Eggs from yarn!

 

We made eggs to decorate the light above our dining room table, just in time for Pascha - or Easter.  Basically, we used this tutorial:

http://www.makeandtakes.com/glue-yarn-ball-tutorial, but instead of using round balloons, we bought water balloons.  I poured half a cup of Elmer's school glue into an old plastic container and half a cup of water and then measured about 6-7 yards of yarn (I used 100% cotton yarn Sugar n Cream) for each one, and set the yarn in the container to soak up the gluey stuff.  Then, tied the end to the end of the balloon to anchor it (if it wasn't so slippery I'd omit this step, because getting the balloon out is hard, I ended up cutting the yarn and balloon off a few).  Let it dry outside, in the sunshine, or inside hanging, with newspaper under, because it will drip.  Then the next day, you can pop the balloon!  And voila! 
When I was young, we made these in elementary school and our class hung them on the school Christmas tree.  I've also seen a BIG balloon wrapped in yarn, and then made as a "lamp shade." There are so many neat ideas out there!

Also, we planted wheat grass 5 days ago...and look how fast it's growing! 

I really love teaching art class.  For one of the classes, I brought fresh flowers and put them in several different vases on the tables and the students used pencil to draw it and then watercolor paints.

 Below, this boy, wanted to create a modern looking flower:

It's definitely spring here in Ohio, still cool weather, but our grass is finally starting to turn green!

Big bowl of pho

Yesterday was St. Oliva's day.  Olivia's name's day!  We went to a Vietnamese restaurant and got spring rolls (had mushrooms, lettuce, cilantro, mint and rice noodles in it) with a peanut sauce, and also pho...

Actually this is only the medium size bowl of mushroom pho...our first time having pho, which is a Vietnamese rice noodle soup, with green onions and cilantro and mung beans on the side, which I piled onto mine.  Yum.

Hannah got bamboo shoots in hers, too, she said it tasted like wood, if it weren't for that, she would've loved it.

Rob finished his whole bowl (he got medium)!  I got a small bowl, which I finished, too, but it was plenty for me. 
We'll be back for more, it was a nice way to celebrate.

My art classes

In January I started teaching art classes.  For this class on still life painting, I brought real fruit in...after, the kids gladly ate it up.

I love teaching these children, between the 3 classes, I have only 13 students right now, so the class size is small, which is wonderful.  They are so creative, just need me to provide inspiration and art materials, and they go...