Horses in Watercolor Crayons

Yesterday picked up a package of 12 Mungyo Watercolor Crayons at Hangaram, a serious art store I'm seriously addicted to going to. Had never noticed that art medium before and thought for W4,000 (roughly $4) I could try out something new and share the new experience with my nieceling and nephew, who I'd be visiting the next day. They both love crafts ... and yes, the crayons were a smashing success! And so was the other craft I took them!

So out of the 12 color set, I only used four earth tones, but they were so much fun to use, and the kids were oo-ing and aw-ing about the vivid colors and how easily they spread across the paper. As they were working on another project, which they were excited about, and we didn't have a lot of time to play with my new crayons too, I've been instructed to bring them back next time ... with a hint of bringing a bigger set of colors. Well, that's certainly doable since they were so inexpensive! 

The kids project .... painting scroll saw cats, which I made almost 2 years ago! The afternoon was an absolutely success!

My nephew is very proud of his cat, which he named Leo.

The cats -- Leo by my nephew, Happy by my sister-in-law, and Sisal by my nieceling!

We transformed the kitchen into an art center ... with my nieceling even drawing messages
on the recycled pages of a large calendar that we used to protect the table.

Such creative kids!!!!

Labeling the Garden: Garden Signs

Friends are great! A few months ago some avid gardening friends moved to their dream house near water for kayaking and with space for a large garden. Their house is small because they spend their time outdoors (oh, we so connect!), so I wanted to give them an appropriate "housewarming" gift, well, actually a "garden warming" gift. The idea was born when one of them said, "I am so jealous of my sister for getting this really awesome garden sign that says, 'I live in the garden, I just sleep in the house'", so I knew I had to give her something really unique to make her garden fun and personal and totally unique. The outcome: labels for her primary vegetables and then, since they've been dabbling in herbs the last couple of years, thought I'd make her some herb labels as well.

Making the Vegetable Labels: scrollsaw work after free-handing the lettering

free-handing the lettering for the labels (notice my "new" and very first router! Had to put that in the picture because it promises new woodworking projects in the future!)

After cutting the outlines of the words out, had to drill holes to insert the blade to cut out the inner parts of the letters (erg, what a lot of time)

Labels cut and sanded, and ready for painting

The yellow and red should show up nicely in the greed of the garden!

"hot" colors for veggies, and "cool neutrals" for the herb garden

Scrollsaw Christmas Tree Ornaments

Garage Workshop 

Patterns and paint

These patterns were randomly collected over several months, a medley of revised scroll saw patterns (the reindeer, angels, a couple of the birds, and maybe the snowmen), cardboard cut-outs (the ballerinas), or just paper images (the nutcracker kings). When I see something I like, I pop it into a picture file and later modify the images to make patterns out of the random collection. Painted with acrylics on scrapwood pine, and some cedar (the birds).