A Month In Review

This past month of Merry Mondays have been  very 'merry' and fun.  The kids were so in to making  'stuff' for Halloween so we did just that.

Here the kids are making little pumpkin people.  My 'example'

 is lying on the right here.  I show the kids  what we are going

to make then let them have free rein.  I love what comes out of their

imagination and creativity.

I remember taking an art class to make a greeting card. A woman and her mother presented

it together.  I decided to change mine up a little more to my 'own'.

When the mother came around to check on each project she saw mine and said  "Oh No.

You didn't make it right.  That is not what it is supposed to look like.  Mary we have a problem here."

She motioned her daughter over to my table and they both 'tsk tsk'd' and told me how 'wrong' it was.

When I explained to them that I made it on purpose to be different, they could not be more perplexed.

"But it is SUPPOSED to look just like this one."   The daughter held my card up to the class and said

"Please tell me none of you other women did NOT follow directions and did her own thing."

She promptly made another 'card'  the exact image of the original and gave it to me and said

"I won't charge you for extra materials but if you take a future class with us you HAVE to follow directions 'exactly' or you won't be allowed in any other classes.

You know I did NOT ever attend another 'art' class they held.  This was only a few years ago but I learned a valuable lesson.  True Art comes from one's heart or inner vision.  If you HAVE to make something exactly like someone else's then you are not honoring the creativity or vision within.  That 'art' piece instead is a copy of someone else's  inner vision.

I love it when the kids go their own direction and do what their heart tells them.

Here are a few of the girls and their 'pumpkin person'

It isn't fall or holiday season without homemade caramel apples is it?  Here I am helping some of them

dip their apples into the melted caramel.

No matter what we are decorating .... sprinkles of all shapes and colors are always a favorite!

forget the nuts

These were so yummy.  Here they are 'cooling/hardening'  for the trip home.  The rule was ONE lick before dinner!

Today we are making 'ghosts' out of white fabric scraps and polyfil with ribbon embelllishments.

meet  'ninja' ghost

a 'girly girl's' ghost

Here we are decorating their baked cookies---note the 'icky' colors the girls are mixing for their halloween

fare.   And note the bottles of sprinkles!  They love the baking projects most of all.

some of the finished 'art'.  I used a homemade sugar cookie recipe that was my grandmothers.