Little Owl First Birthday

I had the chance to design some first birthday invites for a friend of mine. I actually took the owl from my previous free printable post and re-vamped it for the invite. Mom wanted somewhat of a vintage feel, so I used some patterns and a decorative border. I think it gave it a sweet little touch. And whoooo can go wrong with owls? Love.

Photography by Cindi Finley Mintie and Aaron Jaeger.

Cute Halloween Pumpkin Craft

I made these last year and forgot all about them until I found them in my Halloween totes. I love fun surprises! All I have to do now is paint some paint sticks green and attach them so they can be placed outside in the ground. All you need for this project is some wooden circles from Hobby Lobby and paint. It's fun making silly faces with different expressions. I actually left the little plastic tabs they use to place them on the hooks on the store and painted them green so they act as the top stump of the pumpkin!

Halloween Family Silhouettes

I stumbled across a site that provides free vintage graphics and I think I'm in love! It inspired me to do some Halloween art with my kiddos and my four legged kiddo. It may seem a little odd the choice of words I used but I just can't help but follow up Trick or Treat with Smell My Feet and Give Me Something Good to Eat! Must be the kid in me.

Turns out, it is rather fitting for each one. Mr. Man always says, "I'm just trickin' you mommy." Little Miss does this 'smelly feet' bit when you change her diaper and the dog, well, she's always looking for something good to eat (off our plates!).

Check out the Graphics Fairy for some sweet vintage clip art. ((where clip art is cool!))

I used clouterie vintage and gothic arched door.

Fun Fall Project for Kids

Our variety of leaves from our yard

Pressing the leaves on to contact paper

Our leaf tree

Last weekend my kids and I had a great time gathering leaves from our yard for a fun fall project. I remember doing this as a kid when we learned about the different types of trees. I wanted to make an indoor 'tree' for the kids to preserve some of fall's spectacular colors. It seems as though we only get a few weeks of turning leaves before they die and blow away around here.

We carefully pressed them in a book all week to flatten them. In the meantime, I had gathered some dead branches and spray painted them brown. I wanted a richer brown than what they were... Next, we placed them in between contact paper to seal them and cut around the edges, added a hole on top and added black string to hang them. We placed the branches in a large vase that I had on hand. They had a blast hanging them on the branches, pretending it was like decorating the Christmas tree! Our little tree turned out pretty cute!

This project was inspired by Family Fun's Leaf Mobile!

It's NOTSTOCK at Minot State!

Dave DeVries

The Monster Engine Book: An experiment with children's art

Local artist Ben Daggett of  Rulesome

Twin Cities artist DWITT

A variety of options for your screenprinting pleasure!

Once again, the MSU Art Department presents NOTSTOCK! If you get the chance, stop by the Beaver Dam at MSU for an event filled with music and art. This year showcases numerous local musicians and artists, along with nationally known poster and comic artists from across the U.S.

I thought the most interesting find this year was the work of Dave DeVries and The Monster Engine in which he takes a child's drawing and interprets it into his own version. I love this concept! It's so fantastical! (is that a word?) Anyway, Dave teamed up with NOTSTOCK and area elementary schools and will be transforming one child's "Monster Beaver" into a painting that will be auctioned off, with proceeds going toward a flood family. You can meet Dave and see the children's drawings at this year's event.

Along with music and poster art, you can purchase a t-shirt and choose from numerous designs and screen print your very own!

Free Halloween Printable

I came across some free vector art on this site and normally I would just do my own, but I thought I'd experiment a bit with some of theirs. Feel free to download this. It's just a low resolution JPG, but it may be nice for a printable for your Halloween decor.

(owl and treescape from vectorjungle)

Click on image above and it will open in a new window. Right click and 'save picture as' onto your computer and then print!