at it and eventually complete the entire Spanish tree.

Yesterday, I hit a milestone (more on that below) and drew a celebratory Duo (the Duolingo mascot) to mark the occasion. He's easy to draw. Give it a go!

 
   

How to Draw Duo, the Duolingo Owl

Materials:

• paper
• pencil (I used Sharpie for the step-out photos so they're easier to see)
• markers

Steps:

Begin by drawing Duo's shadow at the bottom center of the page. It looks like a worm. This will help you anchor the rest of the drawing. 

Now draw Duo's body. Duo is all curves with no sharp edges, so keep everything rounded.

Duo's feet look like Tic-Tacs and are disconnected from his body. Draw them between his body and the shadow. Then add wings. Keep them rounded!

Duo's beak goes in the center of his face. It consists of a semi-circle on top and a Tic-Tac on the bottom, with a curve for his tongue. Add Tic-Tac eyes on either side of the beak. Leave a circular gap at the top left of the pupils; these are white highlights. 

Now outline Duo's face. The curve starts and ends at the sides of his beak, follows his eyes, and has two feathers over each eye. Add three semi-circles to Duo's belly. 

Now it's time to color! Not counting the white of the paper, you will use 7 colors: leaf green for the body, light green for the face and tummy feathers, black for the pupils, pink for the tongue, orange for the feet and parts of the beak, light orange for the highlight on the upper beak, and dark orange for inside the mouth next to the tongue. 

So what is my Duolingo milestone? Yesterday I celebrated a 100-day streak, with no missed days. 

To be honest, it's been easy. I really enjoy my daily practice. Of course, I imagine it will be much more difficult to maintain my streak when we are eventually traveling again. But I'll deal with that when it comes. In the meantime, I'll be happily practicing from home.  

Recycled Items Hot Air Balloon

I keep a jar of lids in the craft room because you never know when you'll need one. I was putting a metal lid from a cylinder of orange juice concentrate into the container when I realized the red plastic screw-on lid from a tub of mixed nuts would make an awesome hot air balloon. I dug out a few more recycled items and made this:

Every time I look at it, it makes me laugh. The idea of my parents taking their three grandkids on a hot air balloon ride is improbable enough, but the fact that I positioned the photo so that Allison would be visible makes me imagine the impossibly long legs everyone appears to have. The picture was actually taken indoors at my sister's house in December 2018, not in a hot air balloon. Everyone had just come in from the snowy backyard, which explains the jackets but not why Mom is wearing her fanny pack and Dad is clutching a cold drink protectively. 

The main supplies in today's craft all are recycled, if you can count a photo I printed but didn't end up using for the scrapbook as recycled. I'm counting it. Affiliate links below. 

 

Recycled Items Hot Air Balloon

Materials:

• plastic lid
• Sharpies
• gel pens
• chipboard
• score board
• brown ink
• white embroidery floss
• tacky glue
• light blue cardstock

Steps:

Decorate the plastic lid with Sharpies and gel pens. Obviously, you can use whatever colors and patterns you want. 

Cut a piece of chipboard about the size of an index card. Use a score board to create the basket texture, first by scoring the chipboard in one direction, then rotating is 90° and scoring again. It's difficult to get precise lines when working against the existing score marks, but that actually makes the basket texture most realistic. 

Rub brown ink on the scored chipboard. The transformation is amazing!

 

Score the sides and bottom of the chipboard so that you can fold them to make a dimensional basket. Use microtip scissors to cut the photo, separating the people from the background. Glue the people to the basket.

Turn everything upside down. Assemble the basket by folding the bottom under and the sides back, then gluing them into place. Cut two lengths of single-strand embroidery floss and glue the middle of the strands to the bottom of the plastic lid. 

When that is dry, stretch the pieces of floss so they are taut. Glue two to the back of the photo and two to the basket. 

When everything is dry, add glue to the edges of the lid and the basket, then carefully turn it over and place it on the cardstock. Let it dry completely before hanging. 

Up, up, and away!