setting up

We painted the kids rooms 4 months ago. We ripped out their floors 4 months ago. We put in one room of floors 3 months ago...but we never had time to paint and reassemble the bunk beds, or floor the second bedroom. This year, like most, has been really full. But I'm realizing (because I'm pregnant and actually on "pelvic rest") how much Kenneth and I are a total team. We get so much done when we are working on projects together!  But this year, he's been pulling 80 hour weeks, and I'm unable to move around very well. Hmmmm. Tricky.

See, I think and feel SO much more clearly when my spaces aren't cluttered, and the house is in order.  Not perfect order. I'm NOT a neat freak by any means. But the truth is, we've been under a lot of clutter because I've had to been on "pelvic rest" and I've not been able to do things like assemble and paint bunk beds. And it's something that's obviously second to making a baby, but not having beds for your 3 children gets to you after a while! It's something really only a woman can understand. When you have all three kids camping out in a small room with no floor space because the mattresses are sprawled out in a room the size of 3 mattresses, it's cute for the first couple weeks. But 4 months, and pretty soon you have a bunch of kids and a mommy that just need a bit more space.

And we are starting to get there. I'm excited to show you the progress in the next few weeks. It's been quite the transformation. And the kids are really involved with which art piece of mine they want where...and are even giving me ideas for what they want me to make next. I love hearing their ideas. So clever.

And with this new space, I've been inspired and will be showing you some new art prints this week as well! I can't wait! They coordinate with my up and coming fabric line that I'll be sharing with you at the end of this month, and I'm tickled.

Something that's really hard to articulate, is the dilemma of the mother-artist that lives in a constant ebb and flow of creativity and order. For me, when life is out of order, I'm not very creative. But on the flip side, when I'm crazy creative, things get out of order. You'd think I'd have this all figured out by now. But something about not having order in my home these past couple months with rooms under construction, being on partial bed rest, and managing on my own most of the week, I've found that I've been less creative than I normally am. Any of you fall into this boat? And maybe it's the nesting, or maybe it's just me....but something about starting a room from scratch and reorganizing my home makes all the juicy creativity flow again. I could be odd, but I bet I'll find a soul mate reading this and saying....."Um...Yes. That'sexactly the way it is."

But on a good note, I actually got cooperative, happy children for Easter pictures right before church. Like 3 minutes before church. Score! I haven't always been so lucky:) Actually, I've never been that lucky. Happy kids. That's what I live for. And 3 faces in focus:) Eek! Soon to be 4! I can't wait.

But really....I'll be posting lot of new things this week. New art, originals, sewn items, and a sale! So stay tuned:)

Children's spaces

I'm getting really excited to start putting the kid's rooms together. As expected, they will take some time. But it's always critical for me to have the end in mind while I dabble in putting spaces together.

As I mention in the last post, all three kids have been sharing a room while we've been reflooring and painting, and I don't think they plan on separating again. I love shared rooms for children. Addie and Ian have shared since birth, and that has a lot to do with the lack of interest in splitting up. They will want to eventually, but I'm not going to push it till they do!

Here's my first attempt at grouping together a boy girl space. What do you think? Pulling the oranges, yellows and light aquas allows me to sprinkle pinks around pretty freely. We aren't getting rid of pink just because there is a boy in there...that's for sure!

Do you have any tips for making a boy/girl room work?

Here's the round up:

1. Be Curious Print, Sarah Jane Studios

2. Up, Up & Away Print, Sarah Jane Studios

3. Balloons Print, Sarah Jane Studios

4. Eden Lamp, Land of Nod

5. Mermaid, PDF pattern by Mermag

6. Nautical Map Print, Sarah Jane Studios

7. Jenny Lind Bookcase, Land of Nod

8. Anchor Pillow, PDF pattern by Tea Rose Home

9. Eames style Rocker, Overstock

10. Knitted Pouf, CB2

11. Knitted Pouf, Land of Nod

12. Hemnes Dresser, IKEA

13. Children at Play Pouf, Pattern by living with Punks

14. Candy Dot Rug, Land of Nod

I am a child of God Print, Sarah Jane Studios

Getting inspired.

We're making progress on the kids' rooms. Well, I should say Kenneth is (and a pretty awesome sidekick!). He's been installing the floors, and I'm more than a tad bit excited to have it all done! I've been trying to decide between comfy carpet and hardwood for quite some time, and we opted with the wood for a few reasons. I love the cleanliness of wood floors, I love colorful accent rugs, but really, I'm allergic to dust. And it makes winter so much more bearable without all that carpet in the bedrooms.

We are going  with a white washed bamboo floors....super bright and light (I can hear the opposition now!)  But the bamboo is incredibly durable, and after a good year of weighing out the pros and cons to having nearly white floors in the kids' rooms, the pro's won out big time. When we bought the house, one of the main buying points is that it had wonderful natural light, and I want to bring that out as much as I can. Happy, happy and bright. Good for the soul.

But while we are waiting to finish up, I thought I'd show you some pictures that are inspiring me right now. I've been using Pinterest to collect my inspiration photos (keeps me so organized and ready to make decisions on what I want to make/look for as we are putting the rooms together).

Here's a few of my favorites. You can see more here.

We have 2 rooms that we are redoing, and currently the idea is to have all 3 in one room. I'll let you know how that ends up going...but since we've had to squash them all in one space for the past couple weeks as we've been painting and flooring, they are just loving being all together! And I love it too.

Stay Tuned!!

PS: Do you have Pinterest Boards with Kids Spaces? I'd love to see your boards! Link up in the comments if you do!

Paint.

We've moved around a lot, and I'm familiar with the truth that painting a room can transform it completely.

Which is why it's silly that I waited this long after moving in to our house to repaint the kids rooms. Mostly because I'm an all or nothing kinda gal, and since the floors need to go as well, I figured we'd just wait till we could do it all at once. Or maybe because the kid's room color was the LEAST offensive of them all (no joke!) and compared to the ketchup red master with mustard chair rails, the eggplant purple living room, regular purple dining and avocado green foyer, the bedrooms seems mild.

Here's a close preview:

The previous color was a completely dismal brown. Not a nice chocolate brown, but a nasty light sucking brown. This shot was taken at night, but believe me. Even in the day it was depressing. I never liked to go in there except for when lights were out and kids needed cuddling. But that's ok, cause that is the only time the kids were in there too:)

We are going bright white. And wow. What a change.

It also means I finally have a good place in the house to take photos as well. Funny how a room with such wonderful natural light was off limits due to the paint color stealing it all.

Before church, I stole some more before's and afters.

And a special before and after, from MR. TOOTHLESS (his new official name).

Do you love his tie? He insisted on it outside of the collar. I love this boy.

I'm going to keep you posted on the progress. We're putting in white washed wood floors this week, and then onto painting some furniture, building some wall display boxes and deciding which rugs work out best (on 75% clearance I might add...don't you love those finds?)

Stay tuned for more! I've been waiting to redo their space for a VERY long time. In fact, the last time I deliberately repainted and redid a space for them was I think when I was pregnant 8 years ago. This will be a fun journey!

Wellesley & Winlsow

I love seeing pictures of the spaces you have created with fabric and prints. It's so delightful to see!  Wellesley & Winslow have the most amazing little friendship, and they are the some of the original prints that started my shop 5 years ago! Lately, these prints have been flying out the door again, which really makes me smile since these two have a special little place in my heart.

I got an email a while ago from a mother wanting to know who was who....her daughter had fallen LOVE with Wellesley and Winslow, and they even have stuffed animal toys named after them! I just melted.

(For the record, Wellesley is the bunny, and Winslow is the elephant)

I really love these two, and I'm working on more illustrations that tell their story. I've put them on hold for a while, and am working on getting some more story out of them! They are like my own best friends. So perfect for each other and so playful.

(Photography by Gina Zeidler Photography)

I am feeling a need to tell their story a bit more. How about some more artwork with these two?

They really just delight me.

And thanks to our friend Elizabeth for sharing her sweet bedroom. It really is just perfect!

I'd love to see your spaces with the prints up on the wall. Feel free to send me images or post them to the FLICKR group!

Stay tuned Monday for more yummy new things!

Happy Friday Everyone!

xo

sarah

Inspirational art for kids.

I honestly wasn't prepared for how excited you all were to see more inspirational/religious children's art. I knew that I was excited about it, cause I needed some of my own! But it thrilled me to see your response. Yay for bright happy religious art! I don't talk about my faith here, for no other reason than it's just not part of this space, but my faith is an integral part of daily life, and it's happy and joyful and bright! So, why not art to match!

My friend Meta, who you will be hearing more about because she is drop-dead amazingly talented at designing spaces, let me photograph these prints in her family room. She is helping me design my kids room, but while that's happening, I might sneak in a few shots of my work in her Scandinavian inspired home. She is actually starting a children's design blog any day now, and I couldn't be more excited. More on that later.

But for now, just know that there are 5 new prints in the shop, ready and waiting for a new home.

1) I am a Child of God (Girl)

2) I am a child of God (Boy)

3) Peace, Be Still

4) Jesus loves me

5) I love to see the temple

Both I am a child of God and I love to see the temple have lots of color and language variations to choose from.

Available in the online shop and on ETSY

Can you tell I'm into yellow lately? Perfect for spring. Here comes the sun!

I'd also like to note, that this isn't all! I wanted to release the religious art first, and the rest of my spring collection will be coming as soon as I can get them here.  But I want to keep these separate, as I know not everyone will appreciate and be interested in these. But honestly...I have a lot more that I want to create along these themes, just all in good time:)

In a perfect world, there will be new prints for the shop in about 2 weeks, as well as other goodies that I've been slaving away at. But for now, I really hope you enjoy these! I plan on adding more in the coming months, but I think this is a good start as to what I hope to be a better effort at happy religious art for children.  I hope you would spread the word, pin, facebook and share with friends. I know that I personally am enjoying having these in my home, and hope lots of children can enjoy these that want to.  Enjoy!!

Getting Inspirational

So I got a bee in my bonnet a while ago, and it kept on buzzzing, buzzzzzing, buzzzzzzzzzzing.....

Until I got serious about (finally) painting and redoing the kids' bedrooms.

The same bee went crazy 4 years ago when I decorated my toddler's room, and I couldn't find any illustrated, storybook-ish,  fresh and whimsical children's art.

When I couldn't find it, I just made my own. And so I opened an ETSY shop cause other people wanted some too.

This time, I've been looking for fresh, colorful, HAPPY, sophisticated Christian Children's art. There are lots of awesome quotes and font art, but so far, I haven't been able to find anything in the art category that I'd consider to fit my criteria.

So, I made my own.

And I'm wondering....since I know many of you are mothers who tend towards the same interests....if maybe you'd like to see some Sarah Jane inspirational/religious art for kids??

I've been trying to find scriptural, biblical, christian....anything! art for the walls, and so far it's not really working (too dark, not childlike enough, too babyish, too serious....) and so I actually have like 12 more ideas in my sketchbook waiting to pop, but I wanted to ask first here if this is something you'd like too. Yay? Nay?

I know not all of you would be interested, so pardon me for asking. But if you are, I'd love it if you could spread the word, pin, facebook, etc. cause I'm really interested if other women have the same need I've had.....

Good Christian Children's art.

Let me know, and I'll get back to you about more ideas I've got up my sleeve.

xo

sarah

Art lessons in the studio

So my kids are learning a lot of art lately, and it's not from me.

I don't usually work when the kids are around, but when I have to, it's so fun to have them in with me. It's really small (12 x 12 feet) but the children love to squeeze  their way in to do art with me as much as they can. Addie likes to paint with me while I'm working on the computer, and though we use the kitchen table when we are all art making, the studio seems to get used quite a bit.

But while I'm an artist, I don't actually spend much time teaching the kids. They get to use the space as they want (ahem-Ella), and get inspired by what ever is in their head.

So I've wanted to post here for a while a favorite book of ours that the kids love to pull out when they are art making. (I posted this when I was guest blogging for Lucky Magazine and I forgot to mention here!)

This Charley Harper book gets used a lot...and not for flipping through on the coffee table. But while they paint.  It's big, it's heavy (lays on the table really nicely) and while I love that they are learning about such an amazing artist, I really love how it's a visual art lesson on how to see nature in terms of shapes and color.  It's a brilliant activity to have the kids browse through the book and copy his painting, or interpret them their own way.

So try it! You can even just pull up images online on your computer or ipad or whatever, and it will seriously keep your kids drawing forever, and really thinking about shape, color and line in all that they see around them.

It's so fun to see kids be artists at home. Man...if I didn't have kids at home, I think I'd want to be an art teacher. It's so exciting to see them have so much confidence in their work. Something I am constantly learning from them every day.

I'm working on cozying up the studio. So I should have more pics to show you soon! I'm thinking about a couch...perfect for curling up and sketching. AND having a place to sit when the kids take over the art table:)

Oops! And EDIT:

(can't have a post without some art!)

Rumor has it that a lot of you readers are kids, who like to see new art on my blog. Is that true? If so, tell me what this little bunny is doing in the comments below. I'd love to hear your ideas!