Every year my children's school holds a huge fundraising auction. As room mother this year, I am in charge of organizing a fine art project to be made by kids ages 3-6. Flipping through magazines I came across a couple inspirational paintings. "Vase with Flowers" by Picasso and an unknown artist from the August Family Circle Magazine.
I am making this project with my own kids in addition to making it with the thirty kids in my daughter's class at school. I figured that if I didn't have my own to keep, I'd end up spending an insane amount of money buying the one I'm making for the auction. The piece for the auction is going to be 4' x 4'. Our home piece is 2' x 4'.
Our home project has 13 flowers, one for each year of each kids' life (including the 9 months of pregnancy). The school project has 30 flowers, one for each student. Each flower is hand cut out of mdf using a jigsaw. All the wood in this project was primed with two coats of primer.
The center circles are mdf of various sizes bought from Michaels Craft store. Each flower and circle is painted using craft paint with a couple colors lightly mixed together in a baby food jar in the attempt that each flower has a bit of two tone color marbling (if the little artist didn't mix it up too much).
For my drying rack, I stuck toothpicks into a box. Looks a bit like a mid-evil torchure device. After two coats and drying time, I brushed two coats of water based polyurethane over the top and sides.
I drilled one hole in the middle of each flower to fit a flat headed bolt. Next I laid each circle on it's matching flower and drilled eight smaller holes through both circle and flower. Using colored jewelry wire, I 'sewed' the circle to the flower after placing the bolt through the larger hole.
The vase was cut out of 1/4 inch mdf. I made a sample out of paper to practice with shape and size. I cut the vase out twice, leaving the center and top hollow in the second. Both were glued together using wood glue.
I cut out approximately one inch green square pieces out of magazines and the kids and I mod podged them onto the vase, wrapped the edges around to the back.
I haven't cut the vase out for the school project yet, but I plan to make it the same size as the one for our home project.
The "canvas" is actually a piece of birch plywood that Home Depot cut to size. I taped off 1/3 up from the bottom and had the little artists sponge a golden mustard color to the top 2/3rds and a grey teal to the bottom. The pictures here show the wood upside down to make it easier to paint. Both of the colors were inspired by Picasso's painting.
For the stems I plan to use a thicker wire from point A to B, and then a finer wire threaded with green glass beads and then wrapped around the thicker wire.
I'm trying to stay a couple steps ahead with my home project because I'm learning what not to do as I go along to prepare myself for the auction project. This is a fun project and I'm excited about my vision however it's a bit exhausting just thinking about it!
We have overnight guests at least once or twice a month at our home. Having a well equipped guest room helps save me the trouble of finding forgotten supplies last minute, or trying to describe where something is located in my house while cooking dinner and holding a crying toddler. (But don't get the wrong idea, we're not a full service bed and breakfast, I will make you help if you stay here!) All I have to say to my guest is, "It's in your room." I have little labels in my cupboards, baskets full of extra toiletries and a full medicine cabinet. One of my favorite little guest items is this jar I have on a shelf above the toilet. It contains pens, scissors, tape, eye wear screws, super glue, note cards, stamps, etc. 
