Greenhouse Ministries

Artsy Mamas is so proud to have teamed up with the local agency Greenhouse Ministries. They welcomed us into their facility and embraced our mission with open arms. We enjoyed pizza and some fun art activities. There was a holiday tree theme: gratitude trees and Christmas tree magnets! Here are some photos from our evening.

El Dia De Los Muertos

Ms Courtney reads a Spanish book to the moms and kiddos.

Our Ofrenda

Our sugar skulls

Artsy Mamas work on their paper flowers.

Gracias to Dos Amigas for bringing us one of the best attended Artsy Mamas events to date! Kudos! I had a blast and so did my kids!

Decorating Onesies at the Pregnancy Support Center

Earlier this month, Artsy Mamas volunteered to lead a onesie/t-shirt decorating activity at our local Pregnancy Support Center. Word has it that as soon as they put out the sign up sheet, all six slots filled up. I can honestly say that it makes me so happy to know that people are benefiting from the efforts made by this organization. All of those signed up came to decorate a onesie or a t-shirt for their unborn child. We provided a variety of sizes of white onesies and shirts. Also, we provided iron-on transfers, fabric paints, brushes and stencils. With the sticky stencils, this activity was super simple and everyone was quite successful. I loved learning how easy it was to decorate my own cute shirts for my kids. All of the moms were excited about Artsy Mamas and asked when we might be doing something similar to this in the future!

Apple Art Date

First, we gathered apples in my front yard! Then we took them to the back porch for apple painting (similar to marble painting only with apples) and for apple print making. Check out the photos! We had a blast!

Check out that cool star pattern that the inside of the apple makes!

BOLD Red Tent East Nashville

Together with Krystal Kinnunen and BOLD (Birth on Labor Day), Artsy Mamas helped promote a "Red Tent Event" in East Nashville. You can see what the event is all about here but basically, a bunch of mamas got together and shared our birth stories. I found the experience to be very empowering and I hope to offer a similar event through Artsy Mamas here in Murfreesboro in the near future. Only I'd like to incorporate the arts into our event. Check out these glorious photos of moms expressing themselves through movement and sharing their stories of giving birth.

Dinner at the Center

On Friday, August 22nd, Artsy Mamas, in conjunction with Center for the Arts, hosted the very first Dinner at the Center. You can read more about the concept here. I, personally, had a blast and I'm looking forward to the next event! A big fat thank you to Adam Selzer of Adam and the Couch Potatoes for coming all the way out to the Boro and entertaining us! We really appreciated it!

Christmas in July

Back at the end of July, Artsy Mamas celebrated Christmas a little early by making ornaments and decorating cards. Fun was had by all. Thanks to the Boro Book Warehouse for letting us use their space.

Come on Get Artsy: Clay Day!

On Monday, August 4th, we got our hands dirty with several different types of clay. First we rolled, cut, shaped, squished, and maybe even ate a little of some home made play dough. The recipe can be found here (it is the first one listed called "Cooked Play Dough").

We also played with some brightly colored fun clay that does not dry. Seriously, guys, this stuff is all over my house. And I say that begrudgingly. I'm not sure if it is the most kid friendly clay on the planet but I really liked the colors.

For our video, we watched "Wallace and Grommit". The kids seemed pretty excited by the video tutorial on how to create the clay rabbits from the movie.

Finally, we made pinch pots with red mexican clay. This did dry and now I personally have two red clay bowls in my house... and they are simply marvelous.


Personally, I really enjoyed working with so many different types of medium. Exploring such a variety of clays was truly interesting and in the future, I'll have a better understanding of what I will need when I go to pick out supplies for projects!

Thank you so much to Hobby Town for donating our supplies. You guys rock!!

Come On Get Artsy: Week 2, Puppets and Drama

Our second week of Come On Get Artsy had the theme of Puppets and Drama. We started out the morning with a few drama games led by me. I adapted a well-known drama game called Mirror by taking away a few of the "rules" and allowing the moms and kids to just simply take turns imitating one another. Kids love to be copy cats so this is a sure-fire winner! We also used our bodies to show our emotions. Most of the kids seemed to understand what we were doing and they got into it. After the drama games, we created puppets. Artsy Mama Michelle dropped by and helped us make paper bag puppets. The only materials you might need for these are brown paper lunch bags, glue, scissors, markers/crayons, and construction paper. While we worked on the paper bag puppets, small groups went to a table and created their own personalized sock puppets. We were also able to make some Disney finger puppets. Michelle also showed us how to take photos of the illustrations inside of our kids' story books, print them on our computer, and then laminate them (with packing tape) and attach them to wooden sticks. What's so awesome is that these little guys can be stuck right inside of the books so that they are readily available at story time. We took a tour of the Green Room and the Costume Room. We also got to check out the inside of the theater. Before lunch, we did a few more drama games... this time we actually acted. We became pigs in mud, bears, princesses at the movie theater, and pirates at the grocery store. I am pretty sure that I had more fun than any of the kids!

Come On Get Artsy, Week 1: Painting and Drawing

What a fun time we all had learning about different types of visual arts on Monday, July 21st. Jennifer and Kristen presented the group with four varieties of activities: cave painting (natural/earth tones on brown paper sacks), perspective drawings, impressionist works (an introduction to pastels.), and collage (scissors, glue, paper, and magazines)! There was a slide show for each artistic medium that the kids really seemed to like. We all enjoyed some all natural popcorn and juice boxes/bottled water as snack and we worked to wonderful background music. While we had lunch, we were able to watch a Sister Wendy dvd. The kids and moms all seemed to have a blast I really liked getting to know some other local moms and their kiddos. We have dubbed this experiment a success and will be repeating it again in the future. Yay for Mamas gettin' artsy with their kiddos! And double yay for making new friends in such a wonderful, creative environment.

Coffee Filter Butterflies

This week, we learned about Butterflies. The kids all really enjoyed learning about cocoons, migration, and of course, the pretty butterflies themselves. We made some really cool butterfly magnets out of coffee filters!

Here is what y0u need:
food colors
coffee filters
clothes pin
marker
pipe cleaner
sticky magnets

Basically you just squirt the food coloring on the the coffee filters (lightly or else it becomes saturated and as my son would say "Garbage) and then fold them together to make them symmetrical. This is called blot art.

We sat them on the porch to dry.

After they dried we brought them inside and I helped the kids to gather them in the center and put them in the clothes pins. We then made antennas from pipe cleaners and made smiley faces with markers. My clothes pins already had magnets on the backs that I'd put on there about four years ago! But you'd need to do that, of course. Anyway, they are super cute and the kids were terribly proud of their creations.

Bird Feeders from Egg Cartons!

Last Monday, I had a few mamas and kids over to enjoy making bird feeders! I chose bird feeders as the craft because I pretty much run an at home preschool now and I have chosen themes for each week. Last week's theme was birds so bird feeders seemed appropriate. Everyone provided an egg carton. We took the tops off and used them as our paint palettes. Then we put holes on each of the four corners of the egg cartons and used twine for the hangers. After that, we headed outside for finger painting. Some of the children (MINE) don't like to get dirty! But I'm working on that with them. All in all the bird feeders looked pretty good. I sent everyone home with a small bag of bird seed as well. I've not hung ours yet! Please comment if you've hung yours... I'd love to know how they actually survive in a tree!