This year, instead of using iPhoto and creating a collage card with the yearly letter, all slickly printed by the folks at Apple, I've been saving the artwork of the Monkeys. We have a kid-sized art easel, chalkboard on one side and white board on the other side, which I set up with a large sheet of paper on each side, so the two Monkeys can paint at the same time. For time to time they will check on each other's progress, and "OH MY!" at each other's efforts. This fall has seen a lot of painting, especially after I bought paint that had sparkles in it. As each Monkey will typically go through three 18 x 24 inch sheets in a session, I save the paintings and use the blank side for the next painting session, whether that be the next day or a week later.
My thought was to cut up the paintings, er, color experiments, for cards. However, looking at them, first I decided to photograph each side, possibly to include a small photo of the entire painting with each piece used as a card. While I worked on the photo-taking, measuring, and cutting to size, Monkey2 was busy snipping with her own recently acquired scissors. Junk mail in the form of coupon books are excellent for scissor practice, as there are lots of straight lines and colorful pictures.
Of course, music was in order behind all this activity. Christmas music? Well, no. The night before I had just watched "Rock and Roll High School" so was in the mood for the Ramones. Good thing my Christmas cards don't come with an included sound card.
When Monkey1 came home from school, we got out the rubber stamps and ink pads, adding images on top of the paintings. Monkey2 fingerprinted herself with green ink and then lost interest. Monkey1 proved to have a very long attention span for the project, and she brought out more paper to stamp and cut down to card size after we had finished stamping the paintings-based cards.
I'm stumped on including photos of the Monkeys this year. Previously I've been able to make a Christmas-centered cover shot with them -- as, looking at a Creche set or similar -- but I'm coming up dry on that this year. Monkey1 moves too fast. All the time!
I don't usually send out my Christmas cards until after Christmas anyway, so maybe something will turn up...
No comments:
Post a Comment