Here are the ATCs I made to swap with some other art educators last week.

Inspiring artists

I truly am inspired by the artwork created by the students I teach. I work with grades K-6, and while I enjoy each grade level, there is nothing like the creative energy when working with the kindergarteners and first graders.

These kids create with abandon. They're enjoying themselves, the process, and the moment. They aren't caught up in the need to make something perfect.

This are some of the creations of kindergarteners on the day I introduced collage.

My sister's wedding day, here are all the Mansell cousins, except for Wade, who's 17 and lives in Georgia.

summer swaps

I'm hosting a summer page tip-in swap for art teachers. As host, I get to see all the pages before I mail them back. Here are a couple:

My daughters are swapping too! They did these for a matchbox swap:

Garden art

I wanted to make a garden path without spending lots of money. So, I bought the cheap pavers (88 cents each!) and painted them.

Artful clothing

Since discovering how to deconstruct and reconstruct clothing, I've created about a dozen pairs of jeans. Some for my daughters, others for friends. The process is lovely. I sit down with my machine and look through my fabrics as well as vintage pieces, then I kind of go crazy. I don't plan ahead too far, it takes away from the design (once I tried to plan out an entire pair of jeans, and the result was awful!).

Each skirt or pair of jeans takes at least fifteen hours. The jeans I did for my daughters last Christmas took forty plus hours each.