Christmas Goodnight activities & GIVEAWAY!

Making paper puppets is a wee bit too much fun. Maybe it's because it's when I really get to see my art come alive with my kids! That's also probably why I love illustrating books and fabric so much, because I get to see children handling and playing with the art.

For A Christmas Goodnight, I've made some fun coloring pages and paper puppets to go with the story. I think you'll have fun making up all sorts of uses for these!

A Christmas Goodnight tells the simple story of a little boy saying "Goodnight" to all the characters in the Nativity...

Goodnight to the Baby in the hay

Goodnight to the doves, coo-coo

Goodnight to the sleepy Mother

Goodnight to Joseph too

But you don't realize it's the little boy saying goodnight until the very end, and it's just a charming read.

COLORING PAGES

Download here.

So, what I did, was create 2 pages of characters and objects from the book, so you can create your own interactions and say "goodnight" as well! Some ideas for you:

1) Color in each character as you read the story

2) Make your own ornaments, and hang on the tree as you read the story to your children

2) Back with felt and make a felt board scene.

3) Make your own Christmas Goodnight scene and glue the pictures to the "Starry Night" backdrop I made for the puppet theater.

4) Play a "Find and Seek" game and while you read, have your child go seek the cut out character from around the room, to place on the tree, or in a scene.

DOWNLOAD THE COLORING PAGES HERE

Nativity Puppet Theater

Download here.

The Puppet Theater is simple, but really fun to set up!

In the book, I designed a very starry sky for that magical Christmas night.  We usually imagine that night with the ONE new star  in the sky. But while that star is the brightest, I imagined that if I were a star, I'd want to shine the brightest for Baby Jesus too! So, it's a starry night...full of stars that all want to shine their best!

This little scene is perfect for acting out and can even be added too with the coloring page characters, if you want to add more!

DOWNLOAD THE PUPPET THEATER HERE.

But right now...I really just want to say thank you!!

Thank you for all your sweet email, comments, notes and support. I've loved hearing how you have wrapped this up under the tree....or that you've already read it to your little children. Creating my very first book around the best story ever told, was such a wonderful challenge! Wonderful because best story ever told, but challenging because it also the most TOLD story ever told. How do you illustrate a story that EVERYONE knows, and loves? It was very daunting and very intimidating for much of the process. But in the end, I just feel honored to have illustrated this story! It's simple and unassuming...yet warm and magical. All how that night must have been.

And to say Thank You,

I thought we could have a little GIVEAWAY!!

All you need to do, is leave a comment below, and I'll choose THREE winners to get  a signed copy of the book, as well as  the "For Unto You" print, unframed. Or, any print of your choice. But I thought these would go well together!

TO ENTER:

1) Leave one comment below (making sure to leave your email in the comment form)

2) Like this giveaway on Facebook here.

3) Tweet about the giveaway or book using #christmasgoodnight  My twitter is here.

4) Comments will be closed Monday night at midnight (EST)

5) USA and International welcome!

6) I'll total up the number of tweets, comments and facebook likes to randomly select the winner.

7) But in the mean time...print off these coloring pages and have some fun this weekend!

Enjoy!

Thanks again! I hope you are all getting into the Christmas Spirit! Love to you all!!

xo

sarah

 COMMENTS CLOSED!

The Nutcracker Puppet Theater

Ok. I am officially giddy over this post.

We've been up to a little something here in the studio...me and the elves  kids have been feverishly creating a little Nutcracker world, and we're all a bunch of giddy little sugar plums over it.

I've been wanting to make these for a while, and I just couldn't wait any longer. This weekend we were decorating gingerbread houses and watching the Maurice Sendak version of the Nutcracker with the Pacific Northwest Ballet. And the kids were glued. We've been acting it out ever since!

So we made this Puppet Theater set. I say "we" because it was really a joint effort. The kids would play, and I'd draw it out, and we'd imagine together what all the characters looked like.

Here's a little video of us putting these together. It's taken with my iphone (note to self...always hold the phone horizontal, not vertical when making movies!)

I'm getting a little obsessed with imovie. I used it for the first time last night making this...and um....I can see a lot more of these in my future. So super easy and fun!

So. This is what we've done. we've made the these PDF downloads (like the Peter and the Wolf Puppet Theater kit that has been so, so popular) and I'm including the story and music clips below so that you can act out the story right here! There are 13 characters...enough for literally hours of play.

*Disclaimers:

1) Not all characters were created. I had to stop somewhere!

2) These should be cut out by an adult. They do have tiny parts, and so give yourself some time to carefully cut

3) This is a DOWNLOAD only. Instructions are included in the download for printing, brads, etc.

You can purchase the PDF download here.

So...are you ready? Get out your dolls....and play along!

 ********************************************************

THE NUTCRACKER SUITE

(Simply play the music below each image while you are dancing to the scene with your paper puppet dolls)

 

ACT I 

PARTY SCENE

The Overture

Clara’s family is having a Christmas party.  She and her little brother Fritz dance and decorate the tree.  Soon Clara’s mysterious Uncle Drosselmeyer arrives and gives her a special toy nutcracker.  Fritz pretending to be a soldier, breaks the Nutcrackers jaw and the doll is broken.  As Clara cries, kind Drosselmeyer ties his scarf around the Nutcracker and fixes him.

CLARA DANCES WITH HER NUTCRACKER

Clara and the Nutcracker

Clara Dances with her Nutcracker.  Relieved her new toy is fixed, Clara dances with the Nutcracker and pretends he is really a hansom prince.

THE MOUSE KING AND NUTCRACKER FIGHT

The Battle

Clara falls asleep and shrinks to the size of the toys.  The Mouse King appears and the Nutcracker comes alive to defend Clara.  The Nutcracker fights bravely, but after a long battle the Mouse King knocks the Nutcracker to the ground.  Clara throws her shoe at the Mouse King and distracts him long enough for the Nutcracker to kill him.          

CLARA AND THE PRINCE DANCE

Pas de Deux

The Nutcracker becomes a hansom prince and dances with Clara.

TRAVEL THROUGH THE SNOWY WOOD

Waltz of the Snowflakes

The Nutcracker Prince and Clara travel through a snowy forest on the way to his Kingdom.  Snow fairies and the Snow Queen dance all around them.

ACT II: LAND OF THE SWEETS

Clara and the Nutcracker Prince arrive in the Land of Sweets.  Sweets from around the world come to dance in turn for Clara, and thank her for defeating the Mouse King.

ARABIAN DANCE

Arabian Dance

CHINESE DANCE

Chinese Dance

 RUSSIAN DANCE

Russian Dance

WALTZ OF THE FLOWERS

Waltz of the Flowers

SUGAR PLUM FAIRY

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

FINAL WALTZ

Drosselmeyer joins Clara and the Prince as everyone dances together.  Clara and the Prince are crowned rulers of the Land of Sweets.  (In some early versions Clara stays in the Land of Sweets and the ballet ends.  In others the prince takes her home, or she wakes up in bed with the doll in her arms realizing it was all a dream.  Pick the ending you like best.  I’ve never seen two identical productions. )

THE END

 ********************************************************

Wasn't that fun? I am feeling like I'm 7 again...all tingly and magical. Gosh, I love this music!

I had so much fun making this....I might even add more characters next year, but this, I think, is plenty! And look! They even can double as Christmas Ornaments when you are done. Or for practicing your ballet positions in your spare time!

YOU CAN PURCHASE THE PDF DOWNLOAD HERE.

Really. Paper Toys are so under rated. These kept my 5 year old boy busy all weekend. Gotta love paper dolls.

Merry Christmas!

xo

sarah jane

Haunted House Halloween Cut-out

The past few Halloweens, we've started some fun making traditions. Remember these and these?

Well, we've also made these haunted houses, and I figured I should document it and let you in on some fun too!

So far this month, we've made about a dozen of these...so  many that they have even stapled them together and turned them into "Haunted House Book" collection. Each page sports a new variety of spooky things in the window. This is hours of entertainment for sure!

You can download the PDF download that I made here, and follow the instructions. But just to prove that it's simple and easy, here are some picture 'how-to's'

Cut out the template and trace onto black paper

Cut out the black paper (with yellow underneath to make a really cool candle it window effect!) We've traditionally just mounted these on white paper...so either way works!

Remove the yellow paper, and cut out the windows with an exacto knife

haunted house 7

Glue

...and then draw spooky window creatures!

There are really endless options with this template, so have fun!

And here is Ian saying "ONE picture mom. Just one!" What? I like to take a lot of pictures? No.

haunted house 2

Have so much fun!

Here's the download for ya:

DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE

DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS

Happy Halloween!

things I wish I made.

{Image here}

Ok. So have you been browsing over at the Children at Play Flickr Group?

Heavens to Betsy.

I just have to show you some of the complete wow-yummy-ness going on.

And this is just a taste...like a little sip of what's over there.Actually, it's just a taste of the girl stuff. There is just as much boy that I'm not showing you!

Need ideas for handmade girly Christmas presents? Click on over and get inspired.

{image here}

{image here}

{image here}

{image here}

My first trip to Paris

Bonjour mes amis!

All things French have been on my mind lately.

I'm typing this blog post while my husband is grading papers, and we are both listening to Julia Child's TV re-runs (Jacque & Julia to be exact) of how to make Vichyssoise from Potato Leek Soup. (Oh! How I love that woman. I could listen to her voice all day.)

I've been a lover of the French language and the cultures of all French speaking countries since I can remember. As I child, I loved hearing my dad speak the language to me, or to others he met who could actually speak back to him! I started taking French lessons at school in 5th grade, and now that my daughter is in a French Immersion Elementary school, I'm starting to resurface my love of all things French!

And then just last week, I finished illustrating a book (Harper Collins, April 2012) on a Canadian family's move to France and the lessons they learned while adopting the French culture of food and eating. More on that later...but I've been absorbing myself in French food, French books, French music...

And since our pocket books and life with little ones prevents any sort of travel these days, absorbing myself in the culture has been my travel bug medicine. At least for now!

When I started making paper dolls, it was a huge hit. But I kinda fell off the bandwagon (easy to do!) but these are seriously so fun and such a great play time activity, and I am reintroducing paper toys again. With the holidays brewing, I hope to have more!

But these are making me happy. Since I have resigned fashion design to a hobby in my next life (that and like a whole strew of other things I want to get my hands in), designing paper clothes will just have to do. It's really so much fun!

This collections is called "My First Trip to Paris." Addie asks about going to Paris or Switzerland someday, and while I know it won't be any time soon, I do dream of big hair bows and blue and white stripes. These children are picking up food and flowers from the market, playing with the street monkey and his accordion and getting read for their first painting class.

Each clothing collection now comes with a set of dolls, boy and girl...or you can just get the whole set of dolls and clothes I've made over the years.

Enjoy! Allons-y!

**These paper dolls are PDF downloads only, so no shipping, just print them out on your own and voila! In the shop here. **

Oh, So Snuggly

Did you know that Children at Play has a flannel line?

When I made this Racer Stripe fabric, I was thinking "pajamas" all the way. Good old "Leave it to Beaver" button up PJ's. Aren't they perfect? My husband say's he's next in line for some.

I wasn't exactly sure when the flannels would be ready for sale, so getting a package in the mail a couple weeks ago was quite the treat!

The Flannels are in the Over the Fence colorway...so lots of orange, blue and cream.

We've been getting ready for school to start (so many mixed feelings!) and since Addie and Ian will both be going full day (in contrast to last year, when they were only gone from me some days and for 1/2 day, this is a big transition!) Right now, their school clothes are laid out of their first day tomorrow, I have made my VERY FIRST set of school lunches (I feel like  real mom now!) and I even had some new pajamas made for them to celebrate. These two were both for Ian, but Addie's nightgown isn't done yet, and she likes them just as much!

EDIT: This pattern is a 'New Look' Pattern (subcompany of Simplicity)#6746

But did you see? Oliver & S just came out with a great PJ pattern for their fall release in Sept.

We are ready for school to start! Although, I really do wish we had more lazy mornings!

And in case you think my children pose for me perfectly every time, here's proof that photoshoots take all morning.

Happy Monday!

"Hi! Come play at my {doll}house!"

When I was gathering all my little inspiration pieces for my Quilt Market Booth, I knew I wanted to find and fix up a wooden doll house and wallpaper it with my designs. I had a really strict budget, so I looked at everything from Craigslist to discounted amazon deals. I just couldn't really seem to find the right one! And weeks went by, and my weekly peek into thrift stores and my local classifieds produced nothing. And then...I found it. Forty bucks landed me this old (HUGE!) wooden dollhouse, furniture and an entire bucket of barbies.

There was A LOT of work to put into it, but that was just what I wanted: A fixer-upper. There were plexi glass windows to pop out (they were cracked, chipped and painted), trim to paint, floors to scrape and polish, and a good 3 coats of paint on the outside to hide all the dings and poor paint jobs over the years. And that still hasn't made it spic-and-span. There are more touch-ups to do, but we finished it enough for  Quilt Market. Horray!

Little did I realize that it would take 4 people on and off for 2 weeks to make this turn into the Doll House of our dreams.

Because the Children at Play collection nearly didn't arrive in time for market, I decided to design my entire booth with paper. Oh, those were scary days! A fabric-less booth for a fabric show? It was time to get creative. And wallpapering a vintage dollhouse seemed to be one of my ways out of the mess I was in.

Thankfully, the fabric arrived at my doorstep a week early, but the dollhouse was still a head turner!

At the last minute, because there are so many rooms, and I wanted to show off the wallpaper job that Lindsey spent hours doing (we literally cut strips and glued into place each print...and most rooms boast crooked corners and frames!) we decided to light it up inside. My Grandmother has the most fantastic dollhouse, and it's lit up, which makes all the difference in the world.

But we didn't have ceiling space to spare, so we found these IKEA L.E.D lights that are flat and have a long cord with a switcher attached. Ba-Bing!

This dollhouse was rather well loved when we got it, and there are some parts of it that we just won't ever really be able to fix, but that's the charm!

This is my favorite room of the house. The study. I seriously wish I could have that as wallpaper in my own house! Meadow in Green is one of my favorite prints. And making this dollhouse with the Children at Play designs on paper was so much fun! I spent hours matching the colors to the fabric, but it was all worth it! And as you can see...don't look too closely...this house was in such bad shape, it's going to take a few more weeks to get it proper for close-up photos! Part of me wants to keep is just as is to always remember the crazy sleepless nights in the weeks before market. Like a token, you know?

There were some parts of the house that were un-salvageable. Like the wool fabric that was glued to the gorgeous hard wood floors? We Old-Englished some of them, but the main rooms were completely defeated. Thank goodness for discarded carpet samples that happened to be edged in the exact size of the house!

There is still decorating to do...curtains to add...picture frames to put up....and paint to touch up. But I don't even have curtains up in my own house yet! Or picture frames for that matter! (They say it takes a good year or so to really move into a house, right?)

So thank goodness for colorful, lit up dollhouses that 3 children can play in at the same time. We're having thunderstorms and rain all week, and this dollhouse is getting just the attention it needs!

Happy Weekend!!

xo

sarah

Live Your Life on Purpose & Free PDF

Oh I just hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July...well, I guess if you are in the United States, that is. Isn't it amazing, the WWW? Sometimes I just have to marvel that this whole planet is connected and that we're all friends from the short distance of our computer screens. Amazing, really. I still can't get over it. Kinda like when you look at an airplane flying, and you find yourself thinking, "How does that work again?" But anyhow, it's just marvelous. Ok. I am going off on tangents...but really. Very cool.

Ok, so where was I? We did have a great 4th of July. According to my kids, the best yet. Here in Utah, it's spread out over like 4 days. I love it. It started out with sneaking on top of our roof while the kids were asleep, and watching an amazing firework show (some of the best in the country, really.) Well, it might have helped that I was sitting next to a very cute boy in the dark, mountain air on top of our roof at 10pm with a warm summer breeze blowing...all while promising me that I wasn't a dork for being terrified to climb back down again. Have I mentioned that I'm terrified of ladders? OK. I'm digressing again. But the weekend was full of family time: gardening, melting popsicles, sidewalk chalk, horseback riding, sparklers, family reunions, swim suits, cooking, swimming and paper hats. I love this time of year!

I've also had some time to just listen and step back a bit. I'll be honest. Really honest. When I had the (crazy) idea to start selling art prints out of our teensy-weensy apartment 3+ years ago, I really hoped it would grow and flourish and develop...but I could really only see one step ahead. I just wanted to do well with that first step. Well, that first step turned into a second, and into a third, and faster than I knew it, we were in a house with a basement dedicated to this little business that all the sudden isn't so little any more. Sometimes I look back and think, "How and when did that happen?" and other times, I know just how. It was inch by inch, row-by-row (Do you know that song? It's been in my head all week, and I just love that it's stuck there. Forgive the Muppets link.). But at the same time, I've had some time to wonder this month. I've wondered about motherhood. I've wondered about motherhood and business. I've wondered about motherhood and business and creativity and how that all bundles together and has figured itself out over time. I have moments where this is just a really fun ride and I can't get enough, and then I have moments where I wish there was a self help book called "How to be a designer and illustrator and mother of 3 with your own at-home business full of creative making which you blog about in the few spare moments when you should be meeting deadlines and still get clean underwear in your kid's dresser drawers before it's too late." That might be a really long title for a self help book. But I'd read it. Although, I have a feeling that if I read it, it would be reading my own thoughts...something in the voice of: Take each day at a time. Answers come while you are busy keeping your priorities. Listen to your kids. Work really hard. Love what you do. Create from your gut. Dream big. And do the laundry on time. But have a spare pack of underwear tucked away just in case.

{DOWNLOAD HERE}

I've been thinking a lot about this phrase this week. It's been on my mind and slowly changing me from the inside out. Sarah Jane Studios, in some ways, kinda happened by accident. It was happy accident, or an "on purpose" accident. And lately I've been asking myself the questions that have these kinds of answers. "Live your life on Purpose."

Just the mantra I needed.

Hope you like it too, cause you can download it here. It's a good thought. And it's sticking.

Happy July everyone! It's one of my favorite months...for a certain birthday kind-of reason:) Cake any one?

xo

sarah j.