Circular Storybook Wall Calendar

As Christmas quickly approaches I wanted to take a minute to wish anyone dropping by a joyous holiday season. I generally post projects here that are fun to do with children, but here is a project of my own with images of children as the subject matter. As Christmas is a time of wonder and excitement for children, this seemed like an appropriate image to post. The original art for this was done with pastels and the lettering and numbers for the calendar were rather painstakingly done by hand with pastel pencils and pen and ink. The combined illustration and calendar were then laser printed. The calendar is available for purchase here.

Printing on Tea Towels

I love textiles and wanted to try my hand at printing on tea towels. I thought these would make great Christmas gifts and I also hope to do this project with a class of Kindergarteners. I bought a package of flour sack tea towels that are 27x29 inches. The flower shape I cut from a sheet of craft foam and glued it to a piece of corrugated cardboard. I rolled oil based ink onto the flower and printed a border all the way around the outside and added four flowers to the center. You need to re-ink each time you print. When the ink had dried overnight I used an iron to heat set the flowers. Make sure you place paper towel or newspaper on top of your ironing board cover because some of the ink will transfer. I tested the cloth to make sure that the flowers do not run when washed. They did not, but since this is the first time that I am trying this I would not recommend washing. I'm going to experiment a bit more and will you keep you posted, but for now, the process is decorative and NOT for drying your dishes.

Santa Claus Die-Cut Card

To make this card I made a pastel painting of Santa, shrunk the image and printed him on card stock and then very carefully cut him out. But do you know what really makes him fun? He is mounted to the card with a miniature spring so that when you pick the card up Santa Claus jiggles. Available for purchase here.

Printmaking Workshop at the Warren County Library

I'm teaching a printmaking workshop at the Franklin Branch of the Warren County Library this Wednesday, December 5. There are two workshops for children in the afternoon and one for adults in the evening. We'll be making a printing plate from scratch foam and using it to print on an accordion folder. Sign up information is here: Warren County Library, NJ. See you there!