the big ONE.

hard to believe, but little pringle is one year old. it has been a crazy wonderful year. and of course the big question was, to have a party or not? we all know he ain't going to remember any of it, nor will he understand what is happening, but we will. so we had a party.

the beginnings of a banner

we wanted to keep it small and simple, but i am me and simple is NOT in my dna. simple design, yes. simple projects, nope. my brain went into overdrive figuring out exactly how to transform our building's blah blah blah community room into the perfect spot for a first birthday party.

the community room. oy vey.

i painted some lovely banners, the mister created gads and gads of strings with colorful squares, we sewed some monster party favors, and we made paper stars and paper chains. we happily, the end result was dreamy.

the mister and his helper making wall coverings.

yummy.

the food corner.

i love this wall, sigh.

and then there was the cake. naturally i consulted the internet, but what i found was ridiculously intimidating. there are some seriously overachieving parents out there!!! i am not, nor have i ever been, known for my baking, so trying to make a dump truck sculpture with cake was definitely beyond my skill level. but i still wanted it to be special. i had it in my head that i would make the entire thing from scratch...cake AND frosting. of course, my kitchen is not equipped with any type of electrified mixer and apparently these gadgets make the process a whole lot easier. right. oh well. i decided to make a "trial" cake for our little family-of-three celebration that we had on the little guy's actual birthday. the cake was bright green. delicious, but seriously crumbly. the frosting took three tries. the final version was chocolately goodness, but hard. of course, pringle was delighted with the result. in fact, he got upset when we took it away. 

numero uno.

even though it was yummy, the mister and i decided that the cake for the party needed some improvements. enter betty crocker. in the end i made a four-layer cake, with blue and green layers. and white frosting with orange decorations. the design was simple, simple, simple, and it turned out sooooooooooooo pretty. so so pretty. i kept opening the fridge to look at it, because i was so surprised that it turned out so glorious. and the taste..well, betty crocker did a fabulous job, so the cake was scrumptious. and did i mention it was pretty? it was.

i adore this cake. it makes me giddy.

staring down the cake.

monster party favors!!

all in all, it was a delightful party. and pringle had super much fun.

the birthday boy.

art. not the garfunkel kind.

okay, i know i am a little gung-ho with the student artwork these days, but i cannot help it. i adore kids art AND i love my job. yes, i said it again. i love my job. for reals people. for five years, i worked my tuches to the bone, slogging through reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, so let me bask in this joy for a few months. fear not, i have no intention of turning this blog into a parade of all of my students' projects, but there will definitely be some glimpses into the amazingness that is elementary school art. 

abstract faces. inspired by paul klee's "senecio."

  

one black dot. (incorporate a black dot into a drawing of your choice.)

 

concentric circles. inspired by wassily kandinsky's "farbstudie quadrate."

 

quilts.

self-portrait collage quilt. inspired by faith ringgold's "tar beach."

 

fauve fauve fauve.

when selecting projects to do with my students, i have been avoiding painting. why? because the reality of painting with large groups of young children and limited time is daunting. but a few weeks ago, i braved the craziness and took out the watercolors. love. the kids behaved. love. the cleanup was easy. love. the pictures turned out awesome. love.

we made fauve portraits. [fauve: characterized by the use of bright colors and simplified forms.]

seriously people, i love my job.

mr. lorenzo, if you please.

sometime in january, i was driving down the road with my boys and i saw a billboard for the yellow green farmers market. i convinced the mister that our life is not complete without a weekly visit to a farmers market, so the following saturday we checked out the place. i tried hard to see this place as the market of my dreams, but reality won...it is a flea market with a few farmers and a pretty name.

fresh herbs. would you like conventional or organic? exactly.

now i have always dreamed of living in a small town - you know, the kind with a main street actually named "main street", home to a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker, where everybody knows my name - so, no surprise that i was itching to include a farmer's market in my weekly grocery shop.

maybe it is the palm tree, but this picture disguises the dinginess of the building.

enter lorenzo's farmers market. a squalid peach-colored building next to the railroad tracks. not exactly the open-air stalls of beautifully laid out produce from my dreams, but i am willing to sacrifice decor for the amazingness that is lorenzo's. a time warp that takes you back thirty years to the days before computerized inventory. here the prices are hand-written on signs and the cashiers have them all memorized to type them into the register. want to change a price? walk to the front of the store and tell the cashiers the new price. wow.

baskets and baskets of deliciousness.

on one side of the parking lot is lorenzo's farmers market. a tiny market bursting with every fruit and vegetable you can imagine and some you cannot. i have found things in that place that i have never heard of and it seems that every trip, there is something new at which to look. golden beets? check. fresh bay leaves? check. fresh garbanzo beans? check. black radishes? check.

love.

and the prices. oh my god, the prices. 99¢ for a pint of grape tomatoes?!? what? 79¢ for an avocado? who are these people? $1.19 for a bag of basil? puh-lease. last saturday i walked out with my three reusable grocery bags bursting at the seams, for a mere $23. heaven.

such an unassuming little place.

across the parking lot is the big daddy market, lorenzo's italian market and restaurant. looks like a whole lot of nothing from the outside. inside it is dreamy. upon entering, the first thing to greet you are two cases of homemade pasta. yum.

fresh, hand-made pasta. oooh la la.

wander around the little store and you will find a restaurant/café alongside several aisles of groceries. wrapped around this is the bakery, deli, butcher, and seafood counter. that is right kids, i found the little market from main street, usa, plopped in the middle of bustling miami. amazeballs.

an aisle devoted to pasta. both sides. dreamy.

and like its little farmers market cousin, it is bursting at the seams with yummy goodness. lots of things i know and a whole lotta craziness of which i had heard, but had never seen and certainly would not know where to buy. 20 pound bags of couscous? check. grape leaves? which brand would you like? pasta? there is an entire aisle!!! tomatoes in every form you can imagine? got it. cardamom pods you could not find anywhere else? check. and while the prices at the italian market are not jaw-droppingly low, they are no higher than the regular grocery store.

grape leaves, if you please.

whoa, olive oil. no joke, somewhere in that collection is a $58 bottle.

it only took me five and a half years of yearning for a farmers market, to discover that all this time, the little shop of my dreams has been 0.8 miles from my house.

p.s. yes, i plan to blatantly ignore the fact that we missed the entire month of march. details.

wonky windows #25.

this installment of wonky windows is brought to you by paper. as an art teacher, paper is essential. unfortunately, i took over a classroom with a shockingly limited supply of paper, but i was so delighted to be teaching art that i was not about to be fazed by a little thing like no paper. and then a colleague suggested i cross my fingers and submit an order to the principal. lo and behold, my principal approved it and the order was promptly placed. so a couple of weeks ago a stack of boxes appeared in my classroom. super exciting.

what is behind curtain number one?

 

paaaaaaaaaaaaper!! this sight makes my heart go pitter patter.

wonky windows #24.

these are my travel windows...a few tidbits that made me giggle during our christmas trip to los angeles.

pringle on the plane. checking out the view from 35,000 feet.

have you ever looked closely at the lock on a public bathroom stall? me neither. or maybe i have and there was never anything to see. either way, when i saw the logo on this lock, it made me giggle. hiny hiders!! and check out the logo's picture...soo awesome.

upon returning to fort lauderdale, we saw this dude sitting in a room. whatevs. but then i started feeling a little creepy. we looked a little closer...

he is made of wax. art installation. right then. welcome back to florida.

wonky windows #23.

never a dull moment in miami. here are some windows into my day-to-day encounters with my city.

i was in line behind this lady and i was kind of mesmerized. and that's all i am going to say about that.

i see this bumper sticker semi-regularly. no comprende. i mean if you want to share with the world that you love and/or hate jesus, that is fine by me. but to be honest, with this bumper sticker, i am not sure whose side you are on.

a little old lady, who needs a walker, jaywalking across a six lane road. during rush hour. the epitome of a florida grandma.

wonky windows #22.

a window into my working world.

cut paper faces. this was the second project i did as an art teacher. i gave every student the same materials and then sat back and watched their personalities emerge.

as the sign says, these are collages. magazines, novels, textbooks, wallpaper, construction paper, glue, and scissors... a lot of the students did not grasp the concept, but these students took to it like ducks in water.

some more awesome collages.

one of my sample collages. i was showing the students that collages can be designed around color instead of objects. fun times at work!

this student finished her work early, so i asked her to draw a self-portrait and this is what she came up with. i adore the hair style and hat.