Sticker Name Art

One way to stretch your creativity is by looking at things in an unexpected way. We're used to looking at the subject of a sticker, but if you ignore the design and focus just on the shape, you can use stickers to make some pretty cool name art.

It's challenging at first. Your eye wants to see the sticker oriented correctly. It wants to notice the subject and not the shape. But once you start seeing shapes in stickers, it gets easier and easier.

There aren't any rules with this project. If you want to use a mix of capitals and lowercase letters, so be it. If you use the same sticker twice for repeated letters in your name, that's fine. It's all good.

Give it a try! And if you do, send me a photo. I'd love to see your name in stickers!

Colonial Boycott Posters

I'm continuing to have a blast teaching US history in Trevor's fifth grade class. We're currently studying the events that led up to the American Revolution. After a discussion about the colonists' loyalties and ties to Britain, we enjoyed black tea with sugar and a snack of bread and homemade butter. We watched a video about the French and Indian War and learned that the British taxed the colonists to pay for the war debt. Like many of the colonists at the time, many of the students felt that it was unfair for Parliament to tax the colonists who did not have representation there. 

We learned about the Sons of Liberty and Daughters of Liberty who organized boycotts against the British goods in protest of the taxes. We looked at examples of modern-day boycott posters and observed that many boycott posters feature large print, capital letters, the colors red and black, skulls, and catchy slogans, and that almost all are vertical. That became our inspiration for posters that the colonists would have made to spread the word about their boycotts. Here are a few of my favorites, starting with Trevor's:

Better not get used to that British tea... major changes are ahead for the American colonists of the 1770s!

Exploring Nebraska Through Little Passports

Our next virtual journey with Little Passports took us to Nebraska. Throughout Lent, church has been starting late for us, so we took advantage of the extra time on Sunday morning to dive right into the Nebraska recipe. Here's Trevor adding the spices to a batch of Raisin Bars.

While the raisin bars were in the oven, we curled up on the couch and worked our way through the Nebraska State Journal. We unscrambled the names of Nebraskan places that have their origins from Native American tribes of the Plains. We learned about the insects of the Sandhills and matched photos of Nebraska landscapes to their captions. We discovered Lewis and Clark's expedition passed through Omaha and read about the 'large, horned beasts that grazed the land.'

We tasted some raisin bars and plated up the rest to share at church. 

When we got home, we went right back to the Nebraska State Journal. We did an activity about mining supplies during the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1874. Then we read about Chimney Rock and drew our own unique rock formations. Trevor designed a sphinx bunny! Next, we learned all about the Transcontinental Railroad. I was fascinated by the town of Niobrara, which has been moved twice to avoid repeated flooding from the Missouri River. 

The science experiment was inspired by Dr. Harold Eugene Edgerton of Fremont, Nebraska. He discovered that he could freeze a moving image in a photo if a light flashed at exactly the same time as he took the picture. The strobe light he invented is used in photography and filmmaking, and on machines like alarms and police cars. Trevor used a cardboard tube, wax paper, and aluminum foil to construct a pinhole camera to help him learn how our eyes view light.

Finally, Trevor constructed the Nebraska model, a windmill. 

We had a lot of fun on our virtual trip to Nebraska! Thanks, Little Passports!

Dyeing Easter Eggs with Shaving Cream

Our family loves egg dyeing. Over the years, we've done the traditional vinegar dye bath method, but we've also experimented with a variety of other techniques too. I highly recommend trying rice dyeing, which was really fun. Or contact paper masks, spray mists, stamping and hand-painting. They all worked beautifully. I don't recommend glue-resist, at least not the way I did it.

This year, we tried coloring our eggs using a marbling technique with shaving cream and food color.

Dyeing Easter Eggs with Shaving Cream and Food Color

Materials: 

• pie pan
• plastic knife
• shaving cream
• food color
• toothpick
• eggs

Steps:

Fill the pie pan with shaving cream. Use the knife to smooth the top somewhat. 

Drip a few drops of food color to the shaving cream. Drag the toothpick through the color to get a marble effect. Do not overmix!

Roll the egg in the shaving cream to get color on each side. 

Place dyed eggs on a rack to let the color set. Refresh the shaving cream and food color as needed. We found we could get about three eggs from the dye before it was too mixed. 

We experimented with rinsing the shaving cream off the eggs right away, letting it sit awhile and then rinsing, and allowing the shaving cream to dry completely before rinsing. There was some benefit to letting the eggs sit awhile before rinsing them, but not much. No matter when we rinsed them, the bold colors washed off and we were left with pastel marbling. 

Nothing wrong with that, of course. They are beautiful! 

To see if we could preserve the bright colors, we also experimented with wiping the shaving cream off the eggs instead of rinsing it off. I don't recommend it. Not only do the eggs smell like shaving cream, but the shell has a slimy texture after being refrigerated and the color we were trying to preserve came off on our hands. We'll stick with pastel eggs.

My Trendiest Birthday Gift Ever!

Friend, Ex-Roommate, and Godmother Extraordinaire, Jonna, got me a really cool birthday gift this year. She always does, but this year's stood out for the extreme creativity. Any clue what the common link between these seven items is?

They represent each of the trends I identified at the 2017 Creativation Show! 

No doubt - it's the Trendiest Birthday Gift EVER! Thanks, Jonna!