kro designs

There are points in time I wish I could capture with pictures.  They fade before I realize their passing and life has changed in a second.  I've decided to dedicate every Friday post to one, still, quiet moment from where I sit.

Here I am flipping the district calendar over to October... ...can you believe in three days it will be October?!!! Major League Baseball playoffs, The last month of the boys football, time to go in for my annual. ANYWAY I was turning the calendar and what do I see... Oede9's artwork! This is the original.  It's been on the family bulletin board all summer. My proud mama moment for the week!

After teaching in communities surrounding my home town I am pleased to announce that the Eden Prairie Art Center opened this spring. Today was the first day of Art Quilting. Since I have 10 hours to teach this class I've enhanced the curriculum to fit the great time frame. Instead of just using commercial fabric we made our own. We started off with sun printing! Using only the primary colors the students, 9-12, made some gorgeous fabric out of plain old muslin! Great definition! Here she is starting her marker printing. With magic markers and sharpies we drew on plexi-glass, sprayed it with alcohol and printed our design to compliment our sun prints. Instead of using commercial stamps we made our own using yarn cardboard, glue buttons and leaves! Then brainstormed for other recycled items we could use. Then we learned two more techniques with oil pastels and acrylic paint. A shrill of excitement came when I agreed when aske...

I was at a Sportsman Show...  (snooze-o-rama) ...when I saw a booth sandwiched between the jerkey dehydrators and turkey calls.  This booth had not a Thomas Kincade type of art but digital map art. They look like ordinary maps but they are digially enhanced. Appartently LakeMaster takes an aerial photo enhances the colors of the land and changes the color of the lake depending on its depth.   I ordered one for my Dad because the family farm is located on Waubay Lake. He's also map-o-phile. At first I wasn't sure about adding the depth rings on the lake but in the last 12 years the area has had severe flooding which had raised the lake to it's post glacial size.  If you look at the picture you'll see a L shaped road that is now under water and will be for a very long time.  Maybe my kids will see how it used to be, just like Dad remembers it. My husband proposed to me by my favorite thinking log on that lake. Its right by the southern...

I substituted for my friend who was teaching Paper Arts. They created handmade paper.  Then, using that paper, they made other things from it.  On my day I taught them how to make stationary. Using paper pulp with gelatin, water and a blender they pushed the paper through a screen and onto interfacing to dry. Not very hard just a bit messy. This student made stamps using sticky backed foam which they could stamp on to paper.  The Journal paper which was done by marbling turned out really cool. I worked with them to learn wet and dry embossing.  This student didn't want to touch it after the embossing glitter was heat set.  "It's wet!"  Nope, just the way the powder hardens when heated. Fun, quick class!

There are points in time I wish I could capture with pictures.  They fade before I realize their passing and life has changed in a second.  I've decided to dedicate every Friday post to one, still, quiet moment from where I sit.

My sister sent this to me with her own edits.  She has it nailed! double click to enlarge

Every summer I teach a week of Lego Art camp.  I am always amazed that for  3 hrs a day, four days straight the kids never get bored with building with Lego Bricks. While we make structures, vehicles, forts and whatever their imagination holds, we also prepare all week for making individual student videos with a story line (which hopefully includes a plot). All the parts needed for their video must fit into each child's container- with the lid on!.  Try telling an 8 year old that the project he has worked on for 6 hrs smashed into pieces because someone knocked it off the table. And the person who knocked it off the table was the teacher.  Oh no...not me... ;) The Lego bricks were not sorted at all. Only "guys and accessories" were in a different bin. See?! After the movie viewing party on the last day the kids built cars to race on the track I had built. All quilters know will what the green track...

No not tax time already, although, I'm not looking forward to the mound to paperwork! I found these Canson (really nice) bound blank comic books in the clearance bin at Michaels and figured that they could use a little fabric love. The fabric came from my Mecca , Purl Patchwork Soho where I was lucky enough to visit last lovely spring. Who can't resist this anxiety ridden boxer, who reminds me of my anxiety ridden English Pointer, Mattie! The rectangle on the side is a remnant of painted laminated paper that I use for my necklaces and bracelets. A little raw edge sewing on sunny day! I made four of these and of course only have pictures of one ( and a half, another one is sitting on the right). Now gratuitous pictures of "My Purl Heaven" Love, Love, Love the simplicity of the wall decoration. Who doesn't have hoops sitting around! Couldn't believe how narrow this place was! Ohhhhh the fabric! ...

I've been meaning to post this for a while. Right after the Cars 2 move came out Oede9 was excited to play with the Matchbox cars again. He set up this elaborate race track. Once he showed it to me, he wanted me to take a picture.  OK, great! "Mom, take it from over here." "And get a close up of this car." "Take a picture of how they are lined up." Geezz. he's bossy.  But the pic's turned out great kiddo!

There are points in time I wish I could capture with pictures.  They fade before I realize their passing and life has changed in a second.  I've decided to dedicate every Friday post to one, still, quiet moment from where I sit.

We have a Burr Oak tree in the front yard that drops acorns every fall. An obscene amount of acorns!   Right underneath the basketball hoop.  Oede11 says, "I just finished sweeping and look at it already!" See what I mean, kid?! And you wonder why I get upset when you track all that turf rubber into the house! It's really quite treacherous.  Belle sprained her ankle running through it last week. It was kinda funny in a mean sort of way! Don't call me ASPCA, it's survival of the fittest.  If the dog can't walk through some acorns, clearly we've got other issues. Then the acorns moved in the wind. Watch out...hunter dog on the loose!

No, I'm not pregnant with twins. Just so we're clear, if I ever do, just take me out behind the barn. Our family went to our annual Twins game already. Already meaning,  The-parents-have-finally-remembered-that-we-promised-the-kids-in-April-and-it's-now-September. They were nosebleed seats but I guess that if you want a better seat...sit on the couch and watch from home. Luke tried to keep score but he kept people watching and forgot to write stuff down.  Next time, buddy!

I was asked that question this week by a prospective customer. I've been busy making bracelets and crayon bags for two local vendors. They are keeping me very busy and I haven't had much time to do any other projects. :( You may have seen the crayon bags here in a recent blog so I won't bore you with those details again. But since I'm immersed head to toe in these projects I'll give you a very brief tutorial on the bracelets. Here are the supplies: 1.lightweight card stock 2. paint ( neopaque and lumiere) 3. stamps for the paint 4. 2 Self-Laminating sheets 5. fabric (1/2 inch strips) 6. elastic band 7. Crafters "The Ultimate"Glue 8. beading thread 9. beading needle 10. beads 11. 1/16" hole punch 12. scissors 13. paper cutter Steps: 1. paint paper 2. Laminate paper 3. cut paper in 3/4 inch strips 4. cut paper into 3/4 inch pieces with rounded corners 5. punch hole in paper pieces 6. wrap elas...

I had the great pleasure of teaching some Project Runway wannabees this summer for some private sewing lessons.  It was fun to see their creativity and help them turn their ideas into reality. We started off learning to make pajama pants from a pattern.  I think it's a necessity to learn to read a pattern and learn how to do it correctly before venturing out on your own. How are you going to know how construction works otherwise?!! Here they are pinning and cutting. Boring but necessary! Adding accents like pockets and ruffles make a pattern personalized. We then moved on to t-shirts.  I showed them how to make flowers, pleats and ruffles to make theirs like the high end stores which cost around twenty bucks. Twenty bucks for one t-shirt?!?! They could afford private sewing lessons so I guess they aren't hurting. Using those utilitarian stitches on your machine in a contrasting thread make...

There are points in time I wish I could capture with pictures.  They fade before I realize their passing and life has changed in a second.  I've decided to dedicate every Friday post to one, still, quiet moment from where I sit.

Hubby was golfing one beautiful Saturday morning so I decided to take the boys on a "field" trip.  To TCF Bank Field. Home of the Golden Gophers!  They were having an in house scrimmage before the official season started last week.   We sat in the expensive seats but not at the 50 yard line like I had planned.  Mama needed to shower (badly) so we were kinda late. In full maroon and gold regalia we sat and enjoyed the scrimmage.  It was hard to follow 'cause they kept bringing the ball back and running the plays over again. Unfortunately they kept bringing the ball back to the other end of the field. ~~Sigh Then the kids started messing around. ~~~Double Sigh... Sometimes they think Luke is this really cool toy that smiles when they smile at him and they play dress up too. Although Luke doesn't have any gopher gear so we had settled earlier that morning on a generic football outfit.  It usually is a group decision. Like I was saying, ...