Monday, July 25, 2011

Getting Stitchy With It

I've been nesting. No. I'm not knocked up. I just kinda feel like it. I don't want to leave the house and have been perfectly happy holed up inside with the kids doing all the things I never seem to have the time to do. We have been quite content these past couple of weeks just following along in our daily rhythm. I think it may be that my eldest starts kindergarten in three short weeks and will be celebrating her fifth birthday next weekend. We're baking, sewing, coloring, playing and reading... squeezing in as much as I can before my daughter begins her formal schooling career and I am I left wondering how time has passed me by so quickly.

In an effort to preserve what remains of my daughter's babyhood, I have been holding on to an abnormally large amount of her artwork. Each child has an art line in their room, consisting of a ribbon and a few clothespins. This is the spot reserved for the most special and intricate pieces. The fridge is covered of course. I even have some of their work framed and incorporated into the decor. And, for each child, I have purchased an accordion type folder to file away the best of the best, categorized by age and already, the folders are bulging.  I can't bear to put them in the recycling bin...and even if I could, some little hands would discover it there and pull it out claiming that is "NOT recycling Mommy!" Either I need to get off this sappy, sentimental streak or I need to come up with another way to preserve my children's creative endeavors.


Way back in May, K and I made some portrait bookmarks for her grandmother's Mother's Day gifts. They were a big hit. K drew a portrait of each grandmother, wrote their names, and I embroidered over her picture. J picked the floss color and the ribbons, and I sewed them together. Combined with a gift card to a local bookstore, I was pleased as punch with how they turned out. And this weekend, as I puzzled over how to make something useful and lasting out of the plethora of artwork being produced on a daily basis, I remembered how well loved K's portraits were. I glanced at my nightstand to see stack of books, places held with old lottery tickets, a gum wrapper and even a dried up wipe. Why not use some of her pictures to make bookmarks for our household?


K was more than happy to oblige. The basic pattern can found in Handmade Home by Amanda Blake Soule.We started with portraits again. One of me and one of her Daddy of course. I'm planning to let her draw other types of pictures too, like the rainbows and flowers she's so fond of. And our cat. I love the way she draws our cat.Another idea would be to embroider an entire drawing...maybe make a wall hanging or a pillow. Of course I'll hang on to as much paper as I can, but these little bits of artistic flair will remind me, a long time from now, just how innocent my children once were. Every time I mark my place in my book, my little ones will be smiling back up at me from it's pages.


How do you handle the daily onslaught of masterpieces? Have you found any new and creative ways to save or display them?

Photobucket

P.S. These picture are blurry. Ever since we came home from the beach our camera is having trouble focusing. It's a Canon Rebel. Any of you photogs have any advice?

1 comment:

  1. Jude is the most prolific artist at the moment...I used to put them all in an old briefcase then got an extra large spiral bound "sketchbook"...now he draws in that, and it can go on a bookshelf. It really took care of the scads of paper I was finding everywhere! LOVE the bookmarks; wil do this today with my kids and nieces! I did a Christmas nativity scene embroidery of Jude's picture years ago and it hangs year round in mom's kitchen...try white thread on red fabric! Lovely!

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