Wow, starting back to school has certainly limited my blogging time! I guess that is as it should be!

I wanted to share a few photos of artistic pursuits in our homeschool the first couple of weeks. Tomorrow will mark the end of week 2!

First, our back door was really on my nerves. Just being honest. With eight family members, it doesn’t take long for shoes to pile up. Just one pair each totals 16 shoes and our oldest is now wearing a size 10. So … one sunny afternoon (sun these days is rare which is a whole different post), I *encouraged* our older three boys to construct a shoe rack. They actually did a great job after a bit of back and forth as they began. Here is the finished product (and please ignore the broken flowerpot that needs to go away except I keep thinking I can somehow repurpose it–broken clay pot picture frame?). OK, back to the finished product.

Now my oldest is going to build another one he says for the other back door. I do love it!

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For this next set of photos, I have to give a shout out to an amazing product I found at Teachers Pay Teachers, specifically the Art Task Cards Complete Set, which can be found in Renee’s store.

I stocked up on these at the TpT Teacher Appreciation Sale last May, and I’m already convinced it was money well spent.

The children loved the hand design we did, and I have to say I loved it too!

*This is mine as I began coloring it.*

How about the finished products?

These are truly grab and go, which is just what I need for integrating art into our days! They are perfect for multi-age and/or ability classes as well. I highly recommend obviously!

For now, I have a few of their creations on a shelf in our BRAND NEW art/craft shelving area.

Did I mention the Prez let me get our cabinet guy back out here to finish out the long wall in our library with built-in shelves? YES HE DID.

And I can’t believe all of the space still left. I had all of these things crammed here and there before. Now it is all so organized *mostly* and ACCESSIBLE.

And while we’re talking art, I just love my RAINBOW of papers and folders and notebooks. Yes, I have one stack for each color that corresponds to a student. Now, I won’t buy another 15 cent spiral when I already have 5 in that color (even if it is a good deal!).

Here’s a look at the library from the other angle. I never took photos in there this way before because that far corner used to just be piles of stuff and a hole in the wall for a stove, which thankfully the Prez decided (while cool and useful) did NOT belong back in our library. 🙂