Lego Day at the High Museum

 We ventured down to the High Museum today for a special Lego Day. The Dutch Painters exhibit is currently running which means Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring is there. The kids got to help make a replica of the painting with Lego bricks.

My favorite space in the museum is always the contemporary wing.

A Smashing Summer with Smashbooks

Another one of our summer projects was creating Smashbooks. 

You can get these wonderful books at Michaels or Target or pretty much anywhere that sells art supplies. I love the entry page as it says to use this book like a junk drawer, just smash in your memories. 

I got each of my kids their own book and I got a book for me to use too. The kids books were for their summer activities but mine is a book designed for a whole year of smashing (it is the 365 themed book). These books have colorful pages and every page is different. Some pages have designs, some have graph paper, some have places to make lists, and some have prompts already on them that get you creating and thinking. Here we are working on our books: 

We saved everything from the summer, movie tickets, theater stubs, receipts, stickers, ribbons, maps, and printed out lots of pictures. We made lists of places we visited, things we did, books we read, and books we would write if we were authors. 

And here is how Ford's book is turning out: 

And here is how Delaney's book is turning out: 

And finally, here are a few pages from my book: 

Sidewalk Chalk Stencils

We did a lot of fun summer projects this year. One of our very favorite things is sidewalk chalk. I found these awesome medallion stencils on Amazon. They are so much fun to use. After a while, the kids just wanted circles drawn on the ground and starting designing their own. I actually wish there was a way to keep our front stoop looking like this all year around.