Life In Photos #21

I love taking morning walks with my little miss, especially as the weather cool and autumn approaches. Watching the sun silhouette the tress is such a lovely way to start the day!

She loves to collect feathers we find on our walks. We love walking up to a little farm nearby, and she trades feathers with the woman who owns it! So cute.

Love these little flowers – they grow everywhere along the roads up here. And so fragrant for such tiny blooms.

Spotted this growing over a rock wall and it was so beautiful! I love the leaves that look like lily pads.

All our carrots were ready to harvest this past week! They turned out great. Some were a bit tiny, but most of them were about 5-6 inches long and very hearty. Yum!

It’s been awhile since I posted some black and whites! I have a few from this wagon ride (though this one with the hubs pulling and her laughing face makes me smile the most!) but I didn’t want to bombard you with all of them. I’m thinking of going in and putting the red wagon back in color – I love reds that pop on a black and white photo!

Going clockwise…

1. Love my snuggle cat.
2. It is so fabulous that my daughter is old enough to do art WITH me, meaning we can each work on an independent project together. On this particular day, we took over the table with collage things and my paints!
3. Milkshakes were a spur of the moment fabulous decision.
4. Yesterday we took a trip to Boston to visit my brother and take my little miss on her first trip to The New England Aquarium! Expect a photo-heavy post on that this week.

 

Fall Nature Collage

Taking walks on fall days are just lovely. The weather is at that perfect temperature of not too chilly, but not too hot. It’s not quite hat and gloves weather; a sweatshirt does just fine. Me and my little miss have been fully enjoying the weather with lots of walks outside.

She is just starting to learn and grasp the concept of seasons – what that means, and what effects the different seasons have. We often take ‘treasure walks’ as she has dubbed them, where she carries along a little bucket and we collect treasures along the way! Her favorite fall things to collect are of course all the different colored leaves, and acorns as well.

       Some driveway leaf collection as we headed out on our walk.

But instead of just tossing the leaves back outside, we like to bring them in for art projects. We started with a collage of leaves this season, using Con-Tact paper.

Bucket-O-Treasures, ready for crafting.

It’s about the simplest craft ever, but she loves it! I give her a piece of Con-Tact paper sticky side up, and she sticks on the leaves in different patterns. This week she made leaf ‘families’ and designated each leaf a title (Baby Leaf, Mommy Leaf, Daddy Leaf, Mimi Leaf – she came up with so many!).

We’ve got a few more fall leaf crafts coming, so keep an eye out in the coming weeks.

Her first leaf collage of the season.

Connect With Me

Art: Toddler Edition

I am one of those crazy mums who saves all her child’s artwork. And I mean ALL. From her first scribble, to her finger paints, to her sticker collages. I have every single one. In handy, digital form! Yes, I save every single image she’s ever made – by scanning it into the computer and having it as a digital file. It’s such a space saver. I have a wooden portfolio in which I’ve put some of my favorite pieces she’s done, but for the most part they get scanned and tossed.

Some of my favorites from January through May.

At first, my little miss was upset about losing her art – she happened to catch me one day throwing away a fistful of her drawings & paintings and began screaming “No, Mommy!! Not trash!!” I could feel each heart string snap, I’m telling you. But I pushed down the guilt and explained to her that I had scanned her drawings on to the computer so we could look at them any time she wanted. She was thrilled! Now she likes to take her art and ‘put it in the computer’ as she has dubbed the process. Which brings me to the point of this post: The Toddler Art Gallery.

June was a busy art month!

Even back when I was pregnant, I knew that our little one would be doing art projects. I love arts and crafts, and really wanted to incorporate them into my little one’s life. I also knew that I would want to have a place to display them, at least temporarily. So shortly after her first birthday, I made her her own gallery in the playroom. It keeps the fridge less cluttered, and gives her more of sense that it’s hers, I think. Every time she finishes a picture she immediately says “Let’s hang it in my gallery!”. Ah, my heart sighs with happiness every time.

I made this image to hang above it.

The quote image was actually part of a magazine ad, for a print company I think? Anyway, I trimmed off the company logo/info parts, backed it with some scrapbook paper, and put it in a frame to hang on the wall. Simple, and FREE! Eventually, I’d like to decorate the clothespins with washi tape, but given all my other projects, that’s pretty low on the priority list! The gallery itself is just bakers twine strung between thumbtacks. Again with the simple and free factor. Two of my favorite things for a project!

Her first ever nature collage! I really liked this project. We used white contact paper (sticky side up) so she could just stick on all her treasures.

I take everything down on the first of the month and scan it in, so she gets a fresh clean gallery to fill. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to start trying to draw real ‘things’ and telling me stories about them. It’ll be so much fun to look at them hung all together!

What art related things to you like to do with your little ones?

And since we’re on the topic of art, I just wanted to remind you to visit my Pure Inspiration page! I’ve added quite a few more gorgeous works of art since launch day – go take a look!