Things I've made recently

I am not a brilliant artiste, but I like to break up the drudgery of my days (and/or make my responsibilities seem more exciting) by crafting things. And of course when I say crafting, I mean using Photoshop, mostly.

Here are some things I've been working on:



I think I mentioned I was making myself a planner. I designed it for September 2011 - September 2012, with space for everybody's activities plus DH's work schedule and my Primary responsibilities on a week per two-page spread, and had it printed at Blurb.com. I like it. The only thing I would do differently is to design more space for Wednesday & Thursday, which fall on either side of the spine; the book doesn't lie perfectly flat, so a bit of each of those days gets lost in the bleed. Oh well. Anyway, this is the cover I made.




Uno saw my planer and wanted me to make her a 12 month calendar. "You can make it with monsters for every month!" she said. "For January, make Yetis throwing snowballs at each other. For February, draw vampires in love. For March...." I protested that I can't actually draw, and that it's even trickier to draw on a computer with a mouse (I don't have a tablet) but she begged me to just try. Like this: "Pleeeeeease, Mom, just tryyyyyyy!" All stretched out and desperate. So I'm giving it a go. Thank goodness for Photoshop shapes and brushes! This is one of two abominable snow people; the other is a boy, and is exactly the same, flipped horizontally, sans eye lashes and painted nails. Now I just have to put them against some kind of snowy background and give them stuff to throw at each other. (Please note that any person or anthropomorphic being I draw will always be facing forward. I can't draw profiles or any action other than arms raised, LOL.)




Tres had a preschool lesson last week about time, both in macro (days make weeks make months make years) and micro (hours of each day, parts of a clock) increments. For the daily stuff, I made this clock. I cut out each of the pieces, "laminated" them all with clear packaging tape, and then let Tres practice putting the icons on each part of the day where they belong -- sun up at 7; breakfast at 8; get the girls from school at 3(ish); etc. We didn't really mess with the hands of the clock because it was all a bigger lesson than I thought it would be, but I've saved the parts for another day.




I'm in charge of Sharing Time in Primary this month, and also designing the bulletin board with our monthly theme (which, for September, is The Gospel Will Be Preached In All The World). I made this 22"x17" poster, printed on four letter-sized card stock pages which I then taped together, representing the Tree of Life as described in Lehi's dream (1 Nephi 8; 1 Nephi 11). I printed out extra fruit, wrote gospel principles on the back of them and "laminated" them again with packing tape, then stuck them on top of the poster which I pinned to the bulletin board. For the activity, we talked about missionary work: What would you tell people about the gospel? Each kid got to come up and pick a fruit off the tree, and then we talked about that principle (prayer; faith; Christ as Savior; etc).

(Oh, and as a last minute addition to the bulletin board I cut out blank paper doll people in various colors and had them hold on to a silver sparkly pipe cleaner representing the Iron Rod mentioned in the scriptures above. I thought it turned out nicely, but I don't have a picture of the finished product so you'll have to imagine those parts.)


I guess that's all for now. I need to start thinking about how to draw spooky/cute vampires before Tres and Cuatro get up from their naps....


~RCH~